For Charles Scaife, professor emeritus
of chemistry, the loss of the space shuttle Columbia
on Feb. 1 brought back some memories of the astronauts who died aboard the
Challenger and the risk they always knew was there.
Scaife, who with student Rich
Cavoli '87 designed a crystal-growing experiment that was aboard the Challenger
17 years ago, got to know astronauts Ron McNair and Greg Jarvis, who lost their
lives on the mission.
“You talk to (the astronauts) or
anyone at NASA and they know what they're involved with,” he recalls. “They
know they are riding a fireball.
“But there is also a lot of
camaraderie and trust and they know that safety is not forsaken,” he added.
“But there is always the chance of something happening.”
Scaife, who watched the Challenger
launch at Cape Canaveral, recalls seeing what turned out
to be an explosion and thinking at first it was the separation of the booster
rockets. “But I knew the separation was about two minutes,” he said. “When I
looked at the clock at 75 seconds, I knew there was a problem.”
After announcing there was a major malfunction, NASA officials quickly moved the crowd away from the observation
stands and into the visitor center, where counselors were waiting. They also
kept the media away. “You can't imagine the contingency plans that NASA
practices, but this was one of them,” Scaife said.
Scaife and Cavoli, now a physician, designed an experiment to grow lead iodide crystals in microgravity. The experiment,which flew on the Discovery shuttle two years after Challenger, produced
crystals that had a much higher purity than those grown on earth. Better crystals can produce more sensitive x-ray and gamma-ray films, which require
lower dosages of the radiation to patients, Scaife explained.