Americans deeply shocked

Press, 31 January 1986, Page 1

Americans deeply shocked

By

Christopher Hanson

of Reuter through NZPA Washington

The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, killing seven astronauts appears to have traumatised the United States more than any other recent disaster.

Psychologists have compared the emotional ef-

fect on the nation to that of a Presidential assassination and say the incident struck a deep chord in the American psyche since the shuttle was a symbol of the United States itself. Two recent big accidents shook the United States badly. They were an air crash in Gander, Newfoundland, killing 248 servicemen in December,

and a 1983 Beirut bombing when more than 240 Marines were killed.

But the impact did not compare with the horror felt when the Challenger, carrying the first ordinary American into space, erupted in a ball of flame before millions of television viewers on Wednesday morning (N.Z.D.T.). Americans, quoted on

television and in newspapers, have repeatedly likened their feelings to those experienced when President John F. Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963. As with that killing, they said they would always remember exactly where they were when they learned of the shuttle crash.

Indeed, President Kennedy and the United

States space programme are closely linked in Americans’ minds since it was President Kennedy who in 1961 proclaimed the United States goal “before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” That goal was achieved on July 20, 1969. '

The “New York Times” devoted its entire first 10 pages and 35 articles to the shuttle accident, with huge headlines reminiscent of its coverage of President John Kennedy’s killing. National television gave over five hours of nonstop coverage to the mishap, cancelling advertisements and repeatedly replaying film of Challenger’s ascent and the blast. One television network set up a telephone line offering advice to callers on how to deal with deeply upset children, thousands of whom had expected to watch tele-

vised lessons taught from space by the astronaut teacher, Christa McAuliffe.

A key reason for the popular reaction to the accident had to do with what the space programme symbolised, said Dr Jerry Weiner, head of psychiatry at the George Washington University medical school.

“The shuttle flight is a national enterprise to which an enormous amount of national pride and national identity is attached — this is something with which the country as a whole is identified,” he said.

America’s mood has swung up and down with the space programme’s successes and failures since the 19505, from early rocket explosions to

Neil Armstrong’s 1969 walk on the Moon.

Lately most Americans had come to assume United States space technology was nearly acci-dent-proof, he said.

Identification with the crew was heightened because it was a microcosm of United States society and included two women (one Jewish), a black and a Japanese American, Dr Weiner said.

So much publicity was devoted to Mrs McAuliffe, the woman who was to become the first teacher in space, that many people felt as if they knew her personally, identifying with her more readily than with test pilots or astrophysicists on the crew.