Thank you for sharing. I can remember walking thru the student union at college. Lots of people standing around the TVs that were located in the halls, and the area was much quieter than normal. I got that bad feeling you get when you know something really bad just happened and dread finding out. It was one of those rare moments of shared sorrow in your life you can recall decades later with vivid emotional clarity, like it was flash-burned into your psyche.

Manned space flight is critical to our future, but carries great risk. It takes a special kind of hero to put it all on the line to make it happen. The crews of Apollo1, Challenger, and Columbia made the ultimate sacrifice to move us all forward, may their memories be eternal.