Hail Columbia

It’s been said we had begun to take the space shuttle for granted. This might very well be so, since I was surprised to read (in TIME magazine) that there have already been 111 shuttle missions, 27 of which were flown by the Columbia.
    Several days have passed since her ill-fated return, Saturday morning; several days in which wreckage had been recovered, blame is being assessed, and people are having second thoughts about whether the space program should continue. I was very gratified to hear President Bush express his dedication to the space program, both in his budget proposal as well as following the loss of Columbia‘s seven astronauts.
    I well remember lying on my stomach in the front room, the Summer of ’69, with a small telescope trained out the screen door, determined to see if I could find the American flag that Neil and Buzz had pegged to the lunar surface. It had to be there — it was red and blue, so it had to show up! And it would be a shame for that childish feeling of wonder and excitement to cease. I almost feel sorry for today’s youth that they don’t have an Apollo program to rally behind, to collect posters or gas station glassware about.
    Obviously NASA will curtail the shuttle missions while they address what went wrong on Saturday. But when they return to their projects I hope they don’t focus on roboticized missions. Sending probes and satellites is fine, but I want to see footprints on Mars. I don’t want to stay fixed to CNN because of some war or tragedy, I want to watch it all day because Man is landing on another planet and is beaming back live transmissions. We’re already well behind schedule for our 2001 space station; the one we have now is not much more than a glorified tree fort!
    Yes, it is terrible that Columbia‘s final seven passengers perished. But I would prefer to think of them not by how they died but that they were part of a select few. They were astronauts. They have been to outer space. How cool is that!