If you haven't seen or heard the news yet this morning, The Shuttle Columbia was coming in over Texas to a landing in Florida and apparently broke up into several pieces over central Texas.

Our prayers go out to the Astronauts and their familes.

This truly is an american tragedy, with all else thats going on in the world. Lets remember these people and also our sevicemen in our prayers and thoughts.

God Bless Them All

While the shuttle is truly a tragedy and our prayers should go out to the families of the people on board, they all realized the chances they were taking and were aware that they were living with death at their door. On the other hand, our men and women in the military also live with this chance of death everyday. Let's keep them in our prayers also, because, it's not their choice to be fighting overseas in a foreign land as it was the space shuttle crew's choice to volunteer to go into space. Pray for our brave men and women in the military as they are still alive and need our prayers.

Rich

This is a very unfortunate incident. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the familes of the crew.

There is a fortunate side to this disaster. No one on the ground was hurt or killed. When that ship broke up, countless parts were scattered all over the place. Many of them with the capabilities of killing someone if it fell on someone.

Bob

A terrible tragedy. I was very sorry to hear about it.

What I couldn't believe is that people who found debris were selling it on ebay, and that people are trying to sell domain names named after the Columbia. Have you people NO shame!

This was sent to me, this morning, from an old buddy of mine who is a retired test-pilot with Lockheed.....(he isn't the author)...

"Should my end come while I'm in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkness night,

Spare me your pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the knowledge that I'll do it again,

For each of us is created to die,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly"

Gary Claud Stokor,
...from "Impressions of a Pilot"

A tribute to Our Columbia Crew

"What I couldn't believe is that people who found debris were selling it on ebay, and that people are trying to sell domain names named after the Columbia. Have you people NO shame"

I was looking on Ebay over the past few days and you wouldn't believe it. Saturday morning before the tragedy there were about 25 items listed for the Shuttle Columbia. Right now there are 4746 items listed.

As far as those trying to sell debris, Ebay has pulled those listings.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/02/03/shuttle.ebay.ap/index.html

The tragedy of one family unfortuantely becomes the profit of another.

As I type this, a memorial service is on the radio for the victims, their families and friends of the space shuttle accident. Our thoughts and prayers go out to these people.

One thing that really amazes me is that I have not heard any reports of anyone getting hit by any of the fallen pieces. To me, it seems incredible that no one was hurt or killed on the ground.

As a resident of Clear Lake I can tell you that this tragedy has hit us all hard. My friends who work on and fly the shuttle know the dangers and it is something they accept to live their dream. When I have a friend on a mission I pray continuously for their safe return and rejoice when they are back home with their family. For me, they and their families are in my scout troop or pack, on any number of sports teams. They are someone I ask, “how’s it going” at the schools open house. They are my neighbors who I may borrow a hammer from or lone a hammer to if needed. My friends who work on the shuttle feel the responsibility that their job carries so they must get it right and get it right the first time because there may not be a second time. They are the one’s who prepare the flight crews and make sure they are trained to react correctly in case of trouble, in a very complicated piece of equipment. They make the flight crews toe the line even when the crews don’t. My friends check the safety of every piece of hardware that goes into orbit and check it as thoroughly as they can without being on orbit themselves. They take their job seriously and carry the responsibility of their job with pride and when the mission goes well and the crew returns everyone feels a great deal of satisfaction in a job well done. When something like this happens we all feel it and reflect on the price we pay for our dreams and the dreams of others. As a veteran I want everyone to please remember that our service men, who may soon be in harms way, are also volunteers and may be living their dream right now. Active duty military may also be a path for someone to achieve their own goals or dreams. Remember most of our astronauts are on active duty at this time and may be recalled in time of war. Our flight crews are required to keep their flying time current while on detached duty to NASA. As a chemist I realize what I do can be dangerous and the effects of long term exposure to some of these things I deal with are deadly. With this in mind I can’t think of anything else I would rather be doing except collecting lighthouse's. I have worked hard to achieve this my dream. I like to think we all do.


Chuck

Charles L. Anderson, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chemistry
University of Houston
Houston, TX

Very nice post Chuck. Please let us not forget our military stationed around the world. Because of them we can enjoy our freedom, and we are the greatest country because of this.