My prayers for the families of the seven astronauts, Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, William McCool and Ilan Ramon. May they rest in peace. When Challenger blew up, I was in the 10th grade and had a lot of interest in space travel. I was shocked by the accident but my thoughts were about its implications for space travel and not for the astronauts and their families. I am much older now as is the space program. So my thoughts today are for the people. I think the space program has reached a stage where this is not as big a setback as the Challenger disaster.
There is lots of coverage of the catastrophe in the blogosphere. Check Seth Johnson, InstaPundit, Rand Simberg or many others.
Since I am a later riser, I miss morning news. I was asleep at the time of the terrorist attacks on September 11 and was awakened by a phone call from my very scared wife (who was in New Jersey). I still remember the shock as my wife told me about the attacks. I was also asleep yesterday and the news of the shuttle breakup was the first thing I heard when I woke up in the afternoon.
I was in the 7th grade at the time of the Challenger disaster. It’s hard in a way to believe that was 17 years ago.
Time flies, doesn’t it?