Columbia Disaster

2003-2-1 19:45:00

It is interesting that both of our Shuttle disasters have occurred when we have had a unique passenger on board. The Challenger had a school teacher and the Columbia had its first Israeli.

Waiting in line to replace Christa McAuliffe is Barbara Morgan, a teacher from McCall Idaho who was supposed to orbit in the near future.

Mistakes and tragedy are the price that must be paid for a great adventure such as the perfection of space flight and we must not let these things discourage us from paving the way for benefits affecting many generations. It is interesting to note that when the railroad was first built throughout the United States that they had to make numerous bridges. These early bridges turned out to be quite dangerous and a number of them collapsed under the weight of the heavy trains. The resulting deaths were so alarming that many thought the railway system would be doomed to failure.

But instead of failure, what happened?

The engineers knocked their heads together and figured out how to build better bridges. Now this original worry is a moot point as a collapsing railway bridge is almost unheard of anywhere in the world.

Even so will the genius of humanity solve all the problems with space flight until flying into space will be as safe as driving a car to the grocery store.

Until that day comes, let us move forward in this most important ingredient of the coming new age.

JJ