SPACE

After reading Fredrik Norman's post, The Heroes of Columbia, I asked Quent Cordair Fine Art for the permission to use Bryan Larsen's painting, Heroes, on my blog.



Please take some time and read THOUGHTS ON THE LOSS OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE.

From: Stephen Speicher.

This is a terribly sad event, and I will both honor and mourn the brave and adventurous astronauts who today have lost their lives in pursuit of what they love. These were truly America's new pioneers, exploring space beyond the limits of previous civilizations. I will mourn them, but I choose not to dwell on the loss. Instead, I intend to celebrate what these fine astronauts represented; the achievements of man's mind and spirit in conquering the unknown, the science and technology which makes it possible, and the sense of life of our great country, without which we would all be living in the new dark ages.

From: Steven Brockerman.

I remember, living 25 miles south of the Cape, when Apollo I burned up on the pad, taking the lives of Gus Grissom, our second in space; Ed White, our first to walk in space; and Roger Chaffee, the rookie in the group. But I remember, too -- and was lucky enough to have been at -- the launch of Apollo 8, reclaiming in triumph what had been lost on Pad 34 on that dark day of January 27, 1967.

I also remember, as most of you do, when we lost Challenger. Again, I was fortunate enough to have been at the launch of Discovery, our first launch of a Space Shuttle two years after Challenger, reclaiming again in a victorious sunburst of a launch what the Challenger tragedy had lost.

Know now on this sad day, then, that we will reclaim the High Frontier again from this horrendous event and that Man will go on in his glorious exploration of space.

Whatever thoughts you have about our Space Program -- and I've plenty myself -- let us mourn today the loss of our brave astronauts -- one of whom was an Israeli -- and a noble craft, the first of our Shuttles; but let us also turn our vision to the future, and look forward to that day -- which will come, I assure you -- when we reclaim the heavens for Man and, through our determination and steadfast commitment to achievement, once again touch the stars.

From Betsy Speicher's CyberNet - http://www.4cybernet.com - and used with permission.

I have great memories from a visit to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, in 1996. I had a very informative tour of the facility. It was my first visit to America and it made a great impact on me.

Related: my post, APOLLO 11.