I was in college. We sat in the dorms and watched the television coverage and cried.

28 January, 1986 - The Shuttle Challenger explodes during launch.

I was sitting in my living room watching it on television. I cried.

When one is tasked with writing an editrial on a monthly basis, it is sometimes difficult to come up with new and different topics, things that might interest the members of OTF, or at least cause them to stop and think for a moment. Writers block had not yet stalled me in my tracks, but I was looking for something clever to say Saturday morning, 1 February, 2003 when Zulin Jinn poked me on msn messenger and said "Turn on CNN!" I was not prepared for what he wanted me to see.

1 February, 2003 - The Shuttle Columbia explodes on landing approach after a 16 day mission.

I sat at the computer, watched it on television and I cried.

In the continuing coverage (that goes on and on and on all day) Buzz Aldrin, former astronaut said "bred in all of us is the spirit of exploration." That is what I like to think Gene Roddenberry had in mind when he wrote the first line of Star Trek. And I hope and pray that the space explorers of our time, the ones we lost on our journey to the stars, realized that dream and that vision for our future outside our planets' atmosphere even as they gave their lives to achieve that goal.

Yes, space is far away, it is dangerous, it's damn expensive to get there, and people die. We as members of the human community must not let this stop the programs of NASA or the International Space Community's collaboration and cooperation. Mars may be out of reach now, but the Moon is still there. We do have places to go, things to see, experiments to perform and data and information to gather and analyze. We are not alone - they are out there waiting for us.

There is never any "quit" in Star Trek. There is no "I give up" in Star Wars. The crew of Babylon5 never let the Shadows have the upper hand, and Jack and the SG-1 team will always go through that gate one more time. Life imitates art and art becomes life.

We will mourn, we will cry, and as a race on sentient beings, we WILL continue. To turn back now is not acceptable to anyone who believes in the dreams of Gene Roddemberry, George Lucas, Carl Sagan, Steven Speilberg, Ridley Scott, Ben Bova, Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, Ray Bradbury, H.G. Wells, Orson Scott Card, Poul Andersen - the list goes on and on and on, and as they dream and write and produce and direct, so will the scientists and pilots and programmers and designers whose hearts and souls are part and parcel to the Space Programs.

I sit at the computer. I watch the television. I hope and dream, and I still cry.