Nasa Notes
... Jim Timmons

"It's strange how hard it is to anticipate in advance how the news of a death will affect you.  Sometimes you think you should cry but you can't.  And other times the tears just well up from inside when you don't expect them.  I've had it happen both ways when someone I knew died.

At the time of a death, I think we all look around for something good to say to lessen the pain. We say things like. 'It's a blessing.'  It's especially hard to find anything consoling to say to ourselves about the death of the five men and two women on board…. They were just better people in every way than most of us and they're gone. We lost them. It's not a blessing.

There are good things about it I suppose, sort of hard to find.  The disaster was a uniting thing for the United States.  We all felt the same emotion. To that extent, it was good for the country, good for everyone except those who died and their families.

And also those seven astronauts have reminded us of the virtue of real bravery.  There's too much fake, public relations type bravery in the world these days; too many chests covered with so many medals for nothing that they diminish the value of medals for genuine heroes. And the crew… were genuine heroes. They were really brave men and women.  It isn't brave if you're too dumb to know what danger is or you don't give a damn about your life.  They knew exactly how dangerous their adventure was and they cared about their lives too. They did it anyway. I suppose that if no one ever died doing a brave and a dangerous thing, the quality of bravery would just cease to exist.  These seven people have re-established the credentials of bravery.

Maybe the best thing to say on an occasion like this is that we can all be prouder to be human beings because that's what they were …. They made up for a lot of liars, cheats, and terrorists among us. They're evidence in a world where so much is rotten that we're not all rotten. At the moment most Americans saw that explosion and the instant death of those seven young people on board the spaceship, something happened that none of us would have anticipated. Tears came to our eyes."

Andy Rooney, 1986 

Columbia fell from the Texas dawn.
The seven souls inside were gone.

Some had been our Fathers and Mothers
others were our sisters and brothers.

They had carried the hopes and dreams
of all Americans on their wings.

But then they perished in the air,
and now to them we give this prayer;

We wish them all a safe trip home,
to see the Father on the throne.

Amen.

John is the son of Gene and Martha Dawson, and a frequent and talented amateur poet.