What a painfully tragic way to start the New Year... Columbia, and her heroic crew... lost in re-entry.  Ironically, I was in Houston that fateful Saturday morning. The night before, I had dinner with my dear friend, Dr. Mae Jemison, our first woman astronaut of color. It was a wonderfully warm evening we shared with friends, and I returned to my hotel looking forward to the next day’s book signing with a galaxy of old friends and fans.

Then early Saturday morning I awoke with a feeling of strange foreboding, but dismissed it as guilt for oversleeping. Turning of the TV as I squeezed out tooth paste, I smiled at seeing beautiful white contrails against a clear azure blue sky. For a brief instant as I stood there brushing my teeth, I felt elated... ah, of course, the Shuttle... I hadn’t missed Columbia’s return after all...not realizing the horrendous deja vu I was about to experience. As the realization of what I was hearing and watching penetrated, I sat there numb. The beautiful white contrails were in reality the Columbia break up. My mind raced back nearly twenty years to the Challenger disaster when we lost another magnificent seven. Three on the Challenger had been my recruits...I was devastated.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of Columbia’s valiant crew who so bravely gave their lives to the furtherance of the exploration and eventually the settlement of the Space Frontier.

Most of us, certainly all of us who have been closely associated with the Space Program, realize the very high risk which is attendant to Space exploration. Yet, we’ve seemingly become hypnotized into a lethargic state of complacency by the herculean successes of our Shuttle missions, satisfied with a few TV sound bites on some launches. Re-entry was invariably referred to in a ho-hum manner with the probverbial "near perfect" landing. Then, back to the "real" news as usual... until we are jolted back with the unbearable shock of Columbia’s demise, and glued to the TV, we join in the hysteria. We forget the miracle of Space exploration research and all the developments which have benefited humankind... which, I might add, we blithely take for granted; we forget that on a Congressionally limited budget, our Space Agency has produced miracles; we forget that our Space explorers... our brave astronauts, knowing the risks to their lives... went into Space to face the unknown, performed experiments, delivered the goods mission after mission. We forget for over twenty some odd years and over one hundred missions, we had sustained only one Shuttle loss... until now. Yet we rarely think twice about transporting ourselves, our children and loved ones on a commercial jet across continents on flying machines that drop from the air far more frequently than the Shuttle... with far less direct benefit to humankind’s existence.

In spite of our loss, our Space endeavors must move forward... no longer for the challenge of the space race, but for the continued betterment of humankind here on Earth... to explore the unknown... to discover through Space research new scientific and medical applications for Earth’s needs... and someday, perhaps, to learn to live harmoniously with universe where ever that takes us. Our heroic Space explorers understood that once we lifted off this planet and defied the bounds of gravity, we could never be Earthbound again.  The dream is yet unfulfilled. We are called once again as our history has called us before to reconfirm our commitment that these brave and brilliant souls shall not have died in vain. We must now stand united and demand that the dream become a reality.  To do less would be an insult to our heroes, the Astronaut Corp, and to this great nation.

Many of you know my co-author, music director and business partner, Jim Meechan. Jim, a renowned solid state physicist, was Corporate VP-Research & Engineering at Rockwell, International when they designed and built the Space Shuttle Orbiters. From his unique perspective, I’ve asked him to give us his insight on this sad but historic occasion. Click here for Jim’s comments.