If you ever get a chance, visit NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Make sure you check out the tours offered. Watching these missions on television just doesn't really give you an honest perspective of the courage and effort it takes to hurtle into the darkness.

At the end of the tour you're taken to a place along the road in the facility where you observe a minute of silence next to a grove of trees, a tree for each astronaut who gave his life for the Space Program.

President Bush gave a moving address after the Loss of Space Shuttle Columbia.

https://history.nasa.gov/columbia/Troxell/Columbia%20Web%20S...