NASA's Day of Remembrance

Today is NASA’s 2011 Day of Remembrance. On January 27, 1967 Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chafee died onboard Apollo 1 as they went through prelaunch tests. On January 28, 1986 the Shuttle Challenger broke apart just after launch, taking the lives of Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnick, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe. On February 1, 2003, while preparing to land, the Shuttle Columbia broke apart taking the lives of Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown and Laurel Salton Clark. You can read more about their missions and their stories here at NASA.
I wanted to pay my own small homage to NASA and its astronauts. What does this have to do with writing? Space exploration, astronomy, curiosity of what is out there are some of my passions. There is something special about being part of that generation that watched televisions in sunlit classrooms or dark basements as grainy images of men hopping across the moon came across the airwaves. NASA allowed me to dream of someday exploring space. My best friend in high school was going to be the captain and I was going to be the exobiologist.

So thank you, astronauts, for your explorations.