Columbia
Five years ago I had the inestimable honor of a brief conversation with Rick Husband on the occasion of John Glenn’s return to space. I asked him about how he had come to be an astronaut and he told me what has now become common knowledge, that the power of his dream carried him through three setbacks before he finally was accepted to the program. Now that this horrific disaster has occurred, and I hear rumblings from the short-sighted about curtailing the space program, I cannot help but reflect on the lesson of Colonel Husband’s life. He understood that nothing worth achieving comes easily. His vision, his yearning to explore, and his faith in the potential of mankind carried him through where most would have quit. It would be a travesty to use his death to attack the dream that he refused to give up on.