[astroAPhi]

I found out from my big sis this morning. She's a structural engineer at United Space Alliance on the Cape, and she actually tests the structural integrity of the orbiter. She is an absolute wreck. She was crying and talking about how she feels personally responsible even though Columbia isn't her bird (Endeavour actually is, in case anyone cared to know).

I'm still fairly new here, so a lot of you probably don't know a lot about me, but I'm an aerospace engineering major at Florida Tech, about 40 miles south of the Cape. AEs around here often switch to other majors, and someone asked me today if I was going to now since I had commented that grad school was starting to look more likely than getting a job. I just hope that the space program is still up and running when I graduate and for a long time afterward, because exploration is too important to give up just because an accident happens. We need to investigate the problems and make the shuttles, etc. safer for the men and women who fly on them.

Thank you to whoever pulled out the Gus Grissom quote. These men and women understood the risks, and accepted them. And in return, we will not forget them.