I missed it live. Unlike Challenger, which I got to see because of a snow day, I had to have the news broken to me over a phone call. It's especially a gut shot for me. Here's the thing, my job, my day job, is preventing this sort of thing. They use software to know if these things will be safe, and I help make that kind of software. I am always quietly amazed at the shuttle, or airplanes, or a nuclear plant, because I know how many things can go wrong, and how little it takes for it all to go wrong. (I've worked on the latter two, it wouldn't surprise me if some of the software I work on now didn't have some impact on shuttle design, even something as lowly as a push button.) But it's exactly knowing that that gives me the faith that we will go on. I don't fear flying, I don't fear nuclear power, and I wouldn't fear going in a shuttle. I know each has been dissected a hundred times by engineers better than myself. They minimize the risk as best anyone can.

What I do fear is that this may make us timid. The spectre of risk has always been there, that is the very nature of exploration and research. It is only that the risk is visible and tangible today. Seven people went up, knowing those risks, better than any of us will ever know. They weren't the first, they won't be the last.