"Remembering Columbia"

 "Shortly before my 10th birthday, on April 12, 1981, the United States launched its first space shuttle mission - STS-1. Like most 10 year olds, I wanted to experience every exciting ounce of the event. I'll never forget bounding out of bed and rushing to the kitchen to grab my cereal so that I could sit in front of the TV and watch as much of this amazing event as possible. Turning on the TV, I was disappointed to find that none of the news networks had started coverage yet. I'm still not sure what I was expecting to see at 4:30 in the morning on broadcast television. Much of the other detail is lost to the fogginess of time, but I'm still left with a very palpable sense of excitment, pride and tremendous hope for humanity as a result of putting that wonderful mixture of people, technology and science into outer space." >>more