Columbia

The space shuttle Columbia blew up today. Seven people died. I remember when Challenger exploded: they announced it on the PA at school, and it felt like a rabbit punch: it took the breath out of me, out of most of us, I think. I suppose you could say that more people die in a single day in this country in car accidents than have died in the entire history of the US space program, and you’d be right. Statistically speaking, this is a minor loss of life.

But the death of astronauts always seems to be more of a tragedy, somehow. Maybe because they represent the most audacious of our aspirations — maybe because they are in some way totems of our striving for new frontiers. The passing of those who contain within themselves the hopes and dreams of hundreds or thousands or millions is always felt more keenly, I think. John Kennedy, Kurt Cobain, Ghandi, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, today’s astronauts — they all meant something to a lot of people, and that something died a little when they did.