CompuServe Messages

What I found most painful was the child of one of the astronauts crying "Daddy, you promised you'd never get hurt". Contrary to Allen's statement, only two of the crew could possibly be viewed as test pilots. I don't feel that the Challenger explosion was blown out of perspective at all. It has implications, both politically and technologically, that will be felt for many years (unlike the average car crash). And to me, having had a somewhat peripheral involvement in a shuttle mission, participating in the SIR-B experiment as a subcontractor and sitting in Houston watching the monitors every day for an entire flight: all of the crew of any shuttle flight qualify as modern day adventurers and heroes, if anyone does.