The cost of exploration

Saturday, when we turned our TVs to CBS to watch the basketball game, we saw footage of what appreared to be a falling star. We were to find out that not one, but seven had fallen that day at nine o'clock, and there would be no basketball as a result.\nOur first reaction is shock, followed by amazement and grief. Then, we are transfixed. As with all times when heroes die we looked to the media to honor them, and we tried our best to feel for the families and experience how truly sad unexpected loss is. \nHowever, our daze was lifted when we began to hear those repugnant buzz words that've been floating throughout the media, mixing themselves with every issue on the docket for a year now. \nTerrorism.\nOn a day when families are mourning, and bright, intrepid individuals lost their lives in the pursuit of science, agendas were still being pursued. Despite the phenomenal impossibility of terrorist meddling -- an altitude of 203,000 feet flying Mach 18, well beyond any missle range -- it seems that our nation can not break for a moment from the rhetoric of the day. It was a time to allow a graceful and much deserved moment of reflection for those gone. Infusing their eulogy with politics seemed a disservice.\nFurthermore, the nature of the report had us questioning the media's sincerity. NASA coverage certainly has not been one of their top priorities as of late. There was a time when shuttle launches were major events, watched in grade schools and played on TV's sitting in shop windows; but today, we only hear of our efforts in space when there is either a disaster or a pop-star passenger.\nSo as they issue sound bite after sound bite concerning the honor and glory embedded in space exploration and the mission these brave men and women had embarked upon, we question: Would Dan Rather have been reading poetry and commentating emotional had the flight ended as a success?\nWhich brings us to the true heart of this and every major tragedy that covers our programming, why we search in confusion for the proper emotional response to an event such as this. Since 9-11 we have been forced to re-evaluate how we treat heroes, and still we have come to realize that little has changed. We weep because we can not find the justice in the fact that it takes their death to honor their lives.\nWhy weren't we celebrating the fact that this was perhaps one of the most diverse crews in the history of space exploration? \nAn Indian woman, an Israeli, a black man, their science bridged international and political boundaries. There was once a day in the not too distant past when such a sight would be scoffed at. They however made it happen, but if those cultural bonds hadn't been shattered when the craft went down, we would have never been the wiser.\nAdam Michalec, a researcher at the Space Observatory of the respected Jagiellon University in Poland spoke of them best: "The astronauts gave their lives on the altar of science." They were sacrificed for a knowledge that the majority of us unfortunately do not yearn for. If anything, maybe this event will instill in us that hunger so that Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon would not have died in vein.\n-- JP Benitez and George Lyle IV for the Editorial Board