It's a little eerie to me that the 3 major tragedies in the history of NASA all occurred within one 6-day period (though in different years, obviously). There was the Apollo I launch pad test fire on Jan 27 1967, the Challenger explosion on Jan 28 1986, and the loss of Columbia on re-entry on Feb 1 2003. I wasn't around for the Apollo I fire, but the other two I remember vividly. I was 10 when Challenger was lost, standing outside my elementary school watching the launch. Once it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong, we went back inside to watch the tv coverage. The forked plume outside seemed to hang in the sky for hours. And Columbia, I was actually living in Texas at the time, which is where she broke up and the pieces fell (though a bit further east from where I was). Anyway, worth remembering, even though the US space program these days isn't what it once was (and definitely isn't what I think it should be).