All:

Enjoyed the traffic about seeing the launch from Titusville and other places in FL. I grew up in Titusville with Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, know the original owner of the 146.94 machine, and remember vividly where I was when the astronauts in Challenger died . . . and COlumbia, and Apollo 1 . . . . For me it was PERSONAL, even more so for my kids, who had TOUCHED Challenger - my dad still worked at the cape, and we got to go to VIP viewing stands, open houses, and the rest.

I have read the Challenger loss report and the Apollo 13 mission reports and assessment of causes.

I was devastated to read in the Columbia report of the similarities with Challenger . . . . .

Last week, in my day job, I was teaching some folks about lessons from all of the above, relating it to our professional work.

What does this have to do with AMSAT, other than being space-related? I'm reminded of a quote from Santayana: "He who will not learn from the past is condemned to repeat it."

I think we honor the lost heroes by doing all we can to learn from the past, including NASA's losses.

Very 73, Jim wb4gcs@amsat.org