Hail, Columbia! - Faithful readers will know that I am a bit of a space junky. As such, the news yesterday left me not only stunned but frankly feeling a bit sick to my stomach. I first heard the unsubstantiated rumor of catastrophe from three Fairfax County schoolteachers who were riding up the lift at Snowshoe Mountain, W.V. with me. I hoped they had heard wrong. Soon enough I found out the truth.

In a weird twist, I had been traveling home from another skiing trip in 1986 when I found out about the Challenger disaster. That experience and its aftermath taught me that keeping people in space isn't just a technological feat; it's a near-impossible political balancing act. I was soon converted from an observer into an advocate. One year later, for my high school senior speech, I propounded a forceful defense of the manned space program. Yes, the shuttles flew again. The space station was even funded. Yet NASA remained vulnerable, hemorrhaging political clout and budgetary resources over the years. In a sad re-run of Challenger, Saturday's loss comes at a time when the space program has again been relegated to the back burner by the media and powers-that-be alike.

I caught the heartbreaking footage of Columbia's final plunge during lunch at the slopeside cafeteria on Saturday, but, it is only now, finally back home on Sunday night, that I can access all the online news stories and monitor the reactions from the blogosphere. Glenn Reynolds, my once-upon-a-time space law professor, has some good analysis, while Best of the Web cites the live transcript of other space junkies who were trying to spot the re-entry and who, of course, were the first (after NASA) to spot trouble. There's also news that this was not the first fatal mishap involving Columbia. Before its maiden flight, two ground technicians were asphyxiated in a pad accident when they entered a nitrogen-filled compartment. I can't say I remember that, but I certainly vividly recall watching the 1981 inaugural space shuttle launch. (1975's Apollo-Soyuz was my first space memory, but the details are much hazier.) In April 1981, I stayed glued to the TV set in our old den for hours, watching every minute of the riveting techno-drama. In fact, I can remember how, soon after orbiting, NASA discovered missing thermal tiles on Columbia's upper exterior. That caused quite a stir, with commentators worrying that tiles might have come off on the all-important underside heat shield. Since that time, even close observers like me came to believe they had worked out all the kinks on the revolutionary, but troublesome, tiles. Obviously not.

Last night, as the day's events sank in, I wondered whether NASA would even be able to survive this disaster. The signs had been pointing to this sort of thing for some time. How can an organization that loses space probes left and right (to such boneheaded mistakes as not converting from English to metric!) be left in charge of such life-and-death risk taking as human space flight? Of course the anti-space crowd is always yammering at how the NASA budget steals money from the mouths of orphans -- as if that was the choice. Would this be the final straw?

Upon further reflection, however, I have decided the nay-sayers will not carry the day. Our country has been through some remarkable changes since 1986, especially in the last seventeen months. Since 9-11, America has shown increasing maturity and a willingness to bear the costs of leadership. A new realism prevails, which sees losses like this one as the inevitable attendant to our role in the world. If we are the one nation that leads the way, that can be counted on to do whatever it takes to ensure mankind moves forward, then this kind of pain is bound to befall us. We will always have a higher cost to pay -- and we do it willingly. Just as America provokes terrors concocted by cruel and hate-filled men, we also face the simple, unyielding harshness of nature. Because we dare to dream the farthest, we sometimes get hit the hardest. It is to be expected.

Maybe there will be some big shake-up ahead, but I feel good about the eventual outcome. We aren't a country that gives in to backbiting and recriminations. We move on. In addition to the sorrows, there can be a certain pride in the losses we absorb along the way. It stiffens our resolve and makes us recognize the extraordinary worth of our accomplishments -- along with the need to keep pressing on. I have no doubt that's exactly what we're going to do.