Our homeschooling group is taking a trip to KSC next month and will visit with the astronauts. I think that trip may have more impact on them after today.
I had told my hubby that I had hoped we would've been able to take our vacation when the Columbia took off or when it landed. If I was at the Cape today waiting for the landing, I would've been destroyed.
Oh, I know the kids are going to be affected by their visit to the KSC. But then, I was, too, even without this happening. I'm old enough to remember the Apollo fire and the Challenger disaster.
Oh, while looking for info on the Apollo fire, I found this quote from Gus Grissom:
"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."
-Gus Grissom (John Barbour et al., Footprints on the Moon (The Associated Press, 1969), p. 125.)
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollo204/zorn/grissom.htm