Space dreams should remain
by Mary Barrera, Editor-In-Chief

   I keep thinking of the line from an old James Taylor song, "sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground."

   I was lying in bed two Saturdays ago when I heard a boom off in the distance.

   It was the sound of dreams coming to an end.

   The family members of the astronauts were waiting for their return. They had dreams that included the seven who would not come back. Those dreams have vanished.

   Yet, some dreams should not vanish.

   Each one of the Columbia astronauts had admitted they wanted to be astronauts from the time they were children.

   All of them were kids when the Apollo missions first took flight.

   I can just imagine the gleam in their eyes as they thought to themselves "one day it will be me up there."

   I imagine them spreading their arms up in the air and moving in super-slow motion pretending they were floating in a zero-gravity environment.

   The space shuttle Columbia was itself a culmination of many dreams. It was the first vehicle of its kind.

   The first time I saw it lift off the platform with a blaze of fire and smoke and leave our blue sky, I was astonished.

   We were, for the moment, rulers of the earth and sky, and Columbia was the diamond in our crown.

   It is dreams that move us into the future.

   Without them, our feet would be forever on the ground.

   We must not stop dreaming now.

   After the Challenger, a lot of time elapsed before another shuttle went up. It seemed like NASA was mothballed and forgotten.

   Nowadays, we are talking about and working out the problem of travel to Mars.

   The research and effort will be a long process. We should not step back or slow down for fear something else can happen because the chances are that something else will happen.

   The children of today may very well dream about being on the spaceship to Mars. Some may die trying.

   It is a chance they personally must be willing to take.

   There is a deep sense of sorrow regarding the Columbia tragedy. There is also a small sense of hope that, with time, the dream will ignite in someone else.

   It is in dreams that we take flight.