Was in college and back at the dorm between classes. TV room was across the hall, maybe 5 or 6 people watching the launch. I heard a collective yell and moan and walked over.

I'd grown up around general aviation and was aware of how unforgiving that business is albeit in a "friends of friends" way, and seen some things when we lived in the Andes, so my first thought was a mixture of sadness and "Space is a legitimately dangerous sport. This is not a surprise." I worry that may sound cold, but there was sympathy for the dead and empathy for those who knew them.

On a more abstract level, I'd earlier turned down an architecture scholarship that I was told was in a long term plan to build shuttle support facilities at Vandy. I don't really know, but post Challenger those plans were scrubbed. Did applied math instea