Nineteen years ago today I was in eighth grade, on my way to lunch, when I heard the news.

Did you hear? The space shuttle blew up."

The guy who told me that was your typical burnout with a bad moustache, so I figured this was his variation on the usual "Nerdman" taunting he gave me. After Mr. Davis confirmed the news, however, I believed it.

I lived in Florida at the time, and so during lunch recess we looked up into the eastern sky and saw not a cloud, but the smoky trail of the remains of the Challenger, falling to earth.

I always remember that day very well, and every January 28th I think about how much astronauts in general have been my heroes. In another few days, we'll commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the Columbia explosion over the southern portion of the United States.

We always remember Gagarin and Glenn, and Armstrong and Aldrin, but it's also important to remember Gus, Ed, and Roger, McAuliffe and Onizuka, Chawla and McCool, and all the others that lost their lives in the pursuit of something grand and wonderful.

Aside from some Cold War paranoia, the exploration of space has been about the pursuit of knowledge, and the quest to better understand who we are as a species, what are place in the universe is, and where we are going as we rotate and revolve in the grand cosmos.