The one certainty of life is that, sooner or later, we're all going to die. No one gets out of here alive. We're all born with the one guarantee that death awaits us. There's no guarantee that we'll find love, health, or happiness, but there is the absolutely certain guarantee that we're going to die. What matters to me is how we choose to live in the time we're given.

Had none of those astronauts made the flight, they still would've all died someday. In the meantime, they fulfilled their life's ambitions in the face of the known risks. They all led lives of accomplishment and inspiration. Who was it that said our reach should exceed our grasp? We can always settle for the easy and the safe, but progress isn't made that way.

We can back away from human spaceflight because it's "too dangerous", but then what? Have humans become so gutless that we're unwilling to risk our lives for something we believe important? I'm glad this mindset didn't take hold all those years ago when sailors first started going to sea in boats. Imagine how many of the boats never returned. What would history have been had they abandoned sailing because it's "too dangerous?"

The same can be said about trains, cars, and airplanes. All of them had, and continue to have, fatal accidents. People pushed on in the face of the risks and ultimately developed the technology to make them safer. Eventually, we'll do the same for spaceflight.

There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
--Martin Luther King, Jr., 1958

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
--Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963