I don't see it posted elsewhere else on the board yet, and ith's the 28th here, and everyone knows the significance of today's date.

All I can say is that, like soldiers in a volunteer army, each of the Challenger Seven readily faced the dangers they loosed upon themselves. All Seven, by choice, faced death for a purpose that they deeply believed in.

It would probably be wrong to say that their decisions to become astronauts were completely altruistic, or acts of agape for the advancement of science. Most people with an interest in science or space would jump on the opportunity to go into orbit. It's not the decision to risk their lives to go into space upon a mighty and thunderous rocket that made them heroes, or that they died doing so; what made them heroes was their decisions to devote their lives to understanding the universe around us so that we would all benefit.