CHALLENGER - 25 YEARS LATER

I was the Crew Surgeon for the Challenger mission and wrote about my experience on that day here.

On the 20th anniversary of Challenger, I wrote:

I still believe that space exploration and colonization is the destiny of humanity and that one day our decendants will fly from star to star the way we drive from city to city. I no longer imagine them flying in NASA spacecraft, however. The astronauts of Challenger and Columbia are some of the pioneers that slowly but surely bring us closer to that dream. To all of them I say, the dream is alive and well...but that NASA stopped dreaming a while back and is now just semi-comatose.

The human race will someday live in outer space exploring strange, new worlds; we will seek out new civilizations and go where no one has gone before--but it will be through the courage of private citizens whose boldness is not limited by a risk-adverse and earth-bound government bureaucracy. I personally look to them to bring the future.

25 years on, I still believe.