Columbia 1981-2003
I'll defer to Glenn Reynolds and his InstaPundit for much of the thoughts and analysis of today's Columbia tragedy. The running thread about some at CBC Newsworld blaming the tragedy on American "arrogance" definitely rubs me the wrong way, but check out this excellent reply.

A couple of other things that struck me about the events of today, though. One of my friends said he got a lot of shrugs and "who cares" responses when the news first hit. That was very disconcerting. This may not have the same impact as Challenger, but I'd hate to think that because of 9/11, the only tragedies that would create any emotion would have to involve large-scale losses (oh, only seven dead?).

Oddly enough, I felt a lot more shock today than I did on 9/11. Maybe that's because I was over at KSC just last year, and that I've always been a big fan of the space program, always hoping they'd do more (which obviously won't happen for a while now). Some of it could be that other than Iraq and some anti-Israel groups, I thought it would be hard to cheer this demise.
Conversely, while I was glued to coverage as I woke up to the news (thanks to a clumsy description from a weekend morning DJ just before a Dave Matthews song), it didn't seem like I had to throw away my whole day to watch the news. Part of it could be that I had some other plans, part of it could be that I wasn't working today, part of it could be that after a while you knew the who/what/when/where of the story, and the rest of the day was spent figuring out how/why -- and that's sometimes too much to take over a long period of time.

Also, it's hard to believe it's been 17 years since Challenger. Many people about my age still remember it clearly -- it was one of the unfortunately defining moments of our grade-school education. It showed very clearly how time really does seem compressed. At the same time, it's also hard to believe NASA hasn't made bigger steps in the space program since then. Columbia was actually older than Challenger, and the other shuttles only seemed to be marginal step-ups from the originals. Granted, Challenger really put a crimp into everything, but you get the feeling there hasn't been a lot done since even before the Shuttle, and that maybe Apollo or Skylab was the peak of real forward thinking in space exploration. Put it this way, think of what computers and other personal technological devices you were using when Challenger exploded. Now think of what you have today. With all of the advances in those techonologies, you'd almost think that there would be greater advances in the space realm.

Regarding media coverage, sometimes you wonder why a news network would have a space correspondent, it's for instances like this, I guess. Miles O'Brien did a solid job running things in the first hours after the tragedy, although he seemed to be flustered by overmatched producers and control room folks. This happened on a Saturday morning, so let's just say you're not always dealing with the most experienced staff or even a full staff. The "Breaking News" bit may have stayed on the screen a bit longer than probably expected, but they at least kept it toned down when "branding" the tragedy. Fox News went with "Tragedy in the Sky," which for many of us in sports still reminds us of FoxSports.com's unfortunate "Tragedy in the Ski" headline when Payne Stewart's plane crashed.