Childhood dreams – I still remember them, long reaching, perhaps implausible, bitter sweet. I dreamed of being an astronaut, with little chance of that ever happening. I was a skinny kid, fragile with a tendency to faint and so near-sighted, I needed glasses to count my own fingers. But I could live through others, watch them launch into space, walk on the moon and return home to begin again.

Moving to Florida after college inched me closer to my dream. Now I was part of the NASA clan, at least by proximity. A day at Kennedy Space Center for me was not that of the ordinary tourist. My computer classes in college taught me about those first computers, also used at KSC, with their key punched cards and swirling reels of tape. I stood in reverence, looking at the launch site, where Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee perished. I remember the day they died, the sorrow in my heart.

The space program swept forward. As each shuttle launched, I turned my eyes upward, a prayer on my lips, before my cheers burst forth. Tears shone in my eyes as the final glimmering of flames vanished into the clouds.

A classmate, a fellow engineering student from my Carnegie-Mellon University days, joined the space program. Judy Resnik was two years ahead of me and we never met in our classes. But when there are only four or five women each year in engineering, we all knew of each other.

It was this slim connection which got me a seat in the VIP section to watch her flight on the maiden voyage of the orbiter Discovery, her first ride into the heavens. The stands were ten miles from the launch pad, the closest observation area to the shuttle with its rockets strapped to its sides. The crowd watched the huge digital clock, counting down each second, a mandatory hold at seven minutes, then resuming.

Ignition – the flames pouring from under the booster rockets. Lift-off – the roar! Not just any roar but one that ripped the very soul from my body. Tears – cheering – arms raised, waving – people grasping one another in exhilaration! Eyes staring, upward towards the sky. Prayers answered.

Another day, January 28, 1986 – cold but bright. I stood outside with my co-workers, facing eastward. We watched, our eyes strained to see the first gleam of the rockets’ flames. Instead, we saw the streamers of white smoke, splayed in all directions. Prayers unanswered. Tears from looking up. A sorrow in our hearts which exists to this day.