Friday night, K.T. and I had a kickass editing session. She taped and transcribed part of the session for the amusement of others. We continue to get faster as we get better at spotting our most common mistakes. This week, we did two whole chapters. (Admittedly, we chopped out a good fifteen or twenty pages wholesale, but they had them to spare - one chapter is still one of the longest chapters we've got, and the other is by no stretch the smallest.)

We've decided, in order to try and get this editing done before my child is old enough to read the book, to try to step up to two chapters a week on a regular basis. Though that's a pretty tall order - even though we're getting faster and better at it, editing is still a lot of work. So although we're going to try to do two chapters each week, our minimum goal will remain at one. That way we don't have to feel guilty if I get swamped with work or Kevin takes a week's vacation and we can't get as much done as we'd hoped.

So I was feeling pretty good Saturday morning, a feeling compounded by having been able to sleep in until nearly ten. I logged into IRC and started typing up the corrections.

Rachel logged in to IRC a little later. "Have you seen the news?" she asked me.

"No. Is there news?" She didn't answer right away, and I fumbled for the remote. A little longer to figure out what channel CNN was...

Holy shit.

I was in the ninth grade when Challenger exploded. I remember being not much affected by it until one of my classmates, who had been there, brought her parents' photos to class a couple of weeks later.

I remember being afraid that it would put an end to space exploration.

Space exploration is no less dangerous than any other sort of exploration. The adventurers who first ventured into uncharted seas or unmapped lands died, too. But they kept coming.

Of course, no one had to watch a fifteenth-century ship sinking over and over and over on CNN, tears standing in their eyes as the vessel's final moments burned into their retinas, wondering at each new juncture whether the crew were still alive at that moment and praying to the gods they had not survived long enough to endure that awful fall.

I also remember that it was months before NASA had any real explanations. So once I was sure CNN had nothing new to tell me; once I had checked their website and read the seven astronauts' profiles, I turned off the television.

Matt turned it back on, and watched for most of the day. My head ached and my eyes burned from watching that awful, beautiful ribbon of vapor and fire. NASA's briefing had Matt in tears; the President's address choked me up. (Bush is still the Great Weasel, but when he said that exploration must continue, I wanted to applaud.)

Finally, as evening approached, we tore ourselves away from the TV. We went to my parents' house and visited for a while, and showed them our ultrasound pictures. Then we picked up K.T. and went to the mall to do some shopping. Then we collected Kevin and went out to eat.

Life goes on. Hail, Columbia, and rest in peace.

--Liz