A week of remembrance for space pioneers

January 27, 1967: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee died in the Apollo 1 fire on the landing pad.

January 28, 1986: The Challenger disaster--where Dick Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith Resnick, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe (meant to be the first civilian and teacher in space) died shortly after lift off.

February 1, 2003: A second space shuttle, Columbia, suffers disaster as it breaks up on re-entry. Killed are: Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, and Laurel Clark.

All three of the great NASA disasters happened within one calendar week, in different years, of course. I was born the year of the Apollo 1 disaster. Before 9/11, the Challenger disaster is the one galvanising moment in my lifetime, the type where people know exactly where they were when they experienced or found out about an event. I remember that day vividly and the emotions that went with it. The Columbia disaster was equally distressing.

These men and women were pioneers, and their accomplishments should be remembered. Moreso, learning from the tragedies can help prevent further deaths as mankind continues to reach for the stars.