Today, February 1st, 2003, we have once again lived through a tragic event that has claimed the lives of men and women involved in the exploration of Space. This is not the first tragedy that has claimed lives, the loss of the three Astronauts on Apollo 1 and the loss of the shuttle Challenger with her crew means that NASA now has to add seven more names to that list with the loss of the shuttle Columbia.

NASA walks a very fine line because they are doing something that arguably is one of the hardest things to do, survive in the deep, cold vacuum of space and explore and learn about something that we know very little about. The problem though is because of this, it means that it becomes one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Every time that NASA suffers a tragedy like today, one of the first things we hear is how we should stop the exploration of space. They say NASA should be dismantled and we should concentrate on the problems with our world instead of 'wasting' money on something that might cost more loss of life.

The loss of the shuttle Columbia means that now begins the second phase, determine how and why the Shuttle Columbia was lost and not to point fingers, not to assign blame, but to determine what went wrong to ensure it doesn't happen again. Unfortunately, along with all this investigation will come the theories and some of those theories will come from some within the Ufological community. We're going to hear how aliens shot down the shuttle or how UFOs were somehow involved with this disaster. We may even hear about how the loss of the Columbia and the seven crewmembers can be tied to the ridiculous conspiracy theory of NASA not landing on the moon.

In all of these stories that I guarantee will appear shortly on the web, I strongly urge you to put whatever inane theory is put forth under a microscope because I'm sure that although we will need patience, we shall learn what truly happened to the Shuttle Columbia and her crew from the investigations that are already underway.

To the naysayers who will say that we have to stop the exploration of space because it's too dangerous, I say no. We need to go further, we need to go deeper and find out more about what is beyond the limits of our tiny planet.

Some of you might be a little confused because I've never been a big fan of NASA and the truth of that matter is that when it comes to giving us information about anything dealing with UFOs or extraterrestrials I am still firmly convinced that NASA hides more than it reveals, however, they are still the best agency in the world today to explore space and find out more about what is out there.

Although as a planet we have all suffered a terrible blow to advancing our knowledge of space, we have to remember the men and women of the shuttle Columbia and honour their memory by continuing to go beyond, to learn more and to advance our knowledge of space and other worlds that are out there. We have to find out the problem that brought this tragedy about and do whatever we can to ensure that it doesn't happen again but the one thing that we cannot do is turn away from space and end our exploration of the final frontier.

But that's just my take on it!