David Weldon: “on January 16, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia and her crew, Commander Rick Husband, Pilot Willie McCool, Specialist…”

“on January 16, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia and her crew, Commander Rick Husband, Pilot Willie McCool, Specialist Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon, rocketed off launch pad 39 A, the same launch pad which was used to launch Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the Moon. I was there on that day on January 16th. It was a beautiful launch, filled with tremendous excitement and hope for the potential work of the crew of Columbia. They left on a 16-day research mission, and they were performing research in a number of disciplines, from biological and medical research to physical sciences, Earth sciences and space sciences, as well as product development. In total, an amazing 86 different research experiments were ongoing during this extended shuttle mission. This required the crew to work 24 hours a day in two different 12-hour-a-day shifts. Their motto for the mission was ``ex orbe scientia'': from orbit, science. Many people are saying that we should abandon research in low-Earth orbit and head straight to Mars, but I can tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, as a medical doctor, I can attest to the myriad number of medical problems a crew to Mars may face. The crew of STS-107 was working hard on a number of experiments to help us understand better and counteract some of the challenges medically and physiologically that a crew would face on an extended voyage such as a trip to Mars.”