Watson Coleman: “it was my sad privilege to attend the memorial service for our great astronauts in Houston yesterday. As best I could, I…”

“it was my sad privilege to attend the memorial service for our great astronauts in Houston yesterday. As best I could, I carried the love and prayers of Minnesotans to that solemn occasion. It was heartbreaking; yet it was awe inspiring at the same time. There was a lot of love in Houston yesterday that surrounded the families of the brave astronauts. I should note how blessed we are to have the President we have at times such as this. His words are good and true, but it is his heart that communicates to the hearts of Minnesotans. How much we all owe to the explorers, the inventors and the pioneers. In Minnesota, we marvel at the thought that a Charles Lindberg from Little Falls, a small town on the Mississippi, was the one who opened a new door by traveling solo across the Atlantic. For almost every one of us, our presence in this country is a reality because some brave souls conquered their fears and headed off to an unknown place with the only hope that it meant a better life for their families. The pain of this tragedy is made more acute because of the purity of the sacrifice of these seven extraordinary and ordinary folks. They did not climb into that rocket to get rich or to gain power or to become celebrities. They assumed the risk to their lives for science, for discovery, for the pushing out of the horizons of mankind.”