Joe Barton: “When I was growing up in Texas, one of the things I thought about being was an astronaut. But there are so few that not…”

“When I was growing up in Texas, one of the things I thought about being was an astronaut. But there are so few that not many of us get to actually have that kind of a dream. This past Saturday, six American citizens and one Israeli citizen who were living that dream found that it came to a crashing end when, upon reentry, Columbia Mission STS-107 came apart. We are here today to first of all pay tribute to those brave seven astronauts who gave their lives pursuing their dream but in a larger sense pursuing humanity's dream, to find new knowledge, to reach out into space, to reach out into the future.”