ron@r2d2.UUCP (02/04/86)
> I agree - let's leave it as net.columbia; because Columbia > was the first, was victorious in its first mission and was > celebrated around the world as a great triumph for the US > and man's exploration of space. Those who so tragically died > in the Challenger are certainly heroes of man's quest to touch > the stars, as are all astronauts, and deserve to be remembered > as such. The name net.columbia continues to commemorate man's > hard but ultimately triumphant journey into space; to change > to net.challenger would not honour our space heroes, both living > and dead, as they deserve. > > Rich Irving druxu!rhi mhuxm!rhib Initially I was also in favor of renaming the group, thinking it an appropriate tribute. There was something bothering me about it however, and I think Rich and others have touched on some of these points. There will be many discussions of the Challenger and their brave crew in this newsgroup, but I was reminded of the reasoning behind naming this group net.columbia in the first place. I doubt I will ever forget where I was and what I was doing when I saw the live coverage of the fateful trip. Nor will I forget the mission and the crew of the Challenger. They were extremely courageous and rightly deserving of respect and honor. May they rest in peace. Rather than renaming net.challenger, perhaps net.shuttle? That would take care of the comments of people who were confused by the name columbia. Personally however, I like the original name, set up to symbolize the space shuttle program. One vote against. -- ...{allegra|hao|ucbvax}nbires!r2d2!ron (USENET)