Much is being said about this tragedy that is beginning to taste bad; it is often put into the category of the Challenger disaster or even 9/11 and even talked of in tones of "how much tragedy and death can we Americans take," what with an Iraq war just around the corner, and so on. This sort of thinking implies that we are not a tough people, and that we prefer to talk about ourselves in terms of victimization and tragedy. This sort of thinking is both wrong and has bad consequences. This is not to say, of course, that the families of the astronauts have not been terribly hurt by their losses. I can only imagine what it would be like to wait for them to land in triumph and, just minutes before the event to experience the horror of knowing that they have died. I think Mark Steyn understands these matters and that’s what makes his column the best I have read on the subject of the Columbia tragedy.