Last time, I was in high school and I couldn't believe the news. Didn't believe it, in fact, until the football coach/history teacher ran screaming down the hallway, "Get me a television! I need a television!" I remember a girl named Nicole saying, "There was a black guy on this one. A black astronaut!" For my high school, where Santa was black, this was the most devastating aspect of the news. I was sad for days, often breaking into tears. My status as "space geek" meant people asked me lots of questions.

My "space geek" status has since been codified by series of degrees. And people still ask me questions, but now I'm in front of the classroom and they want me to have answers. I have some answers, and can lead the students into a discussion of frictional heating, ceramic tiles, decaying orbits, rebuilding of shuttles, etc... Here are some of the answers:

• Columbia was not in the proper orbit to dock with the space station, nor did she have the docking ring to do so.
• Space shuttles are not equipped with a tile "repair kit."
• No EVAs were planned for this mission, and doing an external EVA to inspect the bottom of the orbiter was not feasible.
• The debris from the external fuel tank fell 80 seconds into the mission. The engineering data analysis about the danger to the orbiter from the falling debris was completed two days into the mission. The decision to abort a mission must come within the first 8 minutes after launch.
• The debris is not radioactive. Toxic, yes...radioactive, no.

Those are some of the practical answers. Here are some opinions:

• There are media outlets, such as the Washington Post, whose incompetence truly showed this weekend. Astronauts still in Mir? Idiots.
• For all those who ask if the astronauts could have bailed out at Mach 18 at 207,000 feet, please either volunteer to do the experiment or sign up for a physics class.
• The people who put debris from the Columbia on eBay should be eliminated from our society.

So, things are different this time. I know more than I did in 1986, I'm in a position to dispense information, and I do my best to inspire my students to look at the skies and dream.

I still cry, though.