When engineers do amazing things, everyone notices. Unfortunately, ‘amazing’ and ‘horror’ often move on the same tracks of both insanity and intensity.

The Space Shuttle is an amazing feat of engineering, right up there with the pyramids. Behind such a program are some of the most brilliant and creative engineering minds not only of our time, but of all time. The Challenger and Columbia disasters underscored in the public mind, however, the enormous risks involved. Engineers, program managers, crew members—everyone involved with this and space programs before it—not only knew and understood the risks involved, but accepted them. No one wants to perish in a flaming conveyance. But they knew this was a possibility.

Debates continue over Columbia, as debates will when something really amazing goes amazingly wrong. Ice, foam chunks, air pockets under tiles, NASA mismanagement, even whackjob conspiracy theories—the list goes on. Risking everything to achieve something great, however—no matter the passion—is an undeniably precious human trait. Financial debates have also raged for decades. Why should we be spending hundreds of millions—or even billions—to send humans into space when we can’t solve our problems in the ground? Tax dollars could certainly be spent in better ways—ways that are probably flooding to mind at this moment. There’s likely a sound, strong argument for any of these ‘better ways’ to spend money. Certain logical truths are also undeniable.

The nation has been battered, bruised, and kicked around for several years not only because of evildoers, but bad decisions and some pretty unworkable circumstances. Could the Columbia disaster have been prevented? Of course. No doubt. But at what price? Is it better to squelch passions for decades ’til we can get it right? It’s never going to be ‘right.’ No matter how many safety devices and systems, there will always be risk when someone’s butt is strapped to a rocket. In addition to the human need to excel, there’s something bigger at risk right now, though: the national psyche. “Battered, bruised, and kicked around’ has its price. It’s a cancerous psychology that’s affected us all, making people think, for example, that fear, the Patriot Act, and dumping ‘treated’ VX nerve agents into rivers are acceptable things. They’re not.

NASA is just about ready to resume Shuttle missions, with Discovery again seeing the light of day for a planned launch next month. There’s a part of me that’s deeply touched upon seeing a photo of Discovery being moved into position. There’s a part of me that believes, strongly, that we need this. We need to move on, to again take those risks. Maybe—just maybe—this can be turned into something big if the spin doctors do the right thing for a change. Maybe—just maybe—national greatness or, more accurately, human greatness—will trump the Michael Jackson trial in the ‘news.’ Maybe people will pay attention to this launch. Maybe they’ll begin to understand what a truly spectacular feat this is—in so many ways, at so many levels. Maybe they’ll put aside politics, religion, and worries about making this month’s bills for just ten minutes and see the greatness inside all of us, illustrated and exemplified by the crew and everyone involved in getting them to where they’re going—and home safely this time. Maybe we’ll stop being scared, for just a little while, and instead be proud, secure, confident.

Maybe.