I learned the news on my car radio, having just dropped my daughter at school for play rehearsal. I hadn't turned the radio or television on prior to leaving my home, and it wasn't until 9:45 a.m. that I heard what had happened.

My radio is set to KCBS, so when I turned it on and heard two broadcasters speaking about the tragedy my initial thought was they must have been talking about the anniversary of the Challenger disaster, which exploded during its launch in 1986. It took me a moment to realize the conversation was about now, not then.

Yet the only thing I knew about this mission was that it carried the first Israeli astronaut. I had no idea when it had been launched, how long it was scheduled to be in space, what its purpose was and where it was scheduled to land.

After 107 missions into space the event had become routine, but that perception was a mistake, because there is nothing routine about traveling at 25 times the speed of sound and powering down from almost 18,000 miles per hour to 0 miles per hour. There is nothing routine about being surrounded by 3,000 degrees of heat during reentry; and there is nothing routine about an absolute precise reentry angle—anything less than perfect aim results in a catastrophe, which is what happened. But I think it's fair to say that the majority of us earthbound souls had come to take these missions for granted, and Saturday's tragedy was a stark reminder of how complex these missions are.

I believe we've come to treat these missions as routine because there is very little coverage on the television or radio anymore. The launches and landings are rarely broadcasted. Astronauts are only occasionally shown performing their jobs or doing those famous cabin somersaults, and building an international space station seems like something out of a Star Trek episode. Simply put, these amazing people performing remarkable tasks are barely recognized outside the aerospace community. Even government funding for space missions has dwindled in past years.

Yet it shouldn't take a disaster for us to realize we have lost touch with this exceptional part of our community—the explorers of space. When I was a youngster every space launch was televised, and the networks stayed on the air showing the spaceship orbiting around earth, its return into the earth's atmosphere and its splashdown into the ocean. I remember that when Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed on the moon I was glued to the TV. It was eerie watching those fuzzy images come into focus. I remember looking up into the sky at night and having a new appreciation for the moon. And it was amazing to watch Bruce McCandless take the first space walk without being tethered, moving in total blackness, knowing it was endless. That took guts.

We need to start broadcasting again. Of course we aren't going to fill the airwaves with hours of space images. But show us that space station and those astronauts who are up there for months. Let's see how much of that station has been built * if for no other reason than it's our tax dollars and we have a right to know. And don't give us sound bites and glimpses of launches and landing * show us an hour in the life of these 21st century explorers. With all the reality TV being aired, this would fit right in.

Yes, I admit, with people out of work and hungry and unemployment continuing to rise, space exploration seems like a luxury item on the federal budget list, but if we are going to continue reaching for the stars we'd better put the appropriate dollars into the project and help the American people understand why it's necessary and what it's future holds.

Right now we have three astronauts working at the international space station. Their supplies will run out by the latter part of June, so a space shuttle will need to be launched in early summer to bring them home. This is a great opportunity to broadcast the event and once again remind ourselves how remarkable are the people who risk their lives on man's final frontier.

Moryt Milo is the editor of The Willow Glen Resident. She can be contacted at 400.200.1051 or mmilo@svcn.com.