Here's a link to the space shuttle STS-107 mission report. Very interesting.

How Space Shuttles Work. Already updated to include the Columbia disaster.

I turned on the tv just as they were saying they lost contact with Columbia but they had no idea what happened yet. I thought the worst for a second but quickly put it out of my mind. I listened, waiting for word everything was OK. The news just kept getting worse. They were showing the debris flying throught the air but no one wanted to draw the conclusion.

I was in Ocean Gate, New Jersey 17 years ago (wow, time flies!) when Challenger exploded. I was watching it live too. Even seeing it happen you don't want to believe what you're seeing. Same with 9/11, saw it live from the beginning as well. It had an even deeper effect though.

For all that we are capable of doing, it is our minds that enable us to succeed. We are in reality very fragile. Pound for pound I believe we are the weakest of all animals. By far. We are, in comparison, physically, very weak. We would be completely at the mercy of the elements if not for our intelligence and reasoning ability. A disaster like this makes you realize just how on the edge we can get. We are breaking through boundaries meant to keep us confined. Barely, but we are breaking through.

It reminds me of the Tower of Babel. It wasn't the tower itself that concerned God but that if left to themselves mankind would have become technologically advanced too soon for His plan and He had to intervene to slow them down.

Genesis 11:5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the Lord said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

So now we are there: "nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them." We are not more intelligent than humans that lived long ago, we have gathered more knowledge and we're able to disseminate that knowledge on a much larger scale. For all of our advancement we are still unable to govern ourselves and create a happy, healthy and safe world. How long has it been since mankind has had the ability to destroy this planet many times over?

Matthew 24:32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Matthew 24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

More on the failure of the U.N. : Marching toward oblivion by Henry Lamb.