When I was in middle school, I was on a local kids�-news show called Quad City Kids to Kids. It was nothing special, but I had a good time doing it. There was just something magical about the countdown to air that just got me all excited and happy. I have a really hard time faking a smile, but the real deal would always seem to find its way to the surface at the start of the show.

As some of you know, I was in Montgomery last Thursday and Friday for the government team�s state competition. We had some time to kill on Friday morning, so we hung out in the hotel and watched TV. Of course, when 9:00 rolled around, I wrestled the remote away and found Regis and Kelly.

That announcer dude started in on his "It�s Live with Regis and Kelly! Today..." and Daphne G commented on the stupid smile that had overtaken my face, just at the sound of the music.

It�s the same feeling that I get when someone says, "Live from New York, it�s Saturday Night!" It�s the same feeling I get at a government competition when the guard says, "All rise!" to signify that the judges are coming in the room.

It�s this feeling where you know that what�s coming next could be really good, but could also both suck and blow, and you�re always kind of hoping for the former rather than the latter, but it�s not too late yet because it�s just starting. There are no rules.

I would venture to speculate that it's the feeling an astronaut gets at liftoff, the ticking seconds a reminder of the precipice of leaving this world and travelling beyond it to another place.

I don't know that I've ever thought of space exploration in the most realistic of terms. We are exploring outer space, after all; it's got a certain romantic quality of the unknown. You're out there all alone (right?) in uncharted territory, blazing new trails. I tend to get caught up in that part of it and forget about all the math and science that makes it happen. And that's why I wouldn't be a good astronaut.

The one thing I've been wondering since this has happened concerns the fact that those seven people died doing their jobs. According to the ILO, there are two million work-related fatalities every year, so it's not altogether uncommon. I don't go into work thinking I might drop a pizza cutter on my unexposed toe, develop gangrene and die, but I guess no one goes to work thinking they won't make it home.

Astronauts could be akin to pilots, and there are certainly a fair number of plane crashes every year. Who has a better track record: NASA or the airline industry?

I guess what I'm wondering is if they had at all contemplated their deaths, if they thought when they left the earth that they may not be returning to it, and if that caused any shadow of a doubt in their minds about their mission or what they were about to do. Did they think about their deaths, or were they too excited about the future, their mission, to consider an outside chance?

I guess I'll just add that to the list of questions I'll never have an answer to. I can hope, though, that they knew that they might die, but they decided that the benefits outweighed the risks. I understand the media coverage, the personal profiles, the in-depth stories. These astronauts embodied everything that is good about America, embracing the future, making the ultimate sacrifice. Would that the world were as noble as they.

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Of course, it would be mean not to tell you that we won our government competition, which we did. It was very good.

And just when we thought all hope was lost for The Practice, David E. Kelley comes back and whips out Clarence Darrow's closing argument from the Loeb trial. Read on:

I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgement and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man.

That right there? Good stuff.