Opinion: The day of the Columbia disaster still haunts me
On January 16, 2003, I was in a place I loved doing a job I loved. I was the space correspondent for CNN and had been covering NASA and the shuttle program for the network for nearly 11 years. I was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to cover the launch of the space shuttle, Columbia. My team and I were at “the press mound” three miles away from the launch pad, which is as close as they let anybody. As always, I was thinking about what I would say if things went really wrong. It was my responsibility to be…