The news tonight is all quite grim. We're on the verge of war and we've lost seven courageous astronauts. I mourn for the families and friends of Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon. They died on the job. They died in pursuit of scientific gain.

Space exploration has always been a risky business. We lost another crew of seven in 1986 when the Challenger exploded on takeoff. My parents' generation remember where they were when they heard that JFK had been assassinated. My generation has the Challenger disaster as its touchstone. We lost three more space pioneers in 1967 when Apollo 1 caught fire during testing. Courageous lot, those astronauts. They have to be.

So let us mourn. Let us remember. But let us also not lose sight. The aggression we're about to unleash will kill far more than we lost today. Americans and Iraqis alike. Today was a tragedy, one I don't want to make light of. However, unless we reverse the tides of war there will be many more tragedies to come.