“It kind of makes me uncomfortable,” said Business major Julian Mayorga. Mayorga has that look on his face, like he’s not quite sure what to say.

It’s the same look that everyone has been wearing since finding out about the star-crossed accident that took seven astronaughts lives on the space shuttle Columbia on Saturday morning.

David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon tragically lost their lives when they were just minutes away from their landing destination.

Although many are focusing on the chunk of insulation that fell off the ship during take off, NASA engineers are still unsure of the root of the problem.

Another theory has resulted as well, and not only from those in the media. Janet E. Mclarty-schroeder, a full time Astronomy instructor on campus said” if you’re a superstitious person, the end of January and beginning of February may not be the time to fly for you.”

Mclarty-schroeder may have a point. The Apollo 1 tragically killed three astronaughts in a fire on January 27, 1967.

And on January 28, 1986, America watched in dismay as seven astronaughts and one civilian teacher exploded in the space shuttle Challenger.

Now with the Columbia accident, many are starting to wonder.

“The question everyone should be asking now is why did anything break,” Mclarty-shroeder said, “you have to understand that once something on a shuttle breaks off, there are certain area’s that are no longer protected. Now, the structure itself is aluminum, and aluminum melts. So automatically, the shuttle loses it’s shielding.”

The second question on everyone’s mind is should the space program continue?

Sabrina Geary, a Teacher track student, thinks that it should definitely continue. “I think that when they(the astronaughts) go up into space, they have the understanding that something can and may occur. But they are up there obviously because they love to explore, and that hunger shouldn’t stop,” Geary said.

And at the televised Memorial Recessional, held at the Space Center in Houston on Tuesday morning, the President, colleges, friends, family, and members of the community came together to pay respects to those whose lives were taken.

The Ship Bell was rung seven times for all seven astronaughts, and four jets flew over the crowd performing the “missing man” formation.

John Glenn, the US astronaught to orbit the moon, said “‘It’s too bad we couldn’t have pushed this day back forever.”