When Megan MacDonald learned Saturday of the space shuttle Columbia disintegrating over Texas, she first thought of its crew.

Was there any way the seven men and women aboard could have survived?

Then shock set in for the Kansas University junior who is majoring in aerospace engineering and dreams of someday being an astronaut herself.

“I thought we had everything figured out,” she said.

It was a feeling many experienced across Lawrence after watching on television the fireball streak across the sky and then crumble while 200,000 feet in the air.

In the 17 years since the Challenger exploded, space travel has become all but routine. Shuttles launch and land, often without fanfare. But Saturday’s tragedy proved once again that leaving the earth’s atmosphere is a dangerous endeavor.

“Even though there are so many backup systems … there’s always something that you don’t think of,” said MacDonald, who is from Independence, Mo.#

For some, the incident brought back vivid — even painful — memories of the Challenger, which exploded Jan. 28, 1986.

Trevor Sorensen, now an aerospace engineering professor at KU, was working in the software engineering department of the Johnson Space Center when the Challenger exploded.

“I was friends with some of the astronauts who were on the Challenger, so that had a very personal effect on me,” he said.

Yet for others, young people especially, the Challenger is only a faint memory, and Saturday’s tragedy was completely unexpected and incomprehensible.

Using a model, Trevor Sorensen, Kansas University associate professor of aerospace engineering, describes the banking maneuvers a space shuttle makes during descent after a space mission. The breakup of the space shuttle Columbia on Saturday brought back painful memories for Sorensen, who knew some of the astronauts who died in the 1986 Challenger tragedy.

It’s those people who will be most shocked by the incident, said David Downing, also a KU professor of aerospace engineering.

He expected the halls of his department to be buzzing Monday, more with the talk of students than that of faculty members.

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Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon more than 30 years ago, and today’s young people take such feats for granted.

“I think we have a better appreciation for the risk,” Downing said of those in the baby boom generation.

Hit especially hard will be students like MacDonald who want to devote their lives to the space industry, Downing said.

“I don’t think it’s going to deter them, but it’s going to be a sobering thought,” he said.

And, to a point, all Americans will be affected, Downing said, likening the incident to Sept. 11.

“This is one of those times we’ll all remember where we were and what we were doing,” he said.

Reaction from those on Massachusetts Street seemed to support his position.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dan McDow, who was visiting Lawrence from Des Moines, Iowa. “Sad, very sad.”

For MacDonald, it took almost an hour for the news to sink in. She talked to her family and met with some friends.

And she decided that scary as it was, the incident hadn’t diminished her desire to be an astronaut, something she wants “no matter what.”

“Going in, you know that people die doing this,” she said.