Although she has since apologised for her use of Nesbitt's distress call, a number of former and current NASA workers and families of those on board the Challenger shuttle are still hurt by the sample. According to ABC News, those currently employed by NASA are unable to publicly voice their disgrace due to company policy, but they have privately spoken of their hurt, with retired NASA members and non-NASA affiliated persons affected by the sample doing the public talking for them.

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June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger Space Shuttle Commander Dick Scobee and a founder of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, described how she was "disappointed" that Bey had used such an "emotionally difficult" sample. She told ABC News, "We were disappointed to learn that an audio clip from the day we lost our heroic Challenger crew was used in the song 'XO.' The moment included in this song is an emotionally difficult one for the Challenger families, colleagues and friends. We have always chosen to focus not on how our loved ones were lost, but rather on how they lived and how their legacy lives on today."

Former NASA employee and head of the NASAWatch.com website Keith Cowing has equally as disgruntled with the choice of sample and thinks that it should be removed from the song for all future releases, as well as demanding a full apology for the families and friends of those lost in the disaster. He told ABC, "This choice of historic and solemn audio is inappropriate in the extreme. The choice is little different than taking Walter Cronkite's words to viewers announcing the death of President Kennedy or 911 calls from the World Trade Center attack and using them for shock value in a pop tune."

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"For the words to be used in the video is simply insensitive, at the very least," retired NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson went on to say. Anderson also had a regrettable and sadly very true reflection on the use of the sample, conceding, "What we do in space just isn't as important to young people today."

It may not have a great deal to do with the use of the sample, but the once engrossing and awed-at profession of space exploration and advancing the human race is slipping from public view in favour of liposuctioned stomachs, fake tans and 72-day marraiges. People just don't seem to care about important things anymore and the 'XO' sample is just the tip of this unsettling iceberg.

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