Shining Stars

 

PHOTOS: NASA

DAY OF REMEMBRANCE: Ten years ago, Feb. 1 fell on a Saturday. That morning, Christian and I were shopping at Fred Meyer, and we ventured into the home electronics department. 

There, splashed across every TV, was video of a fire in the sky over Texas and captions letting us know that shuttle Columbia was 'missing.'

All I could think was, "Not again. Not again. ..."

Unfortunately, worst fears were confirmed, and the entire crew was lost, just 16 minutes from home. 

We all learned later that the crew was doomed shortly after takeoff, when a piece of foam the size of a briefcase broke off the (big orange) external tank used during launch. It struck the leading edge of Columbia's left wing, damaging the shuttle's thermal protection system. The orbiter burned up and broke apart upon re-entry, with debris falling in a path of destruction from Fort Worth to Louisiana. 

This time of year is cruel to NASA astronauts. It was Jan. 27, 1967, when Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were killed on the launch pad in a fire that never should have happened. And it was Jan. 28 (1986) when the Challenger crew was lost shortly after lift off, doomed due to freezing O-rings 'thanks' to launching during freezing temps for which the shuttle was not designed. 

Spaceflight is risky business, to be sure.

Today, NASA's Day of Remembrance consisted of memorials at various spot across the nation, remembering all of the fallen. Here, at Arlington National Cemetery, Buzz Aldrin, alongside NASA administrator Charles Bolden, salutes his comrades. 

                             

NASA's Web site also has an interactive Day of Remembrance feature here: http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/DOR2013/index.html

We watched "16 Minutes from Home," a short video tribute by NASA to the Columbia crew.


So many photos I saw on Facebook, Twitter, and all over the cybersphere today were Columbia's final moments. I prefer to remember it this way. What a lovely photo of the spacecraft on the launch pad for the FIRST shuttle mission ever, STS-1, on April 21, 1981.  Beautiful, isn't it?

PBS has a new 50-minute documentary about one of the fallen Columbia crew, Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope. It's the story of Colonel Ilan Ramon, a fighter pilot and son of Holocaust survivors who became the first and only astronaut from Israel. We're looking forward to watching it. You can find the program online on the PBS Web site: http://video.pbs.org/video/2327665061/
And I've embedded it here ...

Watch Full Episode on PBS. See more from Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope.