{"id":16243,"date":"2015-06-27T18:13:49","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T10:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/shuttle-memorial-honors-crews-orbiters\/"},"modified":"2015-06-27T18:13:49","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T10:13:49","slug":"shuttle-memorial-honors-crews-orbiters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/shuttle-memorial-honors-crews-orbiters\/","title":{"rendered":"Shuttle memorial honors crews, orbiters"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"Credit:
Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the first memorial of its kind, NASA and the families of the 14 men and women who lost their lives aboard the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 have joined together to remember the astronauts with pictures, personal mementos and, in an emotional first, iconic wreckage from both orbiters.<\/p>\n

The \u201cForever Remembered\u201d memorial at the Kennedy Space Center\u2019s commercially operated Visitor Complex opened to the public Saturday after private viewings Thursday and Friday by family members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crews of Challenger and Columbia are forever a part of a story that is ongoing,\u201d NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. \u201cIt is the story of humankind\u2019s evolving journey into space, the unknown, and the outer-reaches of knowledge, discovery and possibility. It is a story of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the shadow of the shuttle Atlantis, mounted as if in flight in an open split-level building, the new memorial strives to strike a balance between sober reflection and a celebration of the crew members\u2019 lives and the vehicles that carried them aloft.<\/p>\n

Challenger\u2019s crew \u2014 Commander Francis \u201cDick\u201d Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, satellite engineer Gregory Jarvis and New Hampshire school teacher Christa McAuliffe \u2014 was killed when the shuttle broke up 73 seconds after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986, because of a rupture in one of its solid-fuel boosters.<\/p>\n

Columbia\u2019s crew \u2014 commander Rick Husband, pilot William \u201cWillie\u201d McCool, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, Laurel Clark and Israeli flier Ilan Ramon \u2014 died during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003, victims of wing damage caused by falling foam insulation during launch 16 days earlier.<\/p>\n

The memorial features a central hallway with displays on both walls honoring each crew member, including personal items provided by their families.<\/p>\n

Husband\u2019s Bible and Tony Lama cowboy boots can be seen, along with a house plan drawn up by Smith, a research paper written by Resnik, a \u201cStar Trek\u201d lunch box and Cub Scout shirt once worn by Anderson and a charred page from Ramon\u2019s flight notebook, recovered after the accident.<\/p>\n

Other mementos include Scobee\u2019s slide rule-like navigation computer and a leather flight helmet, Onizuka\u2019s personal Buddhist prayer beads, a biking trophy won by Jarvis and a copy of \u201cJohnathan Livingston Seagull,\u201d one of Chawla\u2019s favorite books.<\/p>\n

A photograph in Husband\u2019s display shows Columbia\u2019s crew, dressed in bright orange pressure suits, huddling for a group prayer before heading to the launch pad. In his Bible, the deeply religious shuttle commander had underlined Proverbs 5:6: \u201cTrust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was very important to me, and very important to the people who work here at KSC,\u201d Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana, a veteran shuttle commander, told CBS News during a pre-opening walk through Thursday. \u201cChallenger and Columbia, they\u2019re part of our history, they\u2019re part of who we are as a nation and as an agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think it\u2019s important to share that part of the story with everyone. It is part of who we are. It needs to be shared.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the hall, a quote from President Ronald Reagan hangs on the wall: \u201cThe future doesn\u2019t belong to the fainthearted, it belongs to the brave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning to the right, visitors enter a larger, darker room. On one wall, in a starkly lighted display, is a large section of the torn, heavily damaged outer skin of Challenger\u2019s fuselage, still showing the American flag and an open vent door.<\/p>\n

The recovered debris of Challenger has been stored for nearly three decades in two abandoned Minuteman missile silos at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The wreckage shown at the memorial is the first debris from Challenger to be publicly displayed since the accident investigation was concluded in 1986.<\/p>\n

Columbia is represented by the orbiter\u2019s six forward cockpit window frames, arranged as they were when still part of the orbiter. The glass is gone, of course, and the frames are discolored and clearly damaged. But they retain their iconic shapes and are instantly recognizable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say the eyes are the windows to the soul,\u201d Cabana said, choking back tears. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s true of Columbia also. They\u2019re the windows to the soul of Columbia. And when I look at that, I see (astronauts) John Young and Bob Crippen on the first flight of Columbia. I see a young Bob Cabana on his first command. And I see Rick and Willie and the whole 107 crew, with smiles on their faces, enjoying that space flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many workers at the Florida spaceport, NASA\u2019s shuttles \u2014 Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour \u2014 were engineering marvels at the pinnacle of human achievement, each with its own \u201cpersonality.\u201d And many space workers have voiced frustration over the years that the public never fully appreciated what an achievement the orbiters represented.<\/p>\n

While the three surviving shuttles can be visited in museums, Cabana said adding wreckage from Challenger and Columbia brings closure, of a sort, to the thousands of men and women who maintained, serviced and launched NASA\u2019s fleet of space shuttles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exhibit, it\u2019s not just a memorial to the crews, it is a memorial to the vehicles, to the entire KSC team,\u201d Cabana said. \u201cThe crews were part of our family and the vehicles, they\u2019re part of our family, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

A final room in the memorial features three multi-screen high-definition video displays. One shows samples of cards and letters sent to NASA in the wake of the accidents. One child wrote: \u201cI know being an astronaut is dangerous. But they were brave enough to follow their dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

A second display chronicles NASA\u2019s recovery from the two disasters, including the collection and analysis of debris. The third display highlights the \u201creturn to flight\u201d missions that followed Challenger and Columbia after lengthy investigations.<\/p>\n

More than a million tourists visit the KSC Visitor Complex each year and Cabana said he hopes the shuttle memorial, along with the Atlantis display and other historical artifacts, will give the public a better appreciation of NASA\u2019s winged orbiters and the 14 men and women who lost their lives on the high frontier.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our history. It\u2019s about perseverance. It\u2019s about rising above adversity,\u201d Cabana said. \u201cIt\u2019s about the vehicles, the crews and the NASA family that made it all possible. We\u2019re not going to forget the lessons that we learned. We\u2019re not going to forget the crews or the people who made it possible. \u2026 This is an important part of that story that needs to be shared.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Credit: NASA In the first memorial of its kind, NASA and the families of the 14 men and women who lost their lives aboard the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 have joined together to remember the astronauts with pictures, personal mementos and, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3437,1785,1809,4016],"class_list":["post-16243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-challenger","tag-columbia","tag-kennedy-space-center-visitor-complex","tag-kscvc"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}