Looking Back; Looking Forward
Challenger Center Remembers the Challenger Flight 51-L Crew – Invites its Alumni and Friends to Share Their Stories
“January 28, 2010 – Twenty-four years ago today the space shuttle Challenger and its crew of seven men and women launched into a clear blue sky at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Their mission, designated 51-L, was cut short that day, but their legacy of exploration and discovery lives on at nearly 50 Challenger Learning Centers worldwide. A special podcast has been created to honor the Challenger crew as well as the Apollo 1 and Columbia astronauts. All will be honored this Friday during NASA’s Day of Remembrance.”
The Big ‘Y’, Miles O’Brien
“I was fast asleep when the Challenger exploded. It was almost high noon – but I had turned in only about three hours before. I had spent the night in a citrus grove in Polk County, Florida. I was a general assignment reporter for a TV station in Tampa, and we were up all night providing viewers constant updates on the record freeze. The fate of the citrus crop is very big news in that part of the world. … When the call came from the assignment desk, I was in a deep sleep, so it took me some time to comprehend what I had just been told: “You are not going to believe this, but the shuttle has blown up.”
Keith Cowing’s Devon Island Journal – 18 July 2007: Ancient Memorials for Modern Space Explorers
“Building memorials to lost comrades is as old as humanity. Humans have been looking at special places and building evocative monuments – often of great complexity and utility back to the era of Stonehenge – and perhaps earlier. So there was something primal – transcendent – about building these ancient structures to honor people whose job entailed trips above the sky.”
Columbia: Thinking Back – Looking Ahead, New Moon Rising
“Several hundred invited guests gathered at the Embassy of Israel on that cold, wet night to remember Ilan Ramon. Daniel Ayalon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States began the event by recalling his pride at the launch of the mission. He talked of Ilan as the son of a holocaust survivor, a veteran of many dangerous missions in the defense of the Israeli nation, and the country’s first astronaut. His story, he said, epitomized the story of Israel and the Jewish people. The entire country had been waiting for Columbia to return, and Ayalon said, the pain of its loss would always be with them.”
