Editor’s note: I first posted this on 10 Sep 2011. I used to run through the precise place where the plane hit the Pentagon when I lived across the street at Riverhouse III (I moved to Reston in 1990). Eric Sterner lived a few blocks away. Bill Readdy’s friend lived in the same building as I did and watched this happen out his window. And Lon Rains was in traffic and saw this unfold with his own eyes. Two people from my town of Reston did not come home that day. Had I been looking up I could have seen the plane in the sky over our house. A few hours after the attack someone in Reston decided to put up an American flag on the pedestrian overpass a few blocks from our house. It was a flag with only 48 stars. An antique. It was all that they could find on such short notice. Through all these years two haunting color images remain in my mind: some red begonias in a window at the Pentagon and that achingly blue September 11th sky. We have one of those blue skies today. Remember. — Original posting below.

Keith’s note: I have lived in the Metro Washington DC area for 33 years – more than half my life. When I first moved to DC to work at NASA HQ I lived in Pentagon City directly across from the Pentagon in the River House III apartment building. The Pentagon was what I saw outside my window every single day. In the afternoons after work I often used to run […]

11 September 2001: Bad news from Earth, SpaceRef “The news from Earth that morning wasn’t good. Frank Culbertson would soon find that some of the day’s pre-planned routine would be altered. As soon as he was told of the attacks, Culbertson checked to see when they would be passing over the east coast of the U.S. Discovering that this was only some minutes away, Culbertson grabbed a camera. The window […]

Keith’s note: I have lived in the Metro Washington DC area for 33 years – more than half my life. When I first moved to DC to work at NASA HQ I lived in Pentagon City directly across from the Pentagon in the River House III apartment building. The Pentagon was what I saw outside my window every single day. In the afternoons after work I often used to run […]

11 September 2001: Bad news from Earth, New Moon Rising “In Washington, and all along the east coast, it was another one of those classic clear September days [Bill] Readdy had stopped to admire the previous week. While many were still on the commute into work, the attacks began. At NASA Headquarters, as with the rest of Washington DC, no one quite knew what was going on. Soon people were […]

11 September 2001: Bad news from Earth “The news from Earth that morning wasn’t good. Frank Culbertson would soon find that some of the day’s pre-planned routine would be altered. As soon as he was told of the attacks, Culbertson checked to see when they would be passing over the east coast of the U.S. Discovering that this was only some minutes away, Culbertson grabbed a camera. The window in […]

Mars Rover Opportunity Update: September 01-07, 2011 “Photo taken by Mars Rover Opportunity of itself on 11 Sep 2011 showing piece of metal taken from the Twin Towers – with an American flag on it – after 7 years on Mars. NOTE: Work Continues on Crater Rim – sols 2703-2709, September 01-07, 2011: Opportunity is moving to other in-situ (contact) targets of interest around the region, called Cape York on […]

Keith’s note: When I first moved to Washington to work for NASA I lived in River House III in Pentagon City. The view outside my window was pretty much the Pentagon and its parking lot. I was quite the runner back then and used to run around the Pentagon a lot. Everyone did. Security was nothing at all like it is now. Indeed, there really wasn’t any. One of my […]

11 September 2001: Bad news from Earth, New Moon Rising “The news from Earth that morning wasn’t good. Frank Culbertson would soon find that some of the day’s pre-planned routine would be altered. As soon as he was told of the attacks, Culbertson checked to see when they would be passing over the east coast of the U.S. Discovering that this was only some minutes away, Culbertson grabbed a camera. […]

Excerpt from “New Moon Rising: The Making Of America’s New Space Vision And The Remaking Of NASA”, by Frank Sietzen, Jr. and Keith L. Cowing