NASA marks 10 years since loss of Columbia, crew

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — School­child­ren joined NASA man­agers and rel­a­tives of the lost crew of space shut­tle Colum­bia on Fri­day to mark the 10th anniver­sary of the tragedy and remem­ber the seven astro­nauts who died.

More than 300 peo­ple gath­ered at Kennedy Space Cen­ter for the out­door cer­e­mony, just a few miles from where Colum­bia was sup­posed to land on Feb. 1, 2003, fol­low­ing a 16-day sci­ence mis­sion. It never made it, burst­ing apart in the sky over Texas, just 16 min­utes from home.

Rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies of the Colum­bia seven, the widow of com­man­der Rick Hus­band told the hushed audi­ence that the acci­dent was so unex­pected and the shock so intense, “that even tears were not freely able to fall.”

“They would come in the weeks, months and years to fol­low in waves and in buck­ets,” said Eve­lyn Hus­band Thompson.

She assured every­one, though, that heal­ing is pos­si­ble and that bless­ings can arise from hard­ships. She attended the cer­e­mony with her two chil­dren, her sec­ond hus­band and San­dra Ander­son, widow of Colum­bia astro­naut Michael Anderson.

“God bless the fam­i­lies of STS-107,” said Thomp­son, refer­ring to the mis­sion des­ig­na­tion for Columbia’s last mis­sion. “May our bro­ken hearts con­tinue to heal and may beauty con­tinue to replace the ashes.”

A pair of songs added to the emo­tion of the day. The young nephew of a NASA worker per­formed a song he wrote, “16 Min­utes from Home,” on the key­board, along with a vocal­ist. And Grammy award-winning BeBe Winans, an R&B and gospel singer, per­formed “Ulti­mate Sac­ri­fice,” which he wrote for sol­diers serv­ing overseas.

As it turns out, Ander­son had taken a CD of Winans’ music into orbit with him. It was recov­ered in the debris that rained down on East Texas that fate­ful morn­ing. Winans did not know that until it was men­tioned at Friday’s ceremony.

“I honor you today, I really do honor the fam­i­lies and those who have given the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice,” he added. Some in the crowd wiped away tears as he sang.

Also present were 44 stu­dents from Israel, the home­land of Colum­bia astro­naut Ilan Ramon. He was Israel’s first astronaut.

The teenagers were proud to note that they go to the same school as Ramon once did. They wore white sweat shirts with an emblem of their nation’s first space­man and the reli­gious items he took into orbit.

“He rep­re­sented Israel in the best way pos­si­ble, so I think it’s an honor for us to be here,” said Eden Mordechai, 15.

The other Colum­bia crew mem­bers were co-pilot William McCool, Kalpana Chawla, Dr. Lau­rel Clark and Dr. David Brown.

NASA’s human explo­ration chief, Bill Ger­sten­maier, said no sin­gle per­son or event caused the Colum­bia dis­as­ter. Rather, “a series of tech­ni­cal and cul­tural mis­steps” were to blame, dat­ing back to the first shut­tle launch in 1981 when fuel-tank foam insu­la­tion started com­ing off and doing damage.

A chunk of foam punched a hole in Columbia’s left wing dur­ing liftoff, lead­ing to the cat­a­strophic re-entry.

The astro­naut who led the charge back to shut­tle flight two years later, Eileen Collins, stressed that the 30-year shut­tle pro­gram had its share of suc­cesses along the way and achieved its ulti­mate goal, build­ing the Inter­na­tional Space Sta­tion. The shut­tles were retired in 2011.

“We still miss you,” Collins said of the Colum­bia seven. “How can we ever thank you for your con­tri­bu­tions to the great jour­ney of human discovery.”

The hour­long cer­e­mony was held in front of the huge black gran­ite mon­u­ment bear­ing the names of all 24 astro­nauts who have died in the line of NASA duty. The three-man crew of Apollo 1 died in the Jan. 27, 1967, launch pad fire. The Chal­lenger seven were killed Jan. 28, 1986, dur­ing liftoff. Hus­band and his crew hon­ored them dur­ing their own flight, just four days before dying themselves.

On Fri­day, the names of each of the dead were read aloud. After­ward, mourn­ers placed car­na­tions and roses on the grat­ing in front of the mirror-faced monument.

“I felt com­pelled to be here to memo­ri­al­ize those who were a big part of my life,” said David Nieds, 39, a gro­cery store man­ager who got up early to drive from Fort Laud­erdale with his mother and 16-year-old nephew.

He attended dozens of launches. Some peo­ple like sports, he explained, while he fol­lows the space program.

Memo­r­ial ser­vices also were held at Arling­ton National Ceme­tery, where three of the Colum­bia crew are buried; in East Texas, where the shut­tle wreck­age fell; and in Israel.

“Space explo­ration and the sac­ri­fice these pio­neers made ben­e­fits us all,” Pres­i­dent Barack Obama said in a state­ment. “Today, we honor their lives and recom­mit our­selves to liv­ing up to their shin­ing example.”

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Feb 1 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.