NASA Day of Remembrance 2021
The Ceremony WAS streamed on Facebook Live (@NASAKennedy)
The following photographs were captured by Eileen Marie Simoneau:
News Agency Videos:
Spectrum Channel 13 News
NASA Day of Remembrance Marks Somber 35th Anniversary of the Challenger Disaster
By Greg Pallone
PUBLISHED 3:49 PM ET Jan. 28, 2021
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — We are in the midst of the most somber week for NASA.
Three tragic accidents, just days apart over the space program's history.
The annual NASA Day of Remembrance at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is a moment of reflection.
A service at the Astronaut Memorial Foundation's Space Mirror Memorial, which emblazons the names of 25 astronauts and test pilots killed in the pursuit of space.
"We are humbled, as we recall the sacrifices of these brave men and women, who gave their lives, for the broader cause of exploring an understanding our universe," said Kennedy Space Center Deputy Director Janet Petro.
The Apollo 1 launch pad fire killed three astronauts January 27th, 1967.
"I had some quiet time yesterday," said Sheryl Chaffee, whose father Roger died along with Gus Grissom and Ed White.
She knows exactly what the families are going through, even so many years later.
"I understand, I know what you're feeling," she said. "We do get stronger and we are going to be OK."
The Shuttle Columbia accident claimed the lives of the seven member crew February 1st, 2003.
The orbiter was destroyed over Texas as it was coming home.
And thirty-five years ago, on January 28, 1986, the seven-member Shuttle Challenger crew was killed when the orbiter broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center.
"These are things that stay with a person the rest of their life," said former Shuttle Program Launch Director Mike Leinbach, who was a young engineer at KSC when he witnessed the Challenger disaster.
Seventeen years later he was leading the flight of Columbia.
"The families were there, it didn't show up, and it was such an empty feeling," Leinbach tells us. "I don't ever want to see another name up there."
A wreath was placed at the foot of the memorial.
And guests placed flowers in honor of the heroes we have given the ultimate sacrifice for our quest of space.
A somber day as this country presses on to once again return to the moon, and eventually Mars.
"I think they are would want us to continue," said Chaffee. "If we didn't it would be a waste. They gave too much."
More News Coverage:
35 years since Challenger launch disaster: ‘Never forgotten’
By MARCIA DUNN
January 28, 2021
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA leaders, retired launch directors, families of fallen astronauts and space fans marked the 35th anniversary of the Challenger disaster on Thursday, vowing never to forget the seven who died during liftoff.
The pandemic kept this year’s remembrance more muted than usual.
Barely 100 people — all masked and seated or standing far apart — gathered in front of Kennedy Space Center’s Space Mirror Memorial. The late morning ceremony was held almost exactly the same time as the accident shortly after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986.
Among the attendees: Donna Smith, visiting from Florida’s Gulf Coast to “make sure they’re never forgotten.” She was a high school student when the crew was lost; the sky was so clear that frigid morning that she could see the doomed launch all the way across the state.
The widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee quietly observed the anniversary from her home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In a recent interview, June Scobee Rodgers said the presence of teacher Christa McAuliffe on the flight added to the crew’s lasting legacy.
Scobee Rodgers, herself a longtime educator, said her husband was assigned the teacher-in-space flight because of her own career. NASA figured “he would have compassion for a teacher,” she told The Associated Press.
A social studies teacher in Concord, New Hampshire, McAuliffe was going to perform experiments and offer lessons from space.
Scobee Rodgers helped establish the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in the wake of the accident, along with the other Challenger families. She said that helped all of them heal and “move forward.”
“In their loss, somehow, their mission continues in many, many different ways,” she said.
Flags flew half-staff at NASA centers around the country Thursday, with small ceremonies also held at Johnson Space Center in Houston and Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The U.S. Mint is offering a new commemorative silver dollar honoring McAuliffe.
This year’s observance focused on the Challenger crew — McAuliffe, Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair and Gregory Jarvis. But it also paid tribute to the 18 others whose names are carved into the massive granite mirror at Kennedy’s visitor complex.
Seven were killed during reentry aboard shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003. Three died in the Apollo 1 fire on the launch pad on Jan. 27, 1967. Another was killed in a Virgin Galactic test flight in 2014. Plane crashes claimed the rest.
“We honor these heroes and remind ourselves of the lessons that the past continues to teach us,” said Kennedy’s deputy director, Janet Petro.
Petro noted that SpaceX is now flying astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA, and more new spaceships are on the horizon. Many of the newcomers were not around for the shuttle accidents, she said, and so the hard lessons must be shared.
Poor management and a stifling culture contributed to both shuttle accidents. Challenger was brought down by eroded O-ring seals in the right solid rocket booster, Columbia by a chunk of foam insulation that broke off the fuel tank at liftoff and pierced the left wing.
Retired launch director Mike Leinbach — who was at Kennedy for both shuttle tragedies — said his one wish is for no more names to be added to the memorial.
“It’s already too full.”
NASA Day of Remembrance at KSC Visitor Complex
36 PHOTOS by Florida Today Photographer Tim Short
3:29 p.m. EST Jan. 28, 2021
