Fergie's Tech Blog

NASA Pauses to Honor Fallen Astronauts

I'll never forget where I was when the Challenger disaster happened -- I was at home on leave from the U.S. Army in Germany, at my mother's house in Southwestern Virginia (the house I basically grew up in). I was just getting out of the shower, and while I was shaving, I had the door open in the bathroom so I could watch the television in the adjoining family room.

About 5 years later, I went in to work for NASA Space Station, through one of the SSEIC (Space Station Engineering Contractors) partners -- Grumman Aerospace (now Northrop Grumman) when the Space Station proram office was in it's infancy in Reston, Virginia -- they later moved the program office to Houston.

I guess some things you never forget. And they will not be forgotten.

An AP newswire article by Pam Easton, via MSNBC, reports that:

NASA employees throughout the country paused Thursday to rededicate themselves to space exploration and remember their 17 astronaut colleagues who died pursuing it.

"They and their families sacrificed much in the pursuit of their dreams and our dreams. We have not, will not, ever forget what their sacrifice has meant to each of us," Johnson Space Center Director Mike Coats told hundreds of NASA workers.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said he would lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery in memory of the astronauts lost in the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia tragedies.

posted by Fergie @ 1/26/2006 04:08:00 PM