Posted on 07/20/2003 3:08:37 PM PDT by hemogoblin
CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA officials are delicately seeking advice about what to do with the 84,000 shattered pieces from Columbia, cautiously broaching the idea of putting some shuttle parts on display.
There are mixed feelings among the survivors of the astronauts.
“It touches everybody who sees it,” said Jonathan Clark, husband of astronaut Laurel Clark. “It has a tremendous impact on you. It makes you realize the importance of space exploration.”
Kirstie McCool Chadwick, sister of pilot Willie McCool, said she supports the debris being used for research, but “I don’t know what the purpose of displaying it in public would be. I’m not sure that it makes sense to me.”
Officials from several cities have written NASA asking for pieces of Columbia for their own memorials, and curators at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington have been holding informal discussions with the space agency.
A decision may come by the end of this month. For now, the debris is spread on the floor of a hangar at the Kennedy Space Center. It will remain there until the end of August when the Columbia Accident Investigation Board is expected to issue its report on the cause of the disaster. The shuttle broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, killing all seven astronauts.
“One thing we’re not going to do, which was done with the Challenger, is lock it up and bury it and pretend that it didn’t happen,” NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe said recently.
Curators at the Smithsonian museum plan to review the debris to see what pieces they may be interested in acquiring.
“Initially, we wouldn’t have plans for it to go on display, only to collect it for preservation as historic artifact,” said Valerie Neal, a space history curator at the museum. “What we might do in the future, I just don’t know.”
The pieces from Challenger were put into two abandoned missile silos at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station after the 1986 disaster.
Whoever exhibits any pieces of Columbia is going to have to be careful, said curators experienced with collecting debris from disasters.
“It’s not just the objects that are sensitive. It’s the issue behind them that’s sensitive,” said Sarah Henry, vice president of programs at the Museum of the City of New York, which has remnants from the Sept. 11 attacks. “The way you display objects can either exacerbate that sensitivity or be respectful of that.” NASA has also sought guidance on handling the makeshift memorials of flowers and cards left outside its facilities. Joel Walker, NASA’s acting director of center operations directorate, talked with officials at the Oklahoma City National Museum, which honors the 168 people who died in the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.
In May, NASA sent out a letter to academics and industry researchers asking for research proposals and suggestions on how best to preserve and manage the debris from Columbia.
The space agency has received about 20 proposals from researchers, said Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director who oversaw the assembly of the debris in Florida. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will be given pieces of debris to study fracture mechanics and overheating. The University of Rhode Island is leading a group of universities that want debris for teaching purposes, to demonstrate to engineers in training how the metal on the shuttle was stressed.
Whatever decisions are made about the debris, Barbara Anderson, mother of Columbia astronaut Michael Anderson, said she hopes the pieces are treated with the reverence they deserve.
“To me it’s more than just a piece of metal,” she said. “It represents their lives, their souls.”
Such as freon foam vs EPA approved foam and asbestos O-rings vs. PC O-rings. A look-up table of physical properties might also be instructive.
Yes.
Bump to your reply. We gotta stop this PC environmentalcasesists! Bump to the heroes of the flight that died because of the enviro-whacks!
FMCDH
Amen to THAT! The encasing of the Challenger's remains in a concrete-covered bunker ranks among the WORST things NASA administration has ever done.
The remains of the shuttle should be displayed. We cannot afford to forget our losses, lest we be condemned to repeat them.
If memory serves, that travesty was committed under Dan Goldin. That screwhead was the worst administrator that NASA ever had, bar none.
Sean O'Keefe, on the other hand, has been great. A real upstanding guy. I trust he'll do the right thing.
-Jay
Why not? I don't see such a thing as any different than the viewing platform afforded to those who wishes to visit the ruins of the World Trade Center in the months following 9/11.
-Jay
I don't think so.
I think the display of the shuttle remains could be done in the same vein as the WTC ruins were. But eh...to each their own.
-Jay
When decisions are being made, the decision makers should be reminded of the consequences of their actions or inactions.
Actually, that is hardly a comparison.
With the shuttle, you still had bodies to bury. People can pay their respects by visiting the cemeteries where the astronauts are buried.
Not so with the World Trade Center. For the vast majority of the 3,000 who died there, their bodies were shredded (I am sure you heard about the piece of pelvic bone found on a rooftop blocks away from Ground Zero). In those cases, there was nothing to bury at all. That is why people went there to pay their respects, because for all intents and purposes, it was the final resting place for so many in the aftermath of 9-11-01.
I do believe you're correct about the safety and containment aspect, but I don't believe for a second that such is the whole of it.
Moreover, inasmuch as the WTC ruins were in a public arena, so the shuttle remains are also within the public domain; especially considering that the tragedy unfolded not within just one state, but practically across the entire continental United States.
I don't want to see shuttle debris on display anymore than I want to see the debris from fatal plane,train,bus and car crashes.
That's your choice and I respect that. All the same, I think it is vital that people remember -- in as vivid terms as possible -- that space exploration is NOT without risk.
All too often the general public lives under the perception that space exploration is a "safe" and "easy" thing. I believe the only way to overcome that illusion is to put on display the very real tragedies that we have suffered in the quest toward outer space.
That means we should display the Apollo I command module. We should display the remains of Challenger. And we should display the remains of Columbia.
To keep such very real tragedies limited to a two-dimensional abstract rendered in poor videotape footage is to dishonor the 17 brave souls who gave their lives in the pursuit of human space exploration.
-Jay
When decisions are being made, the decision makers should be reminded of the consequences of their actions or inactions.
I'm hip to that.
For my own part, I kept a few mission patches from the ill-fated Challenger mission. In my line of work, I considered it a "trump card" when dealing with people who didn't take their job seriously.
Whenever I was pushed to cut corners and place expediency over accuracy, I would pull out the mission patch, toss it on the conference table and simply say, "Are you willing to sign off on that?" (this one typically accompanied by my "Don't Screw With Me" glare).
It had a way of shutting them up.
-Jay
Good job.
Too bad NASA management didn't have more people in their ranks with that attitude.
I was the assistant launch test conductor for...STS-76 I think it was. My job was to build the bar charts for the launch countdown.
In the final review meeting with one of the astronauts (Eileen Collins, IIRC), I pointed out that the payload timeline didn't match the orbiter timeline, and requested that the "junk-in-the-trunk" guys correct their bar chart.
My boss shouted me down and said it didn't matter.
I wanted to stand up and say that the changes didn't cost anybody anything, and that everybody in the room should accept nothing less than the best work they could do.
But it would have cost me my job, so I didn't.
BINGO! I experienced that first hand when I worked at KSC.
I worked for a NASA/Air Force contractor and management had the "don't rock the boat" syndrome.
However, I'm the kind of guy that when I see something that's wrong or needs fixing, I speak out. Me and management butted heads for years.
They didn't like me but I had union seniority and their hands were tied.
I continued to voice my opinions about some bone-headed stuff they were doing over the years.
In 1998 the contract changed hands and some members of management jumped to the new company. Well needless to say I was not hired. THey got their revenge.
But that's ok. I have no regrets
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