Posts Tagged columbia

Remembering Columbia

Posted by Danielle in Perspectives on February 1, 2012

STS-107 Crew Names on the Astronaut Memorial, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Photo by Danielle Signor

Of the three main “anniversaries” that comprise the NASA Day of Remembrance, this is the one that hits me the hardest. I wrote about why, two years ago. It’s hard for me to read it, even now.

Speaking of the NASA Day of Remembrance, check out this photo by Bill Ingalls from Thursday’s ceremony; beautiful and poignant. You can see the STS-107 monument in the foreground.

Photo by Danielle Signor

columbia, remembrance, sts-107

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White Ship, White Sands

Posted by Danielle in Picspam on January 3, 2012

Saw this image on Twitter yesterday: STS-3 Columbia landing at White Sands, New Mexico. Very cool picture! Not sure where the original image came from, but I’m sure it’s buried in the NASA media archives somewhere….

columbia, landings, shuttle, sts-3, white sands

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Human Spaceflight’s Golden Anniversary

Posted by Danielle in News & Happenings, Perspectives, Picspam on April 12, 2011

Today is the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight into orbit — the first human to orbit our planet. It’s also Yuri’s Night, a worldwide celebration of human spaceflight! Check out the link for a party near you!

Yuri Gagarin

It is ALSO the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle flight; you can see beautiful white Columbia below, awaiting her first launch. (I had a poster of this when I was in high school; put it on my ceiling so I could stare at it before I went to sleep.)

columbia, shuttle, soviet, spaceflight, sts-1, vostok, yuri gagarin, yuri's night

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Godspeed Columbia

Posted by Danielle in Perspectives, Picspam on February 1, 2011

STS-107 launches on January 16, 2003

I was just young enough that I don’t really remember Challenger. This is the one I remember very clearly. I wrote about it last year, if you’re interested.

STS-1, Columbia’s maiden voyage, launched on April 12, 1981, and was the inaugural flight in the Space Shuttle Program. Columbia and its crew were lost during STS-107 mission in 2003. As the shuttle lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 16, a small portion of foam broke away from the external fuel tank and struck the orbiter’s left wing. The resulting damage created a hole in the wing’s leading edge, which caused the vehicle to break apart during reentry on Feb. 1.

Image Credit: NASA

Eight years later…. Godspeed, Columbia.

The STS-107 crewmembers pose for their traditional in-flight crew portrait aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. From the left (bottom row) are astronauts Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist; Rick D. Husband, mission commander; Laurel B. Clark, mission specialist; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist. From the left (top row) are astronauts David M. Brown, mission specialist; William C. McCool, pilot; and Michael P. Anderson, payload commander. Credit: NASA

astronauts, columbia, remembrance, shuttle, sts-107

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Day of Remembrance 2011

Posted by Danielle in Picspam on January 27, 2011

Today is NASA’s Day of Remembrance, when we remember our fallen astronaut heroes, particularly the crews of Apollo 1, Space Shuttle Challenger and Space Shuttle Columbia. They gave their lives, that we might continue to venture into the heavens.

Apollo 1 crew patch January 27, 1967 — Apollo 1
Grissom • White • Chaffee

STS-51L January 28, 1986 — Challenger/STS-51L
Scobee • Smith • Resnik • Onizuka
McNair • Jarvis • McAuliffe

STS-107 February 1, 2003 — Columbia/STS-107
Husband • McCool • Anderson • Brown
Chawla • Clark • Ramon

→ Watch NASA’s Day of Remembrance tribute

apollo 1, astronauts, challenger, columbia, remembrance

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Orbiter Tributes

Posted by Danielle in Perspectives, Picspam on August 26, 2010

The Kennedy Media Gallery recently posted these beautiful “tribute” graphics to each orbiter — Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. They are well worth downloading at the large size, so you can see all the patches and details. All five hang in Firing Room 4 of the Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

atlantis, challenger, columbia, discovery, endeavour, nasa, shuttle

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Columbia

Posted by Danielle in Perspectives on February 1, 2010

I mentioned on Twitter last week that the Columbia anniversary is something I take pretty personally, so I’m not going to attempt to make some happy-ooh-cool-space post like I typically do. Instead I’m sharing a picture I took of Columbia (STS-93) en route to a night landing in Florida, which I took from the rocket park at Johnson Space Center during my summer internship there. (Well, my internship was at LPI to be precise; we had access to JSC and used it whenever possible. Because we could. It was fun.)

ANYWAY we decided to watch the reentry at the rocket park because it was nice and dark, and in a fit of desperation, having stupidly forgotten my tripod I took this long exposure and somehow unconsciously tracked the shuttle’s path. DUMB. LUCK. It’s probably my favorite picture from that summer, especially given what happened on this day, seven years ago….

Earlier that summer, us interns went to the public welcome-back slideshow/ceremony for STS-96 at Space Center Houston. It was my first encounter with astronauts in Houston (it was just a week or two after we’d all arrived.) I seem to remember the rookies getting their pins, but I was in such an awed daze that it’s hard to say for sure. What I do remember was getting autographs after the presentation was over. Most of the crew looked tired, inured to the procedure; signing, a polite word or two, next please. All except one: a radiant young man, brimming with energy, asking each person’s name, writing a personalized message along with his signature, chatting with everyone in turn.

I don’t relate this to bag on anyone for not being astronaut-y enough; I’m sure dealing with the public is exhausting even under the best of circumstances. It’s just that this man shone out in the crowd, and I never forgot his smiling face, his kind words, and the scripture he wrote down under his autograph (Proverbs 3:5-6.) I met a lot of astronauts that summer, a lot of really incredible people, but this was the one that always stuck out to me (and still does; the memory hasn’t dimmed in a decade.)

His name was Rick Husband.

columbia, night photography, remembrance, shuttle, sts-93

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NASA Tribute Chopper

Posted by Danielle in Entertainment, Tidbits & Sundry on August 26, 2008

NASA Tribute Bike by Orange County Choppers

Let me just state up front that I found the “stars” of American Chopper completely and utterly OBNOXIOUS… but they did happen to do a really spectacular tribute bike themed around Space Shuttle Discovery‘s Return to Flight mission in 2005, STS-114.

Orange County Choppers‘ site is all Flash-based, so I can’t give a direct link to the photo album of this bike, but it’s on the third page of “On-Air Theme Bikes”, under the Choppers section on the main page. I’ve taken screencaps to show here.

The bike’s episodes are #58 & #59, which aired October 3 & 10, 2005. Minus the stars’ antics, fights and general… drama… the bike is a thing of beauty, and if these guys have one thing right, it’s an eye for minute detail. The gas tank is shuttle-shaped, the exhaust pipes (shown below, my favorite detail) are tipped with a replica of the Space Shuttle Main Engines, and the airbrush work and detailed painting throughout is just… spectacular. I particularly like the miniature orbiting shuttle “spinners” on the wheels, front and back. The gallery is definitely worth a look!