In Memoriam: Ad Astra

[athelind]

"It's a bad week for NASA," someone said.

To those we've lost as we reached for the stars:

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Apollo 1: 27 January 1967
Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom • Edward H. White II • Roger B. Chaffee

Space Shuttle Challenger: 28 January 1986
Francis R. Scobee • Michael J. Smith
Ronald McNair • Ellison Onizuka • Judith Resnik
Greg Jarvis • Christa McAuliffe

Space Shuttle Columbia: 01 February 2003
Rick D. Husband • William C. McCool
Michael P. Anderson • Kalpana Chawla • David M. Brown
Laurel Clark • Ilan Ramon

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Though a nation watched them falling, yet a world could only cry
As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky

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Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Per aspera, ad astra.

[archteryx.livejournal.com]

And the grand triumph - and awful tragedy - is that despite all the corners cut, all the engineers lowballed, all the corrupt contracting, Congressional malfeasance and general all-around shit treatment NASA gets from the rest of the government...

...those are the *only* people who have lost their lives riding in one of their vehicles.

It makes their sacrifice all the more poignant, and one I hope that we never forget as we forge forward into a likely post-NASA future.