Background
William Tolbert had ordered the flag from the Valley Forge Flag Company and had arranged for the flag to be flown briefly over the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on January 25, 1985. It was submitted to the NASA Johnson Space Center by the 2d Space Wing, for flight on a space shuttle. On January 28, 1986, it was carried in the "official flight kit" of the Challenger space shuttle on its last flight. It was sealed in plastic and was next to some souvenir medallions being flown by one of the Astronauts. As the Challenger wreckage was brought up from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, rescuers found this flag, still in its sealed plastic bag, intact and completely unscathed. The souvenir medallions had melted into a single lump.
Troop 514 is still in possession of the Challenger flag. They continue to display it for certain special public events and Eagle Courts of Honor.
Read more about this topic: Challenger Flag
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)