Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster - Memorials

Memorials

On February 4, 2003, President George W. Bush and his wife Laura led a memorial service for the astronauts' families at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. Two days later, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne led official Washington and the rest of the nation in paying tribute at a similar service at Washington National Cathedral. During that service, singer Patti LaBelle sang "Way Up There".

On March 26 the United States House of Representatives' Science Committee approved funds for the construction of a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery for the STS-107 crew. A similar memorial was built at the cemetery for the last crew of Challenger. On October 28, 2003, the names of the astronauts were added to the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

The Houston Astros, who reside in the same city as Johnson Space Center and whose team name honors the U.S. space program, honored the crew on April 1, 2003, the Opening Day of the season, by having seven simultaneous first pitches thrown by family and friends of the Columbia crew. For the National Anthem, 107 NASA personnel, including flight controllers and others involved in Columbia's final mission, carried a U.S. flag onto the field. In addition, the Astros wore the mission patch on their sleeves and replaced all dugout advertising with the mission patch logo for the entire season.

In 2004, Bush conferred posthumous Congressional Space Medals of Honor to all 14 astronauts lost in the Challenger and Columbia accidents.

NASA named several places in honor of Columbia and her crew. Seven asteroids discovered in July 2001 at the Mount Palomar observatory were officially given the names of the seven astronauts: 51823 Rickhusband, 51824 Mikeanderson, 51825 Davidbrown, 51826 Kalpanachawla, 51827 Laurelclark, 51828 Ilanramon, 51829 Williemccool. On Mars, the landing site of the rover Spirit was named Columbia Memorial Station, and included a memorial plaque to the Columbia crew mounted on the back of the high gain antenna. A complex of seven hills east of the Spirit landing site was dubbed the Columbia Hills; each of the seven hills was individually named for a member of the crew, and Husband Hill in particular was ascended and explored by the rover. Back on Earth, NASA's National Scientific Balloon Facility was renamed the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility.

Other tributes included the decision by Amarillo, Texas, to rename its airport Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport, after its native son and commander of STS-107. State Route 904 was renamed Lt. Michael P. Anderson Memorial Highway, as it runs through Cheney, Washington – the town where he graduated from high school. A mountain peak near Kit Carson Peak and Challenger Point in the Sangre de Cristo Range was renamed Columbia Point, and a dedication plaque was placed on the point in August 2003. Seven dormitories were named in honor of Columbia crew members at the Florida Institute of Technology, Creighton University, The University of Texas at Arlington, and the Columbia Elementary school in the Brevard County School District. The Huntsville City Schools in Huntsville, Alabama, a city strongly associated with NASA, named their most recent high school Columbia High School as a memorial to the crew. A Department of Defense school in Guam was renamed Commander William C. McCool Elementary School. The City of Palmdale, California, the birthplace of the entire shuttle fleet, renamed a major thoroughfare Avenue M to Columbia Way after the disaster in honor of the lost shuttle and her crew.

In October 2004, both houses of Congress passed a resolution authored by US Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard and co-sponsored by the entire contingent of California representatives to Congress, naming Downey California’s Space Science Learning Center the Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center (CMSSLC is located at the former manufacturing site of the space shuttles, including the Columbia and the Challenger).

The US Air Force's Squadron Officer School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama renamed their auditorium in Husband's honor. He was a distinguished graduate from the program. The US Test Pilot School, Edwards AFB, CA named the pilot lounge in Husband's honor.

A newly constructed elementary school located on Fairchild Air Force Base, near Spokane, Washington was named Michael Anderson Elementary School; Anderson had attended Blair Elementary (the base's previous elementary school) during his 5th grade year while his father was stationed at Fairchild. Anderson later graduated from nearby Cheney High School in 1977.

NASA named a supercomputer "Columbia" in the crew's honor in 2004. It is located at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames Research Center on Moffett Federal Airfield near Mountain View, California. The first part of the system built in 2003, known as "Kalpana" was dedicated to Kalpana Chawla, who worked at Ames prior to joining the Space Shuttle program.

A U.S. Navy compound at a major coalition military base in Afghanistan is named Camp McCool in honor of Pilot William C. McCool. In addition, the athletic field at Coronado High School in Lubbock, Texas, was renamed the "Willie McCool Track and Field" in his honor; McCool was a Coronado graduate.

A proposed reservoir in Cherokee County in Eastern Texas is to be named Lake Columbia.

On February 5, 2003, the space agency of India, ISRO, renamed one of its meteorological satellites METSAT as Kalpana-1. It was renamed by the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in memory of Kalpana Chawla.

Ilan Ramon High School was established in 2006 in Hod HaSharon, Israel, in tribute to the first Israeli astronaut. The school's symbol shows the planet Earth with an aircraft orbiting around it.

The National Naval Medical Center honored one of Navy Medicine's own in a ceremony July 11, 2003, officially dedicating NNMC's Laurel Clark Memorial Auditorium.

Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, of which Clark was a member, created the Laurel Clark Foundation in her honor.