Space Shuttle Columbia - Tribute

Tribute

Although the debris field encompassed hundreds of miles across North East Texas and into Louisiana, the nose cone and remains of all seven crew members were found in the East Texas county of Sabine. To honor those who lost their lives aboard the shuttle and during the recovery, The Patricia Huffman Smith Museum; Remembering Columbia, has been opened in Hemphill, Texas. The museum tells the story of space exploration from the first mission of the Columbia to its last mission, STS-107. It also reveals the efforts of local citizens during the recovery of Space Shuttle Columbia, STS-107 and its Crew. An area is dedicated to each crewmember that was lost in the tragedy, including the Texas Forest Service employee and the helicopter pilot who lost their lives during the recovery effort. The families of the crew have contributed personal items belonging to their loved ones for permanent display. The museum houses many items and artifacts from NASA and its contractors, the families of STS-107, as well as from other individuals. The museum will feature two simulator interactive devices that emulate activities of the shuttle and orbiter. The classroom for the digital learning center will provide an excellent opportunity for the advancement of education for people of all ages.

The shuttle's final crew was honored in 2003 when the USGS's Board of Geographic Names approved the name Columbia Point for a 13,980-foot (4,260 m) mountain in Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Mountains, less than a half-mile from Challenger Point, a peak named after America's other lost shuttle. The Columbia Hills on Mars were also named in honor of the crew, and a host of other memorials were dedicated in various forms.

Fans of the original Star Trek television series were largely responsible for NASA naming the first Space Shuttle Enterprise. In the television series Star Trek: Enterprise both the first and second starships of the human-built NX-Class, registry numbers NX-01 & NX-02 respectively, were named in honor of pre-existing NASA space shuttles. The second vessel's name was first revealed in the season 3 episode "E²" to be Columbia, in honor of the space shuttle Columbia following its destruction on February 1, 2003. Uniforms on NX-02 Columbia bear a crew patch depicting 7 stars, in honor of the astronauts who died in the shuttle accident.

The Deep Purple song "Contact Lost" on their 2003 album Bananas was dedicated to, and written for, the astronauts whose lives were lost in the 2003 shuttle disaster. Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, one of the victims of the crash, took three CDs into space with her, two of which were Deep Purple albums (Machine Head and Purpendicular). Both CDs survived both the shuttle destruction and the 39-mile plunge. Chawla also traded e-mails with the band while in space, making the tragedy even more personal for the group.

The musical group Echo's Children included singer-songwriter Cat Faber's "Columbia" on their final album "From the Hazel Tree."

The Long Winters 2005 Album "Ultimatum" features the song "The Commander Thinks Aloud", a tribute to the final Columbia crew.

The Eric Johnson instrumental "Columbia" from his 2005 album Bloom was written as a commemoration and tribute to the lives that were lost. Johnson said "I wanted to make it more of a positive message, a salute, a celebration rather than just concentrating on a few moments of tragedy, but instead the bigger picture of these brave people’s lives."

The graphic novel Orbiter by Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran was dedicated to the "lives, memories and legacies of the seven astronauts lost on space shuttle Columbia during mission STS-107."

The Columbia supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division located at Ames Research Center in California was named in honor of the crew lost in the 2003 disaster. Built as a joint effort between NASA and technical partners SGI and Intel in 2004, the supercomputer is used in scientific research of space, the Earth's climate, and aerodynamic design of space launch vehicles and aircraft. The first part of the system, built in 2003, was dedicated to Columbia STS-107 astronaut and engineer Kalpana Chawla, who prior to joining the Space Shuttle program, worked at Ames Research Center.