Sullivan, Gregory, Covey, Thagard Also Named

The ranks of those honored in the Astronaut Hall Of Fame swelled by five over the weekend, as Dick Scobee, Frederick Gregory, Kathryn Sullivan, Norm Thagard and Richard Covey were inducted.

June Scobee-Rodgers accepted the award on her late husband's behalf, saying, "I want to thank you all for honoring Dick Scobee. So many times he's been remembered for how he died. Thank you for remembering how he lived."

Scobee died, along with six other astronauts, when Challenger exploded shortly after its final 1986 launch.

The other four astronauts inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center Saturday were:

• Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space
• Frederick Gregory, now NASA's number two man, the first African-American ever to command a space mission
• Norm Thagard, the first American to fly into orbit aboard a Russian spaceship and the first American ever to live aboard the Mir space station
• Dick Covey, who commanded the first post-Challenger mission to the Hubble Space Telescope

  

"As a young boy in the panhandle of Florida, I used to fight my older brother Dean for the Life magazines when they came in, so I could read about these guys," Covey said, pointing to the astronauts who flew Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, seated to his right. "They were great role models for me."

FMI: www.astronautscholarship.org