Many Towns, Museums Want Piece Of Tragic History For
Memorials
NASA wants your advice. Should the
space agency parcel out the remains of the shuttle Columbia for
display?
There are some 84,000 pieces of shuttle debris recovered from
East Texas and West Louisiana after the space plane disintegrated
on re-entry February 1st. All seven astronauts aboard were killed
in the fiery descent. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board is
now drafting its final report to the President, Congress and the
American people -- a report that's expected to rip NASA's
management and corporate culture. It's also expected to call for a
permanent board of safety monitors to look over NASA's shuttle. A
babysitter, if you will.
But as Americans build memorials to the Columbia seven, some
localities want a piece of the space plane to put on display.
There's no precedent for this. NASA is at a loss. Among the crew's
families, opinions are mixed.
"It touches everybody who sees it," said Jonathan Clark, husband
of astronaut Laurel Clark. "It has a tremendous impact on you. It
makes you realize the importance of space exploration."
But Kristie McCool Chadwick, pilot Willie McCool's sister, isn't
so sure. While she's just fine with the idea of using the recovered
debris for research purposes, "I don't know what the purpose of
displaying it in public would be. I'm not sure that it makes sense
to me."
O'Keefe: "We're Not Going To Lock It Up And Bury It."
"One thing we're not going to do, which was done with the
Challenger, is lock it up and bury it and pretend that it didn't
happen," NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe said not long ago. One of
the entities asking for a piece of Columbia is, of course, the
Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum.
But would we ever see
the artifacts on display at a museum with the stature of the
Smithsonian? "Initially, we wouldn't have plans for it to go on
display, only to collect it for preservation as historic artifact,"
said Valerie Neal, a space history curator at the museum. "What we
might do in the future, I just don't know."
"It's not just the objects that are sensitive. It's the issue
behind them that's sensitive," said Sarah Henry, vice president of
programs at the Museum of the City of New York, which has remnants
from the Sept. 11 attacks. "The way you display objects can either
exacerbate that sensitivity or be respectful of that."
Whatever is decided, at least one family member hopes the
shuttle debris will be treated with the utmost respect, if not
reverence. Barbara Anderson, who lost her son, Michael, in the
Columbia tragedy, said, "To me it's more than just a piece of
metal," she said. "It represents their lives, their souls."
NTSB Final Report: Aviat A1
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