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."

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.caib.us