In Memoriam

Columbia's Final Crew.



Pictured above, from the left, David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon.


Name: Rick D. Husband
Position: Commander
He was 45 and was on his second trip into space.He was a U.S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer who piloted a shuttle flight in 1999 which included the first docking with the international space station.

Name: William C. McCool
Position: Pilot
He was a 40-year-old former test pilot making his first foray into space. The U.S. Navy commander and Naval Academy graduate was responsible for maneuvering the shuttle as part of several experiments.

Name: Michael P. Anderson
Position: Payload Commander
Like his commander, 42-yr-old Anderson had gone into orbit once before, on a 1998 shuttle flight that docked with the Russian space station Mir. The U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and physicist was responsible for the shuttle science mission.

Name: David M. Brown
Position: Mission Specialist
The U.S. Navy captain was making his first flight into space. Brown, 46, an aviator and flight surgeon, was working on many experiments, including numerous biological ones. I think, though, that he will be remembered for his question before the return flight -- "Do we really have to come back?"

No, David, I guess you didn't. I hope you are where you would have wanted to be.

Name: Kalpana Chawla
Position: Mission Specialist
Born in India in 1961, Chawla earned an aerospace engineering doctorate from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Chawla, who had logged more than 375 hours in space, was the prime robotic arm operator on a shuttle flight in 1997.

Name: Laurel Clark
Position: Mission Specialist
41-yr-old Clark, a U.S. Navy commander and flight surgeon, was making her first flight into space. A medical school graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Clark took part in a variety of biological experiments. They were completed, for the record, before the return, though the results may never now be known.

Name: Ilan Ramon
Position: Payload Specialist
Ramon, 47, was the first Israeli astronaut. A colonel and former fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, he saw combat experience in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the Lebanon War in 1982. The reports now seem to rule out terrorism as the cause of the shuttle's explosion; I am glad, fiercely glad, that his life and the memory of his achievements may remain unsullied.