Moving exhibit pays tribute to lost space shuttles’ crews

With the blessings of all 14 families of lost astronauts, a new memorial to the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters opened in June at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The permanent exhibit includes the first pieces of shuttle wreckage ever on public display, but fittingly focuses more on the lives lost.

“Forever Remembered” is housed inside the space center’s new $100 million exhibit about the space shuttle Atlantis. Below the nose of the intact shuttle, visitors enter a hall lit by tributes to each astronaut from the lost missions, those from Challenger on the left and Columbia on the right. Each display includes glimpses of the astronaut’s life. Items include plans for remodeling the home of Challenger pilot Michael Smith and a recovered page in Hebrew from the Columbia flight journal of Ilan Ramon, a payload specialist and the first Israeli astronaut.

Past the hall, visitors enter a small gallery with a single piece of each shuttle: a body panel from Challenger (shown at left) and cockpit window frames from Columbia . There are no extended written descriptions or flashy videos. In short, it’s a place for pondering rather than learning. As a ninth-grader in school 50 miles away when Challenger exploded in 1986 and as an adult who waited for a telltale sonic boom that never came when Columbia was lost during re-entry in 2003, I found the effect powerful.

The exhibit’s exit hallway reveals the tragedies from multiple perspectives on video displays. One video details the massive efforts to recover the wreckage and remains from the disasters, from the ocean for Challenger and from land for Columbia. Others focus on the emotional tolls and the critical shuttle launches that followed each completed investigation.

Michael Curie, Kennedy Space Center’s news chief, says family members have been both supportive and grateful for the exhibit. “They feel that it humanizes their family members in a way that never has been done before,” he says. Indeed, “Forever Remembered” is an effective reminder of the very real risks each astronaut willingly and bravely faced.