NASA Day of Remembrance

Thank you, Brian
I sent it to my brother in law who works at KSC and they were not aware of it being on the web but thanks to you they now are. He used to work on Columbia so it has a special significance for him.
Again Thank you very much
Clear Skies
Peter

Leo Enright was on 2FM today talking about the two disasters and mentioned his talk tomorrow in Galway.

Ronan Newman
GAC

That is very nice Brian, thanks for the link.

Incidentally, that Columbia mission was the first space trip for William C. McCool, Ilan Ramon, David Brown, and Laurel Saltaon Clark - 4 of the 7 on board.

Seanie.

Hello,
We should also remember the fallen Soviet Cosmonauts. While Yuri Gagarin died in a plane crash in 1968 a number have died during space flights.

On April 23rd 1967 Vladimir Komarov died on the maiden voyage of the new soyuz spacecraft, the parachute failed to open after a troubled flight already cut short. He previously flew on Voskhod 1 the first multi crew spaceship in 1964.

On 30th June 1971 Georgi Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev returned to earth after a triumphant endurance record of 24 days in space while manning the first space station Salyut 1. Their spaceship soft-landed on the steppe of Kazakhstan. The landing crews opened the hatch to find the crew stapped in their seats and (as TASS put it ... I still remember the chilling words) without any signs of life.

John

john,
thanks for pointing those out. I have to say, apart from Yuri Gagrain's death, I had not known of the other cosmonauts misfortunes.

Further to the above posts, a very good book is available about all those who died in the early years of the space race including many who never flew into space. The book is "Fallen Astronauts" by Colin Burgess and Kate Doolin, with Bert Vis. The ISBN is 0-8032-6212-4 published by University of Nebraska Press, web is www.nebraskapress.unl.edu
I found it very informative and profoundly sad.

Regards and clear skies
Peter