Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 09:27:29 -0500 (EST)
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Subject: Message From the Administrator - Day of Remembrance
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Point of Contact: Dean Acosta, Public Affairs, (202) 358-1400
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NASA's Day of Remembrance
Today we pause to remember the loss of our Apollo 1, Challenger and
Columbia
astronauts, and to honor their legacy. To this end, I will visit
Arlington
National Cemetery to lay a wreath in their memory.
Nearly fifty years into the space age, spaceflight remains the
pinnacle of
human challenge, an endeavor just barely possible with today's
technology.
We at NASA are privileged to be in the business of learning how to
do it, to
extend the frontier of the possible, and ultimately to make the
possible
routine. It is an enormously difficult enterprise, made more so by
the fact
that we are human beings, and flawed. The losses we commemorate
today are a
mute and terrible reminder of the sternness of the challenge, and
of awful
consequences of our flaws.
It has always been this way. We celebrate Lindbergh as the
first to fly
non-stop from New York to Paris. But he wasn't the first to try. Chuck
Yeager made history as the pilot who broke the "sound barrier." He
wasn't
the first to try, either. School children are taught of Magellan's
pioneering voyage around the world. But only one of his five ships
and 18 of
the roughly 250 original sailors completed the voyage. Magellan
himself
didn't make it back; he was killed in the Philippines. About half
of the
settlers who set out on the Oregon Trail, or for the California
gold fields,
didn't make it. Amelia Earhart didn't make it. Today is the day we
remember,
and honor, those of our own who didn't make it back.
And how do we remember, and honor, them? No one has ever said it
better than
Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg: "It is for us, the living ... that
we here
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain." And
just as we
fly safely today because of the lessons learned from the loss of
earlier
generations of aviators, so also is spaceflight safer because of
the losses
we remember at this time of the year. The spacecraft fire hazards
and the
bolted hatch that killed the Apollo 1 crew will not kill another.
The solid
rocket booster that was responsible for the loss of Challenger is
today the
most reliable space transportation element we have. And the
devastating
effects of seemingly harmless debris upon Columbia are forever
emblazoned on
our consciousness. These are mistakes that will not be made again.
But as we remember those who have fallen, we must also honor them by
acknowledging, humbly, that they cannot be the last. We have not
made our
last mistake in learning the art and science of spaceflight. There are
places in Arlington Cemetery, and elsewhere, waiting for others who
have yet
to pay the ultimate price for our human failings. We do not know
who, or
why, or when, but it will come. We pray, today, that it will be a
very long
time. Let us on this Day of Remembrance honor our lost companions by
resolving to make it so.
Michael Griffin
NASA Administrator
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