Shuttle Tragedy Remembered at UTC

 

    

Following the tragic loss of seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Columbia, Dr. June Scobee Rodgers, widow of Challenger shuttle Commander Dick Scobee, used words of comfort and encouragement for the Columbia familyand the nation during a news conference at the Challenger Center, located on the UTC campus.

"My message would be that the world knows how they died, but for those astronauts, they were realizing a dream and we should keep their memories alive," Rodgers said. "There’s so much speculation about what’s happened, so many questions and there will be a time of investigation, a time to resolve any problems or issues, but we must go on. We have astronauts on the International Space Station, waiting to return home. The space program will move forward," she added.



 

 


A memorial service honoring shuttle commander Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, William McCool and Ilan Ramon was held at the Roland Hayes Concert Hall in the UTC Fine Arts Center last Tuesday, followed by CNN’s live coverage of the national memorial service
  And reporters from a variety of national news outlets have pursued Dr. Harry McDonald, UTC Chair of Excellence in Computational Engineering, who helps lead the UTC SimCenter. In 2002 he completed two three-year terms as the Director of NASA Ames Research Center. He is pictured here speaking in an on-camera phone interview with Lisa Myers of NBC Nightly News.