NASA's Day of Remembrance ...

This week is one of the most painful for those who follow the manned-space exploration program as we mark the following anniversaries:

January 27, 1967 - the three members of the Apollo 1 mission were killed on the pad, during a fire in their crew capsule. Lost were Virgil "Gus" Grissom (pilot for the Liberty Bell-7 Mercury Mission); Edward White (made America's first spacewalk); and Roger Chaffee (a rookie astronaut).

January 28, 1986 - all seven members of the 51-L space shuttle mission were killed 75 seconds after launch, due to a failure of the "O-Rings" on one of the rolid rocket boosters lifting the Challenger orbiter into space. Lost were Greg Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, and Dick Scobbe

February 1, 2003 - all seven crew members on the orbiter Columbia were lost during re-entry, due to a failure of the orbiter's thermal protection tiles. Lost were Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon.

Even as the NASA family grieves and reflects on these accidents, the world tends to overlook the other space explorers who lost their lives in the name of manned-space explorations. To date, according to the best records and assessments, 18 astronauts and cosmonauts have been killed by in-flight accidents, 11 cosmonauts and astronauts have been killed during training accidents, and launch pad accidents have killed at least 70 members of various ground crew.

March 23, 1961 - Cosmonaut-in-training Valentin Bondarenko was killed in a flash fire while sealed in a chamber filled with pure oxygen. (There is some question if the Soviet government had made public this loss would the Apollo 1 accident have occured, as the two situations were close to identical.)

October 31, 1964 - Astronaut-in-training Theodore Freeman was killed after ejecting from his jet-trainer.

February 28, 1964 - intended crew of the Gemini 9 mission, Elliott See and Charles Bassett, were killed when their jet trainer crashed into the McDonnell aircraft facility, while trying to land in poor weather.

April 24, 1967 - Soyuz 1 accident. Vladimir Komaroc was killed when the capsule's parachute failed to open properly following reentry. He died on impact.

October 5,1967 - back-up crew member for the Apollo 9 mission, Clifton William was killed in another accident involving his jet trainer. (He was also slated to be the Lunar Module pilot for the Apollo 12 mission.)

November 15, 1967 - pilot in the X-15 program, Michael J. Adams, was killed during re-entry failure of his test craft. As Adams had flown higher than an altitude of 50 miles, he was (posthumously) awarded astronaut wings.

December 8, 1967 - (intended) first African-American astronaut was killed in an accident with his training jet.

March 27, 1968 - first man in space and first man to orbit the earth, Yuri Gagarin, was killed in his jet trainer while preparing for the Soyuz 3 mission.

June 30, 1971 - Soyuz 11 accident. Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov were killed after undocking from the Salyut 1 space station, due to a valve failure leading to de-pressurization.

While I understand the desire to mourn the individual losses and the desire to remember the American and Soviet/Russian accidents separately, I feel very strongly that there needs to be a public acknowledgement of all of those who have lost their lives in the pursuit of the exploration of space. One thing that almost all space-travelers have reported, when they've returned to earth, is how, from space, the world is one - there are no borders: we are united as being the inhabitants of this one beautiful, vulnerable world.

Astronaut Willie McCool, killed last year in the loss of the Columbia orbiter, said:
From our orbital vantage point, we observe an earth without borders, full of peace, beauty and magnificence, and we pray that humanity as a whole can imagine a borderless world as we see it, and strive to live as one in peace. (January 29, 2003)

Perhaps it's time to stop thinking in terms of national borders, national space programs and acknowledge that these people died while advancing the manned-space program for all persons here on earth, and to remember them not as Americans, Soviets, Israelis, or Indians, but as united explorers and adventurers.