Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Memorial: ‘Forever Remembered’ Honors The Memory Of The Crews From The Challenger And Columbia Disasters [Video]

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex has opened an exhibit titled “Forever Remembered.” The exhibit is dedicated to the memory of the 14 astronauts who lost their lives in the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, two of the biggest space shuttle disasters in NASA’s history. The Kennedy Space Center Memorial takes up 2,000 square feet of space and took four years to complete.

A small ceremony attended by family members of the astronauts opened on June 27, 2015. Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden opened the exhibit with comments as to why this exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center is so important.

“The crews of Challenger and Columbia are forever a part of a story that is ongoing. It is the story of humankind’s evolving journey into space, the unknown, and the outer-reaches of knowledge, discovery, and possibility. It is a story of hope.

“I believe that it’s important to share this story with everyone, and not just push it aside, or try to hide it. These crews and these vehicles are part of who we are as an agency and a nation. They tell the story of our never-ending quest to explore, and our undying spirit to never give up.”

The memorial is designed to be an emotional experience. Mike Ciannilli, NASA’s lead on the Kennedy Space Center shuttle memorial, talked about the emotional experience of “Forever Remembered.”

“Emotion is timeless. It’s important that we don’t lock this experience into a certain time, a certain place.”

The memorial includes items that show achievements each astronaut made in their lives and personal items that give visitors an idea of who these brave men and women were. Along with the personal items, the memorial also houses pieces of the actual shuttles.

On January 28, 1986, the Challenger lifted off in the early morning and was embarking on its 10th mission. A catastrophic booster failure occurred just over a minute into flight. The shuttle exploded and killed all seven astronauts on board. Seventeen years later, NASA experienced another tragedy.

January 16, 2003, the Columbia space shuttle took off on a 16-day mission. Completing its science mission, Columbia reentered Earth’s atmosphere on February 1, 2003. A piece of foam from the external fuel tank had broken off during the shuttle’s launch. When the foam piece broke off, it impacted with one of the wings and damaged it. When Columbia reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, the intense heat created a problem in the wing where the foam had caused damage. This caused the structure of the shuttle to become compromised, causing the catastrophic failure that killed all seven astronauts.

The Kennedy Space Center memorial ends the tour by showing a video of the long process of salvaging what they could and trying to figure out exactly happened.

[Image via Jared Haworth/Spaceflight Insider]