There are two mission patches I attached to the front of our flight software station monitors. One is a special commemorative patch for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission next month.
The other is for STS-107, the ill-fated final flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, which burned up on re-entry on Feb 1, 2003, taking the lives of its crew: Col. Rick Husband (USAF), the commander; Cdr William McCool (USN), the pilot; mission specialists Cpt David Brown (USN), Dr. Kalpana Chawla, and Cpt Laurel Clark (USN); Lt. Col. Michael Anderson (USAF), payload commander; Col. Ilan Ramon (IAF), payload specialist.
In the wake of that tragedy emerged President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration," realigning the US human space flight program to the Moon and Mars after decades of NASA focusing on the Shuttle and International Space Station in low Earth orbit. (No human has gone beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.)
LRO is the first step in the Vision for returning humans to the lunar surface. In a way, this entire project can be seen as a memorial to the Columbia crew. We honor their memory by blazing what he hope is a permanent trail to the Moon...not to visit in several isolated areas as Apollo did, but to explore it in its entirety, and to maintain a permanent human presence.
LRO is the first step in the Vision for returning humans to the lunar surface. In a way, this entire project can be seen as a memorial to the Columbia crew. We honor their memory by blazing what he hope is a permanent trail to the Moon...not to visit in several isolated areas as Apollo did, but to explore it in its entirety, and to maintain a permanent human presence.
An undertaking of this scale would require the support of Presidents and Congresses spanning decades. Its first test has already begun: President Obama has appointed a commission to review the Vision. Its report will be released later this year.
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