Monday, February 3, 2003
Visitors pay respects at Space Center
By ELENA YUDINA and AUDREY PARENTE
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITERS
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — With her head bowed, Vicki Balogh placed a single flower Sunday at the Astronaut Memorial.
Balogh was a senior in high school when she saw Challenger explode.
“Now we have to live through that again,” the Hernando County school teacher said.
Balogh and hundreds of visitors filed into the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex near Titusville, where they were given orchids, tulips and roses to place around the 50-foot black granite wall etched with names of astronauts killed in the line of duty.
Many of the mourners, carrying flags, flowers and balloons, bypassed the visitor´s complex and were allowed to enter the memorial area for free.
The memorial behind the visitor complex is in clear view of the site where space shuttle Columbia was to have landed Saturday. Instead it broke apart in flames as it streaked over Texas at more than 200,000 feet, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
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Balogh was sad but expressed hope the space program would continue despite the tragedy.
“America is a strong country and our space program will get through this difficult time. I think we have to continue with our space program,” Balogh said.”
A family from Palm Bay was at the memorial for a second day. Andy and Ann Hudak, with their three daughters – Anna, 6, Amanda, 10, and Alyssa, 11 – came Sunday laden with flags and flowers.
“We wanted the girls to see the memorial one last time before seven more names have to be added,” said Ann Hudak.
One person who came to express his grief over the loss of Columbia, Japanese scientist Yutaka Takumi, tucked a bouquet of roses into the hedges near the entrance. He then lowered his head in prayer.
Takumi, a professor from Shinshu University, said he was involved with an experiment that had been placed aboard space shuttle Columbia.
“We were studying the balance of the inner ear, and that experiment was on the shuttle,” Takumi said. “Yesterday we arrived at Kennedy Space Center to witness the landing of the shuttle and planned to receive the results of that experiment.”
But all the data was lost.
Takumi said he still was numb Sunday while he and about 10 of the other scientists conducting experiments that put 13 rats aboard the shuttle paused and took photos of the expanding array of flowers at the memorial site. Their project involved four countries and 20 researchers, he said.
One other science professor, Yoshinobu Ohira from Osaka University in Japan, said he has been involved in space research about 20 years. The specific experiment he was working had taken two years to develop.
“We are going back to the hotel to wait for a phone call from NASA,” Ohira said. “We want to go in and clean up the lab (at Cape Canaveral).”
He said the space program should continue.
“And we hope that this tragedy won´t stop our research,” he said.
Elena Yudina is a journalist from Siberia taking part in a two-week internship at The News-Journal and was assisted by interpreter Natasha Metzger.
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