NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Workers at NASA’s New Orleans plant dedicated a memorial for the space shuttle Columbia astronauts on Tuesday, the two-year anniversary of the disaster that killed all seven aboard.The memorial is a 13-foot stainless steel sculpture that will stand in front of the plant in eastern New Orleans where contractor Lockheed Martin assembles the external fuel tanks that propel shuttles during liftoff.
Columbia was destroyed on Feb. 1, 2003, as the spacecraft re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. The astronauts were Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Rick Husband, William McCool and Ilan Ramon.
NASA has said the next shuttle mission, its first since Columbia, will be this spring.
