NASA’s fallen astronauts, including University of Colorado alumni Ellison Onizuka and Kalpana Chawla, who died in space shuttle calamities 17 years apart, were remembered on campus today under chilly and gray skies in an annual tribute.
CU cadets from the Air Force ROTC and Arnold Air Society held the somber memorial for Onizuka, Chawla and the other 12 astronauts who perished in the two disasters at 9:38 a.m. Saturday — the exact time of the Challenger disaster — outside the Regent Administrative Center.
After a wreathing at the memorial, the color guard led a procession on the footpath that follows the scale-model solar system from Fiske to the front of the Engineering Center complex, halting at the Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial.
There, short commemorations for each of the 14 astronauts were read one by one, as a single rose was laid upon the memorial for each astronaut.
