Families carry legacy of astronauts killed on space shuttle Columbia

When NASA's Columbia space shuttle was launched in January 16, 2003 carried a crew of seven astronauts who spent almost three years getting to know each other before venturing out on a 16-day scientific mission in space.

In July 2000, NASA selected astronauts Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark, Rick D. Husband and William C. “Willie” McCool, as well as Ilan Ramon of the Israeli Space Agency, for the mission.

During the day, the crew trained together, working on the camaraderie that would help them as a team. After work, crew members and their families would gather for barbecues and games of laser tag at each other's homes.

The crew of mission STS-107 it included five men and two women from diverse backgrounds, religions, interests and hobbies. But instead of letting their differences divide them, the coaches came together and encouraged each other, said Laura Husband, daughter of STS-107 Commander Rick Husband.

“I grew up seeing this beautiful picture from all these different perspectives, and they loved each other and worked so well together,” Laura told CNN . “They celebrated each other.”

Before launch, the crew took an outdoor integration trip in Wyoming. As shuttle commander, Rick thought this would help the team come together.

“I watched my dad really build a team, and he did that with our family too,” Laura said. “He was a good leader and a good team player.”

Crew member Brown filmed the journey. Before becoming a doctor and astronaut, he was a college gymnast who performed as an acrobat, 7-foot unicycle cyclist, and stilt walker.

Footage captured by Brown shows the crew members laughing and joking with each other, joking about campfire brownies that looked like bear poop, and anticipating their mission with infectious optimism.

“When they came back, it was as if their bond was forever,” said Rosalind Hobgood, NASA secretary to the crew, in the CNN documentary series. “They walked in sync with each other. It was like left, right, left, right. They were the Columbia crew. They were STS-107. They were a unit.”

After launching into space, the crew split into two teams to conduct dozens of experiments around the clock and collect valuable scientific data, while taking time to exchange emails and enjoy some video calls with their families.

When Columbia reentered Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003, the space shuttle disintegrated over Texas as a result of foam impact damage to the space shuttle's left wing after launch, and the crew was tragically lost.

Now, more than two decades after the loss of the Columbia astronauts, Their family members continue to honor the memories and legacies of their loved ones .

Making space flights safer

Jonathan Clark met his future wife, Laurel, at a U.S. Navy diving course for medical officers at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, Florida, in February 1989. But he joked that it wasn't like the iconic bar scene from the 1986 film “Top Gun”.

Jonathan and Laurel were paired with a diving partner each, and the two pairs were close during training. She had a tenacious spirit and was a natural in the water, swimming faster than all the men on the course “like a racing boat,” he said. She was incredibly calm under pressure, even when her diving helmet system flooded and she almost died.

After completing the course, the two went on diving trips together and formed a friendship that blossomed into a deeper relationship built on mutual respect and admiration, Jonathan said.

Laurel became one of the first female underwater medical officers and achieved numerous achievements before becoming an astronaut. She was a nature person and avid boater who loved camping and being outdoors. And she was always smiling.

“She was just a happy, positive role model,” he said. “And frankly, I absorbed a lot of who she was because I realized it was a better way for me, not just being that arrogant, macho kind of guy, but thinking things through and looking out for other people. She was very emotionally intelligent and had a wonderful ability to read people and be able to make any situation better.”

Laurel also enjoyed being a mother and excelled at it, Jonathan said.

“She made everything happy all the time,” her son, Iain Clark, said in the series. “She was my whole world. I depended a lot on my mother.”

The wisdom and insight Jonathan gained from Laurel helped him process his grief after losing her, he said. She taught him to accept reality but never abandon hope, and that human beings grow and learn from loss and hardship.

“What I'm doing now is working to make human spaceflight safer by focusing on the lessons we can learn after catastrophic events,” Jonathan said. “It’s not about finding who is guilty. It’s about finding the cause and dealing with it.”

Jonathan Clark was a flight surgeon in mission control at Johnson Space Center in Houston during Columbia's last mission. After the tragedy, he directed his efforts to the recovery and investigation that followed. He became a member of the crew's survival working group to determine the implications and lessons of what could have allowed the crew to survive, and how those lessons could be applied in the future.

“I see Columbia's legacy not only in the science they recovered from the mission, but also in the crew survivability improvements learned,” he said. “Spaceflight is now much safer than it used to be.”

Since leaving NASA in 2005, Jonathan has worked with companies on crew safety for space missions and other high-risk operations. And he discovered the “best job I never knew existed”: becoming a grandfather.

Iain Clark now has a daughter called Laurel, and she has many of her namesake's attributes, including a love of nature, water and the outdoors, “with an effervescent personality like you wouldn't believe,” Jonathan said.

“God gave Laurel back in a small way,” he said.

A journey of faith

Rick Husband and his future wife, Evelyn, grew up less than a mile from each other in Amarillo, Texas.

They attended the same high school but only started dating after meeting in college during a basketball game at Texas Tech University. Their first meeting was on January 28, 1977, and immediately, Rick knocked over a glass of water and hit his head on a light trying to clean up the mess.

Soon after, he told Evelyn that he wanted to be a Dallas Cowboys football player or an astronaut, but he didn't think being a football player was realistic, which made her laugh. Rick had worked toward his goal of becoming an astronaut since he was 4 years old.

The two married after college, focusing on growing in their faith together.

Rick was incredibly humble, Evelyn said. When people asked about his work, he simply said he worked for NASA, and only admitted to being an astronaut after further questioning, she said. For Rick, faith came first, family second and work third, Evelyn said.

No matter how demanding his job was, Rick always made time to spend with his family, his daughter Laura said. He decorated her ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars, acted in plays with her at church, and took her on father-daughter camping trips, creating sweet memories she still cherishes. She loved how silly he was and enjoyed hearing him sing because it was one of his favorite things.

Faith helped Evelyn and Rick navigate difficult times in their marriage, she said. When Rick went into quarantine to keep crew members from getting sick before launch, he told Evelyn, “I feel like we're in the best place in our marriage that we've ever been,” she recalled. And she told him that she felt the same.

From space, Rick and his family shared a video call on January 28, 2003, and Rick wished Evelyn a “happy anniversary.” It was the last time they spoke.

Evelyn and Laura relied on their faith to navigate their grief after the disaster, and they felt God protected them through the worst days, they said.

Eight months after the loss, Evelyn read the accident investigation report that was released. She remembers fighting her anger, realizing that NASA knew the foam impact could have caused a problem and that maybe something could have been done to save the crew. She prayed she wouldn't be bitter.

Since then, Evelyn has participated in seminars organized by NASA to remember the Columbia tragedy and share lessons learned, so that history never repeats itself.

“I have a lot of friends at NASA, and still do,” Evelyn said. “No one did this on purpose. NASA had to do a very difficult analysis after Challenger, and then they needed to do a very difficult analysis after Columbia. So it was super important for me to not be bitter and maintain that relationship with them, and it really paid off.”

Over the past 10 years, Evelyn has become the only female board member of a ministry called Fathers in the Field, a program that pairs mentor fathers with fatherless boys for a three-year commitment. She wishes her son, Matthew, could have had this experience after losing his father.

Laura was 12 years old when her father died, forcing her to grow up quickly. Now, she reflects on how intentional her father was with her time. Faith and her love of storytelling, singing, dancing and acting helped her along the way, she said.

“My desire is to live and promote beauty in the world and intentionally do something together with other people to bring hope in some way,” Laura said.

Growing up with the other children on the crew, Laura remembers the adults chatting over the barbecue while the youngsters went upstairs to play for hours.

Laura and Tal Ramon, Ilan Ramon's son, were only about a year apart in age, and they often painted or played the piano together. Now, Tal is a singer, songwriter, pianist and songwriter. And many of the kids at Columbia are creative in many ways – something that connects them beyond the tragedy.

“It's something that was in all of us, and maybe it's because we saw our parents do great things,” Laura said. “This gave us stability and security to dream big.”