ARLINGTON, Va. -- Vice President George Bush and NASA administrator James Fletcher pulled the cords on a sky-blue wrap Saturday to unveil a new memorial to the seven astronauts killed in the shuttle Challenger explosion.
Shivering in a cool breeze on the first full day of spring, friends and family of the space shuttle's crew watched the dedication at Arlington National Cemetery, where Bush told the gathering: 'We meet on these hallowed grounds, surrounded by many of America's silent heros to honor seven astronauts who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
'We promise that we shall not forget,' he said.
The memorial to the seven astronauts -- who died when the shuttle exploded Jan. 28, 1986 -- is a rectangular bronze plaque on a gray Vermont marble stone. In the center of the plaque is a seven-pointed star with a bas-relief of the Challenger in the middle and portraits of the astronauts at the points of the star.
Below the circle of astronauts are billows of bronze contrails surrounding the dedication: 'In grateful and loving tribute to the brave crew of the United States space shuttle Challenger, 28 January 1986.'
The memorial, ordered by a congressional resolution last June, was designed by Sarah LeClerc of the Army Institute of Heraldry. Relatives of the Challenger crew approved the design and it was sculpted by Donald Borja, also of the Army institute.
The shuttle memorial is only a few feet away from the grave of shuttle commander Francis 'Dick' Scobee. Shuttle astronaut Michael Smith also is buried at Arlington.
New Hampshire school teacher Christa McAuliffe, who was to be the first 'private citizen' in space, was buried in her hometown of Concord. Ellison Onizuka was buried in Hawaii. Ronald McNair was buried in his hometown of Lake City, S.C. The ashes of Gregory Jarvis were scattered over the Pacific Ocean. Marvin Resnik, the father of astronaut Judith Resnik, has never disclosed where his daughter was buried.
The simple 30-minute ceremony included music by the Air Force Band, a presentation of colors by the Joint Armed Forces Color Guard and brief remarks by Bush and Fletcher.
As Bush and Fletcher inspected the memorial, the band played softly as the the poem, 'High Flight,' by John Magee Jr was read: 'Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.'
As the reader spoke the final words of the poem, four jets from the Tactical Air Command at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va., flew over in formation.
Just overhead, one of the planes peeled off from the other three in the traditional 'missing man' formation and ascended sharply into the heavens, just disappearing as a speck in the blue as the speaker read: 'And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.'
