space shuttle columbia disaster start date

Space shuttle columbia disaster start date upgrade#
Space shuttle columbia disaster start date tv#

It's a rural community and was even more so when Ellison Onizuka was born there in June 1946, less than a year after the conclusion of World War II. KEALAKEKUA, HAWAII, SITS on the western side of the Big Island. It is quite literally my last fond memory of my dad face-to-face.' 'I can still smell the grass on the practice field. 'I'll always remember this night,' Janelle later wrote.

Janelle said goodbye to her dad and watched as he jogged back across the field with the ball in his hands, jumping, carefree, across a little ditch. The players on the team presented Ellison with the ball, looking one last time at all their names and 'Good Luck, Shuttle Crew!' written in careful strokes, knowing it was a way for each of them to be a part of the great human achievement of the time - a way to touch the heavens.

But there he was, jogging across the practice field, and suddenly the whole evening buzzed with the electric feeling of being part of something special as a kid - literally, in this case, part of something far beyond your own small world. Janelle hadn't seen him for weeks the astronauts were kept isolated before missions to avoid getting sick. The mid-January evening that Ellison came to pick up the ball was one of those nights he was supposed to be in quarantine. 'None of us would know until we'd see him at the corner of the fence. 'He was supposed to be in quarantine, and he would sneak out just to see a little bit of the game,' Lorna says. If he was on earth, Ellison tried his best to never miss a game. With Ellison's quick wit and Lorna's sweet demeanor, the two became fast friends with the other parents and coaches. Sternness just didn't suit him, especially when he was trying to avoid cracking a smile. El was an assistant coach for the team, though his former players said it was hard to take him seriously when he assigned drills. By all accounts it was unremarkable, except for one very remarkable fact: Janelle's dad, Ellison, was going to take it into space.Įllison and Lorna were big fans of the Lady Falcons. It was just a practice ball, a little scuffed up and not the best brand. All week, the team had been passing around a ball to sign. In January 1986, 'Rocky IV' was in theaters, gas was 93 cents per gallon and Janelle Onizuka was sitting through her sophomore classes at Clear Lake, waiting to get to soccer practice. Its campus is just 4 miles from Johnson Space Center in Houston, and many of the Falcons have at least one parent whose paycheck comes from NASA. But at 11:39 a.m., it became a relic.ĬLEAR LAKE HIGH School is perhaps the only place in the country where it's not all that strange to be the child of an astronaut. As the crew buckled into their seats and countdown progressed, it was just a ball. 28, 1986, and found something else for breakfast, the ball sat in Ellison's locker on board the shuttle.

There on Lorna's television, inside the 4.4 million-pound launchpad assembly, inside the space shuttle, inside the crew cabin, inside a locker, inside a black duffel bag, was a soccer ball.Īs the Onizuka girls woke up on Jan. 'I guess we're going to launch tomorrow,' Ellison said on the other end of the telephone.

Space shuttle columbia disaster start date tv#

Lorna turned on the TV at the house they had rented for the occasion and relayed what she saw: The 10th flight of the space shuttle Challenger was a go. It was late, later than her husband, Ellison, should have been up, but he was restless inside the crew quarters at Kennedy Space Center and wanted to know whether there was news about tomorrow. This would become important later, but for now, it affected only breakfast. The temperature that night in Cape Canaveral, Florida, dropped to 18 degrees, well below the average low of 50. She and their two daughters, Janelle and Darien, wouldn't be able to have cereal the next morning because she'd left the milk on the porch and it was frozen solid. THE LAST TIME Lorna Onizuka spoke to her husband, she mentioned milk. This story, about the soccer ball that survived, was originally published on June 29, 2018. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, and all seven members of the crew were killed. NASA astronaut Ellison Onizuka's soccer ball that survived the Challenger explosionĮditor's note: Thirty-five years ago, on Jan.

Space shuttle columbia disaster start date upgrade#

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