BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – When Columbia and its crew did not make it back to Kennedy Space Center 15 years ago, a young Tal Ramon returned to Israel and found refuge in a piano his father, Columbia astronaut Ilan Ramon, sometimes played.
On Thursday, Tal Ramon performed two moving songs from his 2016 album, “Character,” during NASA’s annual tribute to fallen astronaut heroes at the KSC Visitor Complex.
“I’m just so emotional to be here with you,” Ramon told an audience at the Astronaut Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education, introducing an instrumental piece titled “Victoria.” “After everything that happened, even with the big tragedy, we believe that it’s such a big victory that we are here today to share their stories.”
KSC’s Day of Remembrance honored 24 astronauts killed in the line of duty, including the crews of Apollo 1 and the shuttles Challenger and Columbia, News 6 partner Florida Today reported.
“Many of the lessons learned in each case we had to learn again,” said Bob Cabana, KSC’s director and a four-time shuttle astronaut. “Now 15 years after Columbia, my goal is that we do not have to learn them yet again, that we do not repeat the mistakes of past as we move forward.”
After the hour-long ceremony, NASA astronauts, including Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, joined family members placing flowers before the Astronauts Memorial Foundation's Space Mirror Memorial, on which the 24 astronauts' names are engraved
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