The following is a statement by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin on NASA’s Day of Remembrance. The Day or Remembrance honors those who gave their lives for the cause of exploration and discovery. This includes NASA employees, the astronauts who died in Apollo 1 and on the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia.

“Today we pause to remember the loss of all of our employees, including our Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia astronauts, and to honor their legacy. Nearly 50 years into the space age, spaceflight remains the pinnacle of human challenge, an endeavor just barely possible with today’s technology. We at NASA are privileged to be in the business of learning how to do it, to extend the frontier of the possible, and, ultimately, to make space travel routine. It is an enormously difficult enterprise. The losses we commemorate today are a strong and poignant reminder of the sternness of the challenge.”

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