NASA's missions were the centers to communities

By Tatsha Robertson, Globe Staff, 2/3/2003

OUSTON -- They attend neighborhood meetings and help monitor science projects at elementary schools. They make small talk at cocktail parties and dine regularly with co-workers at restaurants.

Although the faces of astronauts and other NASA employees may adorn a wall at their favorite restaurants, the men and women whose jobs once seemed so exceptional have become pretty much like everyone else who resides in the small, tightly knit communities near the Johnson Space Center. Astronauts and NASA scientists are as common in those communities south of Houston as Harvard professors in Cambridge, but residents say the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew on Saturday has reminded them of the risk and importance of the work done at the space center.

''This is just so heavy on my heart. It's like a load of bricks,'' said Randy Armstrong, a NASA employee who had met a few of the Columbia crew members. ''We work with each other and go to the same churches and schools. . . . You don't think much of it until something like this happens. I think a lot of people will realize how dangerous the work is.''

Early yesterday morning, residents packed churches. Hundreds of people pulled out large bouquets of red roses and other flowers from their trunks and trekked to a large memorial at the space center. There the names of 10 other dead astronauts are carved in granite.

Donya Easterly, a teacher, was with her three children and husband at the memorial.

''I see the astronauts and engineers all the time. They are all like one big family,'' she said. ''I have taught their children.''

Her husband, Thomas, said: ''I think people are going to look at astronauts a little differently. It will make people realize that these people are risking their lives.''

Before the National Aeronautics and Space Administration started in 1958 and before future astronauts began arriving in Houston for training, the communities here were only small, sleepy towns, said the Rev. Charles Anderson of Friendswood United Methodist Church.

Many employees began to move into El Lago, a town 3 miles east of the space center, because it was one of the few existing communities when the facility was built in the 1960s. Forty-six of El Lago's former and current residents have viewed earth from space, according to Brad Emel, mayor of the city of 3,000.

Neil Armstrong lived in El Lago when he began training in the 1960s. So did Edwin E. ''Buzz'' Aldrin and many others whose flags and patches are honored on the walls of City Hall. Ronald E. McNair, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who died in the 1986 Challenger disaster with six other crew members, was an El Lago resident, too.

''Most people who live here have family involved in the space industry one way or another,'' Emel said.

But the mayor said he is seeing fewer astronauts in the community and wonders if it is because fewer people are pursuing the demanding career.

''They were like rock stars,'' he said. ''It's just not as glamorous as it once was.''

Standing outside the space center, Alyssa Bodell, 11, said the disaster had not stopped her from wanting to become an astronaut. On Saturday, she waited in front of the television, hoping to see the shuttle land. Columbia crew member Rick D. Husband had visited her school for several weeks to assist students with a science project. The students at Stewart Elementary in Kemah grew crystals that were taken into space by the crew members. Bodell's grandmother, Tracy Bunting, assured her yesterday the experiments that the crew completed in space, but that were destroyed when the shuttle disintegrated, had not been performed in vain.

''Although a lot of experiments did not come back, they will still help out, and we will still know their effects,'' because data were sent back during the 16-day trip, Bunting told Bodell.

Graciela Floyd hugged her son Evan, 11, and daughter Corie, 10, as they stood at the memorial. Floyd said she saw the astronauts -- especially Kalpana Chawla and Dr. Laurel Blair Salton Clark, the two female crew members, and Michael P. Anderson, an African-American -- as role models to her children.

''I am very gung-ho about telling women that they can achieve anything they set their mind to,'' she said through tears.

Much about the area speaks of its triumphs in space exploration. The main street leading to the space center is called NASA Road 1. There is Gemini Street, for the two-man missions in the 1960s. In El Lago, there is McNair Park, named after the fallen astronaut.

The Rev. Charles Anderson said that when he looks at his congregation and sees a number of astronauts he often discerns them by which space flight they were on.

''When I talk about generations during the sermons, I am not talking about parents and grandparents, but I am talking about who was on Gemini, Apollo, the space lab, and the space shuttle,'' he said.

Jim Purcell, an usher at the church and a Boeing employee, said the intensity of space-related work helps bring the community together.

''You see people you work with in the grocery store, at schools, in the soccer fields, and in church,'' said Purcell. ''What connects the people is the passion they have for their work.''

Yesterday, Anderson and Purcell led residents into three crowded memorial services. Most of those who attended were somehow connected to the space center, Purcell said. Two men in attendance were astronauts who were either training or planning for a space flight in 2004.

Anderson urged his congregation to focus on healing, and not as much on getting answers about the cause of the tragedy.

''Not that we don't want them. After all, we're surrounded by scientists, we are engineers. NASA is a great problem-solving institution,'' he said.

''Many residents in this room have given their full adult lives to generating answers. . . . We want answers, but are answers enough?''

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 2/3/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.