CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- An American flag that was flying over the Pentagon when a hijacked airliner crashed into it on Sept. 11 will be launched into space during NASA's next shuttle mission to the International Space Station.
What's more, another U.S. flag that flew over the World Trade Center in New York that day will make the round trip aboard shuttle Endeavour on the same flight -- a mission to ferry a new crew to the station and then return to Earth with its current tenants.
A day after NASA launched a campaign to fly 10,000 U.S. flags aboard Endeavour for the families of Sept. 11 victims in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, agency chief Dan Goldin expanded the scope of the effort.
"We're going to take two additional payloads," Goldin said Friday in an interview on CNN. "One will be the flag that flew over the Pentagon when the plane went into it, and the second is a flag that was recovered from the World Trade Center."
Also going up: A still-to-be-determined cargo that will pay tribute to the heroes and victims aboard the airliner that crashed into rural Pennsylvania, a commercial jet which federal authorities think was being routed to a terrorist target in the nation's capital.
In addition, mementoes from police precincts, fire squads and emergency services taking part in the rescue and recovery efforts will be flown to the station and back, and the astronauts involved in the mission likely will stage a special tribute from orbit."There are some other things that are in the works, and you're likely to see some other things happen during the mission itself," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said.
A native of the Bronx, Goldin met with rescue and recovery workers at the World Trade Center site earlier this week and was stunned by the carnage.
"What struck me was that on television you cannot feel the full sense -- the smell, the sounds, the sights, the thousands of people working there -- it was unbelievable. I just lost it," Goldin told CNN. "I just couldn't believe what one man, one human could do to another."
Equally astounded by the devastating attack: U.S. astronaut and station commander Frank Culbertson, who videotaped the towering cloud billowing up from the World Trade Center from an orbit high above Earth.
"Commander Culbertson was the only American off the surface of the planet, and he was there with two Russians. It was very difficult for him," Goldin said in a separate interview with NBC's Today Show.
"It was gripping being away -- feeling that alienation from not being with family and loved ones, not being able to be part of it," he added. "They were 300 miles above the surface of the Earth, and they were able to see the tragedy unfold."
With the nation still coming to grips with the attacks, Goldin said NASA officials thought that the flag campaign would be a fitting tribute to the victims and survivors.
"A lot of the people are having a difficult time bringing to closure the fact they've lost their loved ones and their remains may not ever be found, and the thought was that the American flag stands for a lot of things," Goldin told CNN.
"It stands for the stability of this country, the freedom we have, and in the future, it stands for the fact that terrorism is going to end. We're going to fight it. We're going to win, and bring hope to people," he added.
"So we said, 'what better way to celebrate the lives that were lost than to fly the American flag to the peaceful International Space Station.'"
Officials with the Pentagon, the city of New York and the state of Pennsylvania each have been asked to provide NASA with a list of victims and survivors so that the shuttle-flown flags can be distributed once Endeavour returns from the international station.
"We will bring them back, and within about a month of the time the shuttle Endeavour comes back, we'll have these flags to these wonderful people," Goldin said.
Escorting the postcard-sized flags back to Earth will be Culbertson and his two Russian crewmates -- cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin -- who were launched to the station in August aboard shuttle Discovery. The trio will return to Earth Dec. 10 aboard Endeavour, which is scheduled for launch Nov. 29 from Kennedy Space Center.
Four U.S. astronauts aboard Endeavour will ferry a new crew -- Russian cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko and U.S. flight engineers Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz -- up to the station during that flight. The so-called Expedition Four will remain in space until May 2002.
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