CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Crews aboard the International Space Station paid tribute Sunday to thousands killed Sept. 11, saying that a shuttle-borne U.S. flag retrieved from the World Trade Center rubble symbolizes the nation's recovery from history's worst terrorist attacks.
With shuttle Endeavour and the station flying high above the American heartland, astronaut Dom Gorie noted that the flag was found in the mountain of debris created when New York's two 110-story World Trade Center towers collapsed.
"It has a few tears in it. You can still smell the ashes, and when we first saw it, we were amazed that this flag survived," the shuttle mission commander said.
"Just like out country, it's a little bit bruised and battered and torn. But with a little repair, it's going to fly as high and as beautiful as it ever did. And that's just what our country is doing."
Launched last Wednesday on NASA's first post-Sept. 11 shuttle flight, Endeavour is carrying the World Trade Center flag as well as 10,000 small U.S. flags that will be distributed to families of those killed when hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers, the Pentagon and rural Pennsylvania.
A poster bearing the photographs of the 343 firefighters lost in the New York attack also is onboard along with a fire department flag and the shields of the 23 New York City police officers killed responding to the grisly scene.In addition, a U.S. Marine Corp flag recovered from a burning conference room in the Pentagon is packed away on Endeavour along with a U.S. flag that was flying over the state capitol in Pennsylvania that day.
"The American space program has a long history of flying items to commemorate courageous acts," Gorie said, "and this flight is no exception. We have literally thousands of items on this flight" to honor both Sept. 11 heroes and victims.
Fellow astronaut Frank Culbertson, meanwhile, recalled watching the billowing clouds of smoke that rose up from New York City in the aftermath of the attack.
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"We were flying over North America at the time, so we were able to look out one of the windows and actually see New York City under attack," said Culbertson, who has been onboard the station since August with Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin.
"That was quite a disturbing sight, as you can imagine, to see my country under attack. And we could see the smoke streaming off to the south. We could see the smoke cloud over New York. And I believe all three of us were thinking how terrible this must be for the people that were at the point of the attack and for their families," he said.
"The same thing was true for Washington, D.C. as we flew over that an hour-and-a-half later, with the smoke over the Pentagon."
In space since August, Culbertson and his two colleagues were the only three people living off the planet on Sept. 11. A retired Navy captain, Culbertson was a U.S. Naval Academy schoolmate of the pilot of the hijacked commercial airliner that crashed into the Pentagon.
"All of us were affected by that day greatly. All of us thought about it and talked about it a lot onboard, and we've received a lot of messages from people around the world in support of what we are doing, and in support of the United States and the response that was necessary due to this terrorist threat. And obviously it affects everybody all around the world," he said.
"So to all those who lost loved ones, to all those who worked so hard to help people survive, and to the people who are trying so hard to stop this threat, we wish you the best," Culbertson added. "We have thought about you often over the last three months. And we will continue to think of you and keep you in our thoughts."
Culbertson and his two cosmonaut colleagues are due to return to Earth aboard Endeavour on Dec. 16. Their replacements -- Russian cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko and U.S. astronauts Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz -- were ferried up to the station aboard the shuttle and will remain at the outpost until mid-May.
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