Craters named for Challenger crew

[Dr Mordrid]

Seven craters in the Moons Apollo Basin have been named for the crew of Challenger (OV-099) mission STS-51 L: Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Dick Scobee, and Michael Smith

I can only add this;

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr. (US)
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941 when his
Spitfire collided with an RAF trainer

[Wulfman]

I hate to be inappropriate about this, but who thought it would be a wise choice to name craters after people who died hitting earth too fast?

mfg
w

[Dr Mordrid]

These aren't the first, and all such memorials are made only after approval by the International Astronomical Union.

Both the US and Russia have named lunar craters as a memorial to fallen astro/cosmo-nauts, regardless of what point during the mission they're lost. I would expect the same will eventually be done for the crew of Columbia.

Apollo 1 (1967): fire during pad capsule tests

Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom
Edward White
Roger Chaffee

Soyuz 1 (1967): electrical and parachute failures - impacted at 140 kph

Vladimir Komarov (Yuri Gagarin was his backup)

Soyuz 11 (1971): depressurization after mission module separation

Vladislav Volkov
Georgi Dobrovolski
Viktor Patsayev