June ellison nasa headquarters8/13/2023 ![]() Onizuka had some CU memorabilia with him on the Challenger such as a CU flag and football - now on display in the CU Heritage Center - as well as more important items with local connections. Lots of people liked to talk about Ellison.” It was a shock, and it occupied us for quite some time. I was going to run down to the television room where we had the launch on live, when I got a call from a colleague at the University of Texas and he told me what had happened. “We were just trying to finish up something. “I can still remember when we got the phone call” about the loss of the Challenger, said Culp, who lives in Northglenn. At that time, he was really more interested in airplanes than space.”Ĭulp said Onizuka secured both degrees in the same year - a rarity. He liked to sit and talk about the aerospace industry. “He was one of those students who came in to see me several times a week. “I was his adviser for both his bachelor’s and his master’s degrees in that department and knew him very well at that time,” Culp said. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences department. One of those connected with CU who remembers Onizuka best is Robert Culp, professor emeritus and former chair of the Ann and H. “I remember him as one that really tried be on top, and would do anything to get ahead,” she said. She still has great pride in what her brother accomplished in his 39 years. Flown by Ellison Onizuka for his daughter, a soccer player. ![]() 3: “This ball was on Challenger that fateful day. It’s there now, and Kimbrough sent out a picture of it with this tweet from his account on Feb. Engle suggested that the memento should be the soccer ball. However, Clear Lake Principal Karen Engle recently learned of the story behind the ball, and soon after, ISS Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough - whose son attends the same school - offered to take a school memento to the space station. It has been displayed there for the past 30 years. One item on board was a soccer ball, which had been signed and presented to him by soccer players - including his own daughter - from Clear Lake High School in Houston, which his daughter attended and is located near NASA’s Johnson Space Center.įollowing the catastrophic explosion of the Challenger 73 seconds after launch, killing everyone on board, that soccer ball was recovered and returned to the high school. 28, 1986, he carried several items with him. ![]() ![]() It’s a ball that, like Onizuka himself, had once been destined for space, before fate intervened.Īccording to NASA, when Onizuka and six other astronauts launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Jan. Ellison Onizuka lost his life on the space shuttle Challenger, his spirit is being remembered aboard the International Space Station, by way of a soccer ball from his daughter’s former school. More than 31 years after University of Colorado graduate Lt. ![]()
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