"Each of these astronauts had the daring and the discipline required of their calling. Each of them knew great endeavors are inseparable from great risk, and each of them accepted those risks willingly, even joyfully, in the cause of discovery.� For these seven, it was a dream fulfilled."
"All mankind is in their debt."
President Bush gave a brief rundown on each member of the Columbia crew.
_Air Force Col. Rick D. Husband, shuttle commander, 45, "was a boy of four when he first thought of being an astronaut. As a man and astronaut, he found it was even more important to love his family and serve his Lord."
_Columbia pilot William C. McCool, 41, "known by friends as the most steady and dependable of men."
_Ilan Ramon, 48, the much-decorated Israeli air force colonel and hero, "was a patriot, the devoted son of a Holocaust survivor, served his country in two wars."
_Navy flight surgeon David Brown, 46, "thought of astronauts as a boy as 'movie stars' and grew up to be a physician, an aviator who could land on the deck of a carrier in the night and a shuttle astronaut."
_Navy flight surgeon Laurel Clark, 41, "a physician and a flight surgeon who loved adventure, loved her work, loved her husband and her son. A friend who heard Laurel speaking to mission control said, 'There was a smile in her voice' ".
Payload commander Michael P. Anderson, 43, "was a role model, especially for his two daughters and for the many children he spoke to in schools; who once told his minister, 'If this thing doesn't come out right, don't worry about me, I'm just going on higher' ".
_Mission specialist Kalpana Chawla, 41, "She left India as a student, but she would see the nation of her birth, all of it, from hundreds of miles above."
The president and first lady were accompanied on Air Force One here by Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to walk on the moon. Former senator and astronaut John Glenn and his wife, Annie, also were on the board along with O'Keefe and a delegation of congressional figures.