(Feb. 1, 2003) - Space shuttle Columbia disintegrated 39 miles over Texas on Saturday in a meteoric streak that rained smoking debris over hundreds of miles of countryside. 

All seven astronauts were lost, a tragedy that echoed the Challenger explosion almost exactly 17 years earlier.

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"The Columbia is lost. There are no survivors,"

said a grim-faced Bush in a message broadcast on television, which included condolences to the families 

of the dead astronauts. 

"Our entire nation grieves with you."

After the challenger explosion 17 years ago, President Reagan spoke to a stunned nation, saying: "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they…waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of Earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’"

The catastrophe occurred in the last 16 minutes of the 16-day mission as the spaceship glided in for a 

landing in Florida.

Ilan Ramon, 48, was a colonel in Israel's air force and the first Israeli in space.

Ramon was listed as a payload specialist. Ramon's mother was a Holocaust survivor from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The rest of the Columbia crew were Americans -- Mission Commander Rick Husband, Pilot William McCool, Payload Commander Michael Anderson, Mission Specialist David Brown, Mission Specialists Laurel Clark and Indian-born Kalpana Chawla.

CHALLENGER EXPLOSION

73 Seconds after a perfect take-off from Cape Canaveral, Jan. 28, 1986, the Challenger exploded into space.

Happier Times:

Space shuttle Columbia lifts off for it’s first mission April 12, 1981

Shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandles maneuvers through space in 1984 in a suit designed for individual propulsion.

Please pray for these people and their families

as they struggle through the grief and loss of these special people in their lives!

THANK YOU!

Images from Columbia