E-mail sent from orbit captures Space Shuttle Columbia astronaut Laurel Clark's final words to her family.
Personalitems from deceased love ones that preserve our last contacts with them and connect us with their lives and their final days on Earth - letters, journals, photographs, items of clothing - are usually treasured as special reminders of both the joy and fragility of those lives. Although the media through which we communicate may have changed, the poignancy of a loved one's last words to us has not. A final message might now consist of a collection of electrons beamed to us from thousands of miles away rather than a letter written with pen and paper, but it is the content of that communication as an expression of a unique and cherished personality that matters most to us, not its form.Space Shuttle Columbia astronaut Laurel Clark of Racine, Wisconsin, left many friends and relatives behind, including a husband and an 8-year-old son, when her life ended in the tragedy of 1 February 2003. The same technology that transmitted her last direct communication with her family is now being used by millions of people all over the world to share her final words with each other. There is little doubt that these were Laurel's final words to her family, because they match the description of Laurel's last message given by her brother, Daniel, in an interview with CNN anchor Paula Zahn the day after the Columbia disaster (and the message was circulating before David's description of it was first aired):It was an e-mail to all of her family. It was a very special e-mail for us because it was the last real communication we had directly from her. And she just talked about how thrilled she was to be up there, the view from up there, how great it was seeing different sites, being able to see on her very first day Wind Point in Wisconsin, which is where Racine is, and seeing something familiar there. Also different places around the world. And then getting into how blessed she felt to be serving her country and getting to do the medical experiments, working with scientists around the world and how thrilling it was. And really helping to share with us a little bit of what she was going through, what it was like to eat in space and how she was acclimating to it, and that she was having fun. And I think it was - it was great to get that at the end.
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