Leading history
Black history month person of the day
Charles Richard Drew was bom June 3,1904, in
Washington, D.C. He attended Amherst College on a
scholarship, earning MVP honors in football and
graduating in 1926.
Drew earned a Rockefeller fellowship in 1938 to
study at Golumbia University and discovered that
the plasma in blood could be dried and stored with
out degrading. He used this discovery to begin
“banking blood” for later use.
Drew earned a doctor of science in 1940, becom
ing the first black to receive the degree. During
World War II, he was named medical supervisor of
blood for Britain, and his development of “bloodmo
biles” was credited with saving the lives of thousands
of soldiers.
The American Red Gross took over Drew’s opera
tion in America and named him the director of the
first Red Gross blood bank in 1941. At the time, how
ever, blood from blacks and whites was segregated,
and Drew resigned in protest of such discrimination.
Drew died in 1950 at age 45, after a car accident.
—Michael J. Kleckner
Investigation
continued from page 1
His account suggested that the
evidence so far points to a breach
in the heat protection system
along Columbia’s left side, partic
ularly on the left wing, which was
hit during liftoff by insulating
foam from an external fuel tank.
Speculation is now focusing on
the possibility that crucial ther
mal insulating tiles along that
wing were damaged or lost during
liftoff, flight or re-entry.
“We’re piecing together the puz
zle and we are beginning to make
progress,” Dittemore told a news
conference at the Johnson Space
Center in Houston.
Still, he cautioned against a
rush to judgment, saying that en
gineers were looking at many pos
sible causes of the accident and
that it was far too early to draw
any conclusions.
“I don’t have a smoking gun,”
he said. “I don’t have a root cause
... I haven’t ruled out anything.”
Columbia disintegrated 39
miles over Texas as it streaked to
ward a landing Saturday morning
at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
As NASA began collecting infor
mation, a grieving nation strug
gled to absorb the loss of Colum
bia and its seven astronauts.
“We grieve because they repre
sented the best in us, because part
of us has died,” the Rev. Luis Leon
told President Bush, his wife, Lau
ra, and other congregants at St.
John’s Episcopal Church, a block
from the White House.
The White House announced
that Bush would attend a memori
al service Tuesday at the Johnson
Space Center near Houston.
Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who
was briefed by NASA late Satur
day, said the discovery of body
parts on the ground suggested
that the crew compartment prob
ably remained relatively intact
during the accident, though it ap
parently was breached by debris
and sustained rapid, catastrophic
depressurization.
In Washington, NASA an
nounced the appointment of what
it called the Space Shuttle Mishap
Interagency Investigation Board,
naming as chairman retired Navy
Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr.
The space agency also has assem
bled an in-house board of inquiry.
“Our objective is to find out
what caused this, fix it and make
sure that we support the dream,
the vision that those folks gave
their lives to,” NASA Administra
tor Sean O’Keefe said on CBS’
“Face the Nation.” “We’re secur
ing all the debris and assuring that
we look at every possible angle.”
He and other NASA officials
said it was premature to speculate
about the possibility that an er
rant piece of insulation foam from
the shuttle’s external fuel tank
might have fatally damaged
thermal heat tiles on Columbia’s
left wing.
The budget President Bush will
send Congress on Monday will in
clude a $469 million increase in
funding for NASA, lifting the
agency’s total budget to $15.5 bil
lion for fiscal 2004, according to
a senior administration official
who spoke on the condition
of anonymity.
© 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services. Knight Ridder
Newspapers correspondents Seth
Borenstein, Ron Hutcheson, Shelley
Acoca, Peter Wallsten, Mike Lee
and Anthony Spangler contributed
to this report.
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Winner will be announced Monday, February 17th.
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13th & Agate Call 346-2770
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