Space shuttle tragedy claims 2 physicians
The doctors lost their lives when the Columbia broke up shortly before landing.
By Damon Adams, amednews staff. Feb. 17, 2003.
Laurel Blair Salton Clark, MD, and David M. Brown, MD, were proud of their first space mission. They knew the dangers, but accepted the risks to live out their dreams.
Their zest for adventure was among qualities family and friends remembered about the two physicians who died aboard the space shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1 with fellow astronauts Michael P. Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, and Ilan Ramon.
Dr. Brown, 46, grew up in Arlington, Va., and was a gymnast in college. He earned his medical degree in 1982 from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va., then later joined the U.S. Navy.
He served at a military hospital in Alaska and on an aircraft carrier before pursuing his love of flying and becoming a Navy pilot.
The naval flight surgeon was selected by NASA in 1996, the same year Dr. Clark was picked to be an astronaut.
Dr. Clark, 41, who was born in Iowa and raised in Racine, Wis., earned her medical degree in 1987 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School, then trained in pediatrics at a Navy hospital in Maryland. She became a submarine medical officer and served as a naval flight surgeon.
Dr. Clark sent an e-mail to family the day before she died. "Whenever I do get to look out, it is glorious," she wrote. "Even the stars have a special brightness."
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