Donors Honor Memory of Astronauts Lost in Crash of Space Shuttle

The loss this month of the space shuttle Columbia and its seven astronauts has prompted people across America and around the world to give money in hopes of commemorating the shuttle crew and helping to ease the financial burden on their families.

The Space Shuttle Children’s Trust Fund, in Washington, has received thousands of dollars for medical and educational expenses for the astronauts’ families — particularly their 12 children.

The fund, which was set up in 1986 after the Challenger shuttle exploded shortly after liftoff, subsequently raised about $1.2-million for the Challenger astronauts’ families, including their 13 children, which helped send most of the children through college and cover the cost of psychological counseling. Most donations came in the first two years after the accident, though some have continued to trickle in as recently as last year.

Delbert D. Smith, a Washington lawyer who is also chairman of the fund’s board of trustees, said he didn’t know how much was likely to be raised this time. “It could be $5,000 or $500,000.”

Small donations — checks for $10, $25, and similar amounts — started flowing into the reactivated fund as soon as it announced its mailing address. Several grant makers are considering substantially larger gifts, as well. Even before the Columbia was lost, the fund still contained more than $1-million because money not used for the Challenger crew’s families has been continuously reinvested.

A number of organizations and individuals around the country have held fund-raising events or auctions to raise money for the astronauts’ families. The World Golf Village, near St. Augustine, Fla., for example, said it would donate $5,218 it received from its IMAX movie showings on February 8 to the Space Shuttle Children’s Trust Fund. “We are glad we could do something to help the 12 children left behind as a result of this national tragedy,” said Jack Peter, chief operating officer of the World Golf Hall of Fame, which oversees the IMAX theater there.

Concern About Fraud

Several items have been offered on eBay, the online auction site, with the sellers’ promise that proceeds would benefit the Columbia astronauts’ families. But an eBay spokesman warned buyers to beware of pranksters and con artists, and various government officials have also cautioned the public against the possibility of specious e-mail and telephone solicitations purportedly to benefit the families.

“With the nation still grieving over the loss of these American heroes in the skies above Texas, we now have information that professional scam artists are using this tragedy to prey on the good will of our people,” said Greg Abbott, the attorney general of Texas.

Other charities have reported an outpouring of support in the wake of the shuttle disaster.

Thousands of people around the world, for instance, have donated money to plant trees in Israel in memory of Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut, or in memory of the entire Columbia crew.

In a conversation from space with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Col. Ramon had expressed the wish that some 13 million trees be planted there in the next year.

After that conversation, and even before the shuttle disintegrated during its return to earth, the Jewish National Fund noticed an uptick in tree donations, which it solicits by telephone and on its Web site.

Since the loss of the shuttle on February 1, the organization has been receiving two to three times the normal rate of around 600 phone donations a day, and 10 times the normal rate of about 100 donations a day via its Web site.

Many donors are choosing to forward to the Ramon family or the other astronauts’ families the certificates of appreciation they receive for their gifts.

“The response we’ve had is coming from Jews and non-Jews alike,” said Russell F. Robinson, chief executive of the Jewish National Fund, which plants between three million and four million trees a year. “A lot of people recently have seen the world falling apart,” he said. “What better way to bring new life out of a tragedy than to plant a tree in the land of Israel?”