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Tying knot in Windsor:

Highlights of Harry’s
and Meghan’s big day.
USA TODAY, 1B
PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2018 FLORIDATODAY.COM

HIDDEN
GEM AT KSC
Art by space shuttle astronauts’ children
reminds us of the people behind space flight
Christina LaFortune FLORIDA TODAY
USA TODAY NETWORK - FLORIDA
Online
See a video of
Fly safe, we’re all proud of you! the decorated
You reached the next level of awesome- whiteboards at
ness!! Kennedy Space
I love you Daddy. Center at
Rainbows and rockets illustrate the floridatoday.com
heartfelt messages written by little
hands. Stars and moons smile over astro- For every Space
nauts and space dogs. And some mes- Shuttle mission
sages appear again and again: Good luck after the Challenger
and Godspeed! explosion, NASA
When space shuttles returned to flight encouraged the
in 1988 after the Challenger explosion, a astronauts' children
new tradition was born. Provided with
to decorate
whiteboards and colorful markers, the
whiteboards while
astronauts’ families were encouraged to
they waited for
express their feelings — anxiety, pride,
launch. The boards
fear, excitement — through art.
Today, almost 100 colorfully decorated remain on display in
whiteboards line the office hallways at Kennedy Space
Kennedy Space Center, tangible remind- Center offices,
ers of the real people behind the dream of tangible reminders
reaching for the stars. To these artists of the lessons of
and writers, the astronauts were not just the past.
national heroes, but Mom and Dad.
PHOTOS BY
See ART, Page 10A CHRISTINA LAFORTUNE/
FLORIDA TODAY

Texas shooting renews debate about American school design

Lisa Marie Pane
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Just hours after the nation’s latest
school shooting, the debate began
anew: Are American schools built in a
way that makes them easy targets? Are
there too many windows, too many en-
trances and exits and too few security
features?
The questions expose yet another di-
vide, with Second Amendment activists
and some security experts calling for
safer school designs and some gun-con-
trol advocates saying it’s a distracting
side issue that avoids more meaningful
action.
The debate began after the 1999 mass
shooting at Columbine High School in
Colorado and gained more attention in
the aftermath of the 2012 shooting at
Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Connecticut.
Friday, in the hours after a student
shot and killed 10 people at a high school
in Santa Fe, Texas, the state’s lieutenant
governor suggested again that it was
time to examine school layouts.
MORE INSIDE
Santa Fe, Texas community still reeling
after school shooting. 1B
“There are too many entrances and
too many exits to our over 8,000 cam-
puses in Texas,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick
said, explaining that those points can’t
all be guarded.
Gun-rights activists, led by the Na-
tional Rifle Association, have pushed for
a “hardening” of schools, including
training and arming educators and even
keeping shrubbery and landscaping far-
ther away from school buildings so there
are fewer blocked viewpoints. Reducing
the number of entrances is considered
another way to prevent shooters from
getting inside undetected.
According to a report last year in
Education Week, a trade publication,
the average age of an American school is
44 years with major renovations dating
back more than a decade. Older build-
See DESIGN, Page 12A

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10A ❚ SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2018 ❚ FLORIDA TODAY

Art
Continued from Page 1A

NASA has not exhibited the boards

publicly out of respect for the privacy of
the families who created them, but did
agree to give FLORIDA TODAY a look.
“It became a way to focus the chil-
dren’s energy, to express all that emo-
tion that they’re feeling. It’s powerful,”
said Michael Ciannilli, manager of
NASA’s Apollo, Challenger, Columbia
Lessons Learned Program.
The whiteboards helped the kids feel
connected to the launch, he said. And
drawing helped them share difficult
emotions.
People around the world breathed a
collective sigh of relief when Discovery
launched safely almost three years after
the 1986 Challenger explosion. But per-
haps no one felt the relief more keenly
than the astronauts’ children, who
gathered at KSC to watch their parents
go on the adventure of a lifetime, not
knowing whether they would come
home again.
“It was a lot harder to watch me
launch than it was to actually sit in the
rocket,” said astronaut Mike Good, a re-
tired U.S. Air Force colo-
nel who flew twice
aboard space shuttle At- ABOVE AND BELOW: For every Space Shuttle mission after the Challenger explosion, NASA encouraged the astronauts'
lantis. children to decorate whiteboards while they waited for launch. The boards remain on display in Kennedy Space Center
Good remembers the offices, tangible reminders of the lessons of the past. PHOTOS BY CHRISTINA LAFORTUNE/FLORIDA TODAY
difficult moment when
he had to pivot away from
Good his family and focus in- The whiteboard tradition continued
stead on the mission. His until the last space shuttle mission in
three grown children attended his shut- 2011. Ninety-seven times, shuttle astro-
tle launches, along with one grandchild nauts’ families gathered on launch days,
who was a baby at the time. Before en- unleashed their creativity and made art.
tering a pre-launch quarantine, the as-
tronauts had a chance to spend time Universal themes
with family and say goodbye.
“Everyone wishes you luck, and off The messages are personal, but they
you go,” he said. “There are some tears speak for thousands of well-wishers
shed at that goodbye, because there’s across the country and around the
the reality of it. This could be the last world. They speak for all of us who stood
time I see you, the last time I hug you, on the beach or lined the causeways to
the last time I kiss you goodbye.” feel the thrill of a launch, or who were
Before long, NASA began to see the ushered outside by teachers to watch a
whiteboards as far more than just a shuttle soar into the sky.
handy outlet for family members’ ner- Although we didn’t know the astro-
vous pre-launch energy. nauts personally, we cheered for them
“We saw that amazing works of art and feared for their safety as if we were
were being created,” Ciannilli said. “We family.
realized we have to capture this and pre- “That’s a big part of our mission: to
serve it for the future. And our apprecia- connect, not just with our families, but
tion for the art has only grown over the
years.” Continued on next page

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 FLORIDATODAY.COM ❚ SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2018 ❚ 11A

Continued from previous page

with everyone, and to bring the experi-

ence of flying in space back home to all
the people on the team, and all the peo-
ple in the country that are supporting
us,” Good said.

Outsider art

Most people, most of the time, don’t

go around writing about emotions. As
adults, many of us become uncomfort-
able if we are asked to express our feel-
ings, especially under highly charged
circumstances.
But the words and drawings on the
whiteboards are heartfelt, poetic in
their childlike exuberance. Some are
funny; one can almost see the pained
adolescent eyeroll that accompanied
I’ve been to Florida way too much, or the
toothy grin that almost certainly went
with Don’t break anything, Dad!
Some boards are elaborately decorat-
ed. Others resemble the autographed
pages of a high school yearbook,
scrawled with inside jokes and well
wishes.
Although the astronauts wouldn’t get
to see the whiteboards until after their
flights, the tradition was important to Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on the STS-132 mission in May 2010. NASA
the family members. “It was their way to
talk to us when we couldn’t be there, to
connect with us and wish us luck,” Good with time and perspective, the white-
said. “They were there with us.” boards have evolved into something
The boards are also dotted with fam- poignant. Tthe collection reflects a pow-
ous names. Bill and Hillary Clinton both erful human experience.
signed the whiteboard for Discovery’s
mission in October 1998, which saw Looking forward
John Glenn’s return to space. An upper
corner of that board reads, We’re proud While the whiteboards are not on
of you Grandpa! accompanied Daniel public display, they still play a valuable
Glenn’s drawings comparing “Grandpa role at Kennedy Space Center.
John” in 1962 and 1998. “We’re taking our past, and through
Among the most touching are the innovation, we’re effectively teaching
drawings by the youngest children. those lessons for a brand new genera-
Some of them are little more than tion,” Ciannilli said.
scrawls. Others depict the launch fil- The whiteboards serve as a powerful
tered through a young imagination: reminder of the real people behind the
smiling stick figure astronauts soaring mission: real people who are loved, who
on colorful space shuttles overseen by are more than their jobs. The boards, including this one from the 1998 mission that featured John Glenn’s
happy green aliens. “We need to be fully responsible for return to space at age 77, remain on display in Kennedy Space Center offices,
“How they view what’s happening our actions, fully responsible for learn- First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s signature can be seen.
that day is different based on their ages ing and doing the best job we possibly CHRISTINA LAFORTUNE/FLORIDA TODAY
and experiences. There’s a range of can to get our folks back home safely,”
emotion, just like anyone would have if Ciannilli said.
their parent was doing something ad- The idea of spaceflight is dazzling, But the dream of reaching for the riding on top of those rockets, and the
venturous,” Ciannilli said. capturing the imagination with the stars is both glorious and difficult. Noth- families behind them.”
The family members who drew on promise of adventure. It is easy to get ing about it is easy, and nothing should LaFortune hosts “The FLORIDA
the whiteboards probably didn’t consid- swept up in the drama of interplanetary be taken for granted. TODAY Show.”
er themselves artists or intend to con- travel and exploration; that dream con- “Launching rockets is a challenging Contact LaFortune at 321-242-3886
vey a deeper message, they were just tinues to inspire us, even as we move business,” Ciannilli said. “We never or clafortune@floridatoday.com.
doodling notes to their loved ones. But closer to making it a reality. want to lose sight of the folks who are Twitter: @lafortunec

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