Picture of the day - June 7, 2008

Astronaut Michael Anderson Memorial Statue

Photo courtesy of Ron Trees. The scene depicted in today's picture can be found in Spokane, Washington's beautiful Riverfront Park, and here is photographer Ron Trees to tell you all about it: "In the heart of Spokane, WA is a park called Riverfront Park. This is a great park that gets many visitors each year. In this park is a memorial statue in honor of Astronaut Michael Anderson. Mr. Anderson was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force and was the Payload Commander on the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-107 in 2003. He was one of 7, who died when Columbia broke up over Texas during re-entry. He considered Spokane to be his home. You can find more info about him at the following URL's: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/.../anderson.html http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/anderson.html This memorial statue was unveiled in 2005. I have wanted to take some pictures of it for a long time now and I finally was able to just a few days ago. Many of us remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the tragic news of another Space Shuttle disaster. I guess this is my contribution to a hometown HERO. I used my Sony A700 and Sony 18-250mm lens to capture this image. I also used a Circular Polarizer. I shot the picture in RAW and developed it in Adobe Lightroom."  --Ron Trees   Click here to comment on this picture.   Visit the POTD Archives for previous "Pictures Of The Day"!     Submit a photo of your own!                                 Place the "Picture of the Day" on your website, for free! Why I publish the "Picture of the Day"