David M. Brown
David McDowell Brown (April 16, 1956 – February 1, 2003) was a United States Navy captain and a NASA astronaut. He died on his first spaceflight, when the Space Shuttle "Columbia" (STS-107) disintegrated during orbital reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Brown became an astronaut in 1996, but had not served on a space mission prior to the "Columbia" disaster. Brown was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Brown, the 1986 recipient of the Navy Operational Flight Surgeon of the Year award, received numerous decorations including:
The symbol indicates a posthumous award.
HMCS Columbia (DDE 260)
"Columbia" transferred to the east coast and in 1960 and assigned to the Fifth Canadian Escort Squadron. In August, the ship recovered two crew members of a Tracker aircraft that had crashed at sea south of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The aircraft had been training with "Columbia" and sister ship . She was present for Nigeria's Independence ceremonies at Lagos on 1 November. In March 1961, the destroyer escort was among the ships that took part in a combined naval exercise with the United States Navy off Nova Scotia.