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.
USS Columbia (CL-56)
After calling on the west coast, "Columbia" arrived at Philadelphia on 5 December for overhaul and service training Naval Reserve men until 1 July 1946. She was decommissioned and placed in reserve at Philadelphia on 30 November 1946, and sold for scrapping on 18 February 1959. In an odd coincidence, the tug that towed "Columbia" to the breakers, the "Triton," owned by Curtis Bay Towing, was also one of the tugs present at her launching, 18 years earlier.