Pieces of hardware recovered from space shuttle Columbia displayed at Johnson Space Center through March 13 have made an impact on employees who have already toured the exhibit.

The encased wreckage and a collection of photographs started in the lobby of Building 1 as part of a year-long tour of NASA centers. Starting Monday, March 3, the Columbia Safety Exhibit will be displayed in Building 30.

Coy Kouda, Avionics Systems engineer, made a special trip to Building 1 to see the display, which is intended to send a powerful message about why safety matters and how important everyone’s contributions are to flight safety.

“It’s surreal knowing this is real flight hardware, and seeing it in this condition. It makes you appreciate how severe re-entry can be,” Kouda said. “It’s just amazing how much detail it takes to put a space shuttle together.”

The exhibit is a collaboration between NASA, USA and Sparks-Orlando. Columbia hardware artifacts in the exhibit include Flight Deck Port Aft Bulkhead Window; Orbiter Lower Left Wing Thermal Protection System Tile; Orbiter Translational Hand Controller; Flight Deck Overhead Switch Panel O17; Left Wing Reinforced Carbon Panel 8; Crew Module Side Hatch Pyro Initiator T Handle; Left Orbiter Maneuvering System Pod Fuel Drain Purge Panel; Forward Reaction Control System Thruster Left Wing Tip Thermal Protection System Tile.

The exhibit also pays tribute to Columbia, her crew and the amazing story of the recovery and reconstruction effort.

Amit Patel, a Systems Safety engineer for Lockheed Martin, said the exhibit hit especially close to home for him, since he works in a safety department.

“We go back to this (Columbia crash) every now and then. It’s fresh in our minds quite a bit,” Patel said. “It’s quite alive in our day-to-day conversation.”

The exhibit will tour 13 NASA locations, and at the end of its tour the Columbia Safety Exhibit will be returned to the Kennedy Space Center. The display pieces will be returned to the controlled storage facility in Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building with the other Columbia hardware.

This initiative was spearheaded by Wayne Hale.

“The only bulwark between an accident and a safe, successful space mission is the competence and attention of highly focused individuals. If we are to truly honor the sacrifice of these crews, we must teach that lesson to every new person that comes to work here and live each day with the utmost commitment to safety in all its details. To this end, we have constructed a traveling memorial that will spend this year visiting every NASA center. We hope this memorial will provide the thoughtful contemplation of our duty, similar to a visit to the Vietnam War memorial or Arlington,” Hale said.