Alone in Space on 9/11: An Astronaut’s Photographs and Memories (ContributorNetwork)

ContributorNetwork – COMMENTARY | September 11 is a day that is indelibly etched upon the mind of most Americans that were old enough to experience it (and even some who weren’t), a traumatizing event that has become a part of America’s collective conscious memory. It would difficult to imagine what it would have been like on that fateful day had there not been someone to turn to, someone with which to talk and discuss and lament and mourn. But one man did just that: NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson. On 9/11 he was an American alone, cut off from not only his home country, which was under attack, but from his world, which had been forever altered by the day’s tragic events. On Friday, the astronaut released through NASA both photographs and letters of his 9/11 experience.