On February 1, 2003, startling pictures of the shuttle falling like a shooting star dominated news broadcasts, shocking the country.

The country remembered the tragedy in somber ceremonies and during the United States' annual sports extravaganza, the 38th American football Super Bowl.

Here at Cape Canaveral's Space Mirror Memorial, around 100 people gathered in gloomy weather for a commemoration of the loss a year ago that nonetheless was forward looking.

"The disaster wasn't actually an end," said Kennedy Space Center director Jim Kennedy. "It was a beginning."

He spoke of efforts by NASA to rebuild its program in the wake of the tragedy which was also the subject of a lengthy independent inquiry. But the space program got a boost last month when President George W. Bush announced long-term plans for a new moon program and ensuing missions to Mars.

"Their loss will not be in vain," said Kennedy of the Columbia's crew: Rick Husband, Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla and Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut.

"We will come back bigger, better and stronger than ever before, and I can assure you that the crew and beloved families will never, ever be forgotten."

Kennedy and the Astronauts Memorial Foundation president, Stephen Feldman, placed a wreath of red, white and blue flowers in front of the black granite Space Mirror Memorial. Mourners threaded their own long-stemmed roses through its railing.

Before Sunday's Super Bowl, CBS television was to show the rock group Aerosmith visiting NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, earlier this week. The group was scheduled to perform a tribute song for the Columbia crew.

Astronauts of the next NASA space shuttle mission were to be recognized on the football field after another tribute song from pop star Josh Groban.

A performer dressed as an astronaut and wielding a US flag simulated the movements of man walking on the moon.

On Monday, NASA will dedicate a memorial to the astronauts at Arlington Memorial Cemetery in Virginia. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe will preside over a private ceremony for the victims' families and other guests.

Later in the evening, the Columbia Shuttle Memorial Trust and NASA will host a private gathering at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington to celebrate the seven astronauts' lives.

But one year after the tragedy, which demoralized the space program, there is renewed optimism at NASA.

The two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have recently sent images from the planet that have flabbergasted NASA scientists.

In January, Bush unveiled a new space initiative that included replacing the shuttle fleet by 2010 with ships that can travel by 2015 to the moon and eventually to Mars.

NASA, which lost the Challenger in a take-off explosion in 1986, is already planning new shuttle flights. The fleet is down to three ships, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavor.

A scathing report from an independent investigation found flaws in NASA's command and decision-making.

A task force formed later, the Return-to-Flight Task Group, said on January 20 that NASA had not implemented all of the recommendations from the investigation and that it was unclear when new space flights could resume.

But NASA hopes to be ready for a new mission in September.

Air Force pilot Eileen Collins is the crew leader for the space program's next manned flight.

The crew would leave on a 13-day mission aboard Atlantis to the international space station.

Collins said she is confident NASA will overcome the Columbia tragedy.

"If I didn't think something was safe and I wasn't satisfied, then I have ways of dealing with that," the mother of two said.

"Frankly, what I tell my family is: If I didn't feel it was safe, I wouldn't go."

SPACE.WIRE