Ellison S. Onizuka

Early life

Born on June 24, 1946, Onizuka was the oldest son and second-youngest child of Japanese American parents Masamitsu and Mitsue Onizuka. He was a Buddhist. Onizuka had two older sisters, Shirley and Norma, and a younger brother, Claude, who became the family spokesman after the Challenger disaster.[3][4] Growing up, Ellison Onizuka was an active participant in FFA,[5] 4-H, and the Boy Scouts of America, where he reached the level of Eagle Scout.[6]

Onizuka graduated from Konawaena High School in 1964. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering in June 1969, and a Master of Science degree in that field in December of the same year, from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Onizuka participated in U.S. Air Force ROTC during his time there and is an alumnus of Triangle Fraternity, as well as a member of the Tau Beta Pi honor society.

Onizuka married Lorna Leiko Yoshida on June 7, 1969,[7] while completing his studies at the University of Colorado. They had two daughters, Janelle Onizuka-Gillilan (b. 1969) and Darien Lei Shizue Onizuka-Morgan (b. 1975).

Air Force career

On January 15, 1970, Onizuka entered active duty with the United States Air Force,[8] where he served as a flight test engineer at Sacramento Air Logistics Center at McClellan Air Force Base. He worked in test flight programs and systems security engineering for the F-84, F-100, F-105, F-111, EC-121T, T-33, T-39, T-28, and A-1.

From August 1974 to July 1975, Onizuka attended the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School. In July 1975, he was assigned to the Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California.[9] Onizuka became a squadron flight test engineer at the USAF Test Pilot School, and later worked as a manager for engineering support in the training resources division. His duties there consisted of course instruction and management of the airship fleet (A-7, A-37, T-38, F-4, T-33, and NKC-135) being used for the Test Pilot School and Flight Test Center. While at the school, Onizuka registered more than 1,700 flight hours.[10]

NASA career

Onizuka was selected for the astronaut program in January 1978 and completed one year of evaluation and training in August 1979.[11] Later, he worked in the experimentation team, Orbiter test team, and launch support crew at Kennedy Space Center for the STS-1 and STS-2. At NASA, Onizuka worked on the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) test and revision software team.

Onizuka's first space mission took place on January 24, 1985, with the launch of mission STS 51-C on Space Shuttle Discovery, the first Space Shuttle mission for the Department of Defense.[12] He was accompanied by Commander Ken Mattingly, Pilot Loren Shriver, fellow Mission Specialist James Buchli, and Payload Specialist Gary E. Payton. During the mission, Onizuka was responsible for the activities of the primary payloads, which included the unfolding of the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) surface. After 48 orbits around the Earth, Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center on January 27, 1985. Onizuka had completed a total of 74 hours in space.[10]

Onizuka was assigned to the mission STS 51-L on the Space Shuttle Challenger that took off from Kennedy Space Center at 11:38:00 EST (16:38:00 UTC) on January 28, 1986. The other Challenger crew members were commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael J. Smith, mission specialists Ronald McNair, Judith Resnik, and payload specialists Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe. The shuttle was destroyed when a flame jet leaking from a solid rocket booster ruptured the liquid hydrogen fuel tank 73 seconds after launch. All seven crew members were killed.

Following the Challenger disaster, examination of the recovered vehicle cockpit revealed that three of the crew members' Personal Egress Air Packs were activated: those of Onizuka, Resnik, and Smith. The location of Smith's activation switch, on the back side of his seat, means that either Resnik or Onizuka could have activated it for him. This is the only evidence available from the disaster that shows Onizuka and Resnik were alive after the cockpit separated from the vehicle. However, if the cabin had lost pressure, the packs alone would not have sustained the crew during the two-minute descent.[13]

Onizuka was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.[8] At the time of his death, he held the rank of lieutenant colonel. Onizuka was posthumously promoted to the rank of colonel.[14]

Memberships and distinctions

Onizuka belonged to the following organizations: Society of Flight Test Engineers, the Air Force Association, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Tau, Arnold Air Society, and Triangle Fraternity.

Among Onizuka's distinctions are the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, Air Force Organizational Excellence Award, National Defense Service Medal, Air Force Longevity Award, and NASA Space Flight Medal. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Legacy

The Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center at Kona International Airport in the Kona district of Hawaiʻi island where he was born and raised, was dedicated to him. The center closed in March 2016 and was unable to find a suitable location to reopen. Select items from the center's collection have been put on permanent display at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii in Moiliili on the island of Oahu. They not only feature Onizuka's personal items, but also the only Moon rock in Hawaii and the space suit from Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise.

Two astronomical features were also named after Onizuka: an asteroid discovered by Edward L. G. Bowell on February 8, 1984, 3355 Onizuka and a 29-km-diameter crater on the Moon, Onizuka. The Cygnus NG-16 ISS resupply spacecraft was also named after Onizuka (S.S. Ellison Onizuka).

Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, California has a street named after Onizuka, as does the street surrounding Whitcomb Elementary school in Clear Lake City, Houston, Texas, where his daughters attended. It also named its library the Onizuka Memorial Library. (At the time of the Challenger disaster, his older daughter, Janelle, attended Clear Lake High School. His younger daughter, Darien Lei, was at Whitcomb.) In addition, Onizuka Street in Little Tokyo has a scale replica of the Challenger as a memorial, and a permanent memorial to Onizuka is located in the lobby of the Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple.[17]

The Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, named in Onizuka's honor, is the mid-level support and visitor complex for the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii. It includes a Visitor Information Station as well as dining, lodging, office, and maintenance facilities for observatory staff and astronomers.[18] A plaque of his face is mounted on a boulder by the entrance to the Visitor Information Station. Triangle Fraternity has the Ellison Onizuka Young Alumnus Award in tribute to him.

The Ann & H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences building at the University of Colorado at Boulder features a conference room named after Onizuka on the third floor. The Arnold Air Society Squadron attached to the 105th Air Force ROTC Detachment at the University of Colorado at Boulder bears his name.[19]

Page 28 (Page X of additional page inserts, or page 52 of the extended length version) of every new standard U.S. passport contains this quotation: "Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds... to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation." - Ellison Onizuka

The Hawaii Space Grant Consortium holds an annual Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Science Day[20] at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo for students in grades 4–12, parents and teachers. El Camino College in Torrance, California hosts an annual Onizuka Space Science Day,[21] jointly organized by the Onizuka Memorial Committee.[22]

The students at the United States Air Force Test Pilot School present the Onizuka Prop Wash Award to the classmate who contributed most to class spirit and morale.[23]

On January 1, 2017, the airport in Onizuka's home district of Kona was renamed Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole.[24]

Clear Lake High School, where Onizuka's children went to school, has on display a soccer ball that was on board the Challenger during the accident. It was given to Ellison on behalf of the soccer team that he coached, and for which his children played, to be brought into space. The ball was retrieved during the recovery efforts and donated to the school. In 2016, Col. Robert Kimbrough on Expedition 49/50 brought the ball into space.[25]

A Cygnus resupply vehicle on ISS resupply mission Cygnus NG-16 was named the SS Ellison Onizuka in his honor.[26] It launched on August 10, 2021, and arrived at the ISS on August 12.

In media

• Onizuka was portrayed by Keone Young in the 1990 TV movie Challenger.

• In Star Trek: The Next Generation, a shuttlecraft carried aboard the starship Enterprise bears Onizuka's name, as seen in the three episodes "The Ensigns of Command", "The Mind's Eye" and "The Outcast."
  Colonel Onizuka, an Air Force test pilot, received the Air Force Commendation Medal, Air force Meritorious Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal.
  
  After he was chosen to be an astronaut, he flew on Discovery 51-C, which was the first shuttle mission flown exclusively for the Department of Defense. His duties included deploying a Department of Defense satellite using the shuttle’s 50-foot remote arm.
  
  Onizuka was asssigned as a mission specialist on space shuttle Challenger STS 51-L, which broke apart one minute and 13 seconds after its launch.
  
  Ellison S. Onizuka made the ultimate sacrifice and lost his life in service to the nation and the space program on January 28, 1986 at 39 years of age.

About Space Shuttle Challenger

Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-099) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the commanding ship of a nineteenth-century scientific expedition that traveled the world, Challenger was the second Space Shuttle orbiter to fly into space after Columbia, and launched on its maiden flight in April 1983. It was destroyed in January 1986 soon after launch in an accident that killed all seven crewmembers aboard. Initially manufactured as a test article not intended for spaceflight, it was utilized for ground testing of the Space Shuttle orbiter's structural design. However, after NASA found that their original plan to upgrade Enterprise for spaceflight would be more expensive than upgrading Challenger, the orbiter was pressed into operational service in the Space Shuttle program. Lessons learned from the first orbital flights of Columbia led to Challenger's design possessing fewer thermal protection system tiles and a lighter fuselage and wings. This led to it being 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) lighter than Columbia, though still 2,600 kilograms (5,700 pounds) heavier than Discovery.

During its three years of operation, Challenger was flown on ten missions in the Space Shuttle program, spending over 62 days in space and completing almost 1,000 orbits around Earth. Following its maiden flight, Challenger supplanted Columbia as the leader of the Space Shuttle fleet, being the most-flown orbiter during all three years of its operation while Columbia itself was seldom used during the same time frame. Challenger was used for numerous civilian satellite launches, such as the first tracking and data relay satellite, the Palapa B communications satellites, the Long Duration Exposure Facility, and the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite. It was also used as a test bed for the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) and served as the platform to repair the malfunctioning SolarMax telescope. In addition, three consecutive Spacelab missions were conducted with the orbiter in 1985, one of which being the first German crewed spaceflight mission. Passengers carried into orbit by Challenger include the first American female astronaut, the first American female spacewalker, the first African-American astronaut, and the first Canadian astronaut.