Challenger Flag Bound For Space

If all went well at Cape Canaveral last night, Challenger K-8's alligator astronaut is in space.

A flag bearing the school's mascot - an alligator in a space suit dubbed a "Navigator" - was supposed to be packed aboard space shuttle Endeavor. Endeavor was slated to launch at 7:55 p.m. Friday.

Lt. Col. Shane Kimbrough, an astronaut with local family connections who visited Challenger two years ago, offered to take something from the school on the mission with him.

The students chose the flag and Flat Stanley, a paper boy that Challenger students mail throughout the world to learn about geography and make connections with other cultures. The recipients take a picture with Stanley and mail him back.

The children hope the astronauts can pull out the flag and Flat Stanley at some point and snap a photo in the orbiting shuttle, said Challenger Principal Sue Stoops.

Whether that happens or not, "What an honor," Stoops said. "How many people in the world can say they had something that was special to them go up on the space shuttle?"

The astronauts on the mission have already signed the flag, Stoops said. Students are hopeful that Kimbrough, whose three second-cousins attend Challenger and who visited the school two years ago, will get to return the flag and Flat Stanley in person.

Challenger's curriculum is focused on science and mathematics and boasts a large mural of its namesake, the space shuttle Challenger, in the school's mall area.

The school's flag is going places lately.

Challenger just received one of its school flags that flew on a Blackhawk helicopter mission in Iraq with the Army's 244th Assault Battalion. The battalion includes members of Brooksville's National Guard unit in Brooksville.

"It's really flying high these days," Stoops said.