LAKE CITY, S.C. (AP) -- An audience of about 400 people turned out in Lake City as NASA administrator Charles Bolden helped dedicate the Ronald McNair Life History Center.
The center was dedicated Monday and is located in an old library that McNair was not allowed to use growing up as a black child in segregated South Carolina. McNair was an astronaut who died 25 years ago when the space shuttle Challenger exploded during takeoff.
McNair's center is located just a few hundred feet from memorial to him.
A Columbia native, Bolden says he stood on McNair's shoulders as he made his own career as an astronaut.
Bolden says McNair would be amazed at all the advancements in space since his death, including the international space station, rovers on Mars and satellites circling Mercury.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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