Introduction

The terrorist attacks that rocked Americ September 11th 2001, were without precedent. In terms of scale, in terms of death toll, in terms of the sheer impact on the nation's and the world's sense of well being and safety. The wound remains raw, open. The recovery process includes some measure of forgetting; it's a survival skill. And in the space left behind is the need to reframe the images that will not fade. The impulse to memorialize is a part of that process. Memorials help us both to remember, and to reconsider, traumatic events. They can help to place an event in a new context, one that allows consideration at a slight remove from the trauma. However, memorials present challenges of their own. With the exception of a few enormously successful ones many lack the elements that make them interactive and universal, that contain the power to help us remember instead of conveying permission to forget. September 11th wasn't a war. In retrospect we can see it as the first blow in a war, but when it happened, when the planes hit the World Trade Center, when the plane hit the Pentagon, when we knew there was another plane missing and didn't know where it was, we were in a state of complete confusion. Again, the event was without precedent. And it calls for a memorial without precedent. An experiential remembrance, a fleeting experience, a memory that will be forever linked with the attacks of September 11th, another experience that can't be rewound, but which offers beauty in the place of agony.

The Project: Shooting Stars

On the American flag, stars represent the states; they are a symbol of both our unity and our historic emphasis on individual strength. We propose a memorial to the victims of the September 11th attacks that invokes the same sentiments, but on a global level. A man-made meteor shower, flaring brightly in the sky around the world to reflect the interconnectedness of our humanity and the need for a cohesive approach to the world's issues and tragedies. Ceramic pellets, the size of marbles, each engraved with the name of a victim of the attacks, will be launched into earth's orbit, then at prescribed moments allowed to descend into Earth's atmosphere. At orbital velocity the pellets will be surrounded by coronas of brightly glowing gas, a man-made meteorite shower that will illuminate the night sky. Each of the fallen will be transformed, for an instant, into a brilliant flare of light, sparkling across the heavens. The sanctification of beauty, on an almost unimaginable scale, across the skies. This span, the enormity of the space, and the spectacle, underscores the scale of the tragedy, while at once reminding that human beings are capable of creating and experiencing sublime beauty in the wake of horror. For every fallen individual, hundreds of thousands remain, their faith in humanity, and its ideals, unshaken. Similarly, for every fallen star that flares through the sky, millions more remain. And in the wake of this event, the night sky will remain, transformed into a timeless memorial.

Conclusion

This project will require determination and imagination; but it will draw upon the determination and the creativity of America's greatest peacetime triumph: the space program that put man on the moon for the first time. This is not a small project; the challenges are enormous. Everything is against it, but we as a people cannot shy away from the difficult. This project represents an opportunity to create the first truly global memorial, one that draws strength from a collective, universal approach. This unique melding of art and science can become a powerful symbol for what can be accomplished by people from different backgrounds and different countries working together. This memorial is unlike anything that has ever been done. And that is its strength.