She was born for adventure. From the moment she could crawl, she wanted to walk, then run, then fly. She longed to see the world and everything in it.

Her name was Laurel, but to her friends, she was Floral—an ode to her love of brightly colored clothes, but also of the natural world. After graduating from high school in Racine, she entered the University of Wisconsin-Madison with dreams of becoming a veterinarian, but instead made her way to medical school—where her love of adventure sent her sailing through the British Virgin Islands a few weeks before graduation.

She had found her life’s next great adventure, joining the Navy as an undersea medical officer and leading Submarine Squadron Fourteen’s Medical Department. She sailed the world, performed medical evacuations, and dove with Navy Seals.

But she still longed to fly. After six months of aeromedical training, she became the Flight Surgeon for a squadron in the Western Pacific designated as the Marine Attack Squadron of the Year.

By her mid-30s, Floral had lived a life of adventure most could only dream of. She was Radiation Health Officer, Undersea Medical Officer, Diving Medical Officer, Submarine Medical Officer, and Naval Flight Surgeon, a Basic Life Support Instructor, Advanced Cardiac Life Support Provider, Advanced Trauma Life Support Provider, and Hyperbaric Chamber Advisor.

But there was still another adventure for her, another height to which she longed to fly. In 1996, she was selected for NASA’s astronaut training program. Part of its largest-ever class of recruits who named themselves “The Sardines” for how closely they were packed together, Floral stood out—not just for her brightly colored clothes, but for how hard she worked; how badly she wanted to fly to space.

After two years of training, she was qualified as a Mission Specialist and, in early 2003, would finally fulfill her dream aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.

For 16 glorious days, she and her six crewmates conducted more than 80 experiments, with her focus on gravity’s effect on humans, plants, and animals. For a girl who longed for adventure, to be a veterinarian and to fly, her life had come full circle. In an email to her family, she said of a silkworm cocoon that hatched onboard the ship, “There was a moth in there, and it still had its wings crumpled up, and it was just starting to pump its wings up. Life continues in lots of places, and life is a magical thing.”

Life was her greatest adventure, but in an instant it was over as Columbia broke apart as it reentered Earth's atmosphere. All seven crew members were lost, including the bright Floral, Commander Laurel Salton Clark.

She dedicated her life to adventure and exploration, and ultimately gave her life to it. While it was clouded in tragedy, eventually humanity’s greatest adventure—the discovery of the world beyond our own—continued.

Just as Laurel would have wanted it. As she put it in her final email from space:

“I have seen some incredible sights: lightning spreading over the Pacific… rivers breaking through tall mountain passes, the scars of humanity … a crescent moon setting over the limb of our blue planet. Whenever I do get to look out, it is glorious. Even the stars have a special brightness.”

And so does she, shining down from her final, eternal adventure.

Dan O'Donnell