Statue and Tomb of Doomed Astronaut

Lake City, South Carolina

Ronald McNair was a churchgoing family man. He was also a physicist with a black belt in karate, and an astronaut. In 1984 he was part of the crew aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. Among his scientific pursuits on that successful mission, he found time to play his saxophone in space, "a medley of songs designed to send a message of thankfulness and hope to all mankind."

We know these things because they're engraved on a granite wall next to his tomb. Unfortunately for Ronald McNair, he took a second trip aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, its final, fatal mission.

McNair's death was a blow to his small South Carolina home town, which wanted to remember him. The granite wall went up in 1995. Placed in front of it was a life-size, smiling, bronze McNair wearing his Space Shuttle jumpsuit and holding a helmet. To complete the memorial plaza, in 2004 McNair was removed from his grave five miles away and re-entombed in a sarcophagus next to the statue. An "eternal flame" flickers in front of it, an old-style gas street lamp.

All in all, not something that you expect to see next to a terrestrial public library.