Guion Guy Bluford Truly Thornton Gardner signed photo NASA STS-8 Challenger. This large framed item includes the original Challenger patch and five signatures of the astronauts who were on the STS 8 Challenger Space shuttle.. on the bottom you can see this was presented to George best wishes from Abramson LT general US air Force NASA associate administrative of spaceflight. This is a one-of-a-kind authentic item.. Will be packaged carefully for shipping. Measures 16" x 20" Photo is 13.75 x 10.75. Patch is 4" round. This item is authentic. Space shuttle mission STS-8, the eighth orbital flight and the third of 10 flights by Challenger, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on August 30, 1983, landing September 5 at Edwards Air Force Base. The first American spaceflight to carry a black astronaut (Bluford), STS-8 was the first night take-off and night landing. The mission deployed an Indian communications and weather satellite and tested the new "Canadarm" remote manipulator system The mission Commander, RICHARD TRULY (b. 1937), who had piloted the X-15, was among the first military astronauts selected in 1965 and became a NASA astronaut in 1969. Retired Vice Admiral Truly served as the eighth Administrator of NASA (1989-1992), the first former astronaut to do so. DANIEL BRANDENSTEIN (b. 1943) was pilot on Challenger STS-8 and commander of Discovery STS-51G (1985),Columbia STS-32 (1990) and Endeavor STS-49 (1992). With the completion of his fourth flight, Brandenstein logged over 789 hours in space on four different shuttles. A Navy flyer, Brandenstein had made two combat tours in Southeast Asia. Mission Specialist 1 DALE A. GARDNER (b. 1948) would return to space on Discovery STS 51-A (1984). During the 1984 flight, he completed two space walks totaling 12 hours and flew the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) backpack during the salvage operation. On this flight, Mission Specialist 2 GUION S. BLUFORD, Jr. (b. 1942) became the first Black American in space on this flight. Bluford returned to space aboard the Challenger on October 30-November 6, 1985, as a member of the first eight-person crew on the first German Spacelab 1-D mission; the Germans aboard conducted scientific experiments. He returned to space a third time on Discovery (April-May 1989 and December 2-9, 1992). Mission Specialist 3 WILLIAM E. THORNTON (b. 1929), a US Air Force flight surgeon, would make a second shuttle flight in 1985, but his greatest contributions may come from his work on the ground. He studied muscle loss and mass in space flight, an important discovery in the development of long-duration space flights, and has since developed equipment and procedures to combat this. Challenger disintegrated shortly after take-off on what would have been its tenth flight, with the loss of all seven crew members, on January 28, 1986.