Ellison Onizuka - Legacy

Legacy

Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale, California, Onizuka Village family housing on Hickam Air Force Base and the Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center at Kona International Airport in the Kona district of Hawaiʻi island where he was born and raised, are dedicated to him.

Two astronomical features were also named after him: an asteroid discovered by Edward L. G. Bowell on February 8, 1984, 3355 Onizuka and a 29-km-diameter crater on the Moon, Onizuka.

Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, California also has a street named after him, as does the street surrounding Whitcomb Elementary in Clear Lake City, Houston, Texas, where his daughters attended school at the time of the Challenger disaster. The school also named its library the Onizuka Memorial Library. In addition, the Onizuka Street in Little Tokyo has a scale replica of the Space Shuttle Challenger as a memorial.

The Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, named in his honor, is the mid-level support and visitor complex for the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawai'i. The complex includes a Visitor Information Station as well as dining, lodging, office and maintenance facilities for observatory staff and astronomers. A plaque of Onizuka's face is mounted on a boulder by the entrance to the Visitor Information Station.

Triangle Fraternity has the Ellison Onizuka Young Alumnus Award in tribute to him.

The Engineering Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder has a conference room named after him.

The Arnold Air Society Squadron attached to the 105th Air Force ROTC Detachment at the University of Colorado at Boulder bears his name.

Page 28 (Page X of additional page inserts) of every new U.S. passport contains this quotation:

"Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds... to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation." - Ellison S. Onizuka

The Hawai'i Space Grant Consortium holds an annual Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Science Day at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo for students in grades 4-12, parents and teachers.

At the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, employees wear Hawaiian shirts in his honor.

The students at the United States Air Force Test Pilot School present the Onizuka Prop Wash Award to the classmate who contributed most to class spirit and morale.