Forty years ago, a stack of bright red tags shared a physical connection with what would become NASA’s first space shuttle disaster. The small tags, however, were collected before the ill-fated launch of Challenger, as was instructed in bold “Remove Before Flight” lettering on the front of each. This is an attempt to learn more about where those “Remove Before Flight” tags went after they were detached from the space shuttle and before they arrived on my doorstep. From handout to hold onThe advertisement on the auction website was titled “Space Shuttle Remove Before Flight Flags Lot of 18.” They were listed with an opening bid of $3.99. The eBay listing had promoted them only as generic examples of “KSC Form 4-226 (6/77)"—the ID the Kennedy Space Center assigned to the tags.