In personal anecdotes that sometimes drew wistful laughter from the audience, the Columbia astronauts were recalled today by those who trained them and those they served ­ including President Bush, who with others at the memorial service at the Space Center tried to sketch in the personalities and quirks behind the smiling NASA photographs of the doomed shuttle crew.

At the astronauts' Christmas party, Navy Capt. Kent Rominger, chief of the astronauts' office, recalled that the Columbia crew was "the life of the party." But on the job, he said, they were tireless professionals who "functioned flawlessly together."

• Air Force Col. Rick D. Husband, shuttle commander, 45, was "a boy of four when he first thought of being an astronaut," President Bush said. "As a man and having become an astronaut, he found it was even more important to love his family and serve his Lord."

Rominger said it was Husband's gifted leadership that "molded seven individuals from different parts of the world, from different backgrounds and religious beliefs, into an incredibly tight-knit family,"

• Columbia pilot William C. McCool, 41, was known by friends "as the most steady and dependable of men," an Eagle Scout and fearless test pilot, Bush said.

McCool was "incredibly humble with exceptional talents," Rominger said, a man known for quickly mastering technical information. And, said Rominger, drawing laughter, "uncharacteristically punctual, for an astronaut."

• Ilan Ramon, 48, the much-decorated Israeli air force colonel and hero, "was a patriot, the devoted son of a Holocaust survivor" who "served his country in two wars" and ultimately yearned for peace, Bush said.

Rominger called Ramon "a perfectly poised fighter pilot."

• Navy flight surgeon David Brown, 46, was "first drawn to the stars as a little boy with a telescope in his backyard," Bush said. As a boy, Brown thought of astronauts as "movie stars" and "grew up to be a physician; an aviator, who could land on the deck of a carrier in the middle of the night; and a shuttle astronaut," the president said.

Rominger noted that Brown was a lifelong bachelor, and "as such, he was in constant search for food" ­ another comment that produced ripples of laughter from the audience.

• Navy flight surgeon Laurel Clark, 41, was "a physician and a flight surgeon who loved adventure, loved her work, loved her husband and her son," Bush said. He quoted her as believing that "life continues a lot of places, and life is a magical thing."'

Rominger said Clark wore "a perpetual smile," and "a different pastel shirt for each day of the week."

• Payload commander Michael P. Anderson, 43, was, said Bush, "a role model, especially for his two daughters and for the many children he spoke to in schools."

"'If this thing doesn't come out right, don't worry about me; I'm just going on higher,"' Bush quoted Anderson as telling his minister.

• Mission specialist Kalpana Chawla, 41, "left India as a student, but she would see the nation of her birth, all of it, from hundreds of miles above," Bush said. "When the sad news reached her hometown," Bush said, "an administrator at her high school recalled, `She always said she wanted to reach the stars."'