A friend of mine (Gerard Faure who's an asteroid hunter) noticed this: asteroids have been named after astroanauts who died:

Apollo 1
--------
2161 Grissom ( Owings and Edmonson )
- White
- Schaffee

Soyuz 1
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1836 Komarov (Chernykh )

Soyuz 11
--------
1789 Dobrovolsky (Chernykh)
1790 Volkov (Chernykh )
1791 Patsayev (Smirnova)

Challenger (all discovered at Anderson Mesa)
----------
3350 Scobee
3351 Smith
3352 McAuliffe (Mars-crosser)
3353 Jarvis
3354 McNair
3355 Onizuka
3356 Resnik

Columbia (all discovered by NEAT at Palomar)
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51823 Rickhusband
51824 Mikeanderson
51825 Davidbrown
51826 Kalpanachawla
51827 Laurelclark
51828 Ilanramon
51829 Williemccool

The odd thing is that neither Ed White nor Roger Chaffee have asteroids named after them.
It must mean that at the time, it hadn't been decided to take that kind of initiative. However, 2 astronomers, Owings and Edmonson did choose to name an asteroid after Virgil Grissom (this was thus an individual initiative).

Raoul