Another anniversary is upon us, a sad one that many of you can relate to directly. It was 25 years ago this week that the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after lift off from Cape Canaveral. In the years following the dramatic Apollo program that took Americans to the moon, NASA began using a workhorse contingent of shuttles that conducted experiments as they orbited the Earth. By the winter of 1986, the flights had become somewhat routine in the eyes of most Americans.
The Challenger piqued the nation’s interest because it marked the first time that a teacher would be going into space. NASA selected New Hampshire social studies instructor Christa McAuliffe from some 11,000 applicants to bear that distinction. With her endearing personality, Mrs. McAuliffe captured the public’s imagination, and thousands of school children gathered in their classrooms to watch the flight on TV. Jennifer Irani Stewart recalls:
?We had closed circuit TV in our high school and they were televising it live for the whole school to watch. At first we all thought it was just extra exhaust. When reality set in what had happened, they shut down the TVs. But it was too late, we had all seen it.”
Jolee Lieberman was a teacher herself at the time and remembers:
“I was teaching kindergarten at a little private school in Virginia. It was a teacher ‘workday.’ The director called us into his office to watch on his TV – the only one in the building. It was awful. I remember my heart in my throat. I think we prayed together in his office. As a teacher I could identify personally with Christa McAuliffe. . . .”
President Ronald Reagan was preparing his State of the Union Address to be delivered that evening when news reached him of the tragedy. Instead, he postponed it and went on TV at 5 PM to speak to Americans about the disaster. His words provided comfort to a grieving nation:
“We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.
“For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we’re thinking about you so very much. . . And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. . .
“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ’slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”
(The full text of his speech is available at http://www.reaganfoundation.org/tgcdetail.aspx?p=TG0923RRS&h1=0&h2=0&sw=&lm=reagan &args_a=cms&args_b=1&argsb=N&tx=1745)
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