Grab a box of tissues.
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“The one contrail that’s [supposed to go] on forever as it’s going into space was not one”.
Schoolchildren all over the country had their eyes glued either to their television sets or to the sky above them, anxious for a glimpse of the space shuttle as it was readied to streamline upwards into space carrying a crew that included the first teacher ever to breach the 264,000 feet threshold.
“I am able now to treat the event as history rather than avoiding the public scrutiny that overcame us during our private grieving”, said June Scobee Rodgers, the wife of the late Francis “Dick” Scobee.
Much like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or the morning of September 11, 2001, most Americans remember where they were when they heard the news of the Challenger disaster. On Jan. 28, 1986, just 73 seconds after taking flight into the air, the space shuttle Challenger exploded before the eyes of millions. Fixing it took a bit longer.
In 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crew members and all but essentially ending America’s space program.
NASA plans on paying tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 along with those of the space shuttle Challenger and space shuttle Columbia. For 1895 Films, Tom Jennings is executive producer and director.
“Without having experts telling you what you’re looking at, you’re nearly living through it”, he says. “It’s one of those things you’ll never forget”.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – As families of the lost Challenger astronauts gather with NASA to mark the space shuttle accident’s 30th anniversary, there’s a new voice to address the crowd.
When they’re done, they drive by Christa McAuliffe’s gravestone, and he asks if they know who she was.
“We planted trees at the school after the disaster, one tree for each life lost”, said Lee, whose interest in space following the disaster shaped her career at Lockheed Martin. On board was McAuliffe, a social studies teacher from Concord High School.
Recordings of local New Hampshire radio reporters who followed Christa during the year that she prepared for the launch, and their eyewitness accounts as they stood in the grandstands watching the tragedy unfold. “She was in all the footage with Christa”. “And the fact she was a civilian and not an astronaut had a big impact on me”.
“I like the concept of encouraging young people to pursue math and science, but I didn’t think flying school teachers or artists or politicians or whoever they were planning on flying was the best way to do that”, he said.
Morgan would eventually make it to space.
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“That’s really the legacy I think of Challenger – that mission, that focus on outreach and education”, said Capt. Kenneth S. Reightler, a former astronaut. “I think (the Challenger crew members) would be very, very proud”. McAuliffe would have been 67 today.
