A little more than a minute after launch on January 28, 1986 and high above Kennedy Space Center, shuttle Challenger was ripped apart after failure of a rubber seal allowed a spurt of rocket flame to ignite the spacecraft’s giant fuel tank.
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As rescuers desperately searched for wreckage from the explosion, Morgan was certain that her friends were gone.
Teacher Christa McAuliffe had been selected after a nationwide search to become NASA’s first citizen passenger to travel into space.
Teacher in Space participant Christa McAuliffe (L) joins Challenger’s crew- Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis, Mission Specialist Judy Resnik, Commander Dick Scobee, Mission Specialist Ronald McNair, Pilot Michael Smith, and Mission Specialist Ellison Onizuka-in the White Room at Pad 39B following the end of a launch dress rehearsal.
Three decades later, that footage may have been all but forgotten were it not for the researchers behind the one-hour documentary “Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes”, which debuts tonight (Jan. 25) on the National Geographic Channel.
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. “Inside it was lots of tears”. The Foundation built and maintains the Space Mirror Memorial, dedicated in 1991 to honor all astronauts who lost their lives on missions or during training.
McAuliffe, a federal judge, added, “We are happy to know that Christa’s goals have been largely accomplished in that she has inspired generations of classroom teachers and students, and has focused public attention on the critical importance of teachers to our nation’s well-being”. Instead, Morgan carried on solo, until she returned to teaching in Idaho that fall.
“I answered a whole bunch of people’s questions. Do you remember seeing this?’ and no one could remember it”, Jennings recalled. “Sad ones, and even the sad ones are good ones”.
It would be more than 20 years – and another space disaster – before NASA fulfilled its promise of putting a teacher into space.
During powered flight of the space shuttle, crew escape was not possible. And despite seeing how horribly missions could go wrong – twice – she never wavered in her goal. “I can’t say I’m depressed”.
There are very few times in a person’s life where they can answer the question: “Where were you when…?”
Thirty years after Challenger, seeing the footage is still hard for Morgan.
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Images: Courtesy of National Geographic Channel, Used with Permission.
