Teachers and school board members are also gathering at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, N.H.to pay tribute to crewmember and teacher Christa McAuliffe and the six other astronauts who died. The gathering took place beneath the suspended shuttle Atlantis, which in 2011 made the final shuttle flight. “So I put each of them on a puzzle piece and when it came to the images, I found pictures where they looked the happiest”.
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“Courage is contagious”, Barbara Morgan, the teacher chosen as McAuliffe’s backup, told the crowd in Florida, recalling what she had learned from the crew.
Indeed, in a nod to the second generation, June Scobee Rodgers – widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the group – passed the torch to daughter Kathie Scobee Fulgham.
On Jan. 28, 1986, though, she was on the ground at Kennedy Space Center, covering a space story for the first time. “They – the members of the Challenger crew – were pioneers”, said President Ronald Reagan. The policy shift laid the groundwork for today’s commercial space transportation industry, which generated global revenues of $5.9 billion in 2014, according to a report a year ago by the Satellite Industry Association.
The entire NASA team, both in space and on the ground, remembered those who lost their lives in the crash of the Challenger shuttle, Apollo 1 and the space shuttle Columbia. “How out of eleven thousand applicants could somebody from Concord, New Hampshire be selected”. “Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting”. “Do they understand what her contribution was to not just the space station, but to history?'” Principal Adrian Ramirez said.
An investigation discovered the O-ring seal on Challenger’s rocket booster failed. Lessons in science and a dose of inspiration that has reached more than 250,000 students in Houston and an estimated 4.4 million people at Challenger Learning Centers across the country.
“They’re not just a field trip for kids”.
Heath said, “The real heroes are the families who stay behind and are praying for their family members every day as they’re living out their dreams in space”.
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Dick Scobee was 46 years old when he died aboard Challenger barely a minute into the flight.
