June Scobee Rodgers – widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee and longtime spokeswoman for the group – is passing the torch to daughter Kathie Scobee Fulgham.
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Gov. Maggie Hassan is among the people scheduled to speak at the center Thursday afternoon. And making a rare appearance in the audience will be schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe’s son, Scott, with his own family.
184-r-42-(Former NASA astronaut Jon McBride reading names of astronauts who died in the Challenger disaster, during memorial service at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex)-“S. Christa McAuliffe”-Former NASA astronaut Jon McBride, struggling with his emotions, read the names of the astronauts who died in the Challenger disaster”.
“I’d like to just take a moment of silence and recognize the sacrifice of all those crew members and how their spirit and their legacy lives on and their achievement in space.” said Scott Kelly, astronaut on the International Space Station. He was at Kennedy Space Center for Challenger’s launch, and had gotten to know not only McAuliffe but a few of the other astronauts on the doomed flight.
It was one of the biggest tragedies in space exploration history. On board was Christa McAuliffe, a social studies teacher from New Hampshire, who was the first civilian to fly into space.
It was a cold January morning in Florida, and freezing temperatures led many to believe the weather was a factor in the failure of the “O-Rings” inside the adjacent rocket boosters.
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Today, there are more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers focusing on science, technology, engineering and math, mostly in the U.S. More are being built. “That’s why they’ve lasted”.
