Challenger disaster: McAuliffe’s students have gone on teach

NASA had scheduled speaking engagements for her and McAuliffe for when Challenger returned from space.

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.

“It was in July 1985, when Christa McAuliffe beat out better than one thousand other teachers to be chosen to be the first private citizen in space”, Little is heard saying.

“When the shuttle turned out to be not what we thought it was, all those downstream visions began to crumble”, Howard McCurdy, a specialist in space policy at American University in Washington, D.C., told USA Today in 2011, shortly before the 25th anniversary of the disaster.

An investigation later determined that Challenger was doomed by a failure in an “O-ring” seal on the shuttle’s right-hand solid rocket booster.

“We knew enough to know it sure wasn’t survivable”, she says.

Soon after the launch, Barbara Morgan and the rest of the crew on the ground realised something was very wrong. When Challenger exploded 73 seconds into flight, the initial shock – and unsettling knowledge that it could have been her – gave way to survival mode.

Another unexpected outcome of the accident: Morgan found herself the new Teacher in Space designee.

“I answered a whole bunch of people’s questions”. They criticized what they called NASA’s “silent safety program”, reported USA Today, and “flawed” decision-making. “Sad ones, and even the sad ones are good ones”.

That excitement would soon turn to devastation, which is why it was important to Jennings that the documentary be respectful to the memory of the crew, including McAuliffe, STS-51L mission commander Francis “Dick” Scobee, pilot Mike Smith, mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ron McNair and Elison Onizuka, and payload specialist Greg Jarvis.

Lucy Lavette, one of the school children from Brevard County, now a teacher herself like Crista McAuliffe who died in the capsule, was only 8 years old as she stood in the cold, watching Challenger rise. Visitors will be able to go inside both the 747 and the Independence to explore exhibits and artifacts from the space shuttle era.Museum exhibits manager Paul Spana worked with a Boeing historian who provided photos detailing 747 interiors to help maintain accuracy. And despite seeing how horribly missions could go wrong – twice – she never wavered in her goal. “It’s as though they are sharing the experience of their own grief with me”, she said.

“They want to share their story with me”.

Thirty years after Challenger, seeing the footage is still hard for Morgan.

Images: Courtesy of National Geographic Channel, Used with Permission.