Challenger Disaster: Christa McAuliffe’s Students Have Gone on to Teach

But space…that’s something that can send a mind into orbit. Repeatedly talking about the event stamps it in your memory.

“We as humans are explorers and even if you look back to our most ancient civilizations we looked to the stars”, said Bush of the Challenger Center, which is also supported by the families of the Columbia astronauts.

The early 1980’s were a truly exciting time for space exploration. It’s a sharing network of colleagues. On that cold, improbably blue sky day 30 years ago, January 28, 1986, far above Cape Kennedy, American’s presumed space supremacy was jolted. A freshman in high school, I was home sick. I remember just sitting in the break room stunned again.

As the shuttle lifted off, no one at NASA, including Reynolds, was prepared for what would happen next. Ironically, because it was considered such a routine mission, none of the networks were carrying the launch.

They ushered us back inside.

“I was pre-flighting an aircraft when my flight instructor flagged me to watch the images on TV”, said Robert Olislagers, executive director of Centennial Airport. I point them to the hundreds of spinoff technologies they enjoy everyday, the insights and advancements gained in medicine and health, the sheer beauty of the cosmos.

“And then this awful, numbing accident happened”, she says. “But they’re counting down right now”. “At first, we thought it was the separation of the booster rockets”.

Within 73 seconds, America’s heart was broken. “I have a program here with Neil Armstrong’s autograph”, he said. He said, “What’s that about?” I still liked space exploration but I definitely lost some innocence over that. He said, “Can’t they land or parachute out or something?” When he finally backed the vehicle into the driveway late that night, I wanted to rush out and hug him and tell him I was sorry.

“The fact that a teacher was on it, I had a connection to that”, Turner said. Televised news programs brought the event into our living rooms for us to experience – sometimes in real time.

Q: That must have been a blur. (Our group of teachers) did finally meet, and we agreed that our goals were to let the experts find out what went wrong – that wasn’t our position to speculate.

“Man will continue his conquest of space”. Ronald Reagan reminds his audience of the bravery and dedication of those who were killed on the shuttle. Part of that inherent coolness is that they’re just like the adults from daily life, like a mom or a teacher. “By using these voices that people are not accustomed to hearing, the story takes on a kind of immediacy, as if you are hearing it for the first time”. It’s a natural question. “I can’t say I’m depressed”. My first love was of space and everything in it. My parents used to send me to the Museum of Science & Industry (MSI), in Hyde Park to science & space camp and I took a lot of classes there and at the Adler Planetarium, the Field Museum & Lincoln Park Zoo.

He worked his whole life to get where he was that day…. It just ended in tragedy. Barbara Morgan is that person. After Challenger, they canceled that.

“You can hear the roar of the shuttle”, He spoke into his microphone.

Foerster: They hadn’t really talked about that. After Challenger, I was not only aware of the unthinkable breadth of the world and the universe, but also of how brutal and cruel it all can be.

“Without having experts telling you what you’re looking at, you’re nearly living through it”, he says.

When I’m asked, “But isn’t the cost too high?”