January 28 marks 30th anniversary of Challenger explosion

Today marks three decades since one of the biggest tragedies in NASA’s history: the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion that killed seven astronauts.

The award-winning artist sang “Love Never Fails” and a song he wrote specially for the astronauts titled “Out There”.

On board were five astronauts and two civilians, including Christa McAuliffe, the victor of the Teacher in Space Project.

In perhaps the more resonant moments of the 45-minute ceremony, Barbara Morgan, who was backup to Christa McAulliffe on the Challenger, shared her memories of the crew.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives.

“Obviously a major malfunction”, Stephen Nesbitt at mission control said, according to transcripts of the Challenger disaster.

The Guardian, 30 January 1986.

It was 30 years ago tragedy struck to skies and forever changed space travel.

When McAuliffe was a finalist for the NASA program she told WBZ-TV’s Beth Germano, then a radio reporter, about the enthusiasm for teaching she hoped to generate with lessons from space.

“That’s really the legacy I think of Challenger – that mission, that focus on outreach and education”, says Capt. Kenneth S. Reightler, a former astronaut. “I think (the Challenger crew members) would be very, very proud”.

An investigation later determined that a faulty “O-ring” seal on a rocket booster allowed hot gas to escape, leading to the explosion. In San Antonio, Southwest ISD has several schools named after several of the astronauts: Francis “Dick” Scobee, Ronald McNair, Christa McAuliffe and, most recently, Judith Resnik.

In the meantime, the world’s astronauts hitch rides to the International Space Station aboard Russia’s Soyuz capsules, while private companies Boeing and SpaceX ready their own spaceships for use in 2017 and beyond and NASA focuses on building its Orion deep space capsule. He had flown on three shuttle missions and was mission commander on the Challenger’s previous mission.

Penn-Goetsch was a finalist in the Teacher in Space Project, among many others. “Right now, we actually tell the kids who come to us that they are the flawless age to be one of the first people to step on Mars”, she said.