Remembering the Challenger Crew and Our Teacher, Christa

CONCORD, NH - For those of us who attended Concord High School during the 1980s and had Christa McAuliffe, one of the members of the Challenger crew that perished 30 years ago today, as a teacher, this time of the year is always a difficult one.

But not unlike other tragic events in modern history that Americans have witnessed, there is often an addition of optimism and hope in the middle of the horror.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, an incredible loss of life, it was amazing how many people were able to come together to help others, as the first responders and other New Yorkers did before and after the buildings came down; watching firefighters – and others – rush from all over the country to assist in the salvage operations.

Our leaders during World War II made it a mission to defeat the national socialists who were slaughtering millions of people on both sides of the world after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Four years later, countless young American lives had been lost but the enemies were defeated.

The Challenger disaster also marked its generation, as tens of thousands of American school children watched the first teacher in space and other astronauts perish on live television on a cold January morning in Florida.

But out of that tragedy, came hope and action: Many students became teachers; grant programs and countless schools have been named to honor Christa, forever memorializing our teacher; documentaries have been created; a local planetarium here in Concord that also honors Alan Shepard, another New Hampshire astronaut, was built, etc. There is even a movement underway to make Jan. 28, a national holiday, organized by graduates of Concord High School.

In the early 1980s, Christa was one of my social studies teachers and also was one of the advisors of the school’s World Affairs Club, an active group of students who met, learned, and talked about the troubled global times.

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Living in the era of the Cold War, while fearful, wasn’t like it is today; while there may or may not have been “reds under your beds,” the threat of a nuclear attack and mutual assured destruction was real. The enemy of our time was not unseen like it is today – attacking at will, enslaving women and children, blowing up people randomly in restaurants and rock concerts, beheading journalists, including New Hampshire resident James Foley, etc.

Four of our members won speaking awards at model UNs held at Kearsarge Regional High School in 1982 and 1983. Many of us wouldn’t have become who we are today if it weren’t for Christa’s influence and that of another teacher and club advisor, George Morrison.

As time has passed, the fact that so many school children don’t even know about the Challenger disaster is pretty amazing – it was not unlike the second jet flying into the World Trade Center, as you can see in the video clip posted here. While thousands may not have died, it moved us the same way.

This time is not a time to forget but a time to remember and give thanks to a teacher and her colleagues who took a chance, a risk, to try something different, not unlike many others have done since the dawn of mankind.

Thank you, Christa, for that, and thank you to Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, and Gregory Jarvis, and your families, for inspiring us all.

NASA remembers all that have been lost as part of the space program: