CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Wednesday marks the 29th anniversary of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, which killed all seven crew members, including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
The shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 28, 1986.
McAuliffe was a social studies teacher at Concord High School. She was picked from among 11,000 candidates to be the first teacher and private citizen in space.
Today, an elementary school in Concord bears her name, in addition to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center and the high school’s auditorium. A painting of her in her astronaut uniform is in the lobby.
The Concord school district itself and the city have observed the Challenger anniversary quietly through the years, partly to respect the privacy of the McAuliffe family.
In an address to the nation following the disaster, President Ronald Reagan said: “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.”
“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives,” Mr. Reagan added in closing. “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ’slipped the surly bonds of Earth’ to ’touch the face of God.’”
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