Wife, Mother, Teacher . . . Astronaut: S. Christa McAuliffe, A True Story

Dear Reader,
Perhaps you were one of the many students, teachers, principals, and school staff members who gathered to watch an exciting, historic moment being broadcast live from the Kennedy Space Center in 1986. Most citizens did not have satellite dishes to access the live version of the Challenger space shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Schools, though, were special recipients of the program through CNN. Why? On board with six other crew members was (Sharon) Christa Corrigan McAuliffe, the first Teacher in Space, a private citizen. She was prepared to teach two lessons and conduct four basic experiments while in space. The shuttle’s primary purpose was to launch the second Tracking and Data Relay satellite. At below freezing, the morning was exceptionally cold for Florida on the 28th of January.


Two years earlier, McAuliffe had jumped on the opportunity when President Reagan and NASA announced the new Teacher in Space program, but she had to beat out the other 11,414 candidates. The selection process eventually whittled the field to 114 semi-finalists. That group was brought to Washington DC, where a review panel of astronauts and celebrities narrowed the number to just ten finalists. Then those ten were sent to Johnson Space Center in Texas for rigorous physical and psychological exams, simulations in weightlessness, and briefings. In 1985, the top two winners were chosen by NASA Administrator James Beggs, and prominent Texan, George W. Bush, announced the victory. Christa was the first choice, and teacher Barbara Morgan was her backup.

Recommended: Reach for the Stars, a documentary written and directed
by Mary Jo Godges and Renee Sotile; narrated by Susan Sarandon.
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Many people expected the winner to be a Science teacher, but the classes Christa taught to 10th, 11th, and 12th graders at Concord High in her home town of Concord, New Hampshire were Economics, Law, American History, and the school’s first “The American Woman” class. Prior to that, from 1970 to 1982, she’d taught Social Studies at different junior high and high schools, starting with when she was earning her master’s degree at Bowie State University. Christa was chosen for her extraordinary spirit, infectious enthusiasm, and consistently outstanding interviews that reflected a broad base of knowledge and experiences. She was a dynamic communicator. It is probably no surprise that earlier, when she was a high school student herself and John Glenn orbited the Earth, Christa said, “I want to do that!” So, soon after being chosen, she packed her bags and left home in order to undergo rigorous training for many months. Her children, a son and a daughter, were only nine and six years old at the time.


The next part of the tragic story that unfolded is well-known. Christa’s two wonderful lessons—the “Ultimate Field Trip” tour of the ship and “Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, and Why We’re Going”—talk about the benefits of space travel would not be realized. She would never get to conduct her four experiments in chromatography, hydroponics, magnetism, and Newton’s laws. Instead, enclosed in the crew cabin along with her six colleagues, Civilian Payload Specialist McAuliffe would plummet to the ocean from 48,000 feet up only 73 seconds after takeoff. A puff of smoke and a fireball initiated a sequence of other events, and just under three minutes later, all crew members would all be dead from lack of oxygen and the tremendous g-forces. And, although it was initially thought that the seven were unaware of their tragic situation, the sea-damaged tape that was restored two years later told a different story. Special IBM technology was able to reveal the voice of Pilot Michael Smith saying, “Uh-oh.”

Other things were not fully understood at the outset. A variety of myths about the cause of the accident emerged, including thoughts of political conspiracy. However, diligent investigation by a noteworthy commission confirmed the primary cause to be that the two O-ring seals in the solid rocket booster had given way, allowing hot exhaust gas to escape, causing fuel to ignite. Then a series of events caused the whole tank to collapse and explode. The O-rings had lost their resiliency in the unusually cold weather that day, a situation that engineers had warned might be a problem for the O-rings, but their words had fallen on deaf ears in the NASA administration.


The crew capsule was not recovered immediately, for it had to be located. Three months later, the remains of Christa McAuliffe, along with those of Commander Francis (Dick) Scobee, Pilot Michael Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnick were retrieved. Their comingled ashes were buried together in Arlington National Cemetery. Eventual compensation for the families of all crew members totaled $7.7million. Sixty per cent of the sum was paid out by Morton Thiokol, Inc., the engineering company held responsible, and the remaining forty per cent was covered by the U.S. government.

In the aftermath, many Christa McAuliffe scholarships and awards have been created across the nation. She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. At least forty schools at all levels have been named after her. In Concord, NH, her home town, the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center was created to honor Christa and Alan Shepard. And in Framingham, MA (where she grew up), a special collection of papers has been established in her name at the state university library. But prominent honors are not all just about McAuliffe. A nonprofit, the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, was founded by families of the crew members in 1986 and, so far, 42 centers have been established across the nation.


Etched into the stone that marks an individual gravesite for Christa in Concord’s Blossom Hill Cemetery are these words: Wife, Mother, Teacher. That is how she will be remembered by her husband, Steve—now a federal judge—and children Scott and Caroline—who are now both teachers. But she will also be remembered as the person who first said, “I touch the future. I teach.”


The full inscription:

S. Christa McAuliffe
September 2, 1948 - January 28, 1986

Wife mother teacher
PIONEER WOMAN
Crew member, space shuttle Challenger
America's first ordinary citizen to venture toward space

Submitted by Greta Nagel, PhD
MOTAL President and CEO


Postscript: In 1986, as the assistant principal of a K-6 school, I helped our hundreds of elementary students gather in the multi-purpose room to watch the Challenger. We had the kids sit on the floor instead of on chairs so we could all fit. Because the launch had been postponed for several days, it was exciting to finally see the actual departure; a chance to witness history being made. Everyone was fidgety, filled with nervous anticipation. Then—Wow!— the lift-off and throttle up were thrilling. But things soon went awry. When we witnessed the explosion, everyone was silent. Then a feeling of “This could not be happening!” It was surreal. The fate of the astronauts was uncertain, so we could maintain a sense of hope for a while. The full details of the tragedy were not revealed until much later in the day.


References:
Christa McAuliffe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe


Christa McAuliffe, first teacher in space, continues to inspire
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christa-mcauliffe-first-teacher-in-space-continues-to-inspire/


Christa McAuliffe - Children, Death & Facts – Biography
https://www.biography.com/astronaut/christa-mcauliffe


Christa McAuliffe - National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Biographical Data https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/mcauliffe.pdf


7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna11031097