Educators gather 30 years after Challenger disaster

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

Dozens of educators who competed alongside Christa McAuliffe to become the first teacher in space gathered Thursday to remember the seven astronauts who perished aboard Challenger 30 years ago.

McAuliffe’s son, Scott, now 39, also took part in the emotionally charged ceremony, which took place on a bleak, drizzly morning just 6 miles from where his mother’s space shuttle blasted off for the final time Jan. 28, 1986.

Many of the teacher-in-space semifinalists are retired now. They have gray hair. A few limp. But they still believe strongly in what McAuliffe hoped to accomplish aboard Challenger before disaster struck during liftoff.

“It’s really hard” to be back, said William Dillon, 77, a retired teacher who represented California in the competition back in the mid-1980s. He was at Kennedy Space Center for Challenger’s launch and had gotten to know not only McAuliffe, but a few of the other astronauts on the doomed flight.

Linda Preston, 61, also retired as a teacher, choked up as the names of the Challenger dead were read during the memorial service. The former space shuttle pilot reciting the names of all 24 astronauts killed in the line of duty over the years, Jon McBride, had to fight back tears.

“All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe,” Preston later confided to a reporter. She represented Utah in the teacher competition.

About 40 of the 113 remaining semifinalists for teacher-in-space traveled to Cape Canaveral for the anniversary commemoration, the biggest gathering ever for a NASA memorial like this.

“We felt we all wanted to be part of it,” said Connecticut semifinalist David Warner, 63, who still teaches science, robotics and rocketry.

Like so many of his colleagues, Warner wanted to see Kennedy’s “Forever Remembered” exhibit that opened last summer. It contains the only piece of Challenger wreckage on public display, a 12-foot section of the left-side body panel complete with the U.S. flag, as well as personal belongings of the Challenger and Columbia crews.

The ceremony was one of several NASA memorials that took place Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery and elsewhere around the country.