Christa Mcauliffe

Christa Mcauliffe, (CNN) – Twenty-five years ago today, Concord, New Hampshire, has been abuzz with enthusiasm that the teacher Christa McAuliffe was on the verge of making history.

Thousands of educators have asked to be the first teacher in space, but NASA chose McAuliffe, a 10th grade social studies teacher at Concord High School.

Micaela Pond, who was 17 years and McAuliffe’s neighbor at the time, remembers getting a return home one-day the teacher turned astronaut.

She still remembers her first laugh when McAuliffe said she wanted to go into space. “How is that possible?” she asked at the time. She remembers thinking: “Women do not go into space, [and] teachers certainly do not go into space.”

On January 28, 1986, the day of launch of the shuttle Challenger, Pond remembers the Concord High School auditorium full of students and media to watch the launch on television.

“We were all wearing party hats and whistles, and we were delighted with our master,” said Pond.

But the party did not last long. Challenger exploded 73 seconds into flight. McAuliffe and six astronauts aboard died.

“There was not a dry eye in the house, and I think the realization hit us pretty quickly,” it’s not good. “Pond recalled in a calm voice.

Merrimack resident Holly Cirillo, 33, was in third grade class from Barbara McNutt Thorton Ferry Elementary School and about 8 years old when the Challenger exploded.

She had gathered with his classmates and children from another class, who sat on their desktop computers while watching television at the front of the room. Cirillo said there was “a lot of preparation time leading up to it,” the program was heavy with details on the New Hampshire astronaut, Christa McAuliffe teacher and space exploration.

“It was really built with us,” she said. “I do not remember all the details, but we learned all about space and what it (McAuliffe) would do there.”

But when the shuttle exploded, the excitement changed to a stunned silence and confusion.

“There was a big sigh, and everyone was silent,” said Cirillo. “We had no idea what it was. Some children thought it happens, they lose pieces of the shuttle. We looked long before teachers close to the TV. Everyone was stunned. Nobody expected this. ”

Cirillo said the teacher in the class “did not know what to say” and did not know how to manage a classroom of third shock. She said she remembers the teacher cry, the comings and goings between the different classrooms and possibly try to change the subject.

Similar confusion is spent inside Room 16 at the Amherst Middle School that day.

“It was disbelief,” said Sam Giarrusso, the science teacher in seventh year that followed the launch on television with his students. “It was a great event, a professor of New Hampshire, and what happened? It was like 9 / 11. You watch and you start to see and ask, ‘what’s happening? What does this mean? ”

Giarruso, who has taught at Amherst College East for 33 years, said there was little discussion in class afterwards.

“From the perspective of a child, it is difficult to relate,” he said.

But Giarrusso said he remembers everything.

“We saw it happen,” he said.

So does Anthony DeMarco, a social studies teacher who watched the Challenger launch seventh school students Arc East on January 28, 1986. He said some children had been Christa McAuliffe, where she teaches.

“It was really devastating,” said DeMarco, who is now the leading Milford Middle School. “There was great hope and excitement around the first teacher in space. It was an incredible situation. At first, the children said, ‘what’s happening? “

Space Shuttle Challenger

Space Shuttle Challenger, (CP) – NASA is marking the 25th anniversary of the crash of the space shuttle Challenger, which killed seven astronauts.

Families and NASA officials met in an outdoor memorial at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday morning. Twenty-five years, the Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff. The seven astronauts who perished included teacher Christa McAuliffe.

One of the speakers was the widow of Challenger commander, June Scobee Rodgers. She was instrumental in establishing the Center for Space Science Education Challenger, now 48 centers of learning.

Rodgers said that the world has seen how the astronauts died. She said the families of the astronauts have begun centers to show the world how the Challenger crew lived and why they risked their lives.

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Online:

NASA http://history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Twenty-five years on Friday, the Challenger space shuttle disappeared from the Florida blue sky, leaving only corkscrew of white smoke hung in the air.
Challenger disintegrating 73 seconds after lift-off took the life of schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe and six other astronauts who perished in front of their families, friends and students to look at Cape Canaveral and on TV live across the nation.

Subsequently, President Reagan, in a shocked and grieving nation that the legacy of the accident would not reduce the ambition for the space program, but the achievements that have made the crew of Challenger proud.

“To reach new goals and achievements more and more – is how we commemorate our seven Challenger heroes,” he said.

A quarter century later, however, this promise does not appear sustainable over the smoke of Challenger hovering on the coast of Florida this chilly morning in January 1986. Some experts argue that the loss of Challenger has given America’s manned space program a major boost to its status today dusk.

In the years after Challenger, America’s space program man “limping,” said Joan Johnson-Freese of the Naval War College in Newport, RI, who has written several books on space policy. “There had large projects that have been barely satisfied, if at all. ”

The loss dropped the Challenger shuttle fleet to America from four to three, and forced shuttle missions important to be put on hold or canceled. As requested by President George W. Bush, NASA is about to retire the shuttle this year, even if it has no replacement in the wings. NASA has managed to build a huge space station in orbit, but the proposals by various presidents to send teams of the Moon and Mars have been fruitless.

Challenger heritage is more complex than what Reagan hoped. The accident has taught many NASA on the vulnerability of the shuttle and how to make space travel safer, space experts say.

However, some lessons from the accident were eventually forgotten, with a major consequence being the loss in 2003 of the shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated on re-entry in Texas, killing seven astronauts.

The Challenger accident “was important because it set in train a set of changes to NASA,” said Roger Launius, senior curator in the history of space at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. But finally, “a kind of entropy games”

It hardly seemed possible in 1986, when the accident plunged NASA anguished introspection. Investigators appointed by Reagan, noted that NASA had repeatedly ignored serious technical problems. They criticized what they called the NASA “Silent Safety Program” and “flawed” decision.

Investigators have traced the exact cause of the crash of the shuttle O-rings, rubber seals in thinner than the two engines side of the spacecraft. O-rings failed and allowed hot gases to escape the flames, creating a blowtorch to the ship.

The findings of investigators led NASA to take a series of upgrades to the shuttle, which made the spacecraft safer – if not exactly safe. But other lessons from the accident continue to affect the space agency:

Before Challenger, NASA was looking spaceflight simple and safe – safe enough to allow a teacher to fly on the shuttle. The incident recalled that space exploration, at one time or another has cost lives.

Americans decided they could accept the cost. Public support for NASA and the shuttle program in the months immediately after the loss of the shuttle ran 70% to 80%, Launius said.

The public still overwhelmingly supports the astronaut program. A survey conducted in October by Rasmussen Reports polling firm found 72% of respondents said it was at least somewhat important for the nation to have a space program rights.

After Challenger, the Americans understood that “there is a risk to human spaceflight,” Smith says. “But that was not enough to deter us from continuing our quest for space exploration.”

This tolerance for loss of life is likely to be tested again as long as humans continue to breathe in space, many space experts say.

The problem is that the boats blasting into space are to move from a standstill to 17,000 km / h, the speed necessary to orbit the Earth, “said O’Connor, head of security at NASA. This requires a huge shock and dangerous power. Even private companies now build spaceships cannot avoid the uncomfortable truth.

The ideas for the next generation of manned vehicles continue, in my opinion, high risk, “said O’Connor. “Getting up and back is the hardest thing, and oh, by the way, while you’re there its not so benign is.”

“Spaceflight, such as landing planes on aircraft carriers in the night, is inherently dangerous,” says Terence Finn, a former official of the NASA shuttle. “There will be accidents on the way.”