Remembering Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger Disaster

When Christa McAuliffe was picked to be America’s first teacher and private citizen in space, she even crafted a lesson plan for her students ahead of liftoff. She was teaching history, law and economics at Concord High School in New Hampshire when she was chosen as the lead candidate for NASA’s Teacher in Space project in 1985. While in orbit, McAuliffe planned to conduct fluid experiments and demonstrate Newton’s laws of motion for schoolchildren. Unfortunately, she never got the chance to do so. On Jan 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart on live television; she died at the age of 37, along with six of her fellow crew members. Even though students were robbed of directly receiving her lessons decades ago, people are still learning from her now.

In 2018, astronauts Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold honored McAuliffe by conducting some of her planned lessons. They recorded these lessons and shared them online through NASA and the Challenger Center under the title “Christa McAuliffe’s Lost Lessons.” Acaba and Arnold touched on most of the topics McAuliffe planned to teach, including Newton’s laws of motions, effervescence, liquids in microgravity, and chromatography. They wanted to help to inspire the next generation of explorers and educators and saw a powerful way to honor McAuliffe and the others aboard the space shuttle. Her motto of “I touch the future, I teach” lives on through their work.

Teaching McAuliffe’s lessons is not the only way she is being commemorated today. She is making history, even decades after her untimely death, by becoming the first woman to be memorialized on the grounds of New Hampshire’s State Capitol, in the city where she taught high school. Benjamin Victor, a sculptor from Boise, Idaho, who unveiled this statue of McAuliffe on what would have been her 76th birthday, said “inspiration hasn’t been lost in the disaster and her memory will go on forever.” The 8-foot-tall (2.4-meter) bronze statue shows McAuliffe walking confidently in a NASA flight suit and is thought to be the first full statue dedicated to her. Thanks to Governor Chris Sununu’s executive order for the statue to be built, schoolchildren can now visit the State Capitol to honor a teacher that is lauded as a hero and reflect on what is truly possible.

Beyond this public memorial, the Concord school district McAuliffe taught in also observes the disaster’s anniversary every year, though it does it quietly to respect the privacy of McAuliffe’s family. She had a young son and daughter at the time of her death, and her husband, Steven McAuliffe, wished for them to grow up in their community without the added attention that might come from being the children of Christa McAuliffe. Many schools and a library were also named after McAuliffe, and the McAuliffe Foundation offers scholarships to high school seniors. A commemorative coin also bears her likeness. Furthermore, the auditorium at Concord High School is named for her and students can see a large painting of her in her astronaut uniform to this day.

It seems that McAuliffe’s legacy will live on indefinitely, still inspiring many people from all walks of life, especially those who aspire to break into the field of space science. Years later, she continues to propel advancements in risk management, spacecraft design, and the safety of human space flight. She remains a symbol of the risks and rewards of space exploration as well as the resilience of the human spirit. Her mission sparked change, resulting in a safer, more inclusive, and education-centered space program. Thankfully, her unfortunate and tragic death has not been in vain.