Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, 1986, by Rose

From MemoryArchive

Who: Rose
What: Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
When: September 28, 1986
Where: Pelham, NH

The Challenger disaster was the first time in my life I was a part of the “where were you when it happened” conversations. I was 11, sitting in Ms. Borrie’s fifth grade health class. Class that day consisted of us huddled around the tv watching the take off. It was the first take off I’d seen and I am sure I was impressed and certainly was paying attention (good little nerd that I was). When the explosion happened, I had no idea something had gone wrong. I thought that smoke was part of the plan—when the rocket boosters separated from the shuttle. But the room went silent after a gasp or two from Ms. Borrie and Amanda, one of the few students who knew something was very wrong. The rest of the day was ghostly. I remember the teachers whispering and crying to each other, ignoring us most of the time. The day became hushed and hazy, as if we were all moving in slow motion.

Christa McAuliffe was a teacher in the New Hampshire public schools. We NH kids felt closer to her and to this mission than most children (and adults) around the country did, I believe. For me, she was also a semblance of my mom – a public school teacher, the same age, with the 80s perm and the love of her job. I was attached to Christa. We NH students had followed the mission closely, getting to know Christa through special Scholastic Inc. publications and video interviews. We always referred to her as Christa, though certainly as a teacher, she should have been Mrs. McAuliffe. It was part of her personality, I guess.

In Concord, today, there is the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium. A fitting memorial to the woman who said, “I touch the future, I teach.”