The Challenger Generation
Thirty years later, we remember Christa McAuliffe and what she taught us
Tuesday, January 28
It’s been 30 years, but I know exactly where I was on the morning of January 28, 1986: Seated in front of a classroom television, along with millions of other schoolkids across the country, counting down to the launch of the space shuttle Challenger.
I sat cross-legged on the floor with my second-grade class at McKinley Elementary School, hands tucked under my fluorescent blue Converse All Stars, while our teacher reminded us to sit still and keep quiet. But we were too excited to sit still and keep quiet. At liftoff, we watched the shuttle thrust upward into a clear sky, carrying with it the imaginations of a generation of students.
What happened next burned an image in my mind that has been with me since that day.
A Teacher in Space
Our countdown to liftoff began long before that morning. In the weeks leading up to the launch, teachers across the country prepared their students with lessons about outer space and the shuttle. We were introduced to Christa McAuliffe, the 37-year-old high school teacher from New Hampshire, who had been selected from over 11,000 candidates for NASA’s Teach in Space project, to be what they called “the first ordinary citizen in space.”
We called her Mrs. McAuliffe. I saw her picture in the newspaper, watched her interviewed on television, and learned about her in our classroom. She wasn’t a scientist, pilot, or astronaut. She was a teacher, just like Mrs. Marcuse and Mrs. Cousineau. She had a curly perm like my mother. She was a real person. She was one of us.
Although she was hardly ordinary, that’s how she described herself. And she was proud of that designation. In her history course, she taught that history is made by ordinary people, living their lives in their own time.
Before a review panel for the Teacher in Space program, Mrs. McAuliffe said,
“I’ve always been concerned that ordinary people have not been given their place in history. I would like to humanize the space age by giving the perspective of a non-astronaut. Space is the future. As teachers, we prepare the students for the future.”
The Ultimate Field Trip
Mrs. McAuliffe wanted to take us on a field trip. She prepared two science lessons to be broadcast live from the crew cabin of the Challenger, 152 miles above the Earth.
The first lesson, “The Ultimate Field Trip,” would take us on a grand tour of the shuttle, pointing out its equipment and explaining what astronauts do. The second, “Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, Why,” would examine the uses of space exploration and explain how research on space shuttles has improved everyday life back on Earth.
She also planned to keep a journal of her experiences, explaining,
“Just as the pioneer travelers of the Conestoga wagon days kept personal journals, I, as a pioneer space traveler, would do the same.”
I imagined her floating weightless through the flight deck of the orbiter, journal in hand, moving effortlessly with a push of her arms, pointing to an overhead window where a sphere of blue and white was just coming into view.
Mrs. McAuliffe made us feel like we were going to space with her.
T-Minus 10
On that Tuesday morning, 25 million students sat in classrooms, libraries, cafeterias, gyms, and auditoriums, their eyes fixed on a screen playing a live feed from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
At 11:30 a.m., the camera framed a wide shot of Launchpad 39B. The Challenger stood tall and majestic, ready to defy the laws of gravity. Mrs. McAuliffe was strapped into her seat on the shuttle’s mid-deck. Goosebumps dimpled my arms.
At T-minus 10 seconds, the class counted down together until reaching the point of no return — liftoff. The engines ignited and swells of smoke mushroomed over the launchpad. The shuttle rose above the tower with a roar, riding orange-white flames. We shouted and cheered.
The Challenger ascended into the blue sky, leaving a white column of smoke behind. I leaned back as it climbed, imagining Mrs. McAuliffe lying on her back, feeling the vibration of the shuttle’s rocket boosters on each side.
Then it happened. A blast of smoke engulfed the shuttle. Its trail split in two, each wildly spinning off in different directions. White streamers rained down from the plume of smoke. Our teachers quieted the classroom so they could hear the television. We heard the words “major malfunction.” I didn’t understand what had just happened, but I knew something was wrong.
The teachers huddled together in the back of the classroom, speaking in hushed voices. Someone switched off the television. My stomach turned. The mission was over. We were not going to space.
Questions
My classmates looked stunned. Our teachers, distraught. Some cried. I don’t know what my face showed, but I remember an unsettling sense of confusion. This was NASA. Astronauts. Rocket scientists. Everything had been carefully planned, calculated, computed, and tested. The shuttle was supposed to be on the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, falling into orbit, not falling into the Atlantic Ocean.
We asked questions, but there were no answers.
In that moment, somewhere between Earth and space, as strange twisting smoke trails cut across the sky, everything changed. The world became a different place — vulnerable and uncertain. My teacher couldn’t explain what had gone wrong. My mother said accidents happen, some things cannot be controlled.
I felt betrayed by everything I’d been taught.
We would later learn that the shuttle did not actually explode, but broke apart 73 seconds into its reach for space. The bitter cold of that January morning had caused a rubber O-ring on one of the shuttle’s rocket boosters to harden, letting hot gas burn through the booster. The explanation seemed too simple. How could such a horrific loss be caused by an O-ring?
A Seat on a Rocket Ship
We never heard the lessons that Mrs. McAuliffe had planned to teach us from the Challenger, but her short journey taught us something more significant.
Mrs. McAuliffe had once jokingly said,
“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.”
It drew laughs, but there was truth in those words, because it’s exactly what she did.
My generation was Mrs. McAuliffe’s class. She wanted us to experience new things, ask questions, find our gifts, discover our passions, pursue dreams and explore opportunities. And it all begins with taking risks.
In the classroom, Mrs. McAuliffe taught her students that history is made by ordinary people willing to take risks to do something extraordinary. By taking a seat on the Challenger, she lived that lesson.
She famously said,
“I touch the future. I teach.”
We are the future that Mrs. McAuliffe touched. Thirty years later, her final lesson still inspires a generation of students.
Aaron Schmidt is a writer and lawyer based in Cleveland and Columbus. He has written essays for The Plain Dealer, The Huffington Post, and Cleveland Magazine.
A special thank you to Emma Chmura for her feedback on an early version of this essay, and to Erin Minch, who sat with me in that classroom 30 years ago, for her recollections of that day.
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