By KC Downey
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CONCORD, New Hampshire (WMUR) — Wednesday marks the 40th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy.
The shuttle exploded 73 seconds after takeoff on Jan. 28, 1986.
New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe, 37, was one of the seven crew members killed in the disaster. Crew members Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik and Gregory Jarvis also died.
She was survived by her husband, Steven McAuliffe, and two young children.
The Concord school community was heartbroken after her death, and the nation united with love and support for students and teachers.
McAuliffe’s remains were buried at the Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord.
The program was first announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
“It’s long been a goal of our space shuttle to someday carry private citizens in space. Until now, we hadn’t decided who the first citizen passenger would be. But today, I’m directing NASA to begin a search in all of our elementary and secondary schools, and to choose as the first citizen passenger in the history of our space program, one of America’s finest – a teacher. When that shuttle takes off, all of America will be reminded of the crucial role that teachers and education play in the life of our nation,” Reagan said.
In 1985, McAuliffe, a social studies teacher at Concord High School, was one of 10 finalists for the program. She told WMUR that the experience reinvigorated her enthusiasm for teaching.
“Right now I feel like I could teach two years without stopping. I’ve got so much information,” McAuliffe said. “The students in my class have just been so excited about this. So, it’s wonderful.”
Eventually, McAuliffe became the first civilian teacher ever chosen for a space mission. She was chosen out of more than 11,000 applicants.
Once selected, she underwent physical and psychological testing. She also went through four months of training with the crew on shuttle systems and emergency evacuation drills. Her training also included time in zero-gravity flights.
Her mission was to teach lessons from space that would be broadcast to more than 1 million students through closed-circuit television.
There are reportedly about 40 schools worldwide that are named in McAuliffe’s honor.
In New Hampshire, the “Christa McAuliffe Planetarium” was dedicated and opened in 1990 as the state’s memorial for McAuliffe. In 2001, the planetarium became the official state memorial for astronaut Alan Shepard, a Derry native and one of the few people to ever walk on the moon. He died in 1998.
In 2009, the planetarium expanded and was rededicated as the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, which today is a 45,000-square-foot science and space museum.
McAuliffe was also a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. She and her six crew members were posthumously awarded it by President George W. Bush on July 23, 2004.
Meanwhile, lessons McAuliffe intended to teach from space were finally taught in 2018.
Four of McAuliffe’s lessons — on effervescence, or bubbles; chromatography; liquids; and Newton’s laws — were filmed by astronauts Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold and posted online by the Challenger Center, a not-for-profit organization supporting science, technology, engineering and math education.
In a live chat with students in his home state of Maryland, Arnold said he was thrilled to spotlight teachers.
“To shine a light on one of the most important jobs there is, and that is being a classroom teacher. To just say thank you to all the amazing people in our nation’s classrooms and the classrooms around the world, who sacrifice so much with our most precious resource, our children,” Arnold said.
In 2019, President Donald Trump signed into law a bill that would create a commemorative $1 coin to honor McAuliffe.
In March 2021, distribution of the coin began. Then-First Lady Jill Biden helped mark the occasion during a visit to the Concord school named after the beloved teacher.
“There’s a saying that Christa loved, and it’s inscribed on the coin that we unveiled today: “I touch the future. I teach,'” Biden said.
The coin is a reminder of all McAuliffe stood for, said her widower, Judge Steven McAuliffe. He said it’s also a tribute that spans beyond the woman chosen years ago to be America’s teacher in space.
“She would insist that all teachers see and accept this new U.S. coin commemoration for what it actually is: A tribute to them,” he said.
There are multiple documentaries about McAuliffe and the doomed Challenger mission, including “Challenger: The Final Flight,” which was released on Netflix in 2020, and “Christa,” which was released by PBS in 2024.
In November 2022, NASA announced that a piece of the Space Shuttle Challenger had been found off the coast of Florida.
The artifact was discovered by a History Channel documentary crew diving for the wreckage of a World War II-era aircraft, according to NASA officials.
In December 2023, New Hampshire officials commissioned an artist to design a memorial for McAuliffe on the State House lawn.
In September 2024, the statue was unveiled. McAuliffe made history as the first female Granite Stater to be set in stone in front of the state’s Capitol.
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