

Pat yourself on the back for doing something brave. It belongs to the brave.” What do you think this means? Do you agree with this statement? Think for a moment about something that you have done that was hard but rewarding.

In this speech, President Reagan states, “The future does not belong to the fainthearted.Christa McAuliffe and the other Challenger astronauts inspired our country.Many wrote back saying how much the President’s words meant to them. In addition to his speech both on the day of the disaster and at the memorial service in Houston, President Reagan wrote letters to those that had lost loved ones. Putting aside his scheduled State of the Union address before Congress, the President instead delivered an Oval Office address to comfort the people as the nation mourned.įor this speech, he spoke of the great explorer Sir Francis Drake, reminding the people that the dedication of both Drake and the Challenger astronauts was admirable, and will not be forgotten. a president’s responseĪs the nation’s leader, President Reagan decided to address the country about the Challenger tragedy. It was the first time NASA had lost astronauts in flight, and the country was devastated.

EST, barely 73 seconds after liftoff, the shuttle, fuel tank, and solid rocket boosters disintegrated in an explosive plume of white smoke 40,000 feet in the atmosphere. As everyone watched, the shuttle and the seven astronauts inside it began the journey into the sky.Īt 11:39 a.m. After experiencing a weather delay once, the American people were excited to finally see the shuttle start its mission. On January 28th, 1986, a crowd gathered at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and across the country people were turning on their televisions, eagerly awaiting the launch of the Challenger shuttle. She believed that by traveling in the shuttle, she could encourage her students to better understand science and space.īecause the Teacher In Space program was being launched for the first time, students across the nation and even the world tuned in with excitement to observe the take-off of the Challenger. She had plans to record herself teaching her curriculum from the space station and transmitting back to Earth so they could be taught to classrooms all around the world. She went on to say that she had become close friends with the other nine teachers, and though it was one body going up into space, she was taking ten souls with her.Ĭhrista wanted to humanize the space program by giving the perspective of a non-astronaut. “It’s not often that a teacher is at a loss for words,” she said when she was announced as the first teacher in space. Christa McAuliffe, a history teacher from Concord High School in New Hampshire, was picked from over 11,000 applicants for NASA’s First Teacher program.
