Ronald E. McNair's widow remembers late husband on tenth anniversary of his death in space shuttle Challenger

Jet, Feb 26, 1996

Though it's been 10 years since that tragic day of Jan. 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger was destroyed in an accident shortly after takeoff, the legacy of the seven-member crew aboard the space shuttle continues to live.

Hundreds of people recently took part in a 10th-year remembrance day at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL, and at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

Cheryl McNair, widow of NASA physicist and mission specialist Dr. Ronald E. McNair, the second Black American to venture into space, was one of the survivors who remembered the anniversary of the event.

She recently told the Houston Chronicle newspaper she's surprised at the level of concern that she still receives for her and her family after so many years.

"It appears it's not something that they easily forget. So often, whether they know me or whether they don't. as they find out who I am they always remember exactly where they were and what they were doing (when the Challenger exploded)," said Mrs. McNair.

Today Mrs. McNair is on the board of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, a foundation established in memory of the Challenger crew. The foundation has since built 25 Challenger Centers across the country. She also busies herself by doing volunteer work in the community and has not reemarried.

The mother of two, Reggie, 13, and Joy, 11, she told the newspaper her children don't really remember their father because they were toddlers, in fact, the youngest of any of the crew's offspring, at the time of the accident. But, she maintained her husband's life has made an impact upon their children. Joy is considering going to NASA space camp, and she says she once caught their son in awe of his father's honors.

"One day I found him in there counting [his late father's numerous trophies] and I said, `Well hey, what are you doing?' and he said, `Counting those trophies,' because he was going to get as many as his dad," Mrs. McNair recalled.

The late physicist was also a karate expert and saxophonist.

"Ron did so much in the short amount of time he was here. He was just excited about everything," she said of her late husband, who was 36 at the time of his death in the space shuttle explosion.

She continued, "I always thought he would do something extraordinary with his life, because he was that kind of person."

Her late husband's mission would have been to launch a small science platform to study Halley's comet.