Teacher in Space participant remembers Challenger

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jan 28, 2006 | by Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig, STAFF WRITER

It was a Tuesday morning in late January 1986 when Shaun McElroy's astronomy class was interrupted by an office aide.

"The Challenger shuttle has blown up," the aide told the former science teacher at Stone Valley Middle School.

Stunned by what he heard, the Alamo educator quickly turned on the classroom's radio and listened to the news reports with his students.

"I was dumbfounded," says McElroy, who listened to continuous replays and commentary on the shuttle exploding shortly after take- off. It hit his class a little harder, like every other classroom across the country, because high school teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe was aboard the fatal flight as part of NASA's Teacher in Space Project.

Twenty years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger blew apart into jets of fire and plumes of smoke, a terrifying sight witnessed by the families of the seven astronauts, onlookers who came to watch the historic launch of the first teacher in space, not to mention the millions of people watching on TV.

Joining McAuliffe on the doomed Challenger flight were commander Dick Scobee, pilot Mike Smith and astronauts Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Ron McNair and Greg Jarvis.

Despite the tragedy, McElroy says he hoped he would be chosen to go on a future flight as one of the educators who was a candidate in the Teacher in Space Project.

"I remember I called my (U.S.) representative. I told him 'Don't take me off the list,'" says McElroy, who still wanted his chance to explore space. But his opportunity would have to wait.

The teacher project, created to educate students and stimulate excitement in science, math and space exploration, was put on hold until 1998 amid concerns surrounding the risk of sending civilians to space.

Remembering the past

The disaster shattered NASA's spit-shined image and the belief that space flight could become as routine as airplane travel. The investigation into the accident's cause revealed a space agency more concerned with schedules and public relations than safety and sound decision making.

Seventeen years later, seven more astronauts were lost on the shuttle Columbia, leading many to conclude NASA had not learned the lessons of Challenger.

But after last summer's successful return to flight under the highest level of engineering scrutiny ever, many space watchers are more hopeful.

"Don't we all learn as we go?" says Grace Corrigan, who lost her daughter, teacher McAuliffe, in the Challenger accident. "Everybody learns from their mistakes."

The two shuttle disasters, as well as the deaths of the Apollo 1 crew during a Jan. 27, 1967, launch pad test, taught the space agency how to improve the Herculean task of launching humans into space, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said recently. Today, a ceremony remembering the Challenger accident is planned at Kennedy Space Center.

Locally, the anniversary of the space shuttle tragedy will not go ignored. At the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, a special presentation to honor the memory of the seven crew members will take place and screenings of "To Be An Astronaut" will be shown today.

Challenger Centers also are in the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento. For more information on what these centers will do, visit http://www.challenger.org/clc/network.cfm.

Lessons learned

Challenger was brought down just after liftoff by a poorly designed seal in the shuttle's solid rocket booster, which has since been redesigned and has performed without problems. It will be used on the next-generation vehicle with plans to return astronauts to the moon and later to Mars.

"We learned how to design solid rocket boosters ... with no further failures," Griffin says. "We got that from the Challenger crew, so that is part of the learning process, I'm afraid."

The Challenger disaster came in an era of tighter budgets, smaller work forces and a constant need for the space agency to justify the shuttle program that followed the heyday of the Apollo moon shots. NASA had hoped sending a teacher into space would win back some public interest and show the routine nature of shuttle flights.

Nelson says he is confident that today's NASA leaders have learned the lessons of management hubris from their predecessors. Griffin grounded the shuttle fleet last summer after foam fell off the tank of Discovery during the first shuttle flight after Columbia. A chunk of foam debris doomed Columbia by knocking a hole in its wing.

"The problem that NASA has had that caused the destruction of both space shuttles is the same reason ... arrogance in the management of NASA so that they were not listening to the engineers on the line," Nelson says.

But some critics wonder how long the 2-year-old reforms and attitude changes implemented after Columbia will last until, once again, dissenting opinion is discouraged and NASA managers override the concerns of their engineers.

Griffin says he is reminded of the early days of the nation's air transport system when scores of test pilots died in plane accidents during the early part of last century.