One of my Bestseller Bound friends, science fiction author Jaleta Clegg, has shared a touching post recalling a day that shook up the whole country. I remember being in seventh grade, coming back from lunch. I saw the tear-stained face of my science teacher and knew something was very wrong. When I heard about the Challenger explosion, a sick feeling twisted the inside of my stomach. The anniversary just passed. Do you remember what you were doing?
Here is Jaleta’s memory. Jan. 28, 1986
It was a cold January day, although the sun shone bright through the windows. I sat on the couch in my mom’s living room, surrounded by silk flowers–red roses, white daisies, and gardenias. My wedding was less than three weeks away. I twisted flowers with ribbons and florists’ wire while I watched the shuttle launch prep on tv.
I’ve been a space junkie ever since I can remember. The night sky has always fascinated me. The stories, the science, but most of all, the travel. Science fiction was and is my genre of choice. I snuck out of bed at 4 am to watch the first shuttle launch. I waited through the interminable countdown with baited breath until the clock hit zero, the engines ignited, and the Columbia rose into space. I watched a shuttle launch live in 2006, a miracle considering I live in Utah and with eight kids, our budget was too tight to squeeze in a trip to Florida. Through the generosity of friends, my husband and I made it. The launch went off on schedule, picture perfect.
Back to the Challenger launch. This was not the shuttle’s first launch. The media circus surrounding it came because of one astronaut: Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher slated to become the first teacher in space. All sorts of special lessons were scheduled to be broadcast from the shuttle to schools across America. School children everywhere watched the launch live, just like I watched from my seat on the couch.
The countdown reached zero, the engines ignited, the shuttle rose into the air on a column of smoke.
And then the unthinkable happened. The shuttle exploded. In an instant, Christa McAuliffe and her fellow astronauts were gone.
I stared in disbelief at the tv as the news people replayed the horrible scene. How could this have happened? A cold snap compromised the rubber in one small gasket. The first teacher in space was gone. A nation watched, horrified, as the events unfolded.
Twenty five years later, Christa McAuliffe has touched my life in ways I could not even have imagined then. A local school teacher, who ran shuttle simulations in his sixth grade classroom, had a dream that blossomed into a full-blown center with starship simulators that take children on trips far into the galaxy and into a future full of danger and intrigue and aliens. I went ahead with my wedding, ending up with eight wonderful children and twenty five years of memories of my own, good and bad. I graduated from BYU as a teacher in 1992. My teaching certificate sat in a drawer until 2002. Recovering from a bout of cancer left me feeling I needed to do more, give more.
I walked into the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center on an April morning in 2002 and told Victor Williamson, the creator and director of the center, that I wanted to become a volunteer. He got a panicked look in his eye, looking to his staff as if to say, who is this crazy woman and why is she in my office? Fortunately, one of the staff knew me from my college days and vouched that I was not as crazy as I sounded. I volunteered that summer, working as a camp cook. I was offered a paid position that fall, as a teacher for the daily field trips. I am now the planetarium director, curriculum specialist, costumer, story consultant, office assistant, and still camp cook. We touch the lives and imaginations of thousands of children each year at our center.
To borrow a quote from Christa McAuliffe, “I touch the future. I teach.”
Her spirit lives on through her legacy from that fateful accident twenty five years ago. She touched my life then and she still touches it today.
For more information on the Challenger, start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
For more information on the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center: http://www.spacecamputah.org
For more information on my writing and ramblings: http://www.jaletac.com
Jaleta Clegg is the author of Nexus Point. When Captain Dace crash lands on a primitive planet, she finds herself on the run from villagers who are sure she’s a demon and the Patrol, who’s sure she’s a smuggler. Accused of piracy, facing death or worse at the hands of those who should be rescuing her, she must find not only some way to survive but also escape. Unfortunately, the world has other plans.
