The Challenger shuttle crew, of seven astronauts--including the specialties of pilot, aerospace engineers, and scientists-- died tragically in the explosion of their spacecraft during the launch of STS-51-L from the Kennedy Space Center about 11:40 a.m., EST, on January 28, 1986. The explosion occurred 73 seconds into the flight as a result of a leak in one of two Solid Rocket Boosters that ignited the main liquid fuel tank. The crewmembers of the Challenger represented a cross-section of the American population in terms of race, gender, geography, background, and religion. The explosion became one of the most significant events of the 1980s, as billions around the world saw the accident on television and empathized with any one of the several crewmembers killed.
The spacecraft commander was Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Francis W. Scobee. He was born on May 19, 1939, in Cle Elum, Washington, and graduated from the public high school in Auburn, Washington, in 1957. He then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, training as a reciprocating engine mechanic but longing to fly. He took night courses and in 1965 completed a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Arizona. This made it possible for Scobee to receive an officer's commission and enter the Air Force pilot training program. He received his pilot's wings in 1966 and began a series of flying assignments with the Air Force, including a combat tour in Vietnam. Scobee also married June Kent of San Antonio, Texas, and they had two children, Kathie R. and Richard W., in the early 1960s. He attended the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in 1972 and thereafter was involved in several test programs. As an Air Force test pilot Scobee flew more than 45 types of aircraft, logging more than 6,500 hours of flight time.
In 1978 Scobee entered NASA's astronaut corps and was the pilot of STS-41-C, the fifth orbital flight of the Challenger spacecraft, launching from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on April 6, 1984. During this seven-day mission the crew successfully retrieved and repaired the ailing Solar Maximum Satellite and returned it to orbit. This was an enormously important mission, because it demonstrated the capability that NASA had long said existed with the Space Shuttle to repair satellites in orbit.
The pilot for the fatal 1986 Challenger mission was Michael J. Smith, born on April 30, 1945 in Beaufort, North Carolina. At the time of the Challenger accident a commander in the U.S. Navy, Smith had been educated at the U.S. Naval Academy, class of 1967, and received an M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1968. From there he underwent aviator training at Kingsville, Texas, and received his wings in May 1969. After a tour as an instructor at the Navy's Advanced Jet Training Command between 1969 and 1971, Smith flew A- 6 "Intruders" from the USS Kitty Hawk in Southeast Asia. Later he worked as a test pilot for the Navy, flying 28 different types of aircraft and logging more than 4,300 hours of flying time. Smith was selected as a NASA astronaut in May 1980, and a year later, after completing further training, he received an assignment as a Space Shuttle pilot, the position he occupied aboard Challenger. This mission was his first space flight.
Judith A. Resnik was one of three mission specialists on Challenger. Born on April 5, 1949 at Akron, Ohio, the daughter of Dr. Marvin Resnik, a respected Akron optometrist, and Sarah Resnik. Brought up in the Jewish religion, Resnik was educated in public schools before attending Carnegie-Mellon University, where she received a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1970, and the University of Maryland, where she took at Ph.D. in the same field in 1977. Resnik worked in a variety of professional positions with the RCA corporation in the early 1970s and as a staff fellow with the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, between 1974 and 1977.
Selected as a NASA astronaut in January 1978, the first cadre
containing women, Resnik underwent the training program for Shuttle
mission specialists during the next year. Thereafter, she filled
a number of positions within NASA at the Johnson Space Center,
working on aspects of the Shuttle program. Resnik became the second
American woman in orbit during the maiden flight of Discovery,
STS-41-D, between August 30 and September 5, 1984. During this
mission she helped to deploy three satellites into orbit; she
was also involved in biomedical research during the mission. Afterward,
she began intensive training for the STS-51- L mission on which
she was killed.
McNair was also a physical fitness advocate and pursued athletic
training from an early age. He was a leader in track and football
at his high school. He also became a black belt in Karate, and
while in graduate school began offering classes at St. Paul's
AME Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also participated in
several Karate tournaments, taking more than 30 trophies in these
competitions. While involved in these activities McNair met and
married Cheryl B. Moore of Brooklyn, New York, and they later
had two children. After completing his Ph.D. he began working
as a physicist at the Optical Physics Department of Hughes Research
Laboratories in Malibu, California, and conducted research on
electro-optic laser modulation for satellite-to-satellite space
communications.
This research led McNair into close contact with the space program
for the first time, and when the opportunity presented itself
he applied for astronaut training. In January 1978 NASA selected
him to enter the astronaut cadre, one of the first three Black
Americans selected. McNair became the second Black American in
space between Febrary 3 and 11, 1984, by flying on the Challenger
Shuttle mission STS-41-B. During this mission McNair operated
the maneuverable arm built by Canada used to move payloads in
space. The 1986 mission on which he was killed was his second
Shuttle flight.
Ellison S. Onizuka, was the last of the three mission specialists.
He had been born in Kealakekua, Kona, Hawaii, on June 24, 1946,
of Japanese-American parents. He attended the University of Colorado,
receiving B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering in June and December
1969, respectively. While at the university he married Lorna Leido
Yoshida of Hawaii, and the couple eventually had two children.
He also participated in the Air Force R.O.T.C. program, leading
to a commission in January 1970. Onizuka served on active duty
with the Air Force until January 1978 when he was selected as
a NASA astronaut. With the Air Force in the early 1970s he was
an aerospace flight test engineer at the Sacramento Air Logistics
Center. After July 1975 he was assigned to the Air Force Flight
Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as squadron
flight test officer and later as chief of the engineering support
section.
When Onizuka was selected for the astronaut corps he entered into
a one year training program and then became eligible for assignment
as a mission specialist on future Space Shuttle flights. He worked
on orbiter test and checkout teams and launch support crews at
the Kennedy Space Center for the first two Shuttle missions. Since
he was an Air Force officer on detached duty with NASA, Onizuka
was a logical choice to serve on the first dedicated Department
of Defense classified mission. He was a mission specialist on
STS-51-C, taking place 24-27 Jan. 1985 on the Discovery
orbiter. The Challenger flight was his second Shuttle mission.
The last two members of the Challenger crew were not officially
Federal government employees. Gregory B. Jarvis, a payload specialist,
worked for the Hughes Aircraft Corp.'s Space and Communications
Group in Los Angeles, California, and had been made available
for the Challenger flight by his company. Jarvis had been
born on August 24, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan. He had been educated
at the State University of New York at Buffalo, receiving a B.S.
in electrical engineering (1967); at Northeastern University,
Boston, where he received an M.S. degree in the same field (1969);
and at West Coast University, Los Angeles, where he completed
coursework for an M.S. in management science (1973). Jarvis began
work at Hughes in 1973 and served in a variety of technical positions
until 1984 when he was accepted into the astronaut program under
Hughes' sponsorship after competing against 600 other Hughes employees
for the opportunity. Jarvis' duties on the Challenger flight
had revolved around gathering new information on the design of
liquid-fueled rockets.
The last member of the crew was Sharon Christa McAuliffe, the
first teacher to fly in space. Selected from among more than 11,000
applicants from the education profession for entrance into the
astronaut ranks, McAuliffe had been born on September 2, 1948,
the oldest child of Edward and Grace Corrigan. Her father was
at that time completing his sophomore year at Boston College,
but not long thereafter he took a job as an assistant comptroller
in a Boston department store and the family moved to the Boston
suburb of Framingham. As a youth she registered excitement over
the Apollo moon landing program, and wrote years later on her
astronaut application form that "I watched the Space Age
being born and I would like to participate."
McAuliffe attended Framingham State College in her hometown, graduating
in 1970. A few weeks later she married her longstanding boyfriend,
Steven McAuliffe, and they moved to the Washington, DC, metropolitan
area so Steven could attend Georgetown Law School. She took a
job teaching in the secondary schools, specializing in American
history and social studies. They stayed in the Washington area
for the next eight years, she teaching and completing an M.A.
from Bowie State University, in Maryland. They moved to Concord,
New Hampshire, in 1978 when Steven accepted a job as an assistant
to the state attorney general. Christa took a teaching post at
Concord High School in 1982, and in 1984 learned about NASA's
efforts to locate an educator to fly on the Shuttle. The intent
was to find a gifted teacher who could communicate with students
from space.
NASA selected McAuliffe for this position in the summer of 1984
and in the fall she took a year-long leave of absence from teaching,
during which time NASA would pay her salary, and trained for an
early 1986 Shuttle mission. She had an immediate rapport with
the media, and the teacher in space program received tremendous
popular attention as a result. It is in part because of the excitement
over McAuliffe's presence on the Challenger that the accident
had such a significant impact on the nation.
For Further Reading:
Joseph D. Atkinson, Jr., and Jay M. Shafritz, The Real Stuff:
A History of the NASA Astronaut Recruitment Program (New York:
Praeger 1985).
Daniel and Susan Cohen, Heroes of the Challenger (London:
Archway Paperbacks, 1986).
Grace Corrigan, A Journal for Christa: Christa McAuliffe, Teacher
in Space (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993).
Robert E. Hohler, "I Touch the Future . . ." The
Story of Christa McAuliffe (New York: Random House, 1986).
William P. Rogers, et al., Report of the Presidential Commission
on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, five volumes (Washington,
DC: Government Printing Office, 1986).
David Shayler, Shuttle Challenger (London: Salamander Books,
1987).
Joseph J. Trento, with reporting by Susan B. Trento, Prescription
for Disaster: From the Glory of Apollo to the Betrayal of the
Shuttle (New York: Crown Pubs., 1987).
Staff of the Washington Post, Challengers: The Inspiring
Life Stories of the Seven Brave Astronauts of Shuttle Mission
51-L (New York: Pocket Books, 1986).
For further information email
hq-histinfo@nasa.gov
Updated October 22, 2004