Lessons, hope linger 25 years after Challenger

photo In this 1986 file photo, Christa McAuliffe, left, and Barbara Morgan, right, laugh during training. (AP Photo/NASA, File)

Through tears, June Scobee Rodgers watched her husband perish 25 years ago today when the space shuttle Challenger exploded seconds after takeoff, becoming a "where-were-you-when" moment for millions of Americans.

A generation later, through wrinkling around her eyes, the widow of Challenger Commander Dick Scobee sees the explosion as a moment of patriotic sacrifice for those who died in an accident that has inspired millions to explore great unknowns as her husband did.

"At 25 years, you start looking at it as history," said Rodgers, who retired to Chattanooga with her second husband, retired Army Lt. Gen. Don Rodgers, in the late 1980s.

"The Challenger loss, that horrific explosion in the sky, those were space pioneers who truly believed in their mission," she said. "They were prepared to give their lives in service, but we didn't want it to be the last chapter in space exploration."

Six astronauts, including Scobee, and an high school teacher died when the shuttle disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean. Investigations later determined that a seal failure allowed pressurized hot gas from the rocket motor to reach the external fuel tank.

But as the aging fleet of space shuttles reaches a period of twilight, there are worries that Americans may never again send a human into orbit aboard our own spacecraft.

Interactive Graphic: Remembering the Challenger crew

NASA has just three shuttle launches planned this year, and most accounts suggest the fleet will be retired thereafter with no definite plans for replacement. The oldest shuttle, Discovery, is nearly 27 years old. The youngest, Endeavour, went into service in 1992 as Challenger's replacement.

Rodgers said she hopes younger space enthusiasts will carry on her late husband's mission.

In 1993, with the help of an army of backers including President George H.W. Bush, she opened the first Challenger Center in Chattanooga. Now with 48 centers across the country, the program exposes youngsters to space exploration and careers that use math and science.

More than 4 million children have attended classes at the centers. Last week, 11-year-old Chapin Montague learned about Mars at the Chattanooga facility.

"I thought it was really fun," said Chapin, a sixth-grader at Normal Park Museum Magnet School. "It made me think about how much work goes into making a spaceship. I had never really thought about it before."

photo Some of shuttle commander Dick Scobee's medals are on display at the Challenger Center on the UTC campus in 2011.

Chapin said she and her classmates are considering some sort of career in aerospace, and that's exactly what Rodgers and others hope comes out of the Challenger Centers. It's one of the many "silver linings" to the 1986 tragedy, Rodgers said.

"We thought the Challenger loss was just a transition period," Rodgers said. "And so to those people who are anxious about the end of the shuttle program I say, this, too, is just a transition period. Space exploration will continue. That sort of travel is in our DNA."

Investing in children helps ensure another group of Americans will want to be astronauts, said Tom Patty, direct of the Chattanooga Challenger Center.

"If you take these kids through middle, high school, college and professional studies, they will be the ones who will be taking those next flights to the moon and to Mars and other places," Patty said.

Rodgers and her team of donors all felt strongly that some sort of national effort was needed to get young people interested in space travel, she said. Many of the donors were families who lost someone when Challenger exploded.

"I'm in hope that one of our next [Challenger Center] students will be the innovator that will create this opportunity for a new space vehicle," Rodgers said. "If we can step back and envision where we'll go, then build the right spacecraft, we will continue the mission of what so many have given their lives for."

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