One of the Great and Tragic Events in the History of the Space Program: President Ronald Reagan is Enthused About the Teacher in Space Program, Which Would Select Christa McAuliffe for the Coveted Chance to Ride the Challenger

The Challenger disaster was one of the milestone’s of Reagan’s presidency, and his famous eulogy for the Challenger astronauts is considered by many his greatest speech in office

The space shuttle Challenger became the second shuttle to reach space, when it was launched successfully in April 1983. It successfully completed nine milestone missions during its nearly three years of service. In total, the spacecraft spent 62 days, 7 hours, 56 minutes and 22 seconds in space. Challenger hosted the first spacewalk of the space shuttle program on April 7, 1983, and carried the first American female and first black astronauts. Before it was launched again, NASA created an initiative to give people from all walks of life a chance to experience spaceflight firsthand. The first such civilian would be a teacher, one in the new Teacher in Space program, who would be selected from 11,000 teacher applicants for the historic chance.

Douglas Morrow was a Hollywood screenwriter and film producer. He earned an Academy Award for his script for 1949’s The Stratton Story, a biography of Baseball player Monty Stratton, who was disabled in a hunting accident. Reagan, who catapulted to fame as an actor, became friends with Morrow when Morrow sought to cast him in that part, remained friends throughout the Hollywood days and kept in contact through most of his presidency. Morrow was a part of the civilians in space program, and hoped to go into space himself. He wrote his friend President Reagan about it.

Reagan responded, but offered little hope in the immediate future. One of the reasons he cited was the Teacher in Space program that selected Christa McAuliffe for the coveted chance to ride the Challenger. Typed letter signed, on White House letterhead, Washington, June 26, 1985, to Morrow. He starts by mentioning his own efforts to keep fit, then talks about the prospects for Morrow to go into space, and finishing by discussing Social Security reform, which he says will minimize the tax that funds the program. “I’ll continue to plug but don’t overtrain. What with the international program plus such things as the ‘first teacher’ idea, it looks like there is a waiting line building up…

“Doug, the tax on Social Security when there is outside income was one of the steps taken by the bipartisan commission that set out to rescue Social Security from bankruptcy. If we can get our tax reform passed, I believe the new rates plus the doubling of personal exemptions will minimize the tax to a considerable extent. Our best to Margot – from Nancy and me.”

It was a cold morning on January 28, 1986, when Challenger was supposed to fly into space on its latest mission. Temperatures dipped below freezing and some of the shuttle’s engineers were concerned about the integrity of the seals on the solid rocket boosters in such low temperatures. Nonetheless, Challenger launched at 11:38 a.m. Eastern time in front of more media attention than usual, since it was carrying McAuliffe, who was planning to give lessons while in orbit. But McAuliffe and the rest of the crew never made it. In full view of the television cameras, Challenger broke up 73 seconds after launch.

“Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction,” the NASA launch commentator said, as pieces of the shuttle fell from the sky into the Atlantic. Salvage crews spent several weeks recovering pieces of the shuttle and carefully bringing up the remains of the seven astronauts. Remains that could be identified were turned over to the families, while the rest were buried in a monument to the Challenger crew at Arlington National Cemetery on May 20, 1986.

The Challenger disaster was one of the milestone’s of Reagan’s presidency. His famous eulogy for the Challenger astronauts is considered by many his greatest speech in office. He ended by saying, “The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”

In actuality, though, Challenger’s explosion devastated the space shuttle program in several ways. Plans to fly civilians in space (such as teachers or journalists) were shelved for the next 22 years, until Barbara Morgan, who was McAuliffe’s backup, flew aboard Endeavour in 2007. Satellite launches were shifted from the shuttle to reusable rockets. Additionally, astronauts were pulled off duties such as repairing satellites, and the Manned Maneuvering Unit was not flown again, to better preserve astronaut safety. Morrow never did get into space.