Remembering Challenger

By Nancy Atkinson - January 28, 2010 at 6:33 AM UTC | Missions
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Mission Control: "Challenger, go at throttle up"

Commander Dick Scobee: "Roger go at throttle up"

Those were the last words heard from the

Challenger shuttle

crew on January 28, 1986. Then came an explosion, and the famous "Y" plume of smoke from the solid rocket boosters flying away aimlessly to nowhere.

Mission Control: "Flight Controllers looking carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction."

Today we remember the

Challenger

crew, pictured above: (front row) Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair; (back row) Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik.

Looking for a way to remember the crew, or want more insight on the mission or accident?

Read a UT article from Sept. 2008

of how Christa McAuliffe's lost lesson plans have been given new life by a caring NASA engineer. Read

a poem written by Stuart Atkinson

about the Challenger accident. On

Twitter,

people are writing short remembrances of where they were when they heard the news. Below are more ways to remember the crew, and if you'd like, add a comment on your thoughts about the accident/or your recollections from that day.

Space correspondent Miles O'Brien writes in his True Slant blog about the

Challenger disaster

.

Jim Oberg wrote a great article a couple of years ago about the

7 Myths About the Challenger Shuttle Disaster.

The Federation of American Scientists has an

extensive page on the 51 L mission

with loads of links and info.

Arlington Cemetery has a page

devoted to the Challenger Crew.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com