Challenger

On January 28, 1986, Americans sat in front of televisions in their homes, at work, or in other places and watched as the space shuttle Challenger exploded just minutes after lift-off. America’s edge in the ‘space race’ suddenly was in doubt, and the dreams of so many young kids who wanted to be astronauts were vanquished in fear that we’d never go back to space again. There was something mystical about America’s journey to space, and to have a program that many people saw as invulnerable and a symbol of American hope go up in a ball of flame stunned us all. The lives of the Challenger astronauts were lost, but we all fell into the ocean with them.

I remember that day. I’ll never forget hearing the news while on a California playground. I remember coming home that night and watching on the news with fascination as videos of the launch played over and over again. I couldn’t fathom what happened. It shocked me to my core. I loved the space program. I loved reading about it, and I certainly never forgot the night when all of us sat as a family around the television and watched “Space Camp.” I wanted to go to space. That was my dream, and for a moment it was dashed.

On February 10, 1986, Time Magazine published an article by Ed Magnuson that held me in my chair. I pored over the article, grieving in my heart over what had happened. Of course, the cover of the issue had the image of the explosion on it, and I couldn’t look away. What had happened? Months later, the magazine published a report explaining the Roger’s Commission’s findings about the shuttle explosion. As the article explained the Commission’s findings, I sat engrossed doing all that I could in my eight-year-old brain to understand what had happened. When I set the article down, I realized something. My dream hadn’t died; in fact, I was fascinated even more by space, space travel, the stars and planets, and anything else that might be out there. The Challenger tragedy did something in me that I couldn’t fathom: it focused me on the wonders of what might be out there.

I went to school and started reading everything I could about space and the planets. I sat in science class in awe of what we learned about the rings of Jupiter and the ice planet named Pluto. I pondered the possibilities of life on Mars, and what might really be going on in that big glowing ball in the sky known as the Sun. Years later, I’m still fascinated. I love to watch the night sky and search for its wonders. It still fascinates me to watch a shuttle launch. It represents humanity’s drive to shoot for the stars, and to resiliently press on. The destruction of the Challenger shuttle and the deaths of its crew were not in vain. They galvanized me and people like me to keep dreaming even when things go wrong. Sometimes we will fail, but we must try again. It’s about living the dream and pursuing what God made us for, and when we fail we just need try again. On September 29, 1988, a long thirty-three months after the Challenger disaster, space shuttle Discovery returned to space and again carried the hopes of the American nation to see the stars. Sometimes it’s not about our successes, but about our failures and how we respond to them.