The Challenger disaster, 30 years later: Mission's astronauts still inspire

 

The space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 28, 1986. All seven crew members died. FILE: BRUCE WEAVER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By BROOKE E. SEIPEL / STAFF WRITER

Thirty years to the day later, Paul Okamura still remembers the smiling faces of the astronauts – not the fireball that came later.
It was Jan. 28, 1986, and Okamura, now 49, was a college-age guy at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida watching seven accomplished people climb happily into the space shuttle Challenger.
“A minute after takeoff we saw the explosion,” said Okamura, who now lives in Irvine. “At first, we thought it was the separation of the booster rockets.”
It wasn’t. Instead, the burst of fuel and flame that started to engulf the Challenger 73 seconds into the flight was the worst accident in the history of the U.S. space program.
“But then, over the PA system in the viewing area, they told us what had happened.”
In an instant, the crowd’s excitement became sorrow.
“People started crying and hugging,” he said. “It felt like a funeral.”
Shuttle launches had become ho-hum; the Challenger was on its 10th mission. But with Christa McAuliffe, a civilian, set to be the first American teacher in space, people across the country were paying attention to Challenger.
And even though the liftoff was in Florida, Challenger was an Orange County program.
Much of the Challenger was designed by Rockwell International, which had a division in Newport Beach and was later headquartered in Seal Beach. Thousands of local workers – from engineers to accountants to line employees – had, at times, worked on the Challenger or one of the many other spacecraft and aerospace technology built over the years in Orange County.
Even today, Challenger has strong local ties:
• McAuliffe Middle School in Los Alamitos is named after the teacher who died in the explosion. McAuliffe’s role in the Challenger mission had school classrooms across the country tuned in to watch the liftoff.
Today, her best-known phrase, “Be yourself, try your best and never be afraid to dream,” is taught at the school.
• On Tuesday, Chapman University’s Leatherby Libraries added documents to its archives from Allan J. McDonald, the scientist who refused to give a go-head for the Challenger launch the night before the explosion.
The Chapman collection includes information from McDonald and another Challenger scientist, Roger Boisjoly. Those documents form the largest repository of Challenger information outside of the federal government.
• Cal State Fullerton alum Tracy Caldwell has said it was McAuliffe who inspired her to become an astronaut. In 2007, Caldwell, who also researched at UC Irvine, went into orbit aboard space shuttle Endeavour to help expand the International Space Station. She has spent 188 days in space and made three space walks.
• Mark Maier, founding chairman of the Chapman Leadership Studies Program, uses the Challenger catastrophe as an opportunity to learn. Many say that the accident could have been avoided with better communication and decision making leading up to the launch, and Maier has used the event to create training videos for students. He has said Challenger teaches the importance of decision making and leadership.
• A cluster of seven redwoods at Jessamyn West Park in Yorba Linda was planted in memory of the Challenger astronauts.

Staff writers Roxana Kopetman and Lou Ponsi contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: bseipel@ocregister.com