Remembering The Space Shuttle Challenger

Its hard to believe that its been 30 years since that fateful Tuesday Morning at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

Photo credit: NASA. 

January 28, 1986: It was the 25th Space Shuttle Mission, and the 10th mission of the Challenger. It had launched like any other of the previous 24 missions, including 9 previous launches of the Challenger. 73 seconds after blast-off the unthinkable happened. The Shuttle exploded, along with 7 passengers, including Christa McAuliffe, a High School Teacher from New Hampshire that had been selected from 11,000 applicants to become the first Teacher in Space.

 The crew aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986.
Crewmembers were (left to right, front row) Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee and Ronald E. McNair; (back row) Ellison S. Onizuka, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis and Judith A. Resnik. Photo: NASA

The 113th Space Shuttle Mission of the Columbia also exploded, breaking up on re-entry on February 1, 2003 scattering debris over a 100 mile stretch of Texas and Louisiana.

There were a total of 135 Space Shuttle Missions spanning over a period of 30 years. The first being the Columbia lifting off on April 12, 1981, and the last was the Atlantis lifting off on July 8, 2011.

Snapshots Across America features the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. In June of 2013, the New Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit opened up at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex featuring the actual retired Atlantis Shuttle as the centerpiece.

A video from NASA about the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.