Glenn Urges Living to ‘Fix It and Get on With It’

As friends and families in Ohio, New Hampshire and South Carolina remembered the dead from the space shuttle on Monday, America’s first man in orbit challenged the living to “fix it and get on with it.”

Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) recalled the last words from shuttle commander Francis R. (Dick) Scobee--”Roger, go at throttle up”--before the Challenger exploded last Tuesday.

“These are far more than just their courageous epitaph,” Glenn said at a memorial service at Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio, where Judith A. Resnik was valedictorian in 1966.

“They are America’s history and they are America’s destiny, and they will turn tragedy into triumph once again,” said Glenn, who put the U.S. manned space program in orbit in his Friendship 7 capsule in 1962.

“Judy would be the very first person to say, ‘Let’s fix it and get on with it.’ ”

Monday’s other tributes included a private Mass in Concord, N.H., for the family and friends of teacher-in-space Sharon Christa McAuliffe and a public memorial service in the farm town of Lake City, S.C., for mission specialist Ronald E. McNair.

The priest who officiated at Christa McAuliffe’s wedding in 1970 celebrated a private funeral Mass for her Monday, with husband Steven J. McAuliffe and the couple’s two children, Scott, 9, and Caroline, 6, in attendance.

The service was by invitation only, including family friends, fellow teachers, members of the law firm where Steven McAuliffe works and Gov. John H. Sununu.

Black balloons and black ribbons along McNair Boulevard--the main street for the 5,600 residents of Lake City--symbolized the community’s grief for a native son.

In Augusta, Me., educators and politicians joined in singing “God Bless America” in a shuttle tribute in the Capitol rotunda.

“Christa McAuliffe is still teaching us lessons today,” said Gov. Joseph E. Brennan, “if we listen carefully. Lessons about the meaning of courage, and the meaning of life itself.”