Second Anniversary of Shuttle Explosion : Challenger’s Crew Is Saluted in Many Remembrances

Workers preparing to resume shuttle flights paused to pay silent tribute Thursday to the seven crew members who died two years ago in the Challenger explosion, in one of many remembrances around the country.

Tour buses stopped, cafeteria lines halted and hundreds of engineers, technicians and other workers poured out of buildings at 11:38 a.m., the moment when Challenger lifted off on Jan. 28, 1986.

Flags around the space center were lowered to half staff, while workers stood silent for 73 seconds, the length of the fatal Challenger flight. The air was chilly and the sky clear, a grim reminder of the frigid conditions that contributed to the space shuttle’s destruction.

‘Appropriate to Remember’

Just before the ceremony, center Director Forrest S. McCartney spoke to workers over a television circuit and loudspeakers, saying: “As we make preparations to return the space shuttles to flight this year, it is appropriate to remember the men and women of the Challenger crew.

“Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Ron McNair, Judy Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Greg Jarvis and (Sharon) Christa McAuliffe lost their lives in the difficult task of learning about and stretching the ability of humankinds to work in space,” he said.

At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, workers held a quiet, 73-second observance, while officials at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., encouraged workers to observe the anniversary in their own way.

In Concord, N.H., students at Concord High School paused at the beginning of classes to remember McAuliffe, the social sciences teacher who died in the shuttle explosion. She was aboard as NASA’s first ordinary citizen in space and was to have taught lessons from orbit to schools around the country.

At McAuliffe’s grave overlooking Concord, flowers lay atop her black marble marker.

Widow Places Wreaths

At Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, June Scobee, widow of the Challenger commander, placed wreaths at the Challenger Memorial Plaque and on Scobee’s grave. With her were children representing schools that have raised $45,000 for a Challenger Center. She is leading an effort to raise $30 million to build the science education center.

President Reagan urged Americans to salute the courage of the crew by donating to the center.

“Now, as then, we join the families of those gallant space shuttle explorers in mourning them and in saluting their courage, vision and determination,” he said.

In Houston, Jane Smith, widow of Challenger’s co-pilot, met with neighbors early Thursday, joining hands with family friends and reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

“He’d want you to remember how he lived and not how he died,” she said.

A Buddhist temple in Honolulu planned a memorial service at the grave site of crew member Onizuka.

In Washington, Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), the first American to orbit the Earth back in 1962, issued a statement in which he said: “We owe it to the Challenger astronauts to pursue an aggressive space program. Their sacrifice will have meaning only if we learn from it and move forward.”