FIRST OFF . . .

The widows of several crew members aboard the Challenger space shuttle say they are upset about plans by ABC to make a three-hour television movie about the accident, the Associated Press reported. Loran Onizuka, widow of Challenger astronaut Ellison Onizuka, and Jane Smith, widow of Challenger pilot Michael Smith, and their attorney have talked to George Englund, executive producer and writer of the ABC drama, in an effort to get him to drop the project. “Why do we have to relive this? Why don’t they leave it alone? If it is going to be done at all, it should be done as a very serious documentary,” said Smith. Producer Englund, however, said the project to tell the story of the seven astronauts who died in the Jan. 28, 1986, accident will continue: “The most honorable thing I can say is that my hopes and wishes are that it will be accurate.” Englund said the cast has not been selected and a start date for the production has not been set. But he hopes to film the entire movie in the vicinity of the Johnson Space Center south of Houston. June Scobee, the widow of Challenger commander Francis (Dick) Scobee, talked with Englund for purposes of script research. But Englund would not say whether the families of Challenger astronauts Judith Resnik and Gregory Jarvis or schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe talked with him.