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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Hundreds gathered at NASA's start place weekday to mark the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, receiving words of wish from the woman of the expanse shuttle's commander.

The exterior start drew expanse authority managers, past astronauts, past and inform start directors, kinsfolk and friends of the fallen gathering — and schoolchildren who weren't still born when the expanse shuttle carrying a broad edifice pedagogue from Concord, N.H.., erupted in the sky.

The happening on Jan. 28, 1986 — just 73 seconds into grace — killed every heptad on board, including instructor Christa McAuliffe.

June Scobee Rodgers, the woman of Challenger's commander, Dick Scobee, urged the crowd to "boldly countenance to the future" not only in expanse travel, but in expanse and science education. She was instrumental in establishing the Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

"The entire concern knew how the Challenger gathering died," she said. "We desired the concern to know how they lived and for what they were risking their lives."

Rodgers and NASA's expanse dealings chief, placed a credit chaplet of red, white and blue-tinted carnations at the humble of the Space Mirror Memorial. The super granite slab bears the names of every 24 astronauts killed in the distinction of duty.

Dennis and Pat Cassidy of Franklin, N.H., blinked backwards tears as Rodgers spoke. Mrs. Cassidy recalled the joy she change when McAuliffe was named as NASA's pedagogue in expanse — she screamed she was so excited. When Challenger was lost, she couldn't stop crying.

"Geez. You never expected it to happen. We never wait these kinds of things to happen, I guess," she said, clutching a flushed rose.

Her economise recalled after the initial shock, feeling so seriously for McAuliffe's family, every inform at the launch: her husband, digit children and her parents. "All I could do was feature a prayer for the family. And that's what they should do today, feature a prayer for the families."

The Cassidys, wintering in Florida, prefabricated a point to be at the ceremony.

So did Peggy Shecket, who cosmopolitan from Cleveland. Her love friend book Resnik was aboard Challenger that chilling morning. The digit women, backwards in the mid-1980s, lived much different lives. Shecket was a suburban river mom with digit sons. Resnik had become the second dweller woman in space. But their bond was strong: Resnik invited Shecket to the launch, and she went.

A photo she took an fast before the shuttle exploded hangs on her kinsfolk room wall.

"I woman her terribly," Shecket said. "At this age, in our 60s, we could hit absent to ladies' weekends together. She belike would hit had instance that she didn't hit 25 years past because she was so busy."

Kathryn Serene crowd four hours from Savannah, Ga., in the wee hours of weekday to attend the ceremony. She brought a homespun basket direction a paper help expanse shuttle, red, white and chromatic cloth flowers, and a super flushed apple, which she left at the humble of the memorial. She was in middle edifice when the happening occurred, and desired to exhibit her respects every these years later.

Erik Volk wasn't born yet. Neither were his fellow fifth-graders from Espiritu Santo Christian School in Safety Harbor, Fla., on the opposite coast. The 60 students were at an long expanse tent Thursday, and the chaperones rearranged the schedule erst they scholarly of the ceremony.

"Remember the teacher? What I said most the teacher?" prompted his father, Joe Volk. "Yes. She was going to provide classes from space," said the boy, holding a chromatic rose.

Erik said he was there "to remember the lives that were lost."

The gathering included man Scobee; co-pilot archangel Smith; author Onizuka, the prototypal Asian-American in space; Resnik; Ronald McNair, the second African-American in space; McAuliffe; and Pope Jarvis.

At the broad edifice in Concord where McAuliffe taught, primary assemblies were held weekday in her honor. Anniversary events also were planned after in the day at Challenger Learning Centers.

This silver anniversary comes as NASA is rotation downbound the expanse shuttle program. The fast module be retired after threesome more flights this assemblage to the International Space Station.

Friday's speakers heavy that exploration module never be risk-free. The Challenger astronauts demonstrated that painful actuality — so did the lost gathering of Columbia. But they also showed "that we crapper see from our mistakes and be meliorate for them in the end," said parliamentarian Cabana, a past shuttle man who today is the Kennedy Space Center director.

"They continue to urge us forward, to explore and to never depart just because it's hard," Cabana said. "They are a conception of us forever, and we module not let them down."

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Online:

NASA: http://history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html

Challenger Center for Space Science Education: http://www.challenger.org/

Astronauts Memorial Foundation: http://www.amfcse.org/

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