The terrible white contrail that came to symbolize the Challenger explosion 20 years ago Saturday is etched in the American psyche.
Ironically, the two dozen University of Colorado students who hosted a memorial on the Boulder campus to commemorate the seven lost space shuttle astronauts, including CU graduate Ellison Onizuka, are too young to remember the disaster.
But their passion for honoring the crew chokes up longtime NASA contractor Dale Johnson of Lafayette, who had become close to the Challenger crew and attended the ceremony.
“Many of these kids are taking aerospace engineering and even though they are too young to remember Challenger, they are pressing on with the future of space,” said Johnson, 71, who was at Mission Control in Houston when the Challenger exploded at 9:38 a.m. MST Jan. 28, 1986.
“I was involved with training the crew, and this crew was very special. It was one of the saddest events of my life,” Johnson said.
As NASA’s contractor for habitability, he configured the spacecrafts for the unique demands of each flight and trained the astronauts in living and working on the shuttle for lengthy periods.
He also worked closely with NASA’s first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe, helping to select and integrate schoolchildren’s experiments into the craft that McAuliffe was to conduct on board.
“I went to their (traditional preflight) beer bust in Houston. They were so jovial and happy,” Johnson recalled of the crew.
When Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, “my colleagues and I looked at each other and we couldn’t talk. We were in disbelief,” he said.
Johnson turned down repeated media requests to talk publicly about the crew – until Saturday. “I’ve been holding it in for 20 years,” he said.
The nation can take something away from the tragedy, Johnson said.
“The space program is stronger for it,” he said. “We have to have the courage as a nation to go ahead and explore space even with these setbacks. It’s been three years since Columbia. That’s too long.”
The memorial also honored the seven lost astronauts of Columbia, which broke apart Feb. 1. 2003, 16 minutes before the crew was to land at Kennedy Space Center.
CU graduate Kalpana Chawla was a crew member.
Fittingly, the memorial was at one of the nation’s top universities for producing astronauts. Fifteen NASA astronauts have graduated from CU and flown on 30 missions.
About 50 people participated in laying a wreath at the Challenger Memorial at Fiske Planetarium, and roses at a memorial for Onizuka.
“These astronauts died for us and humankind,” said ROTC cadet Colin Sidey, 20, of Highlands Ranch, who was a month old when the Challenger exploded. “They died in the pursuit of a dream and they died advancing the human race.”
And now Sidey wants to pursue that dream, just like Onizuka and Chawla. “Ever since I was little kid, I wanted to be an astronaut,” he said. “If everything goes as planned, I’ll be the first man on Mars.”
Staff writer Dave Curtin can be reached at 303-820-1276 or dcurtin@denverpost.com.
