posted 01-26-2016 10:48 AM               

STS-51L mission commander Dick Scobee, pilot Mike Smith, mission specialists Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Judy Resnik, payload specialist Greg Jarvis and Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe were lost in the first in-flight tragedy of the U.S. space program.

Journalist Bill Harwood looked back at the Challenger disaster 30 years later for CBS News:

Thirty years after the space shuttle Challenger broke apart in the clear, cold sky high above Cape Canaveral, the commander's widow no longer feels anger at NASA and the management missteps and schedule pressure that kept the orbiters flying despite a fatal flaw in their solid-fuel boosters.

She tells CBS News she is at peace with history, her role in it, the heart-wrenching loss of her husband and his six crewmates and her connection with the countless people who will never forget America's loss of innocence on the high frontier.

"I am able now to treat the event as history rather than avoiding the public scrutiny that overcame us during our private grieving," said June Scobee Rogers.

posted 01-27-2016 09:12 AM               

Veteran CBS News correspondent Bruce Hall was not on the air when the shuttle Challenger blasted off 30 years ago Thursday. It was, after all, the 25th shuttle flight, the first of 16 planned for 1986, and news agencies were backing off expensive, remote coverage of what increasingly appeared to be a routine event.

Instead, Hall decided to step outside the network's bureau at the Kennedy Space Center press site, 3.4 miles from the launch pad, to take in Challenger's liftoff the old-fashioned way, with his own eyes, and to watch the reaction of school teacher Christa McAuliffe's parents, who opted to witness the launch from a nearby parking lot...

posted 01-27-2016 09:38 AM               

Over the years, many people have told me that I look like her, act like her, am a mini her, etc. To this day, she is still my number one role model. Every time I sit down at the piano, I can almost see her smiling down on me. Even though I never got to meet her, and even though I'm super jealous of the people who did know her, I think she's a wonderful person.

One positive character trait that we share is persistence. Because of their persistence, I just know that she's so proud of her brother (my dad) and all of the other families of the crew, especially for creating Challenger Center for kids to explore opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math.

posted 02-01-2016 09:40 AM               

As an engineer in charge of building rocket boosters for NASA, McDonald knew that the plan to launch the Challenger space shuttle on Jan. 28, 1986, was flawed because one of the pieces wouldn't hold up in the cold temperatures predicted for that day.

McDonald and other scientists explained this to NASA the night before launch, but their objections were disregarded. He then refused to sign off on the required launch recommendation report, even knowing that his career could be on the line.

...To help the public better understand what went wrong with the Challenger, McDonald announced last week, with the 30th anniversary of the disaster only a couple of days away, that he would be donating his papers and other artifacts to Chapman University in Orange.

These materials will join those of Roger Boisjoly, one of McDonald's colleagues who also opposed the Challenger launch.

"These primary source documents allow students to delve in and see exactly the decision making process that was going on at the time," said Rand Boyd, coordinator of special collections and archives at Chapman.