Christa McAuliffe to Be Put on Silver Dollar Coin
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Christa McAuliffe to Be Put on Silver Dollar Coin
Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, familiarizes herself with the environs of the shuttle mission simulator during training at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in October 1985.
COURTESY OF NASA
Christa McAuliffe, the social studies teacher who died in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, is being honored with a commemorative silver dollar coin.
Congress has passed an act that calls on the Treasury Department to issue up to 350,000 of the coins. They're expected to be minted in 2021 to recognize the 35th anniversary of the event.
Consumers will be able to buy the coins for an undetermined price, but that fee will include a $10 surcharge, which will benefit an organization called For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, which encourages children to pursue careers in the STEM fields.
Honoring McAuliffe is an act that's being widely praised across the aisles, but some are noting that this act faced a lot less resistance than the redesign of the $20 bill, which was originally supposed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Edited from the original story, to keep the peace . 
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One of the days that will never be forgotten.
She was quite popular as the "Teacher in Space". Highly publicized by NASA.
That's what made the tragedy even worse in the minds of young children.
Pete
All bills have to be signed by the President, right? So, why this jab?
bob
I was in Florida working at that time... and as I have mentioned here before....the image of that smoke trail (clearly visible from the factory) will be etched in my mind for as long as I live. Cheers, RickO
I agree,
That was in the original story, it's gone now.
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i would like to see this done for all involved in the mission not just one. jmo & fwiw
Home sick from school that day. I remember my mom crying(she was a teacher too).
When Columbia broke up, I was outside in Texas, and heard a huge BOOM, and didn't know what had happened. Real quick, we found out about the disaster. I play with cars, and my youngest son, about six, found a piece of a car part in the yard, and was very concerned that it was a piece of the shuttle. I marked it with an orange cone, and told him I would have the authorities take care of it.
A lot of pieces in East Texas, and several years later, during the drought, a lot more was found as ponds and lakes dropped their levels.
@SkyMan Posted a similar thread:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1025943/congress-votes-to-issue-a-christa-mcauliffe-commemorative
Below is a re-post of what I posted there because I think it’s important to know the names of all the astronauts.
—————
Just wanted to commemorate the other crew members of STS-51L, at least, by their names:
Dick Scobee
Mike Smith
Elison Onizuka
Judy Resnik
Ron McNair
Greg Jarvis
Like another poster, I was sick that day. And the night before. I was watching T.V. Pacific time laying on the couch sick. Four or five A.M. Launch time. I SAW THE ICE! It was STUPID that take-off happened under those conditions. Later on that day, I got myself out of bed and was tracing gopher holes in the orange grove when one of the Little Hydrant boys came running down to tell me that a Space Ship just got bombed! He saw it. Why didn't they? .........The experts are.......???????? fill in the words.
I'll answer my own question. Why didn't the experts think twice about ice on a rocket ship in Florida during takeoff? EASY! History was being made!!!!! Woman in space! Who cares if she and everyone else on board gets killed in the process? Great story!!!!
I grew up in New Hampshire and while I was alive at the time, I was only a few years old and too young to understand. But especially as a NH native, there was a strong sense of local pride for McAuliffe, and viewing her as a hero. However, as I got older and learned more, I was sort of confused. It was of course a tragedy and the lives lost should be remembered and honored. But I don't get the hero worship, and things like a commemorative coin. McAullife effectively won the lottery as she was selected from over 10,000 applicants. She was picked to do something nearly all Americans would jump at the opportunity to do. So yes, a tragedy and something to remember, but the hero worship doesn't make sense to me.
Agreed. A travesty that they don't honor the entire crew.
Won't be in on this one....
The man behind this "coin" is Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway.
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
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I'm raising the BS flag here, in no disrespect to CM. Either do two commems for the Challenger and Columbia missions or do 13 commems for the individual astronauts. My personal connection is with Doc Brown, aka Dave Brown on the 2003 Columbia mission. My wife and I knew him and his girlfriend along with a few others, we were a 'gang'. He was my flight surgeon while I was a Marine Corps flight instructor in South Texas. Even though he was our 'doc', he would hang with us pilots at the O'Club; there we heard of his dreams to be an astronaut. We all encouraged him. He applied to be a naval aviator and was accepted. A year later he ended up back in our training squadron as a student pilot. He was a student of mine for a couple of flights. That was fun. We were excited to see our 'doc' go through the two year program. He got his naval aviator wings in 1990 and was selected to fly the A6E Intruder, the same aircraft I flew in the Fleet. When he was selected to go to Test Pilot School at Pax River we knew it was just a matter of time for Dave's dream to come true and sure enough in 1996 he went to NASA. When the Columbia disintegrated over the western states, I didn't want to believe it. It didn't sink in until I saw his picture in the USA Today. His journey is the American dream, much like Christa's. If Christa deserves a commem, then Dave deserves one too...and so do the remaining 11.
Since I’m cured,
Pass
I'm raising the BS flag here, in no disrespect to CM. Either do two commems for the Challenger and Columbia missions or do 13 commems for the individual astronauts. My personal connection is with Doc Brown, aka Dave Brown on the 2003 Columbia mission. My wife and I knew him and his girlfriend along with a few others, we were a 'gang'. He was my flight surgeon while I was a Marine Corps flight instructor in South Texas. Even though he was our 'doc', he would hang with us pilots at the O'Club; there we heard of his dreams to be an astronaut. We all encouraged him. He applied to be a naval aviator and was accepted. A year later he ended up back in our training squadron as a student pilot. He was a student of mine for a couple of flights. That was fun. We were excited to see our 'doc' go through the two year program. He got his naval aviator wings in 1990 and was selected to fly the A6E Intruder, the same aircraft I flew in the Fleet. When he was selected to go to Test Pilot School at Pax River we knew it was just a matter of time for Dave's dream to come true and sure enough in 1996 he went to NASA. When the Columbia disintegrated over the western states, I didn't want to believe it. It didn't sink in until I saw his picture in the USA Today. His journey is the American dream, much like Christa's. If Christa deserves a commem, then Dave deserves one too...and so do the remaining 11.
+1
I knew it would happen.
Why for 35th anniversary? Should be for Challenger mission in general.
Remember watching this in school at the time.
The worst part of the whole disaster is that it was an easily avoidable situation. Morton Thiokol (the company that made the solid rocket boosters) engineers determined that the minimum safe launch temperature was 53 °F. Unfortunately non-engineers at Morton Thiokol and NASA decided to ignore and overrule the engineers’ suggestions and Challenger launched when the temperature was only 36 °F. This video/documentary provides a very thorough description of the Challenger disaster. They specifically discuss minimum safe launch temperature around the 12:45 mark.