25 Years After Disaster, Keeping the Challenger Spirit Alive

On the morning of Jan. 28, 1986, there was a collective gasp as Americans watched the space shuttle Challenger break apart just 73 seconds after it lifted off from Florida on what was supposed to be a mission of discovery and education.

All seven astronauts died, including Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher chosen to go into space.

In a speech from the Oval Office that night, President Ronald Reagan sought to comfort and reassure a shaken nation.

"We've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle," said Reagan. "But they, the Challenger seven, were aware of the dangers and overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly."

Reagan was keenly aware as he spoke that many schoolchildren had watched the tragedy unfold live on TV in their classrooms just hours earlier. The president spoke directly to them.

"I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted -- it belongs to the brave."

Through various programs and memorials marking the 25th anniversary of the disaster, the country is honoring the memory and legacy of the Challenger crew: Cmdr. Dick Scobee; pilot Michael J. Smith; mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka and Ron McNair; and payload specialists Gregory Jarvis and McAuliffe.

Scobee's widow spoke to hundreds of people who gathered near the launch site at Cape Canaveral for a memorial service Friday morning.

"The entire world knew how the Challenger crew died," said June Scobee Rodgers. "We wanted the world to know how they lived and for what they were risking their lives."

Scobee Rodgers has been a leader in keeping the spirit of the Challenger mission alive in the years since the tragedy. She is the founding chairman of the board of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. She also wrote "Silver Linings: My Life Before and After Challenger 7."

She recalled the last time she and the Challenger commander spoke.

"My greatest memory is his morning phone call to me, our private conversation. That was our last words to each other, and they were very special, very loving. He was also very concerned about the weather," Scobee Rodgers told AOL News.

It was freezing at Kennedy Space Center early on the morning of the launch. NASA engineers and officials discussed how the cold might affect the spacecraft, but they decided to go ahead with the flight.

"The night before, he told me they would not fly, and that morning he was told that they would fly, and we talked about the icicles and the freezing weather, and our love for each other, and our farewells, and his turnaround to the business side of him with, 'OK, babe, I'll see you in a week,' and our kisses through the phone goodbye."

But they would never see each other again. An investigation determined that the frigid weather contributed to the failure of O-ring seals in one of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters -- which caused the destruction of the spacecraft.

"We were all huddled together, cheering this Challenger crew," Scobee Rodgers said as she recalled the astronauts' families waiting to see the liftoff. "They were talking about how space flight was routine, so we weren't expecting a tragic accident. We just wanted them to get launched and in orbit and to have that mission continue on as they had planned."

Among the other Americans who watched in horror while television showed the destruction of the Challenger over and over all day long was Scott Parazynski, a young medical student and aspiring astronaut.

"I remember watching it in disbelief. I'd seen shuttle launches before on TV and I knew that they weren't supposed to look like that. It was really so difficult to concentrate the rest of that day, and of course it was just a gut-wrenching recovery for the country and for NASA," Parazynski told AOL News.

The Stanford University medical student not only became a highly respected physiologist, but he fulfilled his NASA dreams. Parazynski became an astronaut and over 17 years flew on five shuttle missions and did seven spacewalks.

Through the years, Parazynski's memory of the Challenger disaster has remained painfully fresh.

"I remember the event vividly as it unfolded on the screen and just the silence in the room as we watched, not knowing really what it meant, but knowing in our hearts what we saw represented the loss of seven brave astronauts. I remember thinking about all of their families, first and foremost, and what a tragedy it was and how their lives had just changed so dramatically within seconds."

Despite the loss of the Challenger crew, Parazynski -- who is now chairman of the board of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education -- held on to his dream of going into space.

"NASA has the ability to take the impossible and make it look easy, and I knew that they would take on the challenge of finding out what the root cause was and making it as safe as humanly possible, and they did that," he said.

"But secondly, I think there are certain things in life worth taking calculated risks if the benefits outweigh those risks -- that's important for all of us. And so, for me, the exploration of space and pushing the bounds of technology and science is worth taking some personal risk."

No stranger to risk, Parazynski also became the first astronaut to stand on top of the world when he scaled Mount Everest in 2009.

"I'm not without some element of risk in my life. I do think that America's greatness is based on a willingness to take on challenge and assume risk, where it makes sense," he said.

That's not to say Parazynski never had moments of doubt. In 2003, while he was already experiencing the rewards and excitement of actually being an astronaut, he suddenly had to deal with the more personal tragedy of the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its astronauts.

"I never had the chance to meet the Challenger crew, but the Columbia crew were very close friends of mine, and that was gut-wrenching for me, personally, not just the national tragedy and the way it shook up the NASA organization as a whole," he said.

The 30-year space shuttle program is coming to an end, with the final mission scheduled for the end of February. Future programs involve building new spacecraft that can bring astronauts to an asteroid and then on to Mars.

But until NASA develops the next vehicle for manned missions, it will have to depend on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to go back and forth to the International Space Station -- that is, unless more private commercial spaceships are built.

Scobee Rodgers says part of the legacy of the Challenger accident is to motivate the next generation of explorers and to keep the spirit of space exploration alive.

"So many were touched by the loss of these astronauts -- Americans who saw their space pioneers die. It's ingrained in all of us, in the public and those who knew the crew privately, that space exploration must continue and we must learn and move forward," she said.

"Without risk, there's no new knowledge, no discovery, no bold adventure. The greatest risk is to take no risk. One of the Wright Brothers said [in 1901], 'If you are looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds.'"

Twenty-five years ago, President Reagan ended his tribute to the Challenger astronauts by saying that what happened on that fateful day did nothing to diminish his faith and respect for the space program.

"The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them: This morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.' "