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NEW ENGLAND For McAuliffe kin, tragedy resonates Mother, friends recall 1986 loss; students look ahead By Megan Tench, Globe Staff and Ray Henry, Globe Correspondent, 2/2/2003
''It's just an awful tragedy,'' Corrigan said of the Columbia from her Framingham home. McAuliffe, a Concord, N.H., schoolteacher, would have been the first ordinary citizen in space. Her mother was at Cape Canaveral in Florida for the liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986, and cameras captured the moment as she gazed heavenward as her daughter's space mission came to a tragic end, moments after it began. ''And that it should happen twice,'' Corrigan said yesterday, her voice trailing off. Shaken by events that resonated so painfully for her and the relatives of the six other Challenger astronauts, Corrigan said she had little to share. ''We all are, of course, very upset,'' she said. ''Our hearts go out to all the families.'' Coming just four days after the anniversary of the Challenger explosion, the fate of the Columbia left many to wrestle with awful memories.
After McAuliffe, 37, was chosen from among 11,000 applicants to go into space, her hometown honored her in a parade, and Concord High School held an assembly when she left her classroom for full-time NASA training. ''God, it's like deja vu,'' said Douglas Woodward, who was in the viewing stands at Cape Canaveral 17 years ago with a third-grade class from Concord that included McAuliffe's son, Scott. In Concord yesterday, Woodward watched television replays of the Columbia breaking up in the sky. ''Those poor people,'' he said. ''Another whole crew.'' Dr. Albert Sacco of Belmont had a personal relationship with the Columbia and its crew, having flown on the shuttle in 1995. For three years, he trained the crew that died yesterday on how to conduct several on-board experiments sponsored by the Center for Advanced Microgravity Materials Processing at Northeastern University. Even as he mourned his friends yesterday, Sacco said space exploration must continue. ''We need to stand down, figure out what went wrong, and then move on,'' he said. ''I'm sure that's what the crew would have wanted. That really is the greatest tribute to both the Columbia and Challenger accidents.'' The 53-year-old research scientist said that before he flew in the Columbia, he decided that the value of his work was worth the risks of spaceflight. ''If you're going to do it, you know what you can control, you know what your colleagues can do,'' Sacco said. ''After that, it's in the hands of God.'' Although the Columbia was the oldest space shuttle in NASA's fleet, Sacco said, he and other astronauts considered it the sturdiest, because engineers built its frame without knowing what aerodynamic stresses to expect. As a result, they erred on the side of safety. ''Of all the vehicles that could have handled the problem, it was the best vehicle to get through something like that,'' he said. ''They always felt it was much more able to handle aerodynamic stress.'' Sacco said he had last spoken with specialist Kalpana Chawla from mission control in Houston on Jan. 17. Chawla and the other Columbia astronauts sent Sacco an e-mail message from orbit reporting that a particular experiment was going fine. ''They were really upbeat,'' Sacco said. Erika Gingrass, 15, of Lowell, also felt a personal connection to the Columbia. She and other students had traveled to Cape Canaveral to watch the shuttle liftoff as part of the Aerospace Education Program in Lowell High School's Air Force Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps. ''I couldn't believe it,'' she said of yesterday's tragedy. ''You feel like you're a part of it, because you saw it.'' Her friend - Elise Kolhonen, 15 - likened her reaction to the feeling she gets on a roller coaster. ''Your stomach just turns,'' she said. ''It felt like my stomach was in my throat.'' Lowell High School teacher J.B. Golas, a chaperone on the trip, said that students would have access to counseling at the school. ''I think they really are going to be affected by this,'' he said. ''Young people usually are. ''Because it was something that I experienced, I felt a personal loss, more so by being there,'' Golas said. ''Having been there, the empathy and the pain factor is so much greater,'' said Robert Olson, another chaperone. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, local high school and college students were participating yesterday in a rocket design and launch program when they heard the news. ''It's a complete shock; you don't assume that there will be a problem with the landing,'' said Oscar Murillo, 22, a senior from Phoenix. Watching the Columbia disaster, he said, brought back memories of the Challenger, even though he was only 6 at the time. For Annie Pettibone, 14, of Cambridge, the disaster recalled a more recent tragedy. ''It reminded me of Sept. 11, in way,'' she said. ''This happened at 9 o'clock, and the first plane hit at 9 o'clock. It's kind of freaky. It's kind of scary.'' At Framingham State College, from which McAuliffe graduated, the Christa McAuliffe/Challenger Center was packed with sympathetic visitors yesterday. ''My initial reaction was disbelief, this could not be happening again,'' said Ray Griffin, the center director. ''With respect to the Challenger, we have been able to find something positive, and that something is a very worthwhile educational legacy. We have to think, `What will be the enduring legacy, the message we get from the Columbia?''' Don Aucoin of the Globe Staff and Globe correspondents Caroline Louise Cole and Karla Kingsley contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press also was used.
This story ran on page A21 of the Boston Globe on 2/2/2003.
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emories never dormant flared anew yesterday when Grace Corrigan heard about the fiery breakup of the space shuttle Columbia. Seventeen years ago, she watched in horror as the Challenger, carrying her daughter, Christa McAuliffe, exploded seconds after lifting off.
