On this day in 1984 President Ronaldus Magnus announced that schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe would be the first ‘citizen astronaut” to fly aboard the space shuttle.  Tragically Christa McAuliffe and six other astronauts would die aboard the Challenger on January 28th, 1986 when the Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into flight. It was one of those events where you remember where you were at when you heard about it.

Christa McAuliffe was a high school social studies teacher in Concord, New Hampshire and was selected out of 11,000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher In Space Project. She was 37 years old.

“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 the journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.” President Ronaldus Magnus