鈥淟adies and gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union,鈥 in a televised speech from the Oval Office. 鈥淏ut the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering.鈥
It was January 28, 1986, the day the space shuttle orbiter Challenger exploded in the sky, killing all seven astronauts on board. Out of respect, Reagan and his aides decided to postpone the state of the Union speech he was supposed to give that evening until the next week鈥攎arking the first time a president had ever delayed the yearly address.
Reagan was in the Oval Office at 11:44 A.M. that day when Pat Buchanan, then the president鈥檚 director of communications, walked in and said: 鈥淪ir, the shuttle blew up.鈥 Reagan asked if the Challenger was the one carrying a teacher; though he must have already known the answer, since he was planning to mention her in his state of the Union speech that evening. That particular addition to the crew had been his idea. During his 1984 reelection campaign, Reagan had launched the Teacher in Space Project that selected from among some .
鈥淩eagan had a pretty strong populist streak,鈥 says , co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia鈥檚 Miller Center. Riley specuates the president may have wanted to put a teacher in space to draw positive attention to the space program and make people feel like they, as regular citizens, were connected to it.
McAuliffe was one of two women aboard the Challenger, and she was poised to become the first 鈥渙rdinary citizen鈥 in space, . When Reagan heard that her spacecraft had exploded, 鈥淗is eyes went wide, his mouth opened in total surprise,鈥 recounted Alfred Kingon, Reagan鈥檚 Cabinet secretary, to the Times. The president and his aides huddled around a television and watched footage of the explosion in silence for several minutes. Reagan later recalled it as 鈥渁 very traumatic experience.鈥
鈥淚 certainly remember that it was a shocking incident, a stunning incident,鈥 Riley says. 鈥淭here had grown a sense of complacency about the space program among people who were on the outside; that we had had such great successes and everything had gone really well for an extended period of time.鈥
The Challenger disaster, he says, 鈥減unctured this image of routine.鈥
The president and his aides decided that he shouldn鈥檛 deliver his state of the Union speech that night. Instead, at 5:00 P.M., Reagan gave a televised address from his Oval Office about the disaster. In his speech, he addressed the sense of complacency Riley mentions.
鈥淲e've grown used to wonders in this century,鈥 Reagan said. 鈥淚t's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.鈥
Reagan concluded by , an American airman who died in World War II when he was only 19.
鈥淲e will never forget them,鈥 he said, 鈥渘or the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 鈥榮lipped the surly bonds of earth鈥 to 鈥榯ouch the face of God.鈥欌
