Challenger Learning Centers Honor Memory of Challenger Astronauts
FRANK SESNO, CNN ANCHOR: It was 14 years ago today that another failed space mission claimed the lives of seven astronauts. Since the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, surviving family members have worked to create an education-oriented memorial to the crew. CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien takes us inside a Challenger learning center.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Space Lab, this is mission control. I have a message for the</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are 8th-graders...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mission Control, this is the Space Lab...</s>O'BRIEN: ... too young to remember, but just the right age to reap the rewards of a mission born in tragedy living on as a tribute to a lost crew.</s>JUNE SCOBEE RODGERS, FOUNDER, CHALLENGER CENTER: We couldn't let that mission end in the loss of the Challenger. We all came together and said, let's continue the mission for the Challenger crew, and it continues to this day.</s>O'BRIEN: The students were too intent to notice June Scobee Rodgers watching in the wings. Like a proud mother, she beamed as she saw the simulated space flight unfold.</s>RODGERS: These kids are walking out of here realizing they were a success. They had their own mission and it was a great mission for them. So it works.</s>O'BRIEN: June was a new widow when it all began. Her husband, Dick, was commander of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28th, 1986. He and six others, including teacher Christa McAullife, perished in the explosion little more than a minute after launch.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger, go with throttle up.</s>O'BRIEN: With $1 million in seed money, June, a classroom teacher herself, along with the other surviving relatives of the crew began the Challenger Learning Centers, a place for middle-school children to role-play a mission as astronauts and controllers, learning about math, science and teamwork, even though it doesn't feel like learning.</s>O'BRIEN (on camera): Was this a lot of fun?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I had a lot of fun doing this. I would come to this center anytime.</s>O'BRIEN: Really?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a great center.</s>O'BRIEN: Right now, there are 38 challenger centers in the U.S., Canada and England, and there are plans in the works to launch another dozen by the end of next year. The idea is a big success, but when June Scobee Rodgers first embarked on this challenge, that was by no means a foregone conclusion.</s>RODGERS: No, there were few times when I wanted to turn away and say, I can't do this, especially when I walked into a room full of media ready to hear the story about what Challenger Center was going to be. After a while with the Challenger Center, I was afraid to turn away because I'd be a failure, always be labeled the wife who was a failure.</s>O'BRIEN (voice-over): But now there's no chance of that. Publicly and privately June has found a way to succeed. She is happily remarried to retired Army General Don Rodgers and they live comfortably in Chattanooga. So much in her life is good it helps her endure the heartache that lurks beneath.</s>RODGERS: There is always that morning when you wake up on the 28th where you think about that tremendous loss. I am so blessed, though, because I've had a beautiful life since then. So those are hard days, and my children and I always talk to each other and I often talk to the other families, but then we go on and we celebrate how far we've come.</s>O'BRIEN: How far they have come and who knows how far these children will go. Miles O'Brien, CNN, Chattanooga, Tennessee.