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ROBERT LEHRMAN: The Challenger was an accident.
It wasn't an individual act of hatred, it wasn't an act of war.
It was something that happened but it was watched by millions of people and it was watched
hundreds of thousands of children.
CHARLTON MCILWAIN: I was one of the schoolchildren that day where we gathered in the library
to watch the Challenger and you have that sense of what is going on?
I don't know what just happened.
And then to go home that afternoon and see the president talking and it's just that moment
where you feel like here's your grandfather speaking to you through a television screen.
JEFF SHESOL: What happened?
What do we do now?
People in those moments look to their national leaders who define what's going on and how
we're going to get out of this moment.
How we're going to move forward through this tragedy.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Today is a day for mourning and remembering.
Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger.
We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country.
This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident
on the ground.
But 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.
But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did
their jobs brilliantly.
We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison
Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.
We mourn their loss as a nation together.
For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy.
But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much.
Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special
spirit that says, "Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy."
They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths.
They wished to serve, and they did.
They served all of us.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage
of the shuttle's take-off.
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.
The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.
We'll continue our quest in space.
There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more
civilians, more teachers in space.
Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.
I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or
who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have
moved and impressed us for decades.
And we know of your anguish.
We share it."
There's a coincidence today.
On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake
died aboard ship off the coast of Panama.
In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, "He lived
by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it."
Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's,
complete.
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."
Thank you.
MICHAEL WALDMAN: The Reagan Challenger speech was so extraordinary because it's a pitch-perfect
eulogy.
A lot of kids had been watching the shuttle take off.
He spoke directly to them, but he pointed forward to the continuing need for exploration
and ended with a touch of poetry.
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I'm Jeff Sheshol.
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