Astronaut’s widow continues husband’s legacy, ensures space exploration

Astronaut’s widow continues husband’s legacy, ensures space exploration

For more information on this program go to http://www.challenger.org.

8/4/2010 - VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- In 1986, seven crewmembers perished 73 seconds into flight during what is now referred to as the "Space Shuttle Challenger accident."

One of those fallen members was Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American to reach space and a University of Colorado alumnus. Though this final flight was short, his legacy and the continuance of space exploration lives on through the Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

This non-profit organization was created by the families of the astronauts from Challenger Space Shuttle mission STS-51-L and was dedicated to that mission's educational spirit.

According to the Challenger Center Web site, all seven crewmembers were dedicated to education and reaching young people, which is one of the many reasons that Christa McAuliffe, America's first teacher in Space, was such an integral part of the Challenger team.

Lorna Onizuka, Colonel Onizuka's widow and a founding director for the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, has lived this mission for the past 25 years.

"We wanted to come up with the best way to represent the crew based on what their mission objectives were, trying to find common denominators with what was important to them and with all of the astronauts. It was the outreach that they were able to have with kids... we needed to inspire these kids in science and math to maintain that populous for future generations," Mrs. Onizuka said. "So we started the foundation and basically invited junior high kids, because we felt that was the critical age. We have our first protype center in Houston, Texas....it is a mock-up of mission control, a cabin of a cockpit and laboratories."

This program wasn't created to let young minds run-amok inside of a mock space shuttle; the schools involved are given a curriculum and specialized teacher instruction as well as hands-on objectives.

"The kids are given a mission to run with objectives and experiments on board," Mrs. Onizuka said. "They're put into mission control and fly their own missions, taught by teachers. They're also controlling a payload bay, thrusts and things like that...its very hands on. We have 50-55 of these mock space shuttle centers and more that are standing by to be open."

Schools geographically separated from a site can utilize the program's instruction through the exact technology they're learning to cultivate.

"We are also connected to other classrooms by way of internet so they can join in the mission that's being run," Mrs. Onizuka said. "We're hoping to keep them motivated into doing things that they might not think that they can."

This exclusive program isn't just for districts with generous taxpayers.

"We bring in inner-city kids to private school kids because the members of these crews came in from normal middle class backgrounds, some even lesser so, and yet they could part-take in a profession that wasn't open to very many," Mrs. Onizuka said. "We want these kids to know that they can... they don't have to be astronauts. They can be scientists, teachers... or just more than they previously aspired to be."

The Challenger space mission STS-51-L had a specific mission not so different from the Challenger Center for Space Education: to further space operations.

"Our program is important for furthering space operations because there is a continuum even beyond where we are right now," Mrs. Onizuka said. "Because we're in it we feel like the ones doing it but there is always the tomorrows. We have to have these people ready for those tomorrows, and hopefully they'll have an interest that will keep them driven towards it because it is where we need to go."

For more information on this program go to http://www.challenger.org.