Sen. Warren: McAuliffe Still Inspires Children To Reach For The Stars

“Thirty years ago today, millions of Americans gathered around their television sets, in homes, and in classrooms, all across this country, to watch the space shuttle Challenger launch towards the stars. Seventy-three seconds later, everything changed,” said Massachusetts’ senior Senator Elizabeth Warren on the senate floor on Thursday afternoon. “We stared at our television sets stunned and broken hearted.”

Sen. Warren said today on the 30th anniversary of that “terrible tragedy” we “remember the heroes we lost. And we remember that special person that so many little boys and girls had tuned into see, the very first U.S. civilian in space Christa Corrigan McAuliffe.”

Senator Warren talked about how McAuliffe grew up in Framingham, graduated from Marian High School, received degrees from Framingham State and married her high school sweetheart and had two children. She later became a high school social studies teacher in Concord N.H. and was eventually selected to become the first teacher in space.

“But Christa McAuliffe still teaches,” said Sen Warren. “Since 1994, the Christa McAuliffe Center at Framingham State University has provided truly remarkable, innovative STEM education resources to 12,000 Massachusetts students each year. And Christa McAuliffe’s story, a little girl from Framingham, who wanted to become a school teacher, and got the change to take the ultimate field trip, a trip into outer space, keeps inspiring little boys and little girls in Massachusetts, and around the country, telling them all to reach for the stars.”

You can watch the senator’s full remarks below.