Challenger Explosion

Even before he could drive a car, Michael Smith wanted to fly. The native of Beaufort, who grew up a few miles down the road from a small nearby airport that now bears his name, qualified for his pilot's license a few days before turning 16. Twenty years later, was the pilot of the ill-fated mission of space shuttle Challenger that killed all seven astronauts aboard.

name of Smith, however resonates 25 years later in the coastal city is known as the home: it is a monument near the beach, at the airport to fly exactly where he discovered as a teenager and part of Beaufort Elementary School full exhibition on his life and the space plan.

"Many people here in Beaufort knew Michael Smith," said Vicki Fritz, director of the school, which opened the Michael J. Smith Mini Air and Space Museum last year at the 24 anniversary of the tragedy.

Inside, the murals represent the night sky dark blue dotted with stars. Items of interest between a tire that was on the space shuttle Challenger that followed the memories of a career that included a naval aviator in the Vietnam War.

A recent donation to the museum is actually a letter Smith wrote and sent to a cousin at the time of his 16th birthday. Along with talk about high school basketball and dance near Smith confesses to being nervous whether they get their pilot's license, and the opportunity to fly solo.

In the background is an epilogue of ecstasy: "I went flying, all right. I solo !!!!"

The Challenger disaster, broadcast live on television on the morning of January 28, 1986, remains the most high profile disasters of NASA and a painful reminder of millions, taking into account the indelible images and pain throughout the country.

Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire schoolteacher who was the initial participant in the federal agency "Teacher in Space" program to join a shuttle mission, is still probably the best known victim in the tragedy. But Smith, who carried a flag of North Carolina along what was his first space shuttle mission, is still more important in the minds of individuals around Beaufort.

"He was a farmer, perhaps a little smarter than most," said Pat's younger brother, a Navy veteran man who still lives in the region. "Since I was 15 years old who wanted to fly, and has worked hard and he did."


from : http://www.jurug.com/