President Ronald Reagan gave the following address to the nation from the Oval Office on the evening of January 28 1986:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. 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. We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers. And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is 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. I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. 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 390 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 an 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.'' Source: Ronald Reagan Library Public Speeches at the below link.
President Regan
Ronald Reagan. He planned to give it on January 28, 1986, but after hearing about the disaster, he postponed it for a week.
President Reagan reacted with great sorrow for the lost of the astronauts on the Challenger space shuttle. He reflected the sorrow and lost that the entire nation felt.On the night of the disaster, President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give his annual State of the Union address, but it was postponed for a week and instead gave a national address on the Challenger disaster from the Oval Office of the White House.The address was written by Peggy Noonan his speech writer, and he finished the address with the following statement, which a quote from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.: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'.
The web address of the Challenger Space Center is: http://www.azchallenger.org
The web address of the Challenger Learning Center is: http://www.challengersjv.org/index.html
The web address of the Challenger Learning Center Imax is: http://www.challengertlh.com
The web address of the Lower Hudson Valley Challenger is: http://www.lhvcc.com
The web address of the Challenger Learning Center Of Nm is: http://www.unserracingmuseum.com
The address of the Challenger Learning Center is: 3460 Challenger Way, Atwater, CA 95301-5153
In the Challenger speech? It was because of the Teacher in Space project. The Challenger crew had been joined by a school teacher called Christa McAucliffe who was going to broadcast lessons during the journey, which would be watched live by children in schools. As a result, many schoolchildren were watching the take-off live on TV and saw the disaster happen.
mail address/president of France
The address of the Challenger Space Center is: 21170 N 83Rd Ave, Peoria, AZ 85382-2458