We must remain a nation of spacefarers

Robert McCall – space artist, Arizona resident and my dear friend who recently passed away – understood a vital lesson. Vision drives action. 

Bob painted futuristic scenes about space exploration. Detailed and visionary, majestic and compelling, his art transported us into the future. We saw ourselves aboard the sleek spaceship that he depicted in the movie poster for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” arriving at the space station, watching the glorious Earth below.His art let our minds envision this future, as if it were here today. And now it is – the International Space Station is a reality.

Bob’s murals grace the walls of the Challenger Learning Center in Peoria, as well as the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and the NASA Space Centers, and they speak deeply to us of this great human endeavor that has so defined the past half-century. They also convey the driving power of reaching beyond what we know about the great unknown of space. His art makes us want to go live in that future, to make the vision real.

I learned the power of that inspiring vision nearly 25 years ago, when the space-shuttle Challenger so tragically exploded. We lost seven heroes, including my husband, Commander Dick Scobee.

The searing images of the Challenger accident also caused some to question our nation’s commitment to space. They asked, “Are we truly a spacefaring nation? Do we have the technical skills, the scientific expertise and, indeed, the courage to take on the risks of this grand challenge?”

Our nation decided that, yes, we do have the right stuff. Once again, we embraced the vision of America as a leader in space. The wonderful NASA team reshaped the shuttle program and pushed us on. Our political, business, religious and community leaders supported us through that tough time and helped us all recommit ourselves to this essential part of our national character: the unquenchable drive to explore.

But that wasn’t enough. We, the families of the Challenger astronauts, took on our own part of this challenge. We knew we must focus on inspiring the next generation: the students who had witnessed the loss of beloved teacher Christa McAuliffe. They were still waiting for their lessons from the “Teacher in Space” mission. We needed to create an educational program as bold and ambitious as the space program to keep alive their spirit of exploration. We assembled a world-class team of experts in education, space exploration, technology, communication, engineering and design. We struggled over our idea for months. We wanted to make the student experience as real and inspiring as a flight into space.

Artist captures the vision

This is where Bob McCall and his dear wife, Louise, come back into the story. They invited us to their home art studio in Paradise Valley. Bob sat with us as we attempted to describe our vision to him. He heard our words. Then, magically, he illustrated the vision on canvas in living color. He drew a few sketches, later elaborated, that enabled us to see what we had created in our minds.

We would create a Challenger Learning Center, where we would take students on simulated space missions, to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and beyond. Students would become astronauts, researchers, navigators, flight controllers – take on all the roles of a real space mission. They would live and breathe the experience.They would feel it in their hearts and work it with their minds and their hands.

They would enter a launch room, with animations of a space-shuttle launch, manage a mission-control center, just like NASA’s, and fly a spaceship. Students would work as teams, practice skills in communication and problem solving (an oxygen leak!), explore other worlds, and return safely to Earth. The experience would change their lives with students envisioning themselves in a future well beyond the classroom.

Bob McCall’s art was crucial. He didn’t invent the Challenger Center vision – rather, he listened to our hearts and words and expressed our ideas in a painting that we could display that would encourage others to embrace our mission goals. In the decades since, we have deepened our impact, spreading Challenger Learning Centers across the nation, including a wonderful center in Peoria.

A crossroads in time

But, what about the present? America is at another, perhaps even more crucial, crossroad in space exploration. The International Space Station is essentially complete and fully crewed. The era of the space shuttle will soon end, with a handful of flights remaining.

So now, there is a great national debate on the future of our space program. Do we go on to asteroids and then Mars, perhaps finding life on that tantalizing world, even if it takes decades to get there? Or do we focus on Earth, using the orbital perspective to see and steward our home planet and its resources?

Perhaps we should fuel the creative energies of private space exploration. NASA’s new direction certainly embraces that entrepreneurial spirit, including flying student experiments on new types of spacecraft. Perhaps this opens up “space exploration for the rest of us.” 

Whatever path is chosen, we must continue as a spacefaring nation. We must do this, not just because of the great things we will discover and accomplish but, more importantly, because space exploration inspires our young people who will invent and inhabit that future, invent those new technologies, save our planet and live on other worlds.

Our nation’s scientists have a wealth of compelling questions about Earth, the solar system and the universe beyond, worthy of the great tools of human and robotic space exploration. Space-related businesses, large and small, have engineers hard at work on the enabling technologies. And we have an astronaut corps, trained and ready to fly. No question about it, our space program will move forward.

And so, too, must our educational programs. With a compelling challenge, students develop and apply their content knowledge, they learn to solve problems, they work in teams and make connections across domains of knowledge – exactly the skills needed not just for space exploration but for so many of the challenges we will confront in the futureBob McCall taught me the power of that vision and shared his gift with us.Thank you, Bob!June Scobee

Rodgers is founding chair of Challenger Center for Space Science Education.  
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