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Thursday, January 28,1988/The Battalion/Page
Challenger Anniversaiy
&M researchers keep up race for space
Photo by Lee Schexnaider
This Silver Taps notice was posted immediately after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
By Jeff Pollard
Staff Writer
Jan. 28, 1986 — A ball of fire and a cloud of smoke
were all that remained of the space shuttle Challenger
and its crew of seven. The excuses were quick to come.
“It was the weather.” “It was the design.” Engineers
blamed management for not listening to their warn
ings. Management blamed Washington for trying to
move too fast. Many people lost their jobs, but who was
at blame was never decided.
Now, two years later, the shuttle disaster is looked
upon in a different light. Although the memories of the
Challenger still are riddled with sorrow, the crash is
seen by many as having a positive effect on the world
wide race into space.
At Texas A&M, the leader of that race is Oran Nicks,
research engineer and director of the Space Research
Center at A&M.
Nicks feels that even though most of the short-term
effects of the accident were bad, the long-term effects
may actually turn out quite well.
“The entire nation has been shocked into a reassess
ment of where we are, how we are doing and where we
are going,” Nicks said. “That was needed about this
time, because we are on the threshold of a new space
era.”
A&M’s part in this “new era” is centered in the Space
Research Center, a part of the Texas Engineering Ex
periment Station (TEES).
The center is focusing its efforts on more long-term
projects now that the shuttle program has slowed up for
a time, Nicks said.
There are important, long-term problems that must
be overcome before a space program can successfully,
operate. They are, according to Nicks, transportation to
and from space, power in space and life support sys
tems necessary to long-term space travel. All three of
these problems are being studied by the center.
Illustration by Carol Wells
Experiments here on the ground have proceeded at
almost the same rate now as they did before the acci
dent, Nicks said.
The main problem lies in research that requires test
ing in space. The tests must either be put of f or simu
lated in a lab, he said.
“There is so much to do here on the ground,” Nicks
said, “that we have not been stopped cold by the lack of
flights.”
Other experiments at A&M have come about specif
ically because of the accident, Dr. Fredric Godshall,
manager of A&M’s wind tunnel, said.
Godshall said the wind tunnel had a major part in the
testing of a drag chute that will allow the shuttle to land
on shorter runways, saving wear on the break system,
and an escape system to help prevent disasters like the
Challenger explosion.
“The escape system study was actually a series of four
experiments to measure the airflow around the hatch
and the trajectories of the astronauts,” Godshall said.
“Both of these were important to the selection of a
mode of escape.”
Nicks said research is necessary to be able to compete
in space.
“All of these things are needed if we are going to stay
in the space ganje,” he said. “It’s quite obvious that they
(NASA) intend to stay in the space game, because they
are spending an awful lot of money on an awful lot of
different things.”
hallenger commander honored for support of education
By Jeff Pollard
Staff Writer
The Challenger disaster not only
Represented a major loss to the scien
tific community, but its emphasis on
Reaching also meant a loss to the edu
cational community, especially at
Texas A&M.
Francis R. “Dick” Scobee, com-
Imander of the last mission of the
Challenger, was looked upon as a
friend of all teachers, said Dr. Dean
C. Corrigan, dean of education, in a
Battalion interview shortly after the
explosion two years ago.
“It was interesting that they se
lected him to command the mission
with the first teacher on it,” Corri
gan said. “He would have made a
great teacher — and he had so many
connections to teachers.”
Scobee became involved in the
A&M education department while
his wife, Dr. June Scobee, was get
ting her Ph.D. in education.
Scobee eventually became one of
the founding members of the Col
lege of Education’s Council on De
velopment. As a council member,
Scobee helped organize the Math
ematics/Science Teaching Scholar
Loan Program. The program’s goal
is to provide loans to outstanding
students committed to teaching sec
ondary math and science.
As a means to honor the man who
helped them so much, a group of
these scholars created the Dick Sco
bee Memorial Scholarship Fund in
October 1986. These students raised
$16,000 to endow a $1,000 per year
scholarship in his name to a student
committed to the teaching of math
and/or science. Cynthia Kraemer of
College Station was the first recipi
ent of the scholarship.
Scobee and the other families of
the Challenger seven are working on
the Challenger Center for Space Sci
ence Education. Scobee said that the
$50 million project is meant to be the
first hands-on space education cen
ter of its kind in the nation.
It also is meant to be a lasting
memory of the five men and two
women who died in the pursuit of
knowledge and better understand
ing of space.
Battalion file photo
The space shuttle exploded seconds after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986.
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