CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA leaders, retired launch directors, families of fallen astronauts and space fans marked the 35th anniversary of the Challenger disaster on Thursday, vowing never to forget the seven who died during liftoff.
The pandemic kept this year’s remembrance more muted than usual. Barely 100 people — all masked and seated or standing far apart — gathered in front of Kennedy Space Center’s Space Mirror Memorial.
The late morning ceremony was held almost exactly the same time as the accident shortly after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986. Among the attendees: Donna Smith, visiting from Florida's Gulf Coast to "make sure they're never forgotten.” She was a high school student when the crew was lost; the sky was so clear that frigid