Christa McAuliffe were posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush. On January 28, 2016, Space Shuttle "Challenger" was honored once again, but in a uniquely memorable way. Dozens of teachers who competed alongside the fallen Christa McAuliffe traveled to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to remember those lost on that day 30 years ago. Christa McAuliffe's son Scott and her widower, Steven, also participated in the ceremony. After remarking on the fact that 30 years had indeed passed, Steven said "Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always
Christa McAuliffe to investigate the disaster. It determined that the accident was due to a failure of rubber O-rings made by Morton-Thiokol that provided a pressure seal in the aft field joint of the shuttle's right Solid Rocket Booster. The failure of the O-rings was attributed to a design flaw, as their performance could be too easily compromised by factors that included the low temperature on the day of launch. The Commission found that O-ring resiliency is directly related to temperature and due to the low temperature at launch—36 degrees Fahrenheit or 15 degrees lower than the next coldest previous launch—it was