Why the space shuttle Challenger matters to Star Trek

Star Trek is linked to the space shuttle Challenger disaster.

What’s the funniest Star Trek movie? Without question, it’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). But the movie begins on a somber note. An opening title card dedicates it “to the men and women of the spaceship Challenger…”

The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986. All seven astronauts aboard perished.

The mission had drawn more public interest and media attention than usual (even though the shuttle program was not quite five years old) because NASA had selected high school teacher Christa McAuliffe to join the crew for the agency’s “Teacher in Space” program. Had Challenger reached orbit, McAuliffe would have taught two live lessons from the shuttle and filmed several more, all to inspire young people’s interest in science and space.

Star Trek IV opened in theaters on November 26, almost 10 months after the Challenger explosion. And because the franchise, by 1986, had a 20-year track record itself of inspiring interest in science and space, the film’s dedication seems an altogether fitting tribute:

"The cast and crew of Star Trek wish to dedicate this film to the men and women of the spaceship Challenger whose courageous spirit shall live to the 23rd century and beyond…"

In addition to Christa McAuliffe, those men and women were:

• Payload Specialist Gregory B. Jarvis
• Commander Francis R. “Dick” Scobee
• Pilot Michael J. Smith
• Mission Specialist Ronald E. McNair
• Mission Specialist Ellison S. Onizuka
• Mission Specialist Judith A. Resnik

The space shuttle Challenger crew and others took risks for discovery

Star Trek’s connection to NASA’s space shuttle program predated Challenger.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford—motivated in part by thousands of letters from Star Trek fans—encouraged the space agency to name its first space shuttle orbiter Enterprise. While NASA’s Enterprise never actually entered the final frontier, the approach and landing tests it carried out were key to the program’s future.

Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura, worked tirelessly to recruit more minority and women candidates for NASA’s astronaut corps. As the documentary film Woman in Motion makes clear, Nichols’ efforts were no small part of why NASA’s 1978 astronaut class included six women and three Black men.

Sadly, three members of that astronaut class died when the space shuttle Challenger exploded: Ronald McNair, the second African American to fly in space; Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American to fly in space, and Judith Resnik, the second American woman in space.

Resnik and McNair were two of Nichols’ recruits for NASA. Woman in Motion includes footage of Nichols weeping for all the Challenger Seven, not just those she recruited. But its clear the tragedy struck especially hard because of her personal connection to two of its crew.

In 2011, Nichols spoke about how she reacted to the loss of Challenger, and of Resnik and McNair in particular:

Star Trek: The Next Generation—which debuted 20 months after the Challenger accident—paid tribute to Onizuka by naming a shuttlepod after him. Sharp-eyed viewers will spot it in “The Ensigns of Command,” “Evolution,” “The Mind’s Eye,” and “The Outcast,” per the Memory Alpha wiki.

In the original series episode “Return to Tomorrow,” Captain Kirk tells senior Enterprise officers, “Risk is our business! That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.” Commenting on this iconic Kirk speech, science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer wrote the captain was “right to push for the advancement of science, the risks be damned. Anything less would be a betrayal of the human spirit.”

On this and every January 28, remember the Challenger Seven. While NASA failed them in its handling of known and needless launch risks that icy morning 36 years ago, the Challenger crew did not fail the human spirit.

Nor are they the only ones.

Star Trek novelist Dayton Ward notes this week is, each year, “a somber week of remembrance for NASA.”

It begins with January 27, the anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 that killed astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chafee.

It ends on February 1, the anniversary of the breakup of the space shuttle orbiter Columbia upon re-entry in 2003, killing all seven members of its crew: David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon.

The Apollo 1, Columbia, and Challenger crews all accepted the risks of “going boldly” for the sake of discovery, knowledge, and a better life for all on Earth. Star Trek fans, along with anyone who wants to see humanity reach for the stars, should salute them.