Ronald Reagan's Speech On The Tragedy Of The Space Shuttle Challenger

783 Words2 Pages

Heroes of Space In a person’s lifetime, many things can happen including death. In 1986 seven individuals, Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnic, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe, lost their lives doing what they loved most. The tragedy of the shuttle challenger brought much pain to the nation that day. Along with the pain comes grieving. The nation grieved the loss of these seven wonderful individuals and hoped to find peace and comfort for the days to come. As Ronald Reagan prepared to give the state of the union address, things changed for worse, he unexpectedly had to give a speech on a horrific event. Reagan was devastated at the loss of the seven men and women that were on that space shuttle challenger. …show more content…

Reagan says in his speech, “Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle challenger” (1). For example, Reagan talks about mourning the loss of the astronauts from the space shuttle challenger. Reagan did not know what to think when he got the news of the shuttle challenger’s explosion. As president of the United States, he needed to send his remorse to the families of the individuals. Therefore, he would mourn with the families as well as the nation. Another example, Reagan talks about how space is not for the fainthearted and that he knew the school children, who had been watching the launch, would not understand what was happening (2). With the children watching the launch in their classrooms of their school the lesson started out to be about space, then when the explosion happened the children would have grown concerned and emotional, then would want to know what happened. They would have asked questions about what they saw that day of the explosion. Therefore, if the children of the astronauts were watching, they would need a little more attention and may need to see a guidance counselor. Thus, we as adults needed to be prepared to answer the questions that the children would

Open Document