![]() ![]() And I thought, “My gosh, that’s awesome, man, yes, sign me up.”įollowing the disaster, the shuttle would not fly again for almost three years. And they said the next step for us is going to be a kid in space. “There was a larger plan when the astronauts landed and Christa was back, we were going to do a national press tour together. “The sense that I might personally be able to go someday was completely true,” Billingsley said. Such was the heady enthusiasm at the time that space travel had become so routine and safe that it would soon be available to the general public. From a NASA perspective, it made us say ‘let’s redouble our efforts on safety, don’t get complacent.’”īillingsley’s connection to NASA’s space shuttle initiative through the Young Astronauts Program, along with belief at the time that America was entering an era of space travel for everyone, also led him to believe that he might be the first child ever to go into space. “This technology is very complex and there are these great risks with everything we do. Odom, the acting chief historian at NASA. ![]() “The idea of space travel had become kind of routine, and Challenger woke us up that there’s nothing routine about this at all,” says Brian C. The disaster changed the way that the public saw space flight. And the voice came back on the loudspeaker and said, ‘The vehicle has exploded.’ And that was it.” But then someone said there might be a problem, and this started to spread. “We think this is what we’re supposed to see. ![]() And everyone I think even kind of said, “Oh, that’s the solid rocket boosters,” Billingsley recalled in the third episode of the series. He was on a viewing platform standing next to McAuliffe’s parents as the Challenger left the launch pad, soared skyward, and then exploded on live television. ![]() To capitalize on his fame, Billingsley was invited to attend the launch of the Challenger-and the first teacher in space-in January 1986. And it wasn’t just an astronaut now, it was one of us, you know. (He declined to be interviewed for this article.) “And it got a lot of kids really excited and suddenly made space travel incredibly relatable. “This was a real galvanizing moment and completely enthused a lot of people,” Billingsley said in the Netflix series. The Challenger mission was to be the next leap ahead in making space accessible. To attract children who might be future astronauts, Billingsley was recruited to be the spokesman for the Young Astronauts Program, a nationwide effort established in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. The thinking, Launius says, was: “Now, with the shuttle, we’re going to turn low earth orbit into the normal realm of human activity.” But NASA’s approach to space changed with the creation of the shuttle program in 1981. “Mercury, Gemini, Apollo-that was the heroic age,” said Roger Launius, a space historian and the former senior curator of space history at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. At the time, the shuttle program represented a new era for NASA, one that celebrated the citizen astronaut over the Right Stuff era of fearless test pilots with military backgrounds. The fascinating and profoundly sad connection between A Christmas Story and the Challenger disaster was recently given new light in the four-part Netflix series Challenger: The Final Flight, a riveting, heart-wrenching documentary that examines the cause of the accident and its long-lasting repercussions for NASA’s manned space program.Īfter the release of A Christmas Story, Billingsley’s fame-and his interest in space-came to NASA’s attention. The accident killed all seven crew members aboard, including a 37-year old high school teacher with “an infectious enthusiasm” named Christa McAuliffe. Billingsley is now a 49-year-old actor, producer, and director in Los Angeles, California.īut Billingsley’s dream was shattered on January 28, 1986, by the tragic explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, one of the worst accidents in the history of the United States space program. The film centers on Ralphie’s all-consuming desire to get a Red Ryder BB gun. Countless children dream of going to space, but one 14-year-old in 1986 may actually have had a shot at it: Peter Billingsley.īillingsley played the adorable, doe-eyed 9-year old Ralphie Parker in the holiday movie A Christmas Story-the goofy, sometimes hilarious 1983 classic that has become one of the best known, and most beloved, Christmas films ever. ![]()
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