![]() He later faced a potentially career-altering obstacle when two years of specialized laser physics research for his doctorate was stolen, but he managed to produce a second set of data in a year, and earned his Ph.D in physics in 1976.īy this point, McNair was a recognized expert in the fields of chemical and high-pressure lasers. Adjusting to the new environment proved a challenge for McNair, who came from a historically Black undergraduate school. in physics.įrom there, it was on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Ford Foundation fellow. Education and Early CareerĪfter initially considering majoring in music at NC A&T, McNair eventually came back around to his love for science, graduating magna cum laude in 1971 with a B.S. ![]() He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1967, earning a scholarship to attend North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. McNair's interest in space was piqued by the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik in 1957, and boosted by the appearance of Star Trek on TV years later, its multi-ethnic cast pushing the boundaries of what was possible for a small-town African American boy.Īn outstanding all-around student at Carver High School, McNair starred in baseball, basketball and football and played saxophone for the school band. The second of three boys born to Carl, a mechanic, and Pearl, a teacher, McNair displayed an early aptitude for technical matters, earning the nickname "Gizmo." ![]() Ronald Erwin McNair was born on October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina. On January 28, 1986, he was one of the seven crew members killed when the Challenger shockingly exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. In February 1984, he became just the second African American to reach space, serving as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. Their remains were recovered and returned to their families.Ronald McNair was an MIT-trained physicist who specialized in laser research before joining NASA in the late 1970s. Onizuka of the Air Force, and a payload specialist, Gregory B. Also on board were three mission specialists, Dr. Tomasz Wierzbicki, an engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has written extensively on the Challenger cabin and whether its ruin was preventable, praised the release of the photos and said they could prove to be a engineering bonanza.Īmong the Challenger’s crew members was Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire schoolteacher. The photos released to Sarao show a large number of twisted fragments and flakes of metal, crumpled window frames, wiring, broken electronics boxes and a wooden scaffolding holding up a ghostly reconstruction of the rear part of the crew cabin.ĭr. ![]() Searches of the ocean floor reportedly found only pieces of the cabin and other debris. NASA has shown great reluctance to release information about the dead crew members, their personal effects and the shuttle’s cabin, citing the privacy interests of the crew’s families.Įngineers believe the cabin remained intact throughout its fall to earth, with some astronauts probably conscious until it crashed into the ocean at high speed. “I did it to help people understand what happened to that structure, and to help them learn how to build better ones,” Sarao said in an interview. 3 to Ben Sarao, a New York City artist who had sued the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Freedom of Information Act for the pictures. But they could eventually help aerospace engineers design safer spaceships. Seven years after the Challenger disaster killed seven astronauts, including a schoolteacher, the space agency has been forced to release some of the many photographs it took of the shuttle’s pulverized crew cabin.įorty-eight pictures of the wreckage, which was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Canaveral, Fla., appear to show nothing startling about the fate of the Challenger and its crew. ![]()
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