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Honolulu Star-Bulletin from Honolulu, Hawaii • 1

Location:
Honolulu, Hawaii
Issue Date:
Page:
1
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

STOCKS I Dow Jones I average up 18.81 I to 1,556.42. SPORTS and A INUtA Vol. 75. No. 28 Astrology B4 DearAbby 2 Business C-5 Editorials A 10 Patriot Drug Probe Pro Bowlers Arrive HPC 5th in NAIA Section John Henry Felix, GOP Contender, Talks '86 Campaign Issues Page A-l 1 Stock list CS Obituaries A 7 Classified 9 Sports CI Comics B4 Today B-l i i Crossword B-l TV Logs B2 Donnelly B-l Weather A2 52 Pages, Five Sections 3 Prices on C-6 Business on C-5 lew fj Jan.

20, 1906 Honolulu, Hawaii (SMWMJ WMMrMM Oahu 35 Cents Neighbor Islands 40 Cents) at a lha. 17 Tragedy Claims McAuliffe and Big Island's Onizuka ft r'Hsy mux- .1 A.I WW 6P WM 'fly By Howard Benedict CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) A catastrophic explosion blew apart the space shuttle Challenger 75 seconds after liftoff today, sending schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe and six NASA astronauts, including Hawaii-born Ellison S. Onizuka, to a fiery death in the sky eight miles out from Kennedy Space Center. Never before in 56 manned space flights had Americans died.

The tragedy defied easy explanation, though a slow-motion replay seemed to show the initial explosion occurred in one of the ship's two peel-away rocket boosters and then the shuttle burst into a fireball high above the Atlantic. THE EXPLOSION followed an apparently flawless launch, delayed for two hours as officials analyzed the danger from icicles that formed in the frosty Florida morning along the shuttle's new launch pad. "There were no signs of abnormalities on the screens" as flight controllers monitored Challenger's liftoff and ascent, a source said. The source, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said the blast occurred "unexpectedly Onizuka's Life, A-1 A Hawaii Declares Day of Mourning, Teacher's School, Reaction, Page A-IB and with absolutely no warning." Mission Control reported that there had been no indication of any problem with the three shuttle engines, its twin solid boosters or any other system ON WAY TO PAD Hawaii-born astronaut Ellison Onizu-ka, left, schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, center, and other members of the Challenger crew leave their quarters on their way to the launching pad today. AP Photo.

UH Regent Tells of Shock, Grief Tears After Blast This article was written by June Watanabe with reports from Rod Thompson, Gregg K. Kakesako, Phil Mayer and Helen Altonn. TRAIL OF SMOKE Pieces of the shuttle Challenger are fired in different directions as the craft explodes shortly after liftoff today. AP Photo. Stunned President Reagan Defends NASA Safety Record ers.

But right after that, it came over the P.A. system. Everybody was in shock, crying." FUJIMOTO SAID the last time Onizuka was in Hawaii, "He told us how the shuttle would turn. So I was curious to see that. As it left the ground, it started to turn and after that, there was all that vapor that follows." Within seconds, the spacecraft exploded, he said.

The astronauts' wives and husbands watched the launch from inside a building, Fujimoto said. Outside, about 150 to 200 of the space crew's families were gathered on one grandstand, while about a thousand others including Fujimoto and his family sat or stood on another grandstand nearby. Most of the people had been there since about 7 a.m. Florida time. The launch took Elace about four-and-a-half ours later.

"Right next to us was a group of children with a banner for Christa (McAuliffe. who was chosen to be the first teacher to fly in space)," Fujimoto said. "The whole group, when that thing exploded, started crying. Everybody in the stand knew one of the astronauts either a friend or a relative, so everyone was deeply shocked when Tarn to Page A-1A, CoL 3 and that the shuttle just suddenly blew apart 10 miles high and 8 miles downrange of Cape Canaveral. President Reagan watched tape replays in "stunned silence" and postponed the State of the Union message he was to deliver tonight.

HE PLANNED AN evening Oval Office address on the tragedy and dispatched Vice President George Bush to Florida to convey his sympathies to the families of the crew members. "It's a terrible thing," Reagan told reporters. "I just can't get out of my mind her husband, her children, as well as the families of the others on board." "Oh. mv God. no!" exclaimed The launch had already been delayed a day.

A couple more hours of waiting this morning seemed a small inconvenience compared to the thrill of watching the Challenger finally take off for space at Cape Canaveral. But Hilo businessman Robert Fujimoto, who is also a member of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, said the cheers and laughter quickly stopped as more than a thousand people in grandstands near the launch site including more than 60 from Hawaii realized something was wrong as they watched the liftoff. "There was a loud explosion," he said in a telephone interview from his hotel in Orlando, Fla. "All of a sudden there was a big puff of smoke. Then after that you could see the two boosters (rockets) going in a in opposite directions." For a moment, Fujimoto said, there was hope that it was something other than the shuttle itself that had exploded.

"Everybody was looking up to see if anything would come down, but all you could see was smoke and the two boost some worthwhile endeavor because of tragedy." DURING HIS 1984 re-election campaign, Reagan initiated the idea of sending a schoolteacher into space, a decision that led to the inclusion of Christa McAuliffe in Challenger's five-man, two-woman crew. Her husband, Steve, and children, Scott, 9, and Caroline. 6, were on hand at Cape Canaveral and watched the launch. "I just can't get out of my mind her husband and her children," the president said. "But then, that's true of the families of the others." He said he did not think it first lady Nancy Reagan, who was watching the launch in the White House family quarters.

by thoughts of the seven victims of the tragedy and their families. "I just can't rid myself of the thought of the sacrifice and the families that have been watching this, also," he said. And yet, Reagan said, "The world is a hazardous place, always has been, in pioneering. And we've always known that there are pioneers that give their lives out there on the frontier. And now this has happened." Noting that millions of people watched the launch and shuttle explosion on television, Reagan said he wanted to "make it plain to them that life does go on and, and you tan't back up and quit By Terence Hunt WASHINGTON (AP) President Reagan watched a television replay of the fiery explosion of the shuttle Challenger in "stunned silence" today but later defended the safety record of America's space program and said "you don't back up and quit" because of tragedy.

The accident, the first in-flight disaster in 56 US. manned space missions, prompted Reagan to postpone by one week his State of the Union address that had been scheduled for tonight. Instead, he arranged to address the nation from the Oval Office about the accident Reagan said he was plagued New Hampshire scnooicnu- dren, drawn to this launch because of the presence of McAuliffe, the first "common citizen" chosen to make a space flight, screamed and fought back tears. Americans everywhere watch-Tnrn to Page A-1A, CoL 1 Tarn 1 Page A-4, CL 5.

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About Honolulu Star-Bulletin Archive

Pages Available:
1,993,314
Years Available:
1912-2010