The article only touches on it but I think a lot more has to be said about the young children angle. What makes the Challenger disaster so relevant even today

The article only touches on it but I think a lot more has to be said about the young children angle. What makes the Challenger disaster so relevant even today is many of us were young and had studied this shuttle and its crew for weeks. The plan was for Christa McAuliffe to conduct a class from space. So many teachers (mine included) had their classes study everything about Challenger. At 7 years old I knew these people's names when that rocket exploded. I knew how many children they had, I knew how many missions they'd flown and so on. I knew more about this crew than I knew about my own parents. And I, along with children around the country, watched them die on live TV. That has a significant impact on a generation (as you can see from the other comments here from adults who were kids at the time)