We fix what's wrong and we do our best to push forward and make things better. The Challenger accident was wrong, but what the Challenger mission was trying to accomplish was right. I can't think of anything more important than our children and their education. Some of them worry, but mostly they're excited. They know why it's important, and I try to give them the confidence that even though you can't take all the risk out of it, you do everything you can.
Safety is number one.
You can't take away 100 percent of the risks, but you also can't let that stop you from doing something important. There are many wonderful opportunities for students and teachers to become involved. I would encourage them to start online with the NASA Education Program and NASA Spacelink . Those sites and non-NASA sites, such as the Challenger Center , provide programs, resources, and links to other outstanding organizations at which teachers can find hundreds of additional opportunities. Pretty soon, we had parents pushing their own children aside to look through the telescopes.