#greg jarvis

[gusgrissom]

“This good-looking group off to my right, I’d like to introduce them one at a time...”

The crew of STS-51-L in Challenger: The Final Flight (2020)

[humanoidhistory]

TODAY IN HISTORY: Official NASA portraits of the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger during the STS-51L mission that ended in tragedy on January 28, 1986. In the group photo, left to right, front row: astronauts Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee and Ronald E. McNair. In the back row: Ellison S. Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis and Judith A. Resnik. McAuliffe and Jarvis were civilian payload specialists, representing the Teacher in Space Project and Hughes Company, respectively. (NASA)

[gusgrissom]

“The best we can do is remember our seven astronauts, our Challenger Seven, remember them as they lived, bringing life and love and joy to those who knew them and pride to a nation... They were so different; yet in their mission, their quest, they held so much in common.”

[gusgrissom]

The Challenger STS-51-L crew and their families at the NASA beach house a few days before launch, January 1986

[gusgrissom]

“Greg had a real spark in his eye, something I don’t see in everybody’s... Greg was very passionate about engineering, but his specialty was communications satellites that were going to be launched from the shuttle, and when the program presented itself at Hughes, that they could fly a payload specialist, he was so ecstatic about that.

He always thought of astronauts as being perfect people. Nothing wrong with them psychologically or physically, and he says, ‘Who would have ever thought that a balding, 40-year-old engineer would ever get a chance to be in this situation?’ So he was just ecstatic.” –Marcia Jarvis, Greg’s wife

[gusgrissom]

Barbara Morgan, Greg Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe at a NASA press conference, 1985

[gusgrissom]

The crew of STS-51-L arriving at Cape Canaveral less than a week before their scheduled launch day, January 1986

[gusgrissom]

“An engineer who was supremely confident in the technology of space, Greg Jarvis sat next to Christa McAuliffe, the social studies teacher with whom he had formed a close working relationship.

His hard aluminum seat aboard the orbiter was on the mid-deck level, to the right of Mrs. McAuliffe's assigned position.

Edward Corrigan, Christa’s father, was quoted as saying, ‘I'd lay a bet that when they went, Greg and Christa were holding hands.’” (x)