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2025-2026 Bill 4987: Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Challenger explosion - South Carolina Legislature Online
South Carolina General Assembly
126th Session, 2025-2026
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H. 4987
STATUS INFORMATION
House Resolution
Sponsors: Reps. Kirby, Alexander, Hayes, Jordan, Lowe, Williams, Anderson, Atkinson, Bailey, Ballentine, Bamberg, Bannister, Bauer, Beach, Bernstein, Bowers, Bradley, Brewer, Brittain, Burns, Bustos, Calhoon, Caskey, Chapman, Chumley, Clyburn, Cobb-Hunter, Collins, Cox, Crawford, Cromer, Davis, Dillard, Duncan, Edgerton, Erickson, Ford, Forrest, Frank, Gagnon, Garvin, Gatch, Gibson, Gilliam, Gilliard, Gilreath, Govan, Grant, Guest, Guffey, Haddon, Hager, Hardee, Harris, Hart, Hartnett, Hartz, Henderson-Myers, Herbkersman, Hewitt, Hiott, Hixon, Holman, Hosey, Howard, Huff, J.E. Johnson, J.L. Johnson, Jones, Kilmartin, King, Landing, Lastinger, Lawson, Ligon, Long, Luck, Magnuson, Martin, McCabe, McCravy, McDaniel, McGinnis, C. Mitchell, D. Mitchell, Montgomery, J. Moore, T. Moore, Morgan, Moss, Neese, B. Newton, W. Newton, Oremus, Pace, Pedalino, Pope, Rankin, Reese, Rivers, Robbins, Rose, Rutherford, Sanders, Schuessler, Scott, Sessions, G.M. Smith, M.M. Smith, Spann-Wilder, Stavrinakis, Taylor, Teeple, Terribile, Vaughan, Waters, Weeks, Wetmore, White, Whitmire, Wickensimer, Willis, Wooten and Yow
Document Path: LC-0331HDB-GM26.docx
Introduced in the House on January 22, 2026
Adopted by the House on January 22, 2026
Summary: Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Challenger explosion
HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS
Date
Body
Action Description with journal page number
1/22/2026
House
Introduced and adopted (
House Journal-page 17
)
View the latest
legislative information
at the website
VERSIONS OF THIS BILL
01/22/2026
A
house
RESOLUTION
to commemorate the fortieth
anniversary of the tragic explosion of the
Challenger
space Shuttle, and
to remember the annual designation of October 21 as "ronald McNair Day" in
South Carolina.
W
hereas, forty years ago, a hopeful nation watched the
Challenger
shuttle take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and then cried in disbelief as
the spaceship exploded seventy-three seconds into its flight. School children
across the country and their teachers, businessmen and women, housewives, and
shoppers witnessed via live television the horrific conclusion of the hopes and
dreams of the seven souls aboard; and
W
hereas, the crew was scheduled to deploy a commercial communications
satellite and study Halley's Comet while they were in orbit, in addition to
taking schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe into space under the Teacher in Space
Project, which resulted in a higher-than-usual media interest in and coverage
of the mission; and
W
hereas, on January 28, 1986, the spacecraft disintegrated 46,000
feet above the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast. It was the first fatal
accident involving an American spacecraft while in flight. The mission,
designated STS-51-L, was the tenth flight for the orbiter and the twenty-fifth
flight of the Space Shuttle fleet; and
W
hereas, the disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the Space
Shuttle program, and the Rogers Commission was created to investigate the
accident. The commission criticized NASA's organizational culture and
decision-making processes that had contributed to the accident. Test data since
1977 had demonstrated a potentially catastrophic flaw in the SRBs' O-rings, but
neither the SRB manufacturer nor NASA had addressed this known defect. NASA
managers also disregarded engineers' warnings about the dangers of launching in
low temperatures and did not report these concerns to superiors; and
W
hereas, as a result of this disaster, NASA established the Office of
Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance, and arranged for deployment of
commercial satellites from expendable launch vehicles rather than from a crewed
orbiter. To replace the
Challenger
, the construction of a new Space
Shuttle orbiter,
Endeavour
, was approved in 1987, which first flew in
1992. Subsequent missions were launched with redesigned SRBs and their crews
wore pressurized suits during ascent and reentry; and
W
hereas, one of the astronauts who perished in the flight was South
Carolina native Ronald Erwin McNair. Born in Lake City on October 21, 1950, he
was the son of Pearl McNair, a high school teacher, and Carl C. McNair, an auto
mechanic; and
W
hereas, he attended Lake City Elementary School and graduated as
valedictorian from Carver High School in 1967. In 1971, he earned a bachelor's degree
in physics, magna cum laude, from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical
State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, and a doctorate in physics in
1976 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The same year he won the
AAU Karate gold medal and subsequently earned a fifth degree black belt in
karate; and
W
hereas, Dr. McNair also received four honorary doctorates, as well
as a score of fellowships and commendations. He became a staff physicist at the
Hughes Research Lab in Malibu, California. In 1978, he was selected as one of thirty-five
applicants from a pool of ten thousand for the NASA astronaut program. Dr. McNair
flew as a mission specialist on STS-41-B aboard
Challenger
from February
3 to 11, 1984, the second African American to fly in space. On January 28,
1986, he was one of three mission specialists in a crew of seven. McNair crater
on the Moon is named in his memory; and
W
hereas, on March 12, 2018, the South Carolina Legislature passed
2018 Act No. 141 (H. 4858) into law to designate every October 21 as "Ronald
McNair Day" in the Palmetto State. Now, therefore,
B
e it resolved by the
House of
Representatives
:
T
hat the members of the South Carolina
House
of Representatives
, by this resolution, commemorate the fortieth
anniversary of the tragic explosion of the
Challenger
spacecraft, and
remember the annual designation of October 21 as "Ronald McNair Day" in South
Carolina.
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This web page was last updated on January 22, 2026 at 10:28 AM