Scholarships, Fund Drives Started to Honor Space Heroes

As Americans sought to ease the pain of watching seven space travelers die in a fiery sky off Florida, fund drives for scholarships and other permanent tributes were being organized Thursday so that the courage that rode aboard Challenger will not be forgotten when the ceremonies end.

Children at Franklin Elementary School in Elk Grove, Calif., began writing letters to scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, asking that 10 moons around Uranus be named for members of the Challenger crew and the three astronauts killed in a launching pad fire 19 years ago.

“I think they want to do something to help now,” Principal Irene West said of the children.

In Washington, D.C., Rep. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who flew on the previous shuttle mission, said he will introduce legislation to name seven newly discovered Uranus moons after the Challenger crew members.

Children in Bath, N.Y., meantime, were collecting pennies to help build a new shuttle after officials of the Bath Central School District decided that such an effort would help lift spirits in the classrooms.

NASA Accepting Gifts

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said that it would accept contributions but could not guarantee that they would be devoted to building another spacecraft. “We cannot legally accept donations tied to a specific use,” NASA spokeswoman Barbara Selby said in Washington.

She said the money would be put into NASA’s general fund.

In Colorado Springs, Colo., the United States Space Foundation set up the Space Shuttle Fund so that citizens could help to replace Challenger. Richard P. MacLeod, executive director of the private, nonprofit foundation that serves as a teacher resource center for NASA, said the idea had been prompted by the many calls from people asking what they could do.

He said the organization’s board decided that the best way to persuade the government to continue the space program was to get “a volume of donations and a significant amount of money” to help replace the Challenger, which he said cost $1.6 billion.

The notion caught on immediately with many school children. A Gillette, Wyo., teacher--perhaps driven by her feeling for teacher Christa McAuliffe, a member of the Challenger crew--told her students about it, and they began contributing $1 each.

‘Kids Will Feel Better’

“Maybe all these kids throughout the United States will feel better if they can contribute to this fund,” said Karen McPhillips, the mother of two Gillette children.

MacLeod said that the Colorado Air Equipment and Total Fuels Corp., which does business with aerospace companies, already has pledged 2% of its gross profit for the next two years--an amount expected to exceed $250,000.

The address of the United States Space Foundation’s Space Shuttle Fund is P.O. Box 51-L, Colorado Springs, Colo., 80901.

In Washington, D.C., the American Security Bank established a trust fund for the 11 children of those who died in the Challenger explosion.

(Shuttle commander Francis R. (Dick) Scobee was the father of two children, Kathie, 25, and Richard, 21. Pilot Michael J. Smith had three children: Scott, 17, Alison, 14, and Erin, 8. Mission specialist Ellison S. Onizuka had two children: Janelle Mitsue, 16, and Darien Lei Shizue, 10. Ronald E. McNair had two children: Reginald, 3, and Joy, 1. McAuliffe had a son, Scott, 9, and a daughter, Caroline, 6.)

Roger Conner, public affairs director of the bank, said calls from people wanting to make donations included one from a songwriter who offered the royalties from one of his songs. He would not identify the songwriter.

Bank Paying Expenses

The bank, Conner said, is paying all the administrative costs of the fund.

The address is Space Shuttle Children’s Fund, American Security Bank, Box 1050, Washington, D.C., 20055. The toll-free telephone number is 800-462-7878.

In the meantime, funds and memorials were being organized for the individual Challenger crew members across the country.

Teachers in Granite City, Ill., set up what they hoped would be a national scholarship fund to honor their fellow teacher, McAuliffe. They have already received pledges totaling $2,000, mathematics instructor Julie Matoesian said.

California State College, Bakersfield established a scholarship fund to raise an endowment of $10,000 and award the annual earnings to an education major.

The University of Maryland announced a fellowship program to honor shuttle astronaut Judith Resnik, who received a doctorate in engineering there in 1977. George E. Dieter, dean of the college of engineering, said $100,000 in contributions was being sought to sponsor full scholarships for engineering graduate students.

New Engineering Scholarship

“The Judith Resnik Fellowship in Engineering will be an appropriate memorial and tribute to what Dr. Resnik accomplished in her tragically brief but highly productive lifetime,” Dieter said.

Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where Resnik received her bachelor’s degree, said that it, too, was establishing a scholarship in her name for a woman studying electrical or computing engineering.

In Resnik’s hometown, Akron, Ohio, city and school officials said they were setting up a scholarship fund to help women studying space and aeronautical engineering.

Onizuka is being honored by a scholarship organized by the Bank of Hawaii and the Hawaii Newspaper Agency, each of which contributed $5,000 to start the fund.

In New York City, Harlem’s honorary deputy mayor said that a proposed elementary school dedicated to training young scientists will be a “living memorial” to black astronaut McNair.

Delois Blakely, president of the New Future Foundation in Manhattan, said the Harlem Institute of Science and Technology will be named for McNair.