After Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space on Challenger, that shuttle continued to make history, including Bruce McCandless's untethered space walk, the photo of which either inspires those who see it, or gives them the heebie-jeebies.
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The pictures from this space walk as some of the most reproduced of the shuttle era.
Challenger also carried air force colonel Guy Bluford, the first African American astronaut, to orbit.
Colonel Bluford's launch was the first of the few night launches that took off during the shuttle ear.
After 20 launches, shuttle missions were becoming ho-hum, routine, and to some extent, mundane. TV stations stopped carrying the launches live and the US public no longer looked forward to every mission with anticipation. President Reagan decided it was time to inject new life into the shuttle program and announced that the 25th shuttle mission - Challenger's 10th flight - would include the first non-astronaut crew member, a school teacher. New Hampshire high school social studies teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was sure she had no chance at being selected but she decided she had to apply for this once in a lifetime opportunity.
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