Artifacts that were recovered from the fallen space shuttle Challenger and prepared for presentation to the President of the United States have been recovered again, 36 years later, after they surfaced at an auction among the collection of a NASA liaison to the White House.
The late James Foster Fanseen, who died in 2000, had a small American flag and crew patch that was mounted to a plaque and inscribed to Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States.
The National Archives and Records Administration needs more work done before they can accept the plaque. When the research is done, the plaque will be displayed at the library.
The staff at the library didn't know about the plaque until it was brought to their attention by the auctioneers. The National Archives and Records Administration declined to comment on the article.
Remembering Challenger: NASA's 1st Shuttle Tragedy in Photos.
On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off carrying a crew of seven. 73 seconds after leaving the launch pad. The shuttle broke apart because of a faulty O-ring seal in one of the rocket boosters.
Christa McAuliffe, mission specialists Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik and Ronald McNair, and the mission commander Francis "Dick" Scobee were killed in the disaster.
NASA pays respects to fallen astronauts of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the way they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye.
After the investigation into the disaster had concluded, NASA announced that some of the souvenirs recovered from among Challenger's debris would be presented to organizations and institutions who supported the mission. The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, as well as to each U.S. state and territory, would be prepared and presented by the agency.
The Administrator of NASA said that all of the people in the program should have a reminder of the Challenger crew.
The October 27, 1986 release omitted any mention of a plaque for the President of the United States, but an internal memo held by the Smithsonian made mention of the plaque in relation to the presentation of the plaque for the National Air and Space Museum.
He was a liaison to the White House and Capitol Hill for NASA from 1980 to 1991 and worked as a consultant to Fletcher.
The flag and crew patch were flown as part of the official flight kit and were made out to Reagan.
Gifts given to the President are not his to keep or give away according to the Presidential Records Act of 1978.
They are gifts to the office. They are not gifts to the individual, according to the Reagan Library's supervisory curator.
It is not clear if the plaque made it to the White House or if it sat in Fanseen's office waiting for a ceremony that never happened.
Serena Harragin told collectSPACE that nobody from that generation is still alive. It has been in storage for almost 20 years.
The plaque was listed as the first lot in the Holiday Auction. The plaque was accompanied by a NASA lithograph of the crew, a memorial pin, a NASA art print portfolio, and a copy of the Presidential commission on the space shuttle Challenger accident.
The entire lot was expected to sell for thousands of dollars.
Harragin was interested in more information about the plaque before the catalog was published.
We tried for several weeks to get an answer from the Reagan Library, but it was shut down due to COVID. She said that she was able to get in touch with the Reagan Library just before Thanksgiving.
Gray consulted with Fanseen's family and decided to remove the plaque and give it to the National Archives.
They were very excited. Harragin said that they thought it was wonderful that something that had been lost to the public would be available again.
The Reagan Presidential Library and Museum had only photographs and paperwork to connect the administration with the Challenger tragedy.
The plaque will help bridge the gap if it is cleared to go on display.
The NASA Challenger presentation may not be the only one that has gone missing. According to a survey conducted by collectSPACE in 2016 and updated since, only 17 of the 50 plaques presented to the U.S. states could be found in public.
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