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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ewomack, post: 4586631, member: 15588&quot;]I can see many sides to this one; none of them perfect. </p><p><br /></p><p>An entire crew did perish tragically when Challenger exploded. From recent studies that I&#039;ve read, it even sounds like the crew actually survived the explosion and were likely conscious as they plummeted to Earth. That just adds to the horror. The true failure it does highlight is the lack of an escape mechanism for Shuttle astronauts. Because of this, at least one book I&#039;ve read recently called the Shuttle &quot;arguably the most dangerous spacecraft ever flown.&quot; </p><p><br /></p><p>On another side, and not that I completely agree with this, I can see where the mint sees a Christa McAuliffe coin as having more selling potential than a &quot;Challenger Disaster&quot; coin. One could argue this forever, of course. Whether she was a marketing gimmick or not, also up for debate, she was presented as a &quot;teacher in space&quot; to the wider public and she did receive more press and attention because of that. But yes, I also agree that focusing on her alone potentially diminishes the crew&#039;s contributions.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the end, I think it would have been a hard call to make. I&#039;m guessing that debates such as these also happened at the mint and someone had to make a decision. Not to sound cynical, but sales potential likely won out. Of course that&#039;s an assumption.</p><p><br /></p><p>Regardless, I don&#039;t really buy commemoratives anyway, so I also likely won&#039;t buy this one. And, as usual, the designs presented don&#039;t really inspire any swoons in my being either. Oh well.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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