Wednesday marked 40 years since the Space Shuttle Challenger was tragically destroyed during the launch of mission STS-51-L.
On Jan. 28, 1986, the seven astronauts on the Challenger lost their lives when the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center.
Among those killed was Akron native Judith Resnik, a NASA astronaut, who was the second American woman astronaut in space and the first Jewish American in space. Resnik was a Firestone High School graduate…