Second Place Finishers: Larry Doby, Judith Resnik & The Dave Clark Five

leagues just eleven weeks after Robinson. He had the weight of an entire raith on his shoulders along with Jackie Robinson. Sally Ride's place in history is secure. She was the first American woman in space, But what about the woman who went into orbit only a year later? She approached becoming an astronaut like she did everything, She knew what she wanted and went for the same woman who lost her life on one of the darkest days in Nassa's history.

You saw it forty five seconds after liftoff, a huge fireball in the sky. And what about the British band here they are again? Whatever life who landed on American shores only a month after the Beatles and dated day. We love firsts so much that we end up ignoring the achievements and people that come after, even right after. But those people are essential. Without someone coming in second and third and fourth, the first person is more of an oddity, a one off, instead of the beginning of

big social change. So today we salute three of histories. Silver medallists from CBS Sunday Morning and I Heart I'm Morocca and this is mobituarymes this moment. Second place finishers Larry Dobie, Judith Resnick, and the Dave Clark Five. I love a good musical rivalry Andy Williams versus Perry Como,

Metallica versus Mega Death. Does anyone else remember that period in the early eighties when it was Madonna versus Cindi lauper Well for a good stretch of nineteen sixty four, you were either a Beatles person or a Dave Clark five person. I know you thought I was going to mention the Stones, But in nineteen sixty four there were magazine covers pitting the Beatles against the Dave Clark Five. On one of them, there's a picture of bandleader Dave

Clark captioned I'll duel with Ringo. And only one month after the Fab Four's legendary first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Here for all of you youngsters, England's Dave Park five, Lad all Over The Dave Clark Five made their first appearance on the program. The Dave Clark Five had good reason to be feeling glad all over. Their hit of the same name had knocked the Beatles I want to hold your hand out of the top spot

on the UK charts. Throughout the sixties, they would land fifteen consecutive top twenty US hit singles and sell one hundred million records. You want a pounding rocker of a record, a rip it up song that will rattle your world in the bedroom you share with your dad and your brother. Tom Hanks grew up listening to the group and could barely contain himself during their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You want to hear a song that will make you feel glad all Over by the

Dave Clark Five. After the d C five's breakthrough with Glad all Over saw them score top five hits with Bits and Pieces and Can't You See That She's Mine? And because the following year they went to number one with Over and Over, I said over and over and over again, The Dead Clock five made a joyful sound. Over and over and over again. The Dead Clark five

made a joyful found. But unlike the Beatles, who were determined from their earliest days in Liverpool to make it as artists, the Dave Clark five started playing music to support their soccer habit. They had a soccer team and they wanted to play in a tournament in Holland, but they didn't have the money for the passage. This is Harold Bronson, co founder of Rhino Records. He wrote a book about the British invasion. So they formed a band to make money so that they could actually be able

to go to Holland, which they whish they did. Their aspiration was to go to Holland and play soccer, and being a band was the way they were going to pay for it was basically their survival job, right, So it was kind of an accident, you know that they evolved into this really good dance band. Who are you know making money? Mike Smith played keyboards and sang lead. His voice was raw, commanding and he helped write many

of the group's songs. Lenny Davidson played guitar. Rick Huxley was on base and Dennis Peyton the saxophone, a wild card that helped give the Dave Clark five a unique sound. But what really set the band apart was its drummer, Dave Clark, himself a former stunt man. He wasn't just the band's leader, a rarity for a drummer, he also managed the band with a crystal clear vision of how it should sound and look. More than anything, he was

a showman. The Dave Clark Five probably had the best presentation of any of the British Invasion groups when they came to America because Dave was thinking more theatrical. They looked great. I mean, these guys were snappy dressers, matching suits, white turtlenecks, pocket squares. They're perfectly clean cut hair, perfectly quaff. I call it Fisher Price hair, like each head of hair could snap right on and off. Well, it's time to go on in a few seconds, so Mike and

Rick attend to their head. Nothing fantastic, take no hint of Mercy's side, but just the way their fans expect to see him on stage. They were all smiles, bobbing their heads side to side in unison in sync with their leader's drumbeat. Dave was also a producer on the group's records, A very hands on producer the drums, for example, he made sure they were always mixed loud and Dave

exhibited a business savvy that's rare among new artists. He had paid for studio recordings himself using money from his stunt work, so he figured he could ask for more than the standard royalty rate, and when he went into negotiation, he figured, okay, I'll ask for three times as much, and the record company basically said okay. Even more audaciously, he asked that the rights to the group's songs be returned to him after ten years, which again they said okay,

because they weren't paying for it. In rock and roll wasn't thought to have any longevity. That's right. The company didn't see a future for rock and roll, but Dave Clark, the stuntman slash soccer enthusiast slash high school dropout, did. Now, that's smarts. Once the band topped the charts in the UK, it was inevitable that America's most important taste maker would

come calling. Hell here he is ed Sullivan's Variety Show had ruled Sunday nights for decades, and once the Beatles appeared, Sullivan's show became the gateway, kind of the Ellis Island for British bands who wanted to make it in America. All the more remarkable then that when Ed Sullivan first invited the Baby Clark Vive on Dave actually said no. In today's terms, that's like having a store on Etsy and turning down Oprah when she calls to tell you

you're one of her favorite things. But Harold Bronson says Clark had played for Americans on air basis in the UK, and well, apparently they were just too American for him. He did not have a good impression of Americans and didn't want to like put himself in that kind of rowdy, uncrewth element. But when it's Sullivan up the anti to ten thousand dollars, well, you know that was a lot

of money and that made all the difference. After Ed Sullivan introduced the Dave Clark Five to America, they finally quit their day jobs. They ended up going on his show twelve times. In November four, the group played Anaheim, and The l A Times described the event as a riot without violence. The headline Britain's find it Hard to Sing to three thousand screaming teenagers. It was Beatlemania level frenzy.

In fact, just one year after the Beatles charmed audiences with their movie A Hard Day's Night, the Dave Clark Five start in their own film called Catch Us If You Can. The movie marked the debut of British director John Boorman went on to make Deliverance and Hope and Glory. But even before the film came out, Borman told the press it was a dud. The Dave Clark Five, mainly Dave himself, just couldn't match the Beatles charisma. Dave may have been cruising around in a Jaguar in the movie,

but the band's joy ride was beginning to sputter. By the latter half of the sixties, the Beatles were experimenting with new sounds and psychedelic drugs. They went to India and studied transcendental meditation. They released groundbreaking albums like Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Critics began praising their music as art. Meanwhile, the Dave Clark Five were relying more and more on covers for the record I happen to Love their take on put a Little Love in Your Hearts.

In seventy the Dave Clark Five called it quits, the same year that the Beatles broke up. Today, more than half a century later, there really is no competition. Culturally. The Beatles are still playing the main stage that Dave Clark five for a time, we're all but forgotten. That was thanks to a very bad business decision by Dave himself to sit on those rights that reverted to him for decades. He simply refused to re release any of the group's music. He thought wrongly that that would make

the songs more valuable. But none of that changes the fact that the Dave Clark Five put out a lot of great records, records that made a deep impact in this country. I want to go back to those early months of nine sixty four when the Beatles in February and the Dave Clark Five in March first came to America. They were coming to a country at its lowest low, still traumatized from what had happened just a few months

before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In his speech inducting the d C five into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Tom Hanks remembered how it felt in November of nineteen sixty A terrible storm pounded your classroom, and your town and your country, and for weeks and for months, for the longest time, your heart and your world have been wrapped in black, and the head of every single person you look up to is still bowed in mourning. It was the bleakest winter of your discontent.

But then morning became morning, as the sun rose in the east coming out of England. For many Americans, the British invasion was more of an intervention, jolting this country from its sad stupor. Music is a kind of therapy, scream therapy. The result was more than just audiences filled with screaming teenagers and schoolyard arguments over who was better this quintet or that quartet from the northern part of

the Queen's I'll know the true product was joy. The Dave Clark five may have been second to the Beatles, and only for a short time at that, but both groups delivered joy when people really needed it. I'll let Tom Hanks, channeling his eight year old self, close out

this set. Music reaches the soul. The Dave Clark five lifted outs with a concussive beat that commanded you to lean over from the back seat the moment you heard the rumbling percussion of the Dave Clark five on the radio and commanded you to yell your dad, turn it out, turn it out. That this is my favorite song. And this song, this song is going to take our confusion and our sadness, our loss and our despair. It's going to take all the bleak days we've been through and

all the heaviness of our hearts. This three minute record is taking our joylessness and smashing it to pieces, two bits and pieces. So turn out the radio, dad. Now. If you heard our season one episode on Forgotten Forerunners, you may remember the story of Moses fleetwood Walker, the black baseball player who in four joined the lineup of the otherwise white Toledo Bluestockings. He taking the field outraged enough white players that a color line was soon drawn

through America's pastime. For the next six decades, there was an apartheid in American baseball. Black players had to form their own teams and eventually their own leagues, the Negro Leagues. Then Jackie Robinson moved from the Negro Leagues to a Brooklyn Dodgers farm team, and then in was called up to become the first black player in Major League baseball,

a milestone that was much bigger than baseball. There at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, we make the bold as searching that Jackie Robinson's breaking up the color barrier wasn't just a part of the civil rights movement, it was the beginning of the civil rights movement. That's Bob Kendrick, the president of the Negro League's Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. This is this is well before round versus the Board of Education, right, this is before Rosa Parks refusal to

move to the back of the bus. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Was merely a sophomore at Morehouse College. In essence, this is what started the ball of social progress rotling in our country. Baseball and our country literally jumped on the coattail of baseball. Kendrick was speaking to CBS for a documentary not about Jackie Robinson, but about the second black player in the Major leagues. This is the CBS New York special presentation. Larry Dobee second to none. My

colleague sports anchor Otis Livingston hosted that documentary. Otis felt it was high time that Larry Dobe got his due because he has his own place. Jackie, of course is number one, first guy in but just eleven weeks later he was brought into this whole situation. DOBIE's journey as the second black player in the LB was uniquely challenging. Is it fair to say that he suffered the same indignities as Jackie Robinson but he didn't get the same accolades. Oh,

that's fair to say, It's really fair. Larry Adobe was born in in Camden, South Carolina. When he was fourteen, he moved to Patterson, New Jersey, the place he would call home. Adobie had played baseball when he was in South Carolina, but in New Jersey he became a star, and not just in baseball. He played on East Side High School's championship winning football team. He broke a conference

record in track and field. In fact, while he was good at baseball, he'd later tell the Louis B. Nunn Center for Oral History that the sport was almost like an afterthought. Well, I never thought that much about baseball. Even when I was in high school, I played baseball

because there's nothing else to do. Baseball may not have been his passion back then, but he made the All state team two years in a oh His high school gave him a gold watch, naming him the greatest east Side high school athlete of all time, so he was used to a relatively supportive atmosphere. Now when Dobie was coming up, there was no explicit rule barring black players from the major leagues, but there was a tacit understanding

among team owners. You just didn't sign black players. So Dobe joined the Negro Leagues in two while he was still in high school, and began playing for the Newark Eagles as second baseman. He played under the name Larry Walker since high school students weren't technically allowed to play. It was his first professional contract. His rising star was briefly interrupted by World War Two, when Dobie was drafted

into the Navy. He wrote a train to Chicago for basic training along with some of his former high school teammates, but unlike his high school, the Navy was segregated. There's budget is that that had played football, met and baseball men in high school you're in the same train. When we got to Chicago, was in we were separated. I went to so called Camp Robert Smallis was a black camp,

and they went to the white camp. In the Navy, there was an all white baseball team called the Blue Jackets, but Doobe and other black players could only play for the black Blue Jackets. Jobe later said that it was the first time he was fully conscious of segregation, and it's stunned. After all, he was drafted into the Navy to fight for the country. You became a little bit frustrated because you didn't know what was going on, and you the same kids as you played with in high school.

All of a sudden, you know you're not you're not together. But by the time Doobe left the Navy and rejoined the Newark Eagles, change was in the wind. Jackie Robinson had just joined the farm team for the National League Brooklyn Dodgers, the first step in the breaking of the color barrier, and some other owners were looking to integrate their teams. One of them was Bill vec the owner

of the American League Cleveland Indians. Bill Veck would later be lauded for his early role in bringing black players into the majors. He would also end up hiring the American league's first black public relations officer, trainer, and scout. As Jackie Robinson took the field in Brooklyn, Veck told his scouts to look for the Negro League's player with the best long term potential, and DOBIE's name kept floating to the top, and so Beck made a deal with

the Newark Eagles to bring Toby to Cleveland. But he went about it in a much different way than the Brooklyn Dodgers went about bringing Jackie Robinson on. Yeah, because they they brought him through the minor league system and uh, you know, gave him a little bit of an adjustment period. This was more abrupt. In other words, Robinson's introduct to

the Major's had been carefully orchestrated. Larrydobes was not. On July, Adobe played what would be his last game with the Negro Leagues, and then he was whisked away on a train bow for Chicago to meet his Cleveland Indian teammates to play against the Chicago White Sox the next day. Because I was leaving a bunch of guys that I played with for a long time, so I felt a little a little funny about that, But no, those thoughts came into my head about the major leagues. I just

I thought more about what I'm leaving. Adobe was newly married. He and his wife, Helen had been looking forward to buying a house in New Jersey Whendobe suddenly found himself on that train headed to the Midwest. Larrydobe was also young. Jackie Robinson was twenty eight when he joined the Dodgers, so he was seasoned. He could probably handle a little bit different. Adobe's twenty three years old. And let's talk about that, because that's an important distinction, and those are

two very different ages. Yes, definitely. I mean you're a pup twenty three. You know, you're experiencing this stuff for the first time. Joining the Cleveland Indians would make Adobe the first black player in the American League. Not that his teammates rolled out the red carpet. What kind of a reception did he get in Chicago on July five when he shows up there? Okay, so I'm will receptive.

Some wouldn't shake his hands, some turned their backs. You know, there was just a lidney of responses when the team took to the field to warm up. No one would even play catch with Adobe except for second baseman and former American League m v P Joe Gordon. Gordon said, Adobe, Hey, rookie, you're gonna just stand there? Or do you want to throw a little? Adobe later said it was a moment

he would never forget. You have to have allies when you're doing something like this, when you've taken on an endeavor like this, which was difficult for him on and off the field, you have to have somebody in your corner that's gonna accept you and and and make it okay or make it tolerable. Joe Gordon side. Adobe's first major league season was rough. He struck out more than twice as often as he had playing for the New York Eagles. If you asked me as to why I

wasn't a consistent ballplayer, I couldn't give me an answer. Now, he kid had to be something subconsciously that I had no control over that. Nothing but his early performance probably had something to do with the almost inconceivable pressure he and Jackie Robinson were under. Here's Bob Kendrick from the Negro Leagues Museum. Again, Jackie Robinson, Larry Adobe. They were carrying twenty one million black folks on their back. So

if they failed, an entire race of people fail. Can you imagine carrying that weight in a sport that is predicated on failure? Baseball is a game or failure is crooks. In other words, in a game where striking out is the norm, black players couldn't really afford to strike out even under the best of circumstances. You're under extraordinary psychic strain. So add to that, some people would come to the games for the express purpose of jeering him, of insulting him.

Oh yeah, it was a microcosm of the world itself or our country itself. I mean that that's what it was like at that time. And Otis Livingston says, It's not like things were any easier off the field. Couldn't stay in the same hotels with his teammates, couldn't needed the same restaurants. His family was not there to even lean on. DOBIE's second season with the Indians got off to an equally rocky start. He worried that if he didn't turn things around, he'd be demoted and sent to

play in the minor leagues. But in he hit his stride and by the end of the season, he brought his batting average up to three oh one, one of the best on the team, and later that year, Dobie set another milestone. He and his teammates Satchel Paige, who had joined the Indians from the Negro Leagues that July, became the first black players to make it to the

World Series. Game four of that series between Cleveland and the Boston Braves would be one of the most important of his life, and the third inning, with two outs, Adobe stepped up to the plate. First pitch strike, but on the second Pitchdobe hit the ball hard. Indiandobe rockets stays high, fast pitch for the kipt to mars Abi more than four feet into the right seal cloud. DOBIE's round trip is the first home run of the series.

Larry Adobe became the first black player to hit a home run in a World Series, a game winning home run, But what happened afterward between Doobe and Cleveland pitcher Steve Gromick made be even more significant. After the game, they rush into the clubhouse jubilant, happy, and a photographer from the Associated Press captures the image of Gromic Adobe hugging each other with big smiles on their face. It's a completely wonderful photograph. If you haven't seen it, I urge

you to google it. The smiles on their faces, the sheer joy. They're like two little boys who just couldn't be happier to be playing with each other. Their cheek to cheek, but also their arms just there. They're they're intertwine, right, is almost symbolic of becoming one against all odds, not just the baseball odge, but against this segregation. The photo ran in newspapers across the country. Americans everywhere saw a

black man and a white man embrace in celebration. It became a symbol of this great experiment of getting along, playing together, accomplishing something, and just loving each other for his special Otis asked Adobe's son, Larry Adobe Jr. About the picture. When I see it, I just see two people who are extremely happy they won, and they don't care about what color skin each one is. It's just like they love each other for winning. One guy picks great,

one guy hit great, and they're just overjoyed. Probably my father's happiest moment in baseball. The love continued as the team went on to win the World Series and the nine team forty eight World Series is all over. The Cleveland Indians take the series four games to two. After the final out of the final game, the players ran onto the infield. You could see it in the video. Adobe's number four team gets lost in the celebrating swarm. Every amount on the team share his credit for the

clown the weird and about it too was. Years later, he would admit that he really didn't think of it as a big deal. Bill Veck kept telling him, you're gonna make history. You're making history, You're doing this, and he didn't really grasp it at the time, you know, as he was going through it. Whendobe and Cleveland won that World Series, there were just five black players in the majors, less than one percent of the league by the time Doobe retired from baseball. In nine of major

league players or black. Three years after the World Series win, the people of Patterson, New Jersey, helped pay off the rest of their hometown heroes mortgage Jobie burned the mortgage paperwork before a game against the New York Yankees. Either way. Years after he retired as a player, Larry Adobe went on to become the manager of the Chicago White Sox,

the second black manager in May Your League Baseball. Larry Adobe was seventy nine when he died on June two thousand three, but he lived to see his number retired by Cleveland in four and in in Cooperstown, New York, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

It's a very tough thing to look back and think about things that we're probably negative, because you put those things on the back burning you're proud and happy that you've been in part of integrating baseball to show people that we can live together, we can work together, we can play together, and we can be successful together. And I'm very happy and proud that I've been a part

of this baseball and I'm still a part of it. Occasionally, during their earliest days in major leagues, Jackie Robinson and Larry Dobie would talk over the phone at night after games, sharing their experiences. It makes sense these were two men who, for a time were the only ones who really understood what the other one was going through in a league

all by themselves, both of them history makers. Jackie Robinson's breaking of Major League baseball's calib area carried the same level of euphoria that we saw as a nation when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. So for black folks, Jackie Robinson was our Neil Armstrong. He was the proverbial first man to walk on the moon. Well, Larry Dobee is our buzz all. Speaking of astronauts, coming up the story of the second American woman in space, May I ask,

is Dr Judy Resnick nearby? Mr? President Judy? How is it your first flight? How's it going? Is it all that you hoped it would be? I couldn't have picked a better crew to be flying with. That's President Ronald Reagan calling the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery on September one, and chatting with Judith Resnick, who a few days earlier had become the second American woman to go into space. Not that Judy, that's what everyone called her.

Cared much about the distinction of being first or second. It's a profession for me, and the excitement is there every day. As she once told her father, she just wanted to be known as an astronaut period. In fact, she was a lot more than that. Funny, good looking, and very sociable. She had just incredible talents in academics. She'd sit in class, she would just get it, get it all and understand it. This is a woman who is brilliant in music. She just loved piano and she

was an incredible pianist. And in the kitchen, the three lessons she taught me about cooking where you know number one double the garlic, two half the salt. Uh, and then stir with your right hand while you drink with your left. That's Mike old Dack. He met Judy in college at Carnegie Tech today known as Carnegie Mellon. The two would later marry. My roommate introduced us and and that was it. And was there an incident chemistry? Uh yeah, pretty much get progress pretty quickly. We just sort of

settled in together. Judy had grown up in Acron, Ohio, the daughter of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. She was close with her father, but had a complicated relationship with her mother. Life at home wasn't always easy. Her parents would divorce when she was a teen, but that didn't seem to hold her back. She showed so much promise as a musician she considered becoming a concert pianist. She was a star student, getting a perfect score on her s A

T S and graduating as valedictorian of her class. She had the quote brain of a scientist and the soul of a poet, her father, Marvin Resnick, would later say. At Carnegie, Judy started off as a math major, but after attending some of Mike's classes, she switched to electrical engineering, becoming one of only three women in that field at the university. Do you think she was intimidated by being one of just three women in the program. I don't think she was intimidated. She just took it in stride.

Her abilities just paved the way. After graduation in Judy and Mike tied the knot and both took jobs in the Missile and Surface Radar division of our CI. A sidebar. I can't be the only one who hears our CIA and insidantally thinks of a little dog listening to an old timey phonograph. Great logo, right well. Our CIER was also a major defense contractor building advanced weapons systems. I

will admit Judy was paid more than me. It was back in seventy We both came on as design engineers, and she got more money than I did, and she graduated a lot higher than I did. Mike ended up switching careers to law, while Judy stayed in engineering while also going to school, eventually getting her PhD. She developed a few things that our cier patented. This was in large scale integration for computers. She was so competent that it didn't seem like an effort for her. It was

a busy and exciting time. But in Judy and Mike made the difficult decision to end their marriage. Why didn't the marriage work. I've heard it described as a failed marriage, and I reject that. I think it's more of Judy and I decided that we really wanted different things out of our future. I wanted a family, and at that point she had changed her mind and decides she did not want a family. You know, I always believe that

not all people in love should be married. And we sort of let each other go and do our own things. We stayed very close. Judy headed west to California and a new adventure. In nine seventy six, NASA announced that it was quote committed to an affirmative action program with a goal of having qualified minorities and women among the newly selected astronaut candidates for its brand new space Shuttle program.

The celebrity who became a spokesperson for this campaign, I'm thinking to the whole family of human kind, of minorities and women alive. If you qualify and would like to

be an astronaut, now is the time. The late great Nachelle Nichols, this is your NASA, a space agency embarked on a mission to improve the quality of life on planet Earth right now, who had famously played Lieutenant Ukura on Star Trek Transmission to start complete, Nichols used her star power, so to speak, traveling around the country to recruit a next generation of astronauts. Among those who answered NASA's recruitment call, Judith Resnick, when you're when you're a

old girl growing up an acron ohio astronauts someday. No. I really didn't think about it until when NASA announced that they were looking for astronauts who would be uh engineers and scientists on Spacehell. And then I just took a chance and applies. Making it her goal to be the best candidate she could be. Judy got her pilot's license and underwent intense training to get into physical shape. It worked by she was in. This is Judy Resnick,

age twenty nine. She has a doctorate and electrical engineering and is one of America's first woman astronauts. She in thirty four other new astronauts began their training today at the Johnson Space Center. In her astronaut class, Judy was one of six women, including Sally Ride. Judy threw herself into the rigorous, years long Shuttle training, but also knew when to have a little fun. She went by the nickname j R. Not clear if it had anything to do with the TV show Dallas, a huge hit at

the time. A fellow astronaut would remember Judy as a live wire and a star attraction during trips and happy hour. If Judy had any desire to become the first American woman in space, she didn't say so out loud. What kind of mission do you want to fly? Do you know? I'd like to fly any mission? Actually, um, the intent of a mission specialist is to train us to be generalist, since to learn a little bit about every field, and that I would be glad to flying anything that they

let me fly. And when the time came for crew assignments in ninety three, it turned out, Judy would have to wait some u s space history is to be made up there on launch pad thirty nine A well, the first time an American woman will be launched into space. Her name is Sally Ride. Quick history lesson here. While Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, she

was not the first woman in space. That honor went to Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who had soared into the record books back in nineteen sixty three, twenty years before Ride, and as the first ever space girl, Valentina teres Cova is one of place in history. What a triumph for Russian science. Now, Sally Ride's ride was still a very big deal, and just one year later it was Judy's turn.

She was a mission specialist on the base Shuttle Discovery that existent and we have lipped off, lipped off and missing ploty. One day the first flight of the Abit of Discovery and the Shuttle has cleared the power. As the Shuttle went into orbit, Judy radioed back to mission control that Earth looks great. She had serious work to do, but in photos and videos from the mission she looks like she's having the time of her life. She holds

up a sign that reads hi Dad. In the background you can see an I heart Tom Selleck sticker slapped onto her locker. This was in his magnum p I Heyday. At one point she dawns Aviator sunglasses. Now, Judy had become the second American woman to go into space, but she was also the first Jewish astronaut to go into space. It's another distinction she wasn't vocal about. But her former

husband Mike Oldack says, there's more to the story. I think that's misconstrue that she had given up her Judyism, and I think anything but Judy did not want to be known as the first Jewish astronaut. As she said directly to me, I'm an astronaut who happens to be a woman who happens to be Jewish, who happens to have brown hair. She was very firm in saying that's who I am. She didn't want the other labels Jewish woman, brown hair. Well. The only issue I have with that,

if I may, is that she had amazing hair. Yes, she really did. Yes, Yeah, that was the first real hair in space. I think most of those other astronauts were former air Force pilots and had buzz cuts. Discoveries mission went off without a hitch. Of course, the first landing to Discovery Actor, a maiden flight that's been termed a major success. If flying into outer space made Judy nervous, she didn't sound like it. As she told one writer, it does not enter any of our minds that it

is dangerous. The world might think it is, we don't. I think something is dangerous only if you're not prepared for it, or you don't have control over it. Less than two years after Judy's voyage on Discovery came her next mission, aboard the Challenger and lift off. Lift off the twenty five Space Shuttle mission. And it is clears the tower. Where did you watch the launch from? I actually was at my office and uh, we didn't really

have too many TVs there. And I got a call from my mother, uh in tears, telling me that the shovel blown up. On the morning of January, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded seventy three seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crew members a board, including civilian astronaut and teacher Kristi McAuliffe and Judith Resnick By controllers here looking very carefully in the situation obviously a major malfunction. It happened

to be my seventeenth birthday. I was a junior in high school, and I can still see the student who ran into the cafeteria at lunch and told us I just remember. I couldn't believe it. The crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger honored us with the manner in which 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 and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.

An investigation would later determine that unexpectedly cold temperatures had impacted the O ring seals in one of the rocket boosters, causing an explosion. I think a lot of us have forgotten that space travel could be dangerous. The Shuttle was just so sleek on TV. It looked almost like a high tech toy. It didn't seem risky at all, but

of course it was. In the years after the explosion, the US government and Morton Thaia call, the manufacturer of the rocket boosters, would attempt to settle with the families of the Challenger crew. The initial offers were calculated with the formula factoring in whether a crew member was survived by a spouse and her children. Judy's former husband, Mike Oldak, by then a practicing attorney, didn't think this was fair and took legal action on behalf of the Resident family.

Each spouse would get X, each child would get Why, Oh, Judy is not married and didn't have many kids. Too bad, We'll give her, you know, just a small amount. And I said no. Finally, after about a year and a half, settled with Martin Ya Cale for exactly what Judie's father and brother wanted. What was motivating you when I decided that engineering made a better hobby than a profession. Uh, And I became a full time law student, and so she was a big breadwinner in her family. Judy put

me in law school. I felt I owed her family and I wanted to do it. How will you remember Judy? If there's one image that pops into your mind when you think of her, what is it? Probably just smiling? I mean, she was a very happy person and smiled a lot. And uh, I knew what she wanted. Judith Resident wasn't the first woman in space She's probably not the first name that comes to mind when you think about the crew of the Challenger. She probably would be

fine with that number one, number two. They were just numbers to her. She wanted to do something significant, not necessarily be someone significant. Judy was an astronaut. She was also an exceptional human being who deserved all the recognition she never quite received. I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary. May I ask you to please rate and review our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and

you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. Here. All new episodes of Mobituaries every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and check out Mobituaries. Great Lives Worth Reliving, the New York Times best selling book, now available in paperback and audiobook. It includes plenty of stories not in the podcast. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Jay Harper, Zoe Marcus Morocca, Aaron Shrank, and will Go Martinez Cacero. It was edited by Moral Walls and engineered by Josh Hahn, with BacT

checking by Naomi Barr. Our production company is Neonum Media. Our archival producer is Jamie Benson. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart. Indispensable support from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gervei, Alan Pang, Reggie Basil, and everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks to Alberto Robina. The inestimable. Aaron Shrank is our senior producer. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Steve Raises

and me Morocca. The series is created by Yours truly and as always, undying gratitude to Rand Morrison and John carp for helping breathe life into Mobituaries