NASA Astronauts Original Historic Letters and Documents

President Lyndon B. Johnson's letter of condolence to the parents of Roger B. Chaffee, an astronaut who died in the Apollo I fire.

Judy Resnik, the second American woman, and second Jewish person in space, responds to requests for autographs and photographs.

Signed photo of doomed Challenger astronaut Judy Resnik-the second American woman, and the first American Jew, in space

President Johnson loved the Space Program; loved the astronauts; loved awarding Gus Grissom NASA's Distinguished Service Medal, for being the first American to fly into space twice. Burying Grissom, and his comrades, was a bitter responsibility – which he followed, still, with personal letters of condolence.

Christa McAuliffe was the first civilian selected to join astronauts on a space mission. A school teacher, she was planning to give lessons from the spacecraft, to be broadcast live; she would show her students how astronauts ate, slept, and lived on the space shuttle. This letter, written five months before the tragic live broadcast explosion of the Challenger, reflects McAuliffe's enthusiasm for her mission.

Explaining that "being assigned to any mission is relatively tentative and re-assignment is just the luck of the draw," Jarvis tells his correspondent that after being bumped, he has been assigned to the Challenger as a payload specialist.

Dick Scobee writes that he hopes to be selected as a space shuttle astronaut. He eventually would become the commander of the ill-fated Challenger.