Gregory Jarvis Says That Space Mission Assignment is "Luck," and He Has Been Assigned to the Challenger

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 “the shuttle mission scheduled for January (51-L)” – the Challenger flight on January 28, 1986. The luck that day was all bad – and the Space Shuttle, on which Jarvis was a payload specialist, exploded 73 seconds after launching. All crew members were lost.

Typed Letter Signed, 1 page, quarto, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Houston, Texas, no date, circa 1985. To Erik.