A new commission established by Gov. Chris Sununu will be tasked with creating a Christa McAuliffe memorial at the New Hampshire State House.

The Christa McAuliffe State House Memorial Commission, which was created by an executive order Tuesday, will work over the next two years to select an artist to design and create the memorial, and will choose a location for it on the front-facing portion of the state house grounds. Afterward, the commission will remain in charge of maintenance and upkeep.

Members will include the governor, one state senator, two state reps, three members of the public and one representative each from the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, the Department of Administrative Services and the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center.

McAuliffe was a social studies teacher at Concord High School who was selected out of over 11,000 applicants for the 1984 Teacher in Space Project, becoming the first educator-astronaut. She was one of seven crew members aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger mission when it tragically exploded on January 28, 1986.

In his 2023 budget address Tuesday, Sununu said the memorial would commemorate McAuliffe’s “selfless contribution to the State of New Hampshire and the world.”

“I think we have an exciting opportunity to ensure we are motivating our kids to be engaged and reach for the stars. Not all heroes wear capes, but some wore space suits,” Sununu said. “...It’s long overdue and will undoubtedly inspire our next generation of students, every time they visit, to achieve the unimaginable.”

The memorial is slated to be unveiled by September 2024.

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