MLive 2025 Roger B. Chaffee Awards
Photo by Mike Karpus - MLive.com
Michigan student wins prestigious award honoring Apollo 1 astronaut
By Danielle James | djames@mlive.com
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - When Samantha McClelland first walked into a meeting of the Grand Rapids Amateur Astronomical Association, she was the youngest in the room and one of only three women.
In an essay she wrote, McClelland described being unsurprised by the realization that she was surrounded by mostly men and “they’re all bald.” In her weeks of astrophysics research and astronomy reading, she had yet to find a book by a female astrophysicist. “It’s a little bit intuitive (to think) am I in the right place?” she said. “What room did I just walk into?”
Writing about this experience - and how she overcame it - helped earn McClelland, a Forest Hills Northern High School senior, the 2025 Roger B. Chaffee scholarship. The prestigious scholarship is in honor of the Grand Rapids astronaut who perished with two others in the Apollo 1 mission on Jan. 27, 1967 - NASA’s first fatal spacecraft accident.
Roger B. Chaffee, 31, a United States Navy Lieutenant Commander, was preparing for his first space flight. He died with Virgil “Gus” Grissom and Lt. Col. Edward H. White, when a flash fire occurred during a launch pad test at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He was survived by his wife and two children, and was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor after his death. The $5,000 scholarship in his name is awarded annually to a student in the Kent Intermediate School District who intends to pursue a college career in engineering, mathematics or sciences related to space technology. Chaffee, a graduate of Central High School, who received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Purdue University, was one of the third group of astronauts selected by NASA in 1963.
McClelland wants to major in astrophysics at the University of Notre Dame, where she’s been accepted. She was inspired by a female astrophysics professor who guest spoke at an Astronomical Association meeting. She said pursuing her passions in a room full of people who don’t necessarily look like her has been a valuable learning experience, and it’s taught her that standing out isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “It was definitely a little bit of a learning experience,” she said, “to figure out how to maneuver that situation and get to know people when at first it kind of seemed like I didn’t have as much in common with them.” One commonality McClelland said she does share with members of the association is a love of astronomy. She frequently visits the James C. Veen Observatory in Lowell, attending meetings and using the telescope to search for stars. “You can look up at night and you (think you) can see it all,” she said. “But then once you learn about it, you understand that there’s so much more to all the little dots that are up there.”
McClelland said she loves the idea that she can look up at the same stars as someone hundreds of miles away, part of a “really big community of people learning about this and enjoying the night sky.” In a letter of recommendation included in McClelland’s application, her AP Calculus and Statistics teacher Jacob Kelly described her as filled with “intellectual curiosity” that extends far beyond the classroom. “I can say without hesitation that she is one of the most exceptional students I have encountered in my 18 years as an educator,” he said. Heather McKinney-Rewa, Forest Hills Northern’s principal, said seeing students like McClelland “fills your bucket each day.” “It brings a vibrancy to the learning environment,” said McKinney-Rewa, in her first year as Forest Hills principal, “and it makes you feel like this is part of the reason why I got into the profession.”