So what has become of the 7 astronauts then who would have had to have been in on the 'fake'. How come none of them has ever been seen or heard of since? Have they been hiding away cut off from the rest of the world and their family and friends in some secret room that NASA has located somewhere for the last 33 years just so that NASA can keep something secret?
One of the Challenger astronauts was a school teacher so presumably all the staff of the school and the pupils who went to the school and were taught by Christa McAuliffe and those pupils families and friends would also have had to be in on it as well. I could go on but you get the picture. To ask the kids from the school (who I'm sure were extremely excited and proud to know that one of their teachers was going to be a real life astronaut) to keep such a 'faked' death secret would be next to impossible. I can only imagine what their reaction would have been when they asked why they had to 'pretend' their teacher had been killed in a tragic shuttle accident. Children are excellent lie detectors but often hopeless at lying themselves.
I guess to some people, keeping a conspiracy theory alive for reasons of their own selfish belief is more important than considering the human effect that such stories can create.