Challenger Explosion

On January 28, 1986, a day that was supposed to be filled with excitement and exploration, suddenly turned into a day filled with tragedy and sadness. The space shuttle Challenger was supposed to carry a seven member crew into orbit with one unique member along for this particular mission. Christa McAuliffe was supposed to be the first teacher to go into space as a member of the Teacher in Space Project. Due to this occasion, the media coverage and the number of viewers of this mission was extensive, particularly in schools across the nation. The Challenger lifted off shortly after 11:30 A.M., but tragically only seventy three seconds after takeoff it exploded sending debris and the seven crew members back to earth and into the Atlantic

On the morning of Janurary 28th 1986, the world witnessed in shock and horror what was known as the Challenger disaster as the space shuttle exploded only 73 seconds after its launch, killing all seven crew members onboard including one teacher Christa McAuliffe. Approximately 17 percent of Americans watched the live broadcast of this launch, many of them schoolchildren including those from McAuliffe’s school. From this grave moment emerged an exigency that demands immediate action by the president. Later on that same day, President Ronald Reagan delivered his Challenger address to the nation.

It determined that the accident was due to a failure of rubber O-rings made by Morton-Thiokol that provided a pressure seal in the aft field joint of the shuttle's right Solid Rocket Booster. The failure of the O-rings was attributed to a design flaw, as their performance could be too easily compromised by factors that included the low temperature on the day of launch. The Commission found that O-ring resiliency is directly related to temperature and due to the low temperature at launch—36 degrees Fahrenheit or 15 degrees lower than the next coldest previous launch—it was probable the O-rings had not provided a proper

On an unusually cool Florida morning in January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 50,000 feet above ground just moments after liftoff killing seven crew members onboard (Palmer, Dunford, and Akin, 2009). A presidential commission, dubbed “the Rogers Commission” (hereafter, the Commission) after former Secretary of State William Rogers, was appointed to investigate the cause of the disaster. Although mechanical failure of an O-ring seal in one of the rocket boosters was identified as the physical cause, the investigation revealed something much more disheartening; organizational deficiencies at NASA had allowed potential safety hazards to be disregarded. The disastrous consequences of NASA’s organizational failure prompted calls

In my paper I will try and explain the reason of why I would make the call to launch the Challenger in 1986. As we all know we had a horrific accident when the Challenger was launched on January 28, 1986. There were seven crew members who lost their lives when the Challenger blew up within only 73 seconds of flight. This was a major setback in the United States space explorations and prompted NASA to temporarily suspend all future shuttle missions.

With seven ‒ novice as well as seasoned ‒ astronauts on board, they were going to space to deploy a satellite “into orbit to observe Halley’s comet”(“The Space Shuttle Challenger Accident” 256). The first affirmation of a problem was gray smoke, this was detected 678 seconds into flight. Shortly after the smoke there was a small flame and “at 73 seconds, the Challenger reached an altitude of 46,000 feet and exploded”(“The Space Shuttle Challenger Accident” 256). That evening, President Ronald Reagan said: “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye”(“The Space Shuttle Challenger Accident” 256). Five months later, in June 1986, it was conjectured “that a fuel leak through faulty rubber O-rings that sealed joint sections of the rocket booster caused the accident”(“The Space Shuttle Challenger Accident”

Spencer Kenley Mrs. Efaw American Literature, P5 29 January 2018 The Effect of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster The Challenger malfunctioned on January 28, 1986, at 11:38 AM. The temperature was thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and after seventy-three seconds of flight, the O-rings failed and the Challenger exploded into a giant cloud in the sky. All seven astronauts died, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher in Concord, New Hampshire, chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from thousands of applicants to go into space and preform school lessons.

The Challenger Disaster was one of the biggest events of the 1980’s. It symbolized that space travel is a challenging endeavor which bears it’s own set of risks, especially when the entirety of the shuttle program was plagued with issues up until the Challenger incident. Initially, America put a ton of resources into the space program in order to achieve the goal of winning the Space Race. Once that goal was achieved, America’s space program was scaled down to a fraction of the previous budget (space.com article). Out of the small budget, the shuttle program came into existence. During it’s conception, various bedget cuts and

On the morning of the launch, the temperature on the launch pad was 22 degrees Fahrenheit. The engineers warned the head of the mission that the O-rings and other components of the shuttle had a possibility of failure at cold temperatures. Unfortunately, these warnings were disregarded and they proceeded to lift off. Seventy-three seconds later, the spectators on the ground and the audience before their television screens watched the 1986 Challenger explode before their eyes.

Bredeson, Carmen. The Challenger Disaster: Tragic Space Flight. Berkeley Heights, NJ, USA: Enslow, 1999. Print.

The Space Shuttle Challenger was originally a test vehicle for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In 1979, NASA ordered Challenger to be converted to a space-rated orbiter, which consisted of massive disassembly and restructuring of the orbiter. It was delivered back to NASA as the second orbiter in their fleet of Space Shuttles in July 1982, where it was launched on its first mission on 4 April 1983. Crew members conducted the first spacewalk of the Space Shuttle program on this mission, and subsequent missions saw many other firsts for space exploration history (1). Over Challenger’s lifetime of three years, nine missions of various basis were successfully completed (2).

Communication between Morton Thiokol (the company that designed the Solid Rocket Boosters) engineers and NASA management was also very poor. After the incident, Roger Boisjoly, a Morton Thiokol engineer, stated that the meetings prior to the Challenger launch were filled with "intense customer intimidation" (Boisjoly 1). Obviously, this was not a conducive environment to creating an atmosphere where everyone was comfortable expressing their opinions and making thoughtful decisions. The truth of the is that Morton Thiokol did not have any information on how its Solid Rocket Boosters and O-rings would perform at temperatures less than 51 ºF. The night before the launch, the temperature outside fell to 18 ºF, and in the morning of the launch the temperature was at 36 ºF. At that moment, some engineers believed that the boosters would still be able to function safely under these conditions, however many were very worried that the temperature would cause a failure. The inability of the Morton Thiokol engineers to convey their concerns to the NASA management and convince them to postpone the shuttle's launch is a factor that led to the tragic

The Challenger disaster was not only a disaster in terms of the destruction of the spacecraft and the death of its crew but also in terms of the decision-making process that led to the launch and in terms of the subsequent investigation into the "causes" of the disaster. The decision to recommend for launch was made by lower-level management officials over the objections of technical experts who opposed the launch under the environmental conditions that existed on the launch pad at the time. Furthermore, the lower-level managers who made this decision--both NASA and contractor personnel--chose not to report the objections of the technical experts in their recommendations to higher levels in the management chain- of-command to

In January of 1986, the Spacecraft Challenger was ready to launch. Challenger was a large spacecraft that was fueled up and ready to go. On the day of the launch, as Challenger was launching the spacecraft exploded and seven people died. In 2003 a Columbia Spacecraft was returning to earth when the shuttle malfunctioned and blew up causing the death of seven crew members. In space camp in Alabama kids and teenagers are learning how Space worked and the robotics that go along with it.

Space” project quickly became the Space Challenger Disaster. The Challenger, along with 7 of its crew had perished. The following research is a thorough summary of the events leading up to and following the devastation, including the incidents that took place and the key individuals; the importance of the event in the scheme of U.S. and world history and how the event changed daily life in America and around the world leaving a lasting legacy of emotional