Ronald Reagan Challenger Disaster Analysis

January 28, 1986, marks the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion. A day that will go down in history as a horrible tragedy for both NASA and America. Seven lives were lost that day, including the life of a high school teacher from New Hampshire. Former President Ronald Reagan was tasked with explaining this tragic event to the US people. Because of this, Reagan postponed the State of the Union Address and spoke about the Challenger Explosion instead. In his address to the nation about the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, President Ronald Reagan effectively commemorates the loss of the Challenger crew while also celebrating the crew’s achievements and encouraging further space travel by establishing pathos through his show of empathy, employing strong positive connotation, and alluding to the great explorer, Sir Francis Drake.

Seventy three seconds into its 10th flight, on January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing the seven crew members on board [1]. The Challenger was the second space shuttle constructed by NASA and had completed nine successful missions prior to the disaster. Following the accident, the shuttle program was suspended for 32 months as President Ronald Regan appointed a Commission, chaired by William P. Rogers and known as the Rogers Commission, to investigate the cause of the accident [1].

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 January 28, 1986, as millions of Americans watched on live television and in person, the Challenger space shuttle exploded and broke up over the Atlantic Ocean just moments after its launch. This space mission was significant for several reason, among them was that it would be the first time where the space shuttle would carry a civilian into outer space. Also, there was a frenzy of interest for Americans as the U.S. and Russians were locked in a space race for space exploration supremacy. Instead. President Ronald Reagan was left with the unenviable duty of consoling a nation that had just witnessed the most significant disaster in American history.

The day of January 28th, 1986, in Cape Canaveral, Florida was by far one of the coldest days of the year. One the launch pad there icicles dangling from the launch tower, pad structure, and other launch equipment as the space shuttle Challenger sat there waiting for its historic launch. For over thirty-eight days Challenger's solid rocket boosters, and external tank were soaked seven inches of rain which had caused a enormous amount of icicles to form.

Rhetorical situation is connected with the catastrophe of shuttle "Challenger" of January 28, 1986. In the beginning of the mission STS-51L the spacecraft exploded on 73 seconds into the flight, causing the death of all seven crewmembers. The shuttle disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean near the central part of Florida peninsula.

President, Ronald W. Reagan, in his speech, “Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger Address to the Nation,” Reagan expresses the grief and loss due to the tragedy that has occurred to the Challenger. Regan’s purpose was to acknowledge the terrible explosion of the Challenger, witnessed by majority of the people including children and killed all seven crew members: Michael Smith, Dick, Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa MC Auliffe; although despite such horrible incident, Regan had insisted that the nation should continue the space program. He adopts a empathetic and encouraging tone in order to show his consideration to the victimized families and to promote the continuation of the space program as a sign of moving forward. Therefore, in Reagan’s speech, he conveyed his empathy and the will to go on with the use of rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, allusion, and anaphora.

After the seven astronauts, engineers, and Christa McAuliffe, a history teacher selected to be part of the mission, were killed in the terrible shuttle Challenger explosion, Ronald Reagan had the unbelievable job of explaining it to the country. Millions across the country were watching as the shuttle caught in flames and then exploded only 73 seconds after lift off. It was later determined that two rubber O-rings, designed to separate the sections of the rocket booster, had failed due to cold temperatures on the morning of the launch (http://www.history.com/topics/challenger-disaster). Reagan gave his speech at 5 pm on January 28, 1986 from the Oval Office at the White House, broadcasted live on nationwide radio and television. Reagan knew that he had to “make it plain to them that life does go on and you don’t back up and quit some worthwhile endeavor because of tragedy”. Reagan called in a relatively unknown speechwriter who would go on to pen some of the most famous phrases uttered by presidents, like President George H.W Bush’s “thousand points of light”, Peggy Noonan. Reagan started his speech simply with, “Today is a day for

On January 28th, 1986, the Challenger shuttle exploded shortly after liftoff killing all seven of the crew members. Almost everyone in America, including hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren were watching. This disaster meant that Ronald Reagan would have to address the issue. He answered this call with the Challenger Disaster Address. In this speech, he not only comforted the families of the astronauts, but also the rest of the nation by rebuilding faith in the space program. Reagan exibited empathy in his tone, while keeping a strong demeanor.

While seated in the Oval Office of the White house, January 28, 1986 President Ronald Reagan delivers his speech The Challenger Disaster; hours after the space shuttle The Challenger explodes while in take off. Thousands witnessed this horrifying event live in person and on television. This mission was very unique allowing the first civilian to ever be allowed in space during a mission. She was aboard The Challenger as an observer in the NASA Teacher in Space Program. Ironically, nineteen years before this disaster, three astronauts were tragically lost in an accident on the ground. President Reagan remembers those astronauts that were lost not only the day of the disaster, but also those who were lost nineteen years before. He conducts

Perhaps no greater tragedy defines the American Race for Space than the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger before millions of Americans as they watched on live TV in 1986. Building on two decades of successful space exploration kicked off by President Kennedy before his death, by the early eighties the American culture both believed that it was our right to fly into space and that no one did it better than we did. NASA had sent mission after mission into space over more than twenty years, each one accomplishing space exploration goals and building the reputation that America owned the stars. That day in January of 1986 was supposed to be another of those successes as the Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying not only professional astronauts into space but also one everyday person, teacher Christa McAuliffe. Instead, the world watched as after seventy-three seconds after liftoff hopes and dreams exploded with the Challenger - leaving astronauts dead, the space program in jeopardy and America grieving and looking for answers. How leadership responded, what they said and did, would be really important to how the nation dealt with the loss and to the future of the space program. The man for the job was President Ronald Reagan, whose address to the nation appealed to the public on an emotional and logical level and helped to ensure that they

The launch of the Challenger shuttle was highly popular and publicized event because the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had conducted a nationwide search, searching for a teacher to send on the flight. NASA wanted to show people of America and the world that space traveling can be routine like traveling through an airplane. After a long search, NASA found the teacher, Christa McAuliffe. President Reagan was conducting a search addressed to primary and secondary schools looking for an American to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, which is how Ms. McAuliffe heard NASA’s nationwide search on a car radio one evening. She was not sure if she would be able to be part of such exciting adventure when she procrastinated and submitted in her

This paved the way for one of the early disastrous accident ever to occur in the space exploration program. Seven people died instantly as the space shuttle spiraled out of the preflight plan. 73 seconds after liftoff, people watched in horror as white spiral smokes filled the sky. Prior to the Challenger disaster, NASA boasted about how easy and simple it is to send humans to space. To prove this, they selected Sharon

Many people today can recall the moment of the Challenger disaster. Almost thirty years ago the U.S. watched in unbelief as the space shuttle Challenger exploded Seventy-three seconds after lift-off. The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger was historic but unfortunately predicted, changing the course of the U.S. Space Program. Another space shuttle that was destroyed was Columbia. The space shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was the first fleet orbiter to be delivered to Kennedy Space Center in March 1979.

The initial threat to the ability of NASA to sustain the dramatic changes in the wake of the Challenger disaster started well before the lives of the astronauts were lost. The lack of centralization of management and the fact that different aspects of the organization had locations ranging from D.C. to Florida allowed for no one to really accept and own up to the fact that they were at fault. No one group or person took responsibility, so it was cast upon the entire NASA organization and no one took it upon themselves to make sure that a disaster of this caliber would ever happen again.