Thirty-three years ago to the day, 28 January 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-099) exploded during launch, killing her crew of seven: Commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, Pilot Michael Smith, Mission Specialist Ellison Onizuka, Mission Specialist Judith Resnik, Mission Specialist Ronald McNair, Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis, & Payload Specialist Christa McAuliffe. Scobee, Onizuka, Resnik, & McNair had previously flown on the Space Shuttle; Smith, Jarvis, & McAuliffe were on their maiden spaceflights.
The disaster was caused by the failure of an O-ring on one of the Challenger's two Solid Rocket Boosters. The O-ring contractor had warned N.A.S.A. against launching in the unusually cold temperatures on the morning of 28 January, but N.A.S.A. overruled the contractor, whose senior management then relented, against their own engineers' concerns. The disaster was not only foreseeable, but foreseen. N.A.S.A. violated numerous of its own procedures in going ahead with the doomed launch.
The Challenger's mission, STS-51-L, which was to deploy a communications satellite & conduct observations of Halley's Comet, was more high profile than most Space Shuttle missions as 'twas the first flight of the Teacher in Space Project, with public schoolteacher Mrs. McAuliffe having been selected as an astronaut specifically for the ambitious educational outreach. She was to teach remotely from space via closed-circuit television. Your humble narrator was among the many schoolchildren around the country watching the launch live on television when the unthinkable happened. The Challenger disaster made a considerable impression on popular culture & was commemorated with an on-screen tribute at the beginning of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, released later in '86. Colonel Onizuka, the first Asian-American astronaut, had a shuttlecraft used in several episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a namesake.
The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded seventy-three seconds after liftoff, killing all seven of her crew, 28 January 1986, thirty-three years ago today.
The Wayback Machine Tour of the Challenger Disaster
Wayback Machine '18
Wayback Machine '17
Wayback Machine '16
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