NASA's Fail: The Challenger Explosion

The Challenger Explosion was one of the most terrifying US live TV broadcasts of all time. Thousands watched and looked one as they watched this giant spacecraft burst into flames; as all their family, friends, and students looked on. Christa McAuliffe was set to be the first ordinary American citizen to travel into space. January 28, 1986, is a date that many people remember. 76 seconds after takeoff from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, all seven members of the crew died during the voyage. The spacecraft blew up due to a failure in the ship's O-ring seal. The aftermath of the Challenger explosion was emotional and heartbreaking. Many people had just witnessed their loved ones die right in front of their eyes. The launch failure hit NASA hard as well. They had to shut down and postpone all work until further notice. There were speculations on whether they did in the explosion or actually after the 46,000-foot fall to the ocean. The explosion could have easily been avoided had they waited for another date to be set.

The Challenger Space Shuttle was constructed by Rockwell International’s Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey, California. The Construction of the spacecraft was finished in February of 1978. After the spacecraft rollout, it was sent to a Lockheed test site in Palmdale. In Palmdale, it spent over 11 months in vibration tests, designed to simulate entire shuttle flights, from launch to landing. They ended up overtesting the spacecraft by stimulating 1.2 times the force that it would actually experience in the takeoff. They were originally going to use the prototype orbiter Enterprise, but it lacked important systems used in the flight. The key components it was missing were thermal insulation, a functional proposition system, and a life support system. Since the Challenger was basically an outlined frame of an aircraft at that time, they decided to use it because it would be easier to upgrade. NASA had said that it would be easier, cheaper, and quicker to upgrade the Challenger rather than Enterprise. Working to convert the Challenger began in January 1979, starting with the crew module, because the rest of the spacecraft was still being used by Lockheed. Work continued on with the spacecraft until July of 1982. The goal for the Challenger spacecraft was to serve as a “structural test article” for the NASA space program. NASA looked for a lightweight orbiter, but a “test article” was used to ensure that a lighter airframe could handle the stress of space travel. Christa McAuliffe was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to be in the NASA Teacher in Space Project and she was scheduled to become the first teacher in space. As a member of mission STS-51-L, she was planning to conduct experiments and teach two lessons from space. Another primary goal of the expedition was to launch the second Tracking and Data Relay Satellite. All in all, this expedition had many goals and was going to expand the views on space travel. Unfortunately, that all changed on that cold January 28, 1986, day.

Leading up to this tragedy, the challenger had already been delayed many times. The Challenger was originally scheduled for July of 1985, but by the time the flight crew was assigned in January of 1985, the launch had already been delayed to late November to satisfy changes in cargo. The launch kept getting pushed further and further back until they scheduled January 1986, date. The date was set, on January 28, 1986, the Challenger space shuttle will take off. Conditions for this launch were very treacherous that morning. Cape Canaveral reached a record low at that time at 26 degrees that morning. Weather conditions were less than ideal for this launch. It was said to have been 36 degrees at the time of the launch. As a result of the cold and gusty winds, ice accumulated on the launch pad area overnight. The ice was removed by crews, and multiple ice checks took place prior to launch. There were written recommendations that existed, advising against a launch when the temperature was below 53 degrees. NASA had not attempted to ever launch a shuttle in temperatures as low as on the morning of January 28, 1986. The coldest temperature of any previous launch was 56 degrees, which was 20 degrees warmer. To make each solid-rocket booster, the Morton Thiokol factory built four frame segments filled with powdered aluminum, which was the fuel, and ammonium perchlorate. At the Kennedy Space Center, the fuel segments were assembled vertically. Welded joints containing rubber O-ring seals were installed between each segment. These rubber O-rings were never tested in extremely cold conditions like they were experiencing the day of the launch. Morton Thiokol told NASA that they believed the O-ring seals in the solid-rocket boosters would get the job done in the cold. On the morning of the launch, the cold rubber became stiff, resulting in it failing to fully seal the welded joint. As take off, one of the seals on a booster rocket opened enough to allow a small amount of exhaust to leak out. Hot gases engulfed the hull of the cold external tank full of liquid oxygen and hydrogen until the tank ruptured. At 73 seconds after liftoff, and about 9 miles in the sky, the shuttle was torn apart by aerodynamic forces. The two solid-rocket boosters continued flying until the NASA range safety officer destroyed them by remote control. The crew compartment ascended to an altitude of 12.3 miles before free-falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward because of their momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before coming back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after the initial breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then. What people wonder was whether they were conscious at this point. If the cabin depressurized, which it most likely did, the crew would have had a more difficult time breathing. In the words of the final report by fellow astronauts, the crew “possibly but not certainly lost consciousness,” even though a few of the emergency air bottles, which were designed for escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground, had been activated. The cabin hit the water at speeds greater than 200 mph, resulting in a force of about 200 G’s, crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew did lose consciousness, it is unknown if they would have regained consciousness, as the air thickened during the last seconds of the fall. The Challenger Explosion was almost as bad as the Bills losing 4 straight Super Bowls. This disaster could have been easily avoided if the director of the launch, Jay Greene, would have listened to those countless opinions to abort the mission because of the terrible weather conditions.

As the space shuttle exploded in broad daylight, friends, family, and loved ones watched from the observatory at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. They were all shocked and horrified by what they had just witnessed. Christa’s backup Barara Morgan was also on the site of the launch, in case Christa wanted to back out last minute. Barara would have experienced a mental condition called survivors guilt. Survivor guilt is a mental condition that occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt. Some quotes taken after the crash in 'The whole country and the whole world was in shock when that happened because that was the first time the United States had actually lost a space vehicle with crew on board,' said former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao. 'It was even more shocking because Christa McAuliffe was not a professional astronaut,' Chiao told Space.com. 'If you lose military people during a military operation, it's sad and it's tragic, but they're professionals doing a job, and that's kind of the way I look at professional astronauts. But you're taking someone who's not a professional, and it happened to be that mission that got lost — it added to the shock.' A reporter on scene gave her view of the tragedy by saying, “I just remember seeing the cloud of smoke and what looked like fireworks coming out from the vehicle,' recalled John Zarrella, who covered the launch at Florida's Kennedy Space Center for CNN. 'We were all just looking at each other wondering 'OK, what's happened here?”President Reagan addressed the nation after the tragedy. He called it a day of mourning and remembering. Reagan was optimistic and looked forward in our journey into space. During his Address to the Nation, he said, “We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, and more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.” The whole country was in a time of sadness and sorrow. If you ever ask someone who was alive during this time of history, they can always describe where they were when the Challenger exploded. This crushed the hearts of thousands all around the US seeing people die on TV. It especially hit hard to Christa McAuliffe’s elementary school. Her entire school came into the auditorium to watch the launch. Hundreds of schools across the US watched this disaster unfold. They watched from a live feed from the NASA satellite. They were prepared for many lessons from Christa, as they planned to multiple lessons from up there. To their horror, they watched her and all the other 6 astronauts on the mission burst into flames. Some of these children were too young to even understand what had happened. This created a very young audience for the launch. This hit the media quickly, with numerous newspapers coming out about the tragedy. These newspapers had headlines saying, “Shuttle Explodes!”, “Stunned Nation Mourns Loss”, and “No Exit For Astronauts”. Which impacted the lives of thousands that watched it. This disaster impacted the lives of thousands that watched it, but it also greatly impacted the NASA program as well.

This disaster caused many changes as a result of the explosion. Immediately following the devastation, NASA grounded all projects for the next 3 years. NASA had to take a step back and reflect on what went wrong. They were making precautionary ideas to make this a safer job. Robert Cabana, a former NASA astronaut, and director of the Kennedy Space Center said how they made over 100 modifications to the shuttle to ensure the safety of all people involved. Following the tragedy of the Challenger Explosion, NASA had 88 successful missions over the next 14 years. They put countless time and effort into improving the safety in space travel. Engineers like Bob Ebeling blamed themselves for the tragedy, saying that the night before the launch he told his wife he knew it was going to blow up.

Throughout history, there have been numerous disasters that have taken place. The Challenger stacks up there to be one of the saddest and heart-breaking events in United States history. Thousands of people watched as their friends, family, and teacher died right in front of their eyes. This was all due to a faulty O-ring seal. If they had listened to countless orders to postpone this launch, this whole devastation could have easily been avoided. Everyone involved in this expedition knew that conditions were too rough to try and launch a shuttle in. They went against the advice of numerous professional opinions and it cost 7 lives in the process. This tragedy sunk fear into the eyes of Americans because they had no idea what had happened. They also did not know what the future for NASA and space travel was. Christa McAuliffe was set to become a hero and an inspiration for generations to come, but inevitably she became the center of the devastation. As her school and hundreds of others looked up, shocked and in horror of what they had just witnessed. Speculations to whether or not those people actually died upon explosion started to come up. NASA later released a statement saying how they believe that those people did not die upon explosion. They said that the astronauts lost consciousness when the shuttle exploded, due to the depressurizing of the cabin. NASA said how they most likely regained consciousness a few seconds after impact. They died when their cabin made contact with the water. These people working on this launch knew the risk they were running trying to take off in such poor conditions. These directors are the ones to be blamed for the death of those 7 people. If that had been smart and waited out the cold, we would have seen history before our eyes with Christa, but naive directors went against all recommendations and knowledge. Those people are to be blamed.