Rhetorical Analysis of Challenger Address of Ronald Reagan

Introduction: Many people are aware of the Challenger Space Shuttle incident, but they aren’t too aware of what Challenger’s main purpose was. Background: NASA at the time wanted to build a light-weight orbiter that could handle a flight similar to other crafts, just more efficient in weight and cost. While Challenger was still functioning, it helped lead to many different scientific discoveries and technological advances, such as helping to set up a new Data Relay System and held many different experiments on board. (NASA). Challenger failed within a little over a minute of its flight not by an explosion, but by a design flaw that could have been avoided. A part called the O-Ring couldn’t seal in the hot gas from escaping from the rocket, so given the inadequate temperature and pressure, the rocket couldn’t handle it. This event was covered so well due to the fact that one of the crew members on board was a school teacher that planned on teaching a few lessons to her class from space. Within the hour, 85% of Americans knew about the disaster that unfortunately happened. Thesis statement: President Reagan then proceeds to give the speech of the incident to the American people and does so by giving a lot of emotional rhetoric devices.

Topic sentence: President Reagan starts off his speech by stating “I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the State of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans.” Evidence & citing: This is an appeal to ethos, as he is showing that he is willing to cancel an important event to address a troublesome matter that is devastating. An important part of this is that he says “Nancy and I” instead of saying the “First Lady and I”. This is another way to appeal to ethos, by disregarding any titles that they have, they are connecting to their audience by showing them that we are all the same, we are human. Commentary: He is sharing the grief with America. If he weren’t to do what he did, the American people would have seen him as a President who doesn’t have good morals and doesn’t seem to care about this incident, but these simple actions helped ease the viewers emotionally.

Topic sentence: In the next paragraph, he lists off every crew member on the shuttle, and states “We mourn seven heroes.” Evidence & citing: This is an appeal to pathos by connecting with the viewers that they were amazing human beings, and they were aware of the dangers that they can face, which can also appeal to ethos. He uses these emotional words such as “heroes” and “courage” and “brilliantly” to paint the picture into the views heads that this really is a tragedy to lose these fine crew members. Commentary: This helps to appeal to pathos. Evidence & citing: This country has been and always will be built on by the individuals who go above and beyond, this is how the American people can relate to this. He continues to use the word “We” throughout this speech. Commentary: This helps connect everyone together and to help make sure that the people affected by this aren’t alone in this tough time.

Topic sentence: He proceeds to talk to the families of the seven and says “we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we’re thinking about you so very much”. Evidence & citing: This actually helps support the appeal of ethos. He admits that he himself doesn’t know what the families are going through, but he wants them to know that everyone will be there to support them, they are not alone. His diction in this paragraph also tells everyone what the crew members were by giving these emotional words such as daring and brave and telling the families that they “had that special grace”. He is plucking the strings of everyone's hearts by using these words, so that everyone can truly know the impact that they have made, and to make sure that their legacy will carry on.

Topic sentence: President Reagan then takes a shift to talk to the school children of America that were watching the live broadcast of Challenger. Evidence & citing: Again, the main choice of rhetoric is pathos, this can be shown by Reagan giving the sad reality of saying “I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen.”. Commentary: This harsh reality is important because these schoolchildren have to grow up in a world that painful exist, but since they’re just kids, he gives this news in a very easy spoken manner with simple word choice. Evidence & citing: He does comfort them by stating “It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery.” Commentary: This can help imply that there is a reward for all the hard work that is put into this.

Topic sentence: In this next paragraph, President Reagan decides to take a shift in tone with this speech by saying “I’ve always had great faith in and respect in our space program… We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets… We do it all upfront and in public”. Evidence & citing: The context behind this is that during this incident, the US was in the Cold War against the USSR, and there has always been a competition between the two nations. The Soviets were very secretive about their space program, and would often not let the public know of what is going on. There have been instances of failures that the Soviet’s didn’t let anyone know, they wanted only successful events to be known. Commentary: At the same time he’s poking a stick at the USSR, he is showing patriotism towards the American viewers, which makes this speech ever so more moving.

Topic sentence: He then proceeds to talk to the workers of NASA. Evidence & citing: He commends them for all the hard work that they do by saying, “Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know your anguish. We share it.”. He is making it clear that they are sort of responsible for what happened, but that they should not worry about their future. Commentary: As he has stated earlier with the school children, this is all a part of the process. Mistakes will happen, and we learn from them, he wants NASA employees to remember this.

Conclusion paragraph: He closes his speech by saying that we will never forget the crew members of the Challenger Space shuttle and adds “as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of god”. Thank you.” He wants America to remember the legacy that these people will leave behind forever. This entire speech was filled with emotional words to remember. The rhetoric used in this has made it an influential way to remember those brave crew members and unify the country as we mourn them.

Works Cited

1. Reagan, Ronald. “The Space Shuttle ‘Challenger’ Tragedy Address” 28 January, 1986.
2. NASA. “Challenger’s Mission” 18 October, 2011.
3. Thinkreliability. “Root Cause Analysis - Challenger Explosion”
4. Greene, Nick. “Christia McAuliffe: First NASA Teacher in Space Astronaut” ThoughtCo, 27 January, 2019.