# Challenger Disaster: 27 years ago today



## BooksandButterflies (Jul 26, 2012)

*Space shuttle Challenger disaster, 27 years ago today, still a moment ingrained in Americans' memories*


By Cliff Pinckard, The Plain Dealer 
on January 28, 2013 at 2:20 PM, updated January 28, 2013 at 2:26 PM




















View full sizeThe space shuttle Challenger explodes on Jan. 28, 1986, shortly after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.​_Bruce Weaver, AP file photo_​It had become routine.

The space shuttle Challengerlaunched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 28, 1986, beginning its 10th mission. Not that too many people were paying close attention. There werenine shuttle missions in 1985, and the Columbia had launched just two weeks earlier. The Challenger mission would be the 25th overall for the shuttle program.

The mission generated some media interest because of the participation of teacher Christa McAuliffe, CNN was the only news network covering the launch live. There was interest in the launch in Northeast Ohio because astronaut Judith Resnik, an Akron native, was part of the crew.
About 73 seconds into the launch, Americans were reminded that traveling into spaceshould never be taken as routine.
The Challenger exploded, killing its seven crew members and setting back the shuttle program more than two years. There would not be another shuttle mission until Discovery on Sept. 29, 1988.
The Challenger disaster was not the final disaster for the shuttle program. On Feb. 1, 2003, the shuttle Columbia burned up during re-entry over the southwestern United States. Again, seven crew members were lost.
But while Columbia's loss again shook Americans, the Challenger disaster stands out in their memories, much like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Reed Steele, the coordinator and lead flight director of Challenger Center for Space Education near Toledo, believes there are two reasons for this.
"It was the first space shuttle accident that occurred, which was devastating to the space program in this country," Steele said.
The second reason was McAuliffe's presence.
"It was called the education mission," Steele said. "All these students were watching this program and they saw it happen, and it was devastating."
U.S. News and World Report notes the Challenger explosion was the first time the nation had to comfort grieving children as a whole:
Cheers turned to tears in classrooms across the country as millions of students riveted to TV sets watched the shuttle explosion kill a familiar figure from their own lives, a teacher, and inflict what some see as the first ever national trauma on children.​The Challenger explosion continues to impact teachers who were finalists to be part of the mission:
"It could have been me," said retired West Virginia schoolteacher Niki Wenger, who was one of 10 teacher-in-space finalists and now, at 72, tends horses on a family farm in Ohio. "I almost wish it had been." Why on Earth would she wish that? Because McAuliffe was the only finalist who had young children at the time. Time. It took Bob Veilleux more than 10 years to show the pictures he shot that day with a 1,000-mm telephoto lens to his high school astronomy students in Manchester, N.H. He and McAuliffe were the two teacher-in-space finalists from their state. "I felt reluctant to do it because I would get choked up," said Veilleux, 69. "It still twinges at the heart strings when you talk about it."​Steele, 56, of course has strong memories of that day in 1986. And although the shuttle program has been retired, he has optimism for the country's space program as it moves toward the future and its next manned space missions with the Orion.
"That's what NASA wants to do, take it to the next level," Steele said.

*Where were you when this happened? How old were you? Share your memories of this tragic day.
*


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## BooksandButterflies (Jul 26, 2012)

*I was in the fifth grade. My teacher told us that something sad had happened and she advised us to go home and watch it on TV. I did watch it, and I couldn't believe what I saw. I think I really got it when I heard a teacher was killed. I wondered how her students felt. What an awful day.*:sad:


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

I was a sophomore in high school. I remember someone saying that the space shuttle blew up in lunch. I didn't believe them. I signed out to the library during study hall, and they had the TV showing the footage repeatedly. That may have been the first indicator of what the 24/7 news cycle would soon look like.


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

I was working at a temp job. We normally were stuck listening to canned (off key) music. That day, we heard the news. It was shocking and horrifying. I was so sad that the teacher died. She looked so happy when she walked into the space shuttle. I'll never forget the joyful expression on her face, moments before her world and the world of the other astronauts, was ripped apart. It feels like yesterday. What a sad day that was!


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## myjazz (Feb 17, 2010)

Holy Moly has it been 27 years, thank you for this reminder of being old now !!!!!!!!!!


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## GenXer (Jan 20, 2012)

I was in the 7th grade when this disaster occurred. This was like 9/11 back in the mid-1980s. I remember my teacher switching the tv on for the class to watch the launch live and we watched it disintegrate as the shuttle was about to leave Earth.


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## BooksandButterflies (Jul 26, 2012)

myjazz said:


> Holy Moly has it been 27 years, thank you for this reminder of being old now !!!!!!!!!!


*Listen Mr. Generation Y, what are you complaining about? Think how us older people feel. I was in the fifth grade 27 years ago? You young thing!*:laughing:


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

Later investigations discovered that it wasn't just an O-ring failure. It was the combination of cold and wind. Ice buildup on that O-ring kept it from expanding as the booster rocket fired up. This ice buildup had actually worked as a seal in the past, and shuttles made it into orbit. What happened this time is a serious crosswind shook loose the ice and the rest is history. 

I saw this on a documentary last year. I have yet to find it again.


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## BooksandButterflies (Jul 26, 2012)

tanstaafl28 said:


> Later investigations discovered that it wasn't just an O-ring failure. It was the combination of cold and wind. Ice buildup on that O-ring kept it from expanding as the booster rocket fired up. This ice buildup had actually worked as a seal in the past, and shuttles made it into orbit. What happened this time is a serious crosswind shook loose the ice and the rest is history.


*I didn't know that. How interesting! Thanks for sharing that.*:kitteh:


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## myjazz (Feb 17, 2010)

BooksandButterflies said:


> *Listen Mr. Generation Y, what are you complaining about? Think how us older people feel. I was in the fifth grade 27 years ago? You young thing!*:laughing:


Same here


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

GenXer said:


> I was in the 7th grade when this disaster occurred. This was like 9/11 back in the mid-1980s. I remember my teacher switching the tv on for the class to watch the launch live and we watched it disintegrate as the shuttle was about to leave Earth.


I was home sick that day and recall turning on the TV and seeing the explosion. However, I think it was just repeated news footage -- it might have been about an hour after the launch, when I was eating lunch. It just kept playing, over and over. (I don't think I saw such a focus on a tragedy like that until 9/11 happened and I went to Costco and they were playing the towers falling on all the TVs at once.)

Just... wow. Was probably my first real experience with "catastrophic failure" and realizing that the people pretending to know what they were doing on such a big scale might not have known at all. Pretty devastating, and I could only imagine the experience of being in that passenger compartment. Now it seems likely that most of them survived (albeit unconscious) until they hit the water a few minutes later.

For the record, that was my senior year in high school.


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## luemb (Dec 21, 2010)

tanstaafl28 said:


> Later investigations discovered that it wasn't just an O-ring failure. It was the combination of cold and wind. Ice buildup on that O-ring kept it from expanding as the booster rocket fired up. This ice buildup had actually worked as a seal in the past, and shuttles made it into orbit. What happened this time is a serious crosswind shook loose the ice and the rest is history.
> 
> I saw this on a documentary last year. I have yet to find it again.


Hm that's interesting. I don't think that makes any sense though... this was the first time the rocket had tried to be launched after a night below freezing. I think all previous times the temperature was at least 50F the day before, and hence frost or ice could not have played a role in previous launches. I think the cold O-ring is a good enough explanation for me. What's horrible about this is that they knew about it the day before, had spent over an hour on the phone with engineers who designed the O-rings trying to decide whether to go ahead or not. The engineer who knew about it was deeply concerned, but the manager overruled him and said to go ahead based on some data that showed that it might also fail at higher temperatures, ie in the 70s. The engineer acquiesced and the launch went ahead, leading to a horrible disaster that could have, and should have, not happened.


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## Zster (Mar 7, 2011)

I sure wont ever forget... I was in my 4th year of college, shopping at the bait shop for feeder insects (for reptile pets). I recall entering the store and noticing strange expressions and frozen stances in the people there. A radio was on behind the counter. I heard something about "the vehicle". It was _just_ unfolding, live.

A friend of mine had a teacher who had just missed the cut for "first civilian in space". The winner perished in that disaster.


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## INFJAnimal (May 5, 2010)

BooksandButterflies said:


> *Listen Mr. Generation Y, what are you complaining about? Think how us older people feel. I was in the fifth grade 27 years ago? You young thing!*:laughing:


Hey, think about those of us who were in high school 27 years ago. YOU YOUNG THING!!! :laughing: Looking in the mirror, I'm growling about how many white hairs are cropping up now. "I was in 5th grade 27 years ago..." Pah!!! I was 16, 27 years ago!!! ~grumble~ Young whipper-snapper!!! OK...OK...Zster, I'll concede the age-factor to you. :wink:

The Challenger disaster to anybody older than 13 was a sign that the space program wasn't infallible and on top of that, it really rocked the United States back on its heels because of the fact that they hadn't had a major disaster of that magnitude since the launch pad fire (Apollo 1). The boomer generation (over-inflated and assured of their own invulnerability with their own successes of "Mercury and Gemini") learned this with the Apollo 1 disaster with Chaffee, White and Grissom.


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

I don't think that the baby boomers were quite old enough to have successes with Mercury or Gemini. They were kids at the time. I am a boomer and I was ten years old during this Apollo 1 disaster in 1967. Project Mercury was started in 1958 and completed in 1963. The oldest boomers, who were born in 1946, were still in high school at the time. In fact, Gus Grissom, one of the pilots who died in the Apollo 1 fire, was born in 1926 ("silent generation"). 




INFJAnimal said:


> Hey, think about those of us who were in high school 27 years ago. YOU YOUNG THING!!! :laughing: Looking in the mirror, I'm growling about how many white hairs are cropping up now. "I was in 5th grade 27 years ago..." Pah!!! I was 16, 27 years ago!!! ~grumble~ Young whipper-snapper!!! OK...OK...Zster, I'll concede the age-factor to you. :wink:
> 
> The Challenger disaster to anybody older than 13 was a sign that the space program wasn't infallible and on top of that, it really rocked the United States back on its heels because of the fact that they hadn't had a major disaster of that magnitude since the launch pad fire (Apollo 1). The boomer generation (over-inflated and assured of their own invulnerability with their own successes of "Mercury and Gemini") learned this with the Apollo 1 disaster with Chaffee, White and Grissom.


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## EricJS (Dec 8, 2012)

I remember well. I was at work that day while my employer was in Florida watching the take-off. That was a very sad day.


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