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Remembering the Shuttle Challenger                                                                                    

Posted at: Jan/28/2011 : Posted by: mel

Related Category: Historical Insights,

It has been a quarter of a century since the NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded, and to be honest, it still prompts me to tear up a little. A disaster happened that day which became one of those “where were you moments.” Lives were lost, NASA’s luster faded significantly, and our innocence about space exploration and space travel in particular was lost.

On Jan 28 of 1986 the space shuttle Challenger launched from Cape Canaveral Florida with what may still be viewed as the most diverse crew to go to space ever. The crew of seven included one black, one Japanese-American and two women, one of them a Jew. 73 seconds later, in a flash of light and a spiraling mess of yellow smoke they were gone. One of the women, Christa McAuliffe was a 37-year-old schoolteacher from Concord, N.H... Christa’s selection was based on the desire to show how safe and routine space flight had now become, who better to be the spokesperson for the role of “ordinary citizen” in space than a school teacher.

As McAuliffe stated before the launch, "Imagine a history teacher making history." Symbolically, just before the shuttle was sealed, McAuliffe got an apple from a technician atop the ice-encrusted launch pad.

I grew up mesmerized by the space program. Every time that a Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo space vehicle launched, my school would come to a halt and we would all move to the assembly halls to watch the few televisions that the school had. Between, the Jetsons and Star Trek I truly felt that going to space would be routine in my lifetime. Watching NASA was about watching this dream become reality. In the summer of 1980, just weeks after the first shuttle launch I was given a very special opportunity, I got an internship with the Air Force for engineering support in coordination with NASA. My job took me to the Kennedy and Houston Space Centers. At that time the Air Force had plans for its own shuttle fleet to be launched out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

I lunched with astronaut crews in training, visited mission control, flew the training simulator and attended a variety of briefings. In one of the briefings I attended shuttle administrators compared their system to the legendary trucking and transport system, the “Red Ball Express.” I suppose I got wrapped up in the euphoria of the moment like so many others, heck…they were telling me that my childhood dream was becoming reality and space travel would now be so routine that the schedules would be similar to air lines.

NASA had safely launched shuttles 24 times before January 28th, and a sense of routine and hurry-it-up had crept in. The space agency wanted to pull off 15 missions in 1986. Unfortunately, repeated delays with Columbia on that year's first flight and then with Challenger were spoiling the effort. At daybreak the temperature was only in the 20’s. By the time of the late morning launch the temperature had only risen into the 30’s. The O-rings positioned between sections of the solid rocket boosters had contracted and become stiff with the cold, effectively losing their ability to sustain the pressure and be the seal they were intended to be. We learned later that others at NASA on the engineering side of the table had actually expressed concern over this possibility. Despite the shuttle being the leading edge technology of its day, a feeble bureaucratic system meant that engineering concerns and technical input were often ignored or over ruled in favor of meeting published schedules.

Moments after Commander Dick Scobee radioed “Go at throttle up”, one of the O-ring seals failed and the shuttle exploded with the cameras of live television rolling. We now know that at roughly nine miles up over the Atlantic Ocean the crew compartment shot out of the fireball, intact, and continued upward another three miles before plummeting back to the ocean. The free fall lasted more than two minutes. There was no parachute to slow the descent, no escape system whatsoever; NASA had skipped all that in shuttle development. Space travel was considered so ordinary at that time, that the Challenger seven wore little more than blue coveralls and skimpy motorcycle-type helmets for takeoff. Pressure suits and sealed helmets were saved for the harshness of space walks.

As I said earlier, the Challenger disaster has become one of those “where were you” moments. I had brought a little portable 6 inch black & white TV with me to work so I could watch the launch despite my bosses objections. Even at 29 years old the shine of going to space had not worn off for me. As I watched the confused and twisting trail of yellow smoke I knew something was wrong. Within seconds there were 5-6 of us huddled around my little TV all trying to figure out what had just happened? The television replayed the launch over and over, but we did not become any more insightful, or less traumatized.

Space travel had started to become routine for most Americans and NASA was fighting with Congress to maintain the budget that matched their ambitious plans. Including an ordinary citizen in the crew was intended to reinvigorate our national interest in the space program. As a school teacher, Christa McAuliffe’s presence on board meant that hundreds of thousands of schools children across the country were going to watch the launch live. I can’t even imagine how this was handled at thousands of schools across the country.

In retrospect I have come to realize that the Challenger explosion represented the end of my generations’ dream of routine space travel in our lifetime. I have come to also realize that the explosion was a historical turning point of another kind. This was the world's first high-tech catastrophe to unfold on live TV. Add to this the young school age audience, confused at first…traumatized later as they watched an ordinary citizen bound for space and the replayed image of the explosion. I have not found a formal title for this turning point or new era yet, but it is definitely here. This was the first event in a long series of events where the whole world knew what happened as it happened. Such is the nature of our expanding media and live television everywhere. Think about some of the calamities we have since watched unfold on live television and then had replayed to excess. My list would include Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, the shuttle Columbia, hurricane Katrina, the shootings at Virginia Tech and most recently the shootings in Tucson. Of course the most defining of these tragedies would have to be September 11, 2001. The films were played over and over showing us in vivid detail and painful slow motion the jet liners crashing into the buildings and the resulting collapse of the towers.

I guess we may even be getting a little numb to the notion of “everybody dying”, such is the nature of being traumatized.

A short while after the Challenger explosion President Regan made one of the most defining speeches of his career. Congress and NASA both initiated lengthy hearings and in-depth investigations. As a result of the hearings and investigations NASA changed many of its practices and policies. Additionally, the notion of “routine” space flight was set back by at least a generation. I still remember one of those briefing I attended at NASA 6 years before the ill fated Challenger launch where the speaker said “we may make every mistake in the book, but we will make each of them only once.” In retrospect we now know the folly of that mindset.

Seventeen years after the Challenger disaster, almost to the day, seven more astronauts were killed, this time at the end of their mission. Instead of booster rockets and freezing launch weather, fuel-tank foam insulation was to blame puncturing a hole in the leading edge of the shuttle wing during the launch that occurred days earlier. The similarities for me between Challenger and Columbia were haunting. Another multi-ethnic crew lost, poor decision-making, an intolerant work culture, and of course the ever present and almost drum-beating like pressure to launch on schedule.

I don’t wish to take anything away from the loss of those seven lives 25 years ago. Death is a fact and is inescapable. Throughout history, premature and tragic death has been all the more common with exploration and adventure which is I am sure, where those seven thought they were going. As I write this I have come realize that the other tragedy is of an entire generation that has become numb to the disasters of this era that replay uncounted time before them in vivid color and high definition.

This year NASA hopes to launch Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis each one more time. The shuttle fleet is more that 30 years old and the last of these launches will represent ultimately the 135th mission for the aging vehicles. If there is a legacy to the Challenger besides the numbing replay of tragedy, I hope it will be three launches with “zero pressure” to meet a schedule.

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