The night before January 28 ,1986 was extremely cold, dipping below freezing, and on the day of launch, the temperature was so cold that many engineers were unsure if it was safe to continue on the launch. The shuttle had not been tested to fly on such a cold morning, but was cleared for launch anyways. At 11:38 am EST, the countdown began and the Challenger lifted off in front of media crews and millions of Americans. Students around America were given the opportunity to watch the first teacher reach space. Only 73 seconds later, at an altitude of 48,000 feet, the shuttle was engulfed in a ball of flame. Nobody could believe what had just happened. The shuttle and its 7 crew members were lost, and forever changed the way that America would view space travel.
Following the horrific accident, a Presidential Commission was created with the duty to investigate the incident. The Rogers Commission, as it was known, published “The Rogers Commission Report”, which highlighted the causes, and methods to fix the accident that happened to the Challenger. The report found that disaster was caused by a structural malfunction of the shuttle’s primary O-ring, a rubber seal designed to join the three sections of the solid rocket booster. The O-ring had a design flaw that allowed for hot gases and flame to pass by and make contact on the external tank, which resulted in a structural failure and the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. In the report, they highlighted that NASA had known about this issue as early as 1977, but had failed to cancel flights to fix it. The Rogers Commission Report then listed a series of safety recommendations for later flights, and stated that the accident was an “Accident rooted in history” because of the blatant violations of NASA regulations and the fact that the design was never fixed despite criticism.
The Space Shuttle Program was halted for 32 months after the disaster, but then went on many more missions until July 21, 2011 when the Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down for the last time. The explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger was a horrific accident that occurred due to lack a lack of carefulness and changed the way that American citizens and scientists would view space travel forever.
https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/outreach/SignificantIncidents/assets/rogers_commission_report.pdf
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a18616/an-oral-history-of-the-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster/
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/26/health/christa-mcauliffe-challenger-lessons/index.html
https://www.history.com/topics/challenger-disaster
https://www.space.com/18084-space-shuttle-challenger.html
McKinley, I really liked your post about the Challenger accident because you went into great depth explaining it. I agree that it was an accident rooted in history because I agree that it is bad that they did not regulate it properly and did not fix it after the accident. To support this I found the source: https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html. The challenger was not the only space shuttle disaster. The Columbia disaster occurred on Feb 1, 2003. The shuttle was entering the earth when it broke up because of the extreme heat that was not protected by the heat shield. According to the source, the reason it blew up was because a piece of foam fell but "This problem with foam had been known for years, and NASA came under intense scrutiny in Congress and in the media for allowing the situation to continue." This further supports your post about how the Challenger was the fault of bad NASA regulations and these accidents led to their shutting down of the program in 2011.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting post that illuminated the Challenger accident for me. I liked how you explained that reason behind the crash, the flight going ahead despite the extreme cold. Americans returned to space 2 years later in flight STS-26. The flight lasted 4 days, carrying some experiments and deploying a satellite. Despite the small mission, it's meaning was profound. America would once again be the pioneers in space, leading the technological advances for the world.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://www.americaspace.com/2013/10/05/americans-return-to-space-the-voyage-of-sts-26/