Challenger Explosion In America

America has seen many disasters. Pearl Harbor is one of the disasters that affected America in many ways. The Challenger explosion affected America in a similar way. January 28, 1986, one of America’s greatest space shuttles, exploded in front of a live audience (Challenger disaster history.com pg.1). The Challenger launch was one of the most publicized launches because it was the first time a teacher was going into space. The launch was being broadcast across the nation live from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Thousands of schoolchildren all over America were watching and anxiously waiting for the first ever teacher in space. 73 seconds after liftoff the Challenger exploded, creating a fireball in the sky (Cole, Michael D.pg. 11). My investigation
The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire who had been selected to join the mission and teach lessons from space to schoolchildren around the country. The other astronauts on challenger’s last flight were: Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Ron McNair, and Greg Jarvis. All seven of the crew members were dedicated and ready to make history. After the explosion the commission took picture and, examined the leftover pieces of the shuttle. The commission soon identified failure of the O-rings as the cause of the accident. Photos and videotape of the launch showed a fire plume escaping from the right solid rocket booster. The flame grew larger and eventually burned through the bottom connecting strut that held the booster to the external tank. (Cole, Michael D.pg.22) The photos and videos helped find out what exactly happened during the explosion. Failure of one of the solid rocket booster joints, including the rubber O-rings, was determined to have caused the accident. The black smoke, the first sign of the disaster, came from the O-rings being incinerated by the rocket's normal exhaust gases. And why did the O-rings fall? At launch it was only 2.22 degrees Celsius, more than 8 degrees Celsius colder than at the previous coldest launch. In such cold the rubber O-rings lost much of their flexibility (one of the commission's
President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. Headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, the commission included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager. Their investigation revealed that the O-ring seal on Challenger’s solid rocket booster, which had become brittle in the cold temperatures, failed. Flames then broke out of the booster and damaged the external fuel tank, causing the spacecraft to disintegrate.(Cole, Michael D.pg.26) After figuring out what had happened NASA decided to cancel all the upcoming launches. After the accident, NASA refrained from sending astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of the shuttle’s features. Flights began again in September 1988 with the successful launching of Discovery. Since then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, including the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station. On February 1, 2003, a second space shuttle disaster rocked the United States when Columbia disintegrated upon reentry, killing all aboard. While missions resumed in July 2005, the space shuttle is slated for retirement in 2011. (www.history.com pg 1) No one ever thought this was going to happen NASA wouldn’t have