Rhetorical Analysis Of The Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion

On January 28th of 1986 tragedy struck the United States. It was devastating to all of those that witnessed and had a loved one involved. This catastrophe was known as the space shuttle Challenger explosion. The event was all over the news and the launch was broadcasted live for millions to watch. That same day President Ronald Reagan spoke on the issue. As the speech was directed to the families of the crew and the United States in general, he addressed the nation and showed his point of view on the incident through sympathy and inspiration in order to gain the respect of America. In the opening portion of the speech Reagan mentions that he had previous plans to “speak to you on the state of the Union…”, but the plans had changed in a matter of seconds. He comes out in the first part saying that there is a mutual pain throughout the country, making appeals to the emotional aspect of the situation. In the third paragraph Reagan says, “But we feel the loss, and we’re thinking about you so very much…”. This is an example of him reaching out to those who had lost a loved one in the explosion. He goes on, “Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit...”. Clearly,
In this speech Reagan had the responsibility to remind everyone that although this was terrible we as a country had to go on with our lives and people would still be sent to space regardless. He expresses this idea by saying, “We’ve grown used to wonders in this century. It’s hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that.”. The logical aspect of this speech is difficult to address because people don’t want to hear this when they are in a time or mourning. However, in this speech, Reagan approached it in an interesting way. He did it with a sense of hope and reassurance which, assumingly, eased some of the