The Challenger
Rachel White
The Challenger
On January 28th, 1986, the Challenger, a space shuttle, was to make an important journey into outer space. The challenger launch took the attention from many Americans. A woman named Christa McAuliffe, an average American school teacher was also on the journey. Christa McAuliffe was going to give school lessons to students from space. Children were anxious to
Learn from space, and adults everywhere were fascinated. The morning of January 28, 1986 was going to be the beginning of a new time of space travel. It was going to be the start of understanding and liking the idea of traveling into space. The mission was going to be a teaching tool for school children everywhere; they were going to learn from outer space. But as the space shuttle Challenger was launched, something awful went wrong. With the world watching the event, the Challenger exploded after launch. The mission quickly went from a new beginning of understanding to a mission of grief and disaster. The engineers built the shuttle in a certain way, which could not survive cold temperatures below about 30 degrees. They warned some people, and the people were worried that if they didn’t launch it then, then they couldn’t until April. The engineers were against this idea from the start. Another factor that led to the explosion of the challenger is publicity. The military, the congress all wanted the challenger to launch as soon as possible. Although these three outside sources of pressure were not the technical reason for the Challenger disaster, they were factors in the launch of the shuttle. The military was one of NASA’s largest clients. The military had recently given NASA the job of launching military satellites. NASA felt that if they delayed the launch anymore, then they would disappoint the military. Congress is the second contributing factor to the outside pressure. NASA was operating way over budget and way below the number of flights promised. NASA felt a lot of
The Challenger
On January 28th, 1986, the Challenger, a space shuttle, was to make an important journey into outer space. The challenger launch took the attention from many Americans. A woman named Christa McAuliffe, an average American school teacher was also on the journey. Christa McAuliffe was going to give school lessons to students from space. Children were anxious to
Learn from space, and adults everywhere were fascinated. The morning of January 28, 1986 was going to be the beginning of a new time of space travel. It was going to be the start of understanding and liking the idea of traveling into space. The mission was going to be a teaching tool for school children everywhere; they were going to learn from outer space. But as the space shuttle Challenger was launched, something awful went wrong. With the world watching the event, the Challenger exploded after launch. The mission quickly went from a new beginning of understanding to a mission of grief and disaster. The engineers built the shuttle in a certain way, which could not survive cold temperatures below about 30 degrees. They warned some people, and the people were worried that if they didn’t launch it then, then they couldn’t until April. The engineers were against this idea from the start. Another factor that led to the explosion of the challenger is publicity. The military, the congress all wanted the challenger to launch as soon as possible. Although these three outside sources of pressure were not the technical reason for the Challenger disaster, they were factors in the launch of the shuttle. The military was one of NASA’s largest clients. The military had recently given NASA the job of launching military satellites. NASA felt that if they delayed the launch anymore, then they would disappoint the military. Congress is the second contributing factor to the outside pressure. NASA was operating way over budget and way below the number of flights promised. NASA felt a lot of