Christa McAuliffe Challenger Disaster
January 28, 2010 marks the 24th anniversary of the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. All seven crew members, including teacher Christa McAuliffe, died on January 28, 1986, when Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after launch. Local Rhode Island children – now adults – remember that fateful day vividly.
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Most, if not all school children across the country were glued to television sets in their classrooms, watching the live launch as the American teacher from New Hampshire flew into space. Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe was the first member of the Teacher in Space Project. "Media coverage of the accident was extensive: one study reported that 85 percent of Americans surveyed had heard the news within an hour of the accident," reports Wikipedia.
One Rhode Island native, Erika Martin, a nine-year-old at the time said, "When I was watching it on TV at school with all my classmates I thought it was a joke when the Challenger burst into flames until all the teachers started crying. That's when I realized it was real. I felt sad that teacher Christa McAuliffe had two kids that wouldn't see their Mom again."
Another woman said, "We had our own television and cable, but that day we were at my maternal grandmother's house to watch the launch of the Space Shuttle. It was less than two weeks before my eighth birthday. We were watching the launch mostly because of the excitement surrounding the fact that teacher Christa McAuliffe was going to be on that mission. A teacher, going up into space! How awesome! It had been eagerly talked about and anticipated at our school, and most of the kids I knew would have also been watching the launch that day. We cheered when Challenger lifted off, gazing happily at the screen until the point of the explosion, when everything became horrifying confusion. I remember feeling very worried and saying "That wasn't supposed to happen! That wasn't supposed to happen, was it?! Where are the people?" My mom ushered us kids out of the room while someone else took a picture of the TV, the smoke plume filling the screen. I felt sick that those seven people were apparently gone, just like that. All I could think about is that Christa's family and her class were going to be very, very sad. The atmosphere at school afterward was somber. I was so sure that what happened could have been prevented that I eventually I went on to write a research paper on the Challenger disaster when I was in college."
Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds into the flight at 11:38 a.m. EST on January 28, 1986, just off the coast of Florida over the Atlantic Ocean.
Crew members included Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik.
The Challenger disaster put the shuttle program on hold for 32 months as a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan investigated the accident. It was determined that disintegration of the entire vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. "The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident Report, (June 6, 1986 p.40, p.70-81) concluded that the cause of the Challenger accident was the failure of the pressure seal in the aft field joint of the right Solid Rocket Booster. The failure was due to a faulty design unacceptably sensitive to a number of factors. These factors were the effects of temperature, physical dimensions, the character of materials, the effects of reusability, processing and the reaction of the joint to dynamic loading." Read the complete report here.
Read more about the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster here.
Sources: Kennedy Space Center; wikipedia.com; nasa.gov; science.ksc.nasa.gov
All Photos in the public domain, created by NASA: wikipedia.com
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