Challenger remembered 25 years on

THE space race used to be one of the biggest events through the decades as the United States and the Soviet Union battled for supremacy.  In 1981, the US launched the space shuttle, the first reusable aircraft for space exploration.  By the time of 1986, space flights weren’t of any news to Americans, as they weren’t historic and were considered very safe.  This all changed with Challenger’s ill-fated tenth space shuttle flight.  All seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle exploded on Tuesday 28 January 1986, just 73 seconds after take-off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. 

On Friday, the 25^th anniversary of the disaster was marked by NASA, with a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Centre.  Widows of the dead, schoolchildren and former president George Bush Snr were present at the ceremony, where a new memorial statue was erected for the dead.  Even today, it is still remembered as one of the most dramatic and catastrophic incidents to have happened live on American television.

Challenger was the 25^th space shuttle mission since operational flights began in 1982.  It was already seen to many as a very reliable spacecraft.  This flight was a special landmark, as among the seven astronauts was the first citizen to go into space; American schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe from New Hampshire.  McAuliffe had won a competition in 1984 to become the first civilian not connected with the space programme to go into space.  Over 11,000 people applied, which showed the country’s addiction to these missions, despite the lack of news coverage.  Due to some unusual faults with the spacecraft and Superbowl Sunday, there were two aborted launch attempts, but eventually – all systems were go for Tuesday 28 January 1986.  It was a clear morning at Cape Canaveral, with bright blue skies and conditions absolute perfect for takeoff.  This disregards the fact of the launch pad dropping to its coldest ever temperatures overnight.    

EXPLOSION: Challenger rips apart into a fireball

Liftoff was greeted at the Kennedy Space Centre to a sense of relief for NASA and delight for the spectators watching.  In schools across America, children packed into auditoriums and classrooms to watch the launch live on CNN; hooters going off and balloons popping at the sight of one of their own, McAuliffe entering space.  Sadly, a mission that was meant to last seven days, ended in tragedy after just nine miles.  NASA’s final command was; “Challenger, going throttle up.”  Commander Dick Scobee’s response was clear too; “Roger, go at throttle up.”  Some recordings then suggest that pilot Michael Smith noticed a problem, as he mentioned “uh-oh” milliseconds before the catastrophe.  73 seconds in, Challenger ripped apart like a fireball into the cloudless sky.  Debris fell into the Atlantic Ocean with the cabin still intact.  However, with an impact speed approaching 300mph, the seven crew members had no chance.  All are thought to have been killed by the impact with the water, rather than the initial explosion.

DOOMED: The seven Challenger crew members who had no chance of survival

The American space programme was badly hit.  The space shuttle was grounded for nearly two and a half years, whilst investigations into the disaster were made.  President Ronald Reagan was deeply affected by the tragedy, paying tribute to the lost seven in a televised address to the nation on the night of the disaster; “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of Earth’ to ‘touch the face of God’.”  McAuliffe’s presence on the flight was well-known, but there was plenty of experience on the doomed shuttle.  Dick Scobee was a former Air Force pilot, Michael Smith had flown aircraft during the Vietnam War and Judith Resnik was a mission specialist, who had led a training programme for American women in space exploration.  The other three to perish were Ronald McNair, Greg Jarvis and Ellison Ozinuka.    

A report into the disaster in June 1986 by the Rogers Commission, which included the first American woman in space, Sally Ride and first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong concluded that a failure of the joint in the two lower segments of the shuttle’s right solid rocket booster had caused the destruction of Challenger.  The unusually cold temperatures prior to the launch, which had caused the rubber ‘o-ring’ to become less elastic, also, played its part in Challenger’s downfall.  During the investigation, it merged that engineers at NASA and Morton Thiokol, the booster rocket contractor had been fully aware of the ‘o-ring’ flaws. 

Recommendations made from the report included design changes to the rocket boosters and joints and in the management structure of NASA.  These were both successfully met with when Discovery relaunched the space shuttle programme in September 1988.  Fifteen years later, the explosion of Columbia in February 2003 set back the programme even further.  Another seven astronauts died when the ageing shuttle broke up on re-entering into the earth’s atmosphere.  Later on this year, the US plans to retire the shuttle, which has had its moments of magic, such as playing a role in the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.  However, we shall never forget those who lost their lives on both Columbia and Challenger.  They gave their lives to the ultimate quest to know more about space technology.