Remembering the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster (1986)

Space Shuttle Challenger Destroyed (my reflection on the 28th anniversary in 2014)

I was in my final semester of high school. I remember Principal Burch came over the loudspeaker to announce that the Challenger “blew up on the pad,” which I knew wasn’t true because I was watching a TV… probably in the library. Years later, I was teaching an advanced technical writing class, and we studied the documents related to the Challenger loss.

Your Letters Helped Challenger Shuttle Engineer Shed 30 Years Of Guilt

On Jan. 27, 1986, the former engineer for shuttle contractor Morton Thiokol had joined four colleagues in trying to keep Challenger grounded…. “It’s going to blow up,” a distraught and defeated Ebeling told his wife, Darlene, when he arrived home that night. And it did, 73 seconds after liftoff. Seven astronauts died. Cold weather and an O-ring failure were blamed, and Ebeling carried three decades of guilt. —NPR

Caroll “Big Bird” Spinney was originally to be on NASA’s doomed Challenger flight

But there wasn’t enough room for the costume, which is more than eight feet tall, sparing Spinney from the tragedy that saw the Challenger break apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven people on board. —CBC News