Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

For further information about Challenger's mission and crew, see STS-51-L.

The iconic image of Space Shuttle Challenger's smoke plume after its breakup 73 seconds after launch. The accident caused the death of all seven members of the STS-51-L mission.

The crew of STS-51-L. Front row, from left to right: Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, and Ronald McNair. Back row, from left to right: Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred at 11:39 a.m. EST (16:38 GMT) on January 28 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds into its flight after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed. The seal failure caused a flame leak from the solid rocket booster that impinged upon the adjacent external fuel tank. Within seconds, the flame caused structural failure of the external tank, and the orbiter broke up abruptly due to aerodynamic forces. The shuttle was destroyed and all seven crew members were killed. The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation.

The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found that NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been a key contributing factor to the accident. NASA managers had known that contractor Morton Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw, but failed to address it properly. They also ignored warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching on such a cold day, and had failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors. The Rogers Commission offered NASA nine recommendations that were to be implemented before shuttle flights resumed.

Many schoolchildren saw the launch live due to the presence on the crew of Christa McAuliffe, 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 in a poll had heard the news within an hour of the accident. The Challenger disaster has been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics and has inspired both a 1990 television movie, Challenger, and a theatrical movie of the same name, scheduled for release in 2008.

Pre-launch conditions and delays

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Ice on the launch tower on the morning of the Challenger launch

Challenger's launch was originally set for 2:43 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on January 22. However, delays suffered by the previous mission, STS-61-C, caused the launch date to be pushed back to the 23rd and then to the 24th. Challenger needed parts from Columbia, the shuttle used in the previous mission, but numerous delays prevented Columbia from returning as scheduled.

Launch was then rescheduled for the 25th due to bad weather at the Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) site in Dakar, Senegal. NASA decided to use Casablanca as the TAL site, but because it was not equipped for night landings, the launch had to be moved to the morning (Florida time). Predictions of unacceptable weather at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) caused the launch to be rescheduled for 9:37 a.m. EST on the 27th.

The launch was delayed the next day by problems with the exterior access hatch. First, one of the microswitch indicators used to verify that the hatch was safely locked malfunctioned. Then, a stripped bolt prevented the closeout crew from removing a closing fixture from the orbiter's hatch. When the fixture was finally sawn off, crosswinds at the Shuttle Landing Facility exceeded the limits for a Return to Launch Site (RTLS) abort. The crew waited for the winds to die down until the launch window finally ran out, forcing yet another scrub.

Forecasts for the 28th predicted an unusually cold morning, with temperatures close to 31 °F (−0.5 °C), the absolute minimum temperature necessary to launch. The low temperature had prompted concern from engineers at Morton Thiokol, the contractor responsible for the construction and maintenance of the shuttle's SRB. At a teleconference which took place on the evening of the 27th, Thiokol engineers and managers discussed the weather conditions with NASA managers from Kennedy Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center. Several engineers—most notably Roger Boisjoly, who had voiced similar concerns previously—expressed their concern about the effect of the temperature on the resilience of the rubber O-rings that sealed the joints of the SRBs. They argued that if the O-rings were colder than 53 °F (approximately 11.7 °C), there was no guarantee the O-rings would seal properly. They also argued that the cold overnight temperatures would almost certainly result in SRB temperatures below their redline of 40 °F. However, they were overruled by Morton Thiokol management, and Morton Thiokol recommended that the launch proceed as scheduled.

Due to the low temperature, a significant amount of ice built up on the fixed service structure that stood beside the shuttle. Although the Kennedy ice team had worked through the night removing ice, engineers at Rockwell International, the shuttle's prime contractor, still expressed concern. They warned that ice might be shaken loose during launch, and might either strike the shuttle or be aspirated by its main engines. Managers at Rockwell told shuttle program manager Arnold Aldrich that they could not assure it was safe to launch, although Aldrich believed it would still be safe. NASA engineers working with the same data concluded there was little risk of jeopardy. Aldrich nonetheless agreed to postpone the shuttle launch by an hour in order to give the ice team time to perform another inspection. After that last inspection, during which the ice appeared to be melting, Challenger was finally cleared to launch at 11:38 a.m. EST.

January 28 launch and failure

Liftoff and initial ascent

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Camera captures grey smoke escaping from the right-hand SRB

The following account of the accident is derived from real time telemetry data and photographic analysis, as well as from transcripts of air-to-ground and mission control voice communications. All times are given in seconds after launch and correspond to the telemetry time-codes from the closest instrumented event to each described event.

At 6.6 seconds before liftoff, the three space shuttle main engines (SSME) ignited. Until liftoff actually occurs, the SSMEs can be safely shut down and the launch aborted if necessary. At liftoff time (T=0, which was at 11:38:00.010 EST), the three SSMEs were at 100% of their original rated performance, and began throttling up to 104% under computer control. At this moment, the two SRBs were ignited and hold-down bolts were released with explosives, freeing the vehicle from the pad. With the first vertical motion of the vehicle, the gaseous hydrogen vent arm retracted from the External Tank (ET) but failed to latch back. Review of film shot by pad cameras showed that the arm did not re-contact the vehicle, and thus it was ruled out as a contributing factor in the accident. The post-launch inspection of the pad also revealed that kick springs on four of the hold-down bolts were missing, but they were similarly ruled out as a possible cause. Later review of launch film showed that at T+0.678, strong puffs of dark grey smoke were emitted from the right-hand SRB near the aft strut that attaches the booster to the ET. The last smoke puff occurred at about T+2.733. The last view of smoke around the strut was at T+3.375.

It was later determined that these smoke puffs were caused by the opening and closing of the aft field joint of the right-hand SRB. The booster's casing had ballooned under the stress of ignition. As a result of this ballooning, the metal parts of the casing bent away from each other, opening a gap through which hot gases above 5,000 °F (2,760 °C) leaked out. The primary O-ring was designed to close that gap, but at the lower temperature it could not seal fast enough. The secondary O-ring was not in its seated position due to the metal bending. There was now no barrier to the gases, and both O-rings were vaporized across 70 degrees of arc. However, aluminum oxides from the burned solid propellant sealed the damaged joint, temporarily replacing the O-ring seal before actual flame rushed through the joint.

Challenger lifts off.

As the vehicle cleared the tower, the SSMEs were operating at 104% of their rated maximum thrust, and control switched from the Launch Control Center (LCC) at Kennedy to the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston, Texas. To prevent aerodynamic forces from tearing the shuttle apart, at T+28 the SSMEs began throttling down to limit the velocity of the shuttle in the dense lower atmosphere. At T+35.379, the SSMEs throttled back further to the planned 65%. Five seconds later, at about 19,000 feet (5800 m), Challenger passed through Mach 1. At T+51.860, the SSMEs began throttling back up to 104% as the vehicle approached Max Q, the period of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle.

Plume

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Camera captures plume on right SRB

Just as the shuttle approached Max Q, it slammed through the most intense wind shear ever experienced to date in the space shuttle program.

At T+58.788, a tracking film camera captured the beginnings of a plume near the aft attach strut on the right SRB. Unknown to those on Challenger or in Houston, ignited gas had begun to leak through a growing hole in one of the right-hand SRB's joints. The force of the wind shear shattered the temporary oxide seal that had taken the place of the damaged O-rings, removing the last barrier to flame rushing through the joint. Within a second, the plume became well defined and intense. Internal pressure in the right SRB began to drop because of the rapidly enlarging hole in the failed joint, and at T+60.238 there was visual evidence of flame coming through the joint and impinging on the external tank.

At T+64.660, the plume suddenly changed shape, indicating that a leak had begun in the liquid hydrogen tank, located in the aft portion of the external tank. The nozzles of the main engines pivoted under computer control to compensate for the unbalanced thrust produced by the booster burn-through. The pressure in the shuttle's external liquid hydrogen tank began to drop at T+66.764, indicating the effect of the leak.

At this stage the situation still seemed normal both to the astronauts and to flight controllers. At T+68, the CAPCOM informed the crew that they were "go at throttle up", and Commander Dick Scobee confirmed the call. His response "Roger, go at throttle up" was the last communication from Challenger on the air-to-ground loop.

Vehicle breakup

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View of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster from Cocoa Beach

At T+72.284, the right SRB apparently pulled away from the aft strut attaching it to the external tank. Later analysis of telemetry data showed a sudden lateral acceleration to the right at T+72.525, which may have been felt by the crew. The last statement captured by the crew cabin recorder came just half a second after this acceleration, when Pilot Michael J. Smith said "Uh oh". Smith may also have been responding to onboard indications of main engine performance, or to falling pressures in the external fuel tank.

At T+73.124, the aft dome of the liquid hydrogen tank failed, producing a propulsive force that pushed the hydrogen tank into the liquid oxygen tank in the forward part of the ET. At the same time, the right SRB rotated about the forward attach strut, and struck the intertank structure.

The breakup of the vehicle began at T+73.162 seconds and at an altitude of 48,000 feet (15 km). With the external tank disintegrating, Challenger veered from its correct attitude with respect to the local air flow and was immediately torn apart by aerodynamic forces of 20 g – well over its design limit. The two SRBs, which can withstand greater aerodynamic loads, separated from the ET and continued in uncontrolled powered flight for another 37 seconds. The SRB casings were made of half an inch (12.7 mm) thick steel and were much stronger than the orbiter and ET; thus, both SRBs survived the breakup of the space shuttle stack, even though the right SRB was still suffering the effects of the joint burn-through that had set the destruction of Challenger in motion.

Post-breakup flight controller dialog

Jay Greene at his console after the breakup of Challenger

In Mission Control, there was silence for a few seconds after the accident. Television screens showed a cloud of smoke and vapor where Challenger had been, with pieces of debris falling toward the ocean. At about T+89, flight director Jay Greene prompted his flight dynamics officer for information. The response was that "the filter [radar] has discreting sources", a further indication that Challenger had broken into multiple pieces. The ground controller reported "negative contact, loss of downlink" of radio and telemetry data from Challenger. Greene ordered his team to "watch your data carefully" and look for any sign that the orbiter had escaped intact.

At T+110.250, the Range Safety Officer (RSO) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station sent radio signals that activated the range safety system's "destruct" packages on board both solid rocket boosters. This was a normal contingency procedure, undertaken because the RSO judged the free-flying SRBs a possible threat to land or sea. The same destruct signal would have destroyed the External Tank had it not already disintegrated.

"Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation", reported public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt. "Obviously a major malfunction. We have no downlink." After a pause, Nesbitt said, "We have a report from the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded."

Greene ordered that contingency procedures be put into effect at Mission Control; these procedures included locking the doors of the control center, shutting down telephone communications with the outside world, and following checklists that ensured that the relevant data was correctly recorded and preserved.

No "explosion"

Challenger begins to disintegrate.

Contrary to the flight dynamics officer's initial statement, the shuttle and external tank did not actually "explode". Instead they rapidly disintegrated under tremendous aerodynamic forces, since the shuttle was near "Max Q", or maximum aerodynamic pressure. When the external tank disintegrated, the fuel and oxidizer stored within it were released, producing the appearance of a massive fireball. However, according to the NASA team that analyzed imagery after the accident, there was only "localized combustion" of propellant. Instead, the visible cloud was primarily composed of vapor and gases resulting from the release of the shuttle's liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellant. Stored in cryogenic conditions, the liquid hydrogen could not have ignited rapidly enough to trigger an "explosion" in the traditional sense. Had there been a true explosion, the entire shuttle would have been instantly destroyed, killing the crew at that moment. The more robustly constructed crew cabin and SRBs survived the breakup of the launch vehicle; while the SRBs were subsequently detonated remotely, the detached cabin continued along a ballistic trajectory, and was observed exiting the cloud of gases at T+75.237. Twenty-five seconds after the breakup of the vehicle, the trajectory of the crew compartment peaked at a height of 65,000 feet (21.5 km); the breakup had occurred at only 48,000 feet (16 km).

Cause and time of death

During vehicle breakup, the robustly-constructed crew cabin detached in one piece and slowly tumbled. NASA estimated separation forces at about 12 to 20 times the force of gravity (g) very briefly; however, within two seconds, the magnitude of the forces on the cabin had already dropped to below 4 g, and within ten seconds the cabin was undergoing free fall. These forces were likely insufficient to cause major injury. At least some of the astronauts were likely alive and briefly conscious after the breakup, because three of the four Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAPs) on the flight deck were found to have been activated. Investigators found their remaining unused air supply roughly consistent with the expected consumption during the 2 minute 45 second post-breakup trajectory. Whether the astronauts remained conscious long after the breakup is unknown, and largely depends on whether the detached crew cabin maintained pressure integrity. If it did not, time of useful consciousness at that altitude is just a few seconds; the PEAPs supplied only unpressurized air, and hence would not have helped the crew to retain consciousness. The crew cabin impacted the ocean surface at roughly 207 miles per hour (334 km/h), causing an instantaneous deceleration of over 200 g, far beyond the structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels.

On July 28 1986, Rear Admiral Richard H. Truly, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Flight and a former astronaut, released a report from Joseph P. Kerwin, biomedical specialist from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, relating to the deaths of the astronauts in the accident. Dr. Kerwin, a veteran of the Skylab 2 mission, had been commissioned to undertake the study soon after the accident. According to the Kerwin Report:

The findings are inconclusive. The impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was so violent that evidence of damage occurring in the seconds which followed the explosion was masked. Our final conclusions are:

• the cause of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined;

• the forces to which the crew were exposed during Orbiter breakup were probably not sufficient to cause death or serious injury; and

• the crew possibly, but not certainly, lost consciousness in the seconds following Orbiter breakup due to in-flight loss of crew module pressure.

Crew escape was not possible

Further information: [[:Shuttle ejection escape systems]]

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Further information: [[:Post-Challenger abort enhancements]]

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During powered flight of the space shuttle, crew escape was not possible. While launch escape systems were considered several times during shuttle development, NASA's conclusion was that the shuttle's expected high reliability would preclude the need for one. Modified SR-71 Blackbird ejection seats and full pressure suits were used on the first four shuttle orbital missions, which were considered test flights, but they were removed for the operational missions that followed. Providing a launch escape system for larger crews was considered undesirable due to "limited utility, technical complexity and excessive cost in dollars, weight or schedule delays."

After the loss of Challenger, the question was re-opened, and NASA considered several different options, including ejector seats, tractor rockets and bailing out through the bottom of the orbiter. However, NASA once again concluded that all of the launch escape systems considered would be impractical due to the sweeping vehicle modifications that would have been necessary and the resultant limitations on crew size. A bail-out system was designed to give the crew the option to leave the shuttle during gliding flight; however, this system would not have been available in the Challenger scenario.

Aftermath

In the aftermath of the accident, NASA was criticized for its lack of openness with the press. The New York Times noted on the day after the accident that "neither Jay Greene, flight director for the ascent, nor any other person in the control room, was made available to the press by the space agency". In the absence of reliable sources, the press turned to speculation; both The New York Times and United Press International ran stories suggesting that a fault with the external tank had caused the accident, despite the fact that NASA's internal investigation had quickly focused in on the solid rocket boosters. "The space agency," wrote space reporter William Harwood, "stuck to its policy of strict secrecy about the details of the investigation, an uncharacteristic stance for an agency that long prided itself on openness."

Tributes

The Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial, where some remains were buried

On the night of the disaster, President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give his annual State of the Union Address. He initially announced that the address would go on as scheduled, but under mounting pressure he postponed the State of the Union Address for a week and gave a national address on the Challenger disaster from the Oval Office of the White House. It was written by Peggy Noonan, and finished with the following statement, which quoted from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.:

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'

Three days later, Reagan and his wife Nancy traveled to the Johnson Space Center to be present at a memorial service honoring the astronauts. It was attended by six thousand NASA employees, as well as by the families of the crew.

Funeral ceremonies

The remains of the crew that were identifiable were returned to their families on April 29 1986. Two of the crewmembers, Dick Scobee and Michael J. Smith, were buried by their families at Arlington National Cemetery at individual grave sites. Other crew remains were buried at the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial in Arlington on May 20 1986.

Recovery of debris

In the first minutes after the accident, recovery efforts were begun by NASA's Launch Recovery Director, who ordered the ships used by NASA for recovery of the solid rocket boosters to be sent to the location of the water impact. Search and rescue aircraft were also dispatched. At this stage, however, debris was still falling, and the Range Safety Officer (RSO) held both aircraft and ships out of the impact area until it was safe for them to enter. It was about an hour until the RSO allowed the recovery forces to begin their work.

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Part of the left solid rocket booster, salvaged by search and recovery teams

The search and rescue operations which took place in the first week after the Challenger accident were managed by the Department of Defense on behalf of NASA, with assistance from the United States Coast Guard, and mostly involved surface searches. According to the Coast Guard, "the operation was the largest surface search in which they had participated." This phase of operations lasted until February 7. Thereafter, recovery efforts were managed by a Search, Recovery and Reconstruction team; its aim was to salvage debris that would help in determining the cause of the accident. Sonar, divers, remotely-operated submersibles and manned submersibles were all used during the search, which covered an area of 480 square nautical miles (1600 km²), and took place at depths of up to 1200 feet (370 m). By May 1, enough of the right solid rocket booster had been recovered to determine the original cause of the accident, and the major salvage operations were concluded. While some shallow-water recovery efforts continued, this was unconnected with the accident investigation; it aimed to recover debris for use in NASA's studies of the properties of materials used in spacecraft and launch vehicles.

On board Challenger was an American flag, dubbed the Challenger flag, that was sponsored by Boy Scout Troop 514 of Monument, Colorado. It was recovered intact, still sealed in its cargo bag. Debris from Challenger washed up on Florida beaches for years after the incident. On December 17 1996, ten years after the incident, two large pieces of the shuttle were found at Cocoa Beach.

Rogers Commission investigation

The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, also known as the Rogers Commission (after its chairman), was formed to investigate the disaster. The commission members were Chairman and former secretary of state William P. Rogers, astronauts Neil Armstrong (Vice Chairman) and Sally Ride, lawyer David C. Acheson, aviation specialists Eugene Covert and Robert Hotz, physicists Richard Feynman, Albert Wheelon, and Arthur B. C. Walker, Jr., former Air Force general Donald Kutyna, Robert Rummel, Joseph Sutter, and former pilot Chuck Yeager. The commission worked for several months and published a report of its findings.

It found that the Challenger accident was caused by a failure in the O-rings sealing a joint on the right solid rocket booster, which allowed pressurized hot gases and eventually flame to "blow by" the O-ring and make contact with the adjacent external tank, causing structural failure. The failure of the O-rings was attributed to a design flaw, whose performance could be too easily compromised by factors including the low temperature on the day of launch.

One of the commission's most well-known members was theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. During a televised hearing, he famously demonstrated how the O-rings became less resilient and subject to seal failures at ice-cold temperatures by immersing a sample of the material in a glass of ice water. He was so critical of flaws in NASA's "safety culture" that he threatened to remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations on the reliability of the shuttle, which appeared as Appendix F. In the appendix, he argued that the estimates of reliability offered by NASA management were wildly unrealistic, differing as much as a thousandfold from the estimates of working engineers. "For a successful technology," he concluded, "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

"Rooted in history"

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Members of the Rogers Commission arrive at Kennedy Space Center.

More broadly, the report also considered the contributing causes of the accident. Most salient was the failure of both NASA and its contractor, Morton Thiokol, to respond adequately to the design flaw. This led the Rogers Commission to conclude that the Challenger disaster was "an accident rooted in history."

As originally designed by Thiokol, the joint was supposed to close more tightly due to forces generated at ignition. However, a 1977 test showed that when pressurized water was used to simulate the effects of booster combustion, the metal parts bent away from each other, opening a gap through which gases could leak. This phenomenon, known as "joint rotation," caused a momentary drop in air pressure. This made it possible for combustion gases to erode the O-rings. In the event of widespread erosion, an actual flame path could develop, causing the joint to burst-which would have destroyed the booster and the shuttle.

Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center wrote the manager of the Solid Rocket Booster project, George Hardy, on several occasions suggesting that Thiokol's field joint design was unacceptable. For example, one engineer suggested that joint rotation would render the secondary O-ring useless. However, Hardy did not forward these memos to Thiokol, and the field joints were accepted for flight in 1980.

Evidence of serious O-ring erosion was present as early as the second space shuttle mission, STS-2, which was flown by Columbia. However, contrary to NASA regulations, the Marshall Center did not report this problem to senior management at NASA, but opted to keep the problem within their reporting channels with Thiokol. Even after the O-rings were redesignated as "Criticality 1"—meaning that their failure would result in the destruction of the Orbiter—no one at Marshall suggested that the shuttles be grounded until the flaw could be fixed.

By 1985, Marshall and Thiokol realized that they had a potentially catastrophic problem on their hands. They began the process of redesigning the joint with three inches (76 mm) of additional steel around the tang. This tang would grip the inner face of the joint and prevent it from rotating. However, they did not call for a halt to shuttle flights until the joints could be redesigned. Rather, they treated the problem as an acceptable flight risk. For example, Lawrence Mulloy, Marshall's manager for the SRB project since 1982, issued and waived launch constraints for six consecutive flights. Thiokol even went as far as to persuade NASA to declare the O-ring problem "closed". Kutyna likened this situation to an airline permitting one of its planes to continue to fly despite evidence that one of its wings was about to fall off.

The decision-making process

The report also strongly criticized the decision making process that led to the launch of Challenger, saying that it was seriously flawed. The report cited evidence that NASA managers did not know of Thiokol's initial concerns about the effects of the cold on the O-rings, and did not understand that Rockwell viewed the large amount of ice present on the pad as a constraint to launch.

...failures in communication... resulted in a decision to launch 51-L based on incomplete and sometimes misleading information, a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted internal flight safety problems to bypass key Shuttle managers.

U.S. House Committee hearings

The U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology also conducted hearings, and on October 29 1986 released its own report on the Challenger accident. The committee reviewed the findings of the Rogers Commission as part of its investigation, and agreed with the Rogers Commission as to the technical causes of the accident. However, it differed from the committee in its assessment of the accident's contributing causes.

...the Committee feels that the underlying problem which led to the Challenger accident was not poor communication or underlying procedures as implied by the Rogers Commission conclusion. Rather, the fundamental problem was poor technical decision-making over a period of several years by top NASA and contractor personnel, who failed to act decisively to solve the increasingly serious anomalies in the Solid Rocket Booster joints.

NASA response

After the Challenger accident, further shuttle flights were suspended, pending the results of the Rogers Commission investigation. Whereas NASA had held an internal inquiry into the Apollo 1 fire in 1967, its actions after Challenger were more constrained by the judgments of outside bodies. The Rogers Commission offered nine recommendations on improving safety in the space shuttle program, and NASA was directed by President Reagan to report back within thirty days as to how it planned to implement those recommendations.

In response to the commission's recommendation, NASA initiated a total redesign of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters, which was watched over by an independent oversight group as stipulated by the commission. NASA's contract with Morton Thiokol, the contractor responsible for the solid rocket boosters, included a clause stating that in the event of a failure leading to "loss of life or mission," Thiokol would forfeit $10 million of its incentive fee and formally accept legal liability for the failure. After the Challenger accident, Thiokol agreed to "voluntarily accept" the monetary penalty in exchange for not being forced to accept liability.

NASA also created a new Office of Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance, headed as the commission had specified by a NASA associate administrator who reported directly to the NASA administrator. George Martin, formerly of Martin Marietta, was appointed to this position. Former Challenger flight director Jay Greene became chief of the Safety Division of the directorate.

The unrealistically optimistic launch schedule pursued by NASA had been criticized by the Rogers Commission as a possible contributing cause to the accident. After the accident, NASA attempted to aim at a more realistic shuttle flight rate: it added another orbiter, Endeavour, to the space shuttle fleet in order to replace Challenger, and it worked with the Department of Defense in order to put more satellites in orbit using expendable launch vehicles rather than the shuttle. In August 1986, President Reagan also announced that the shuttle would no longer carry commercial satellite payloads. After a 32-month hiatus, the next shuttle mission, STS-26, was launched on September 29 1988.

Although significant changes were made by NASA after the Challenger accident, many commentators have argued that the changes in its management structure and organizational culture were neither deep nor long-lasting. After the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, attention once again focused on the attitude of NASA management towards safety issues. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) concluded that NASA had failed to learn many of the lessons of Challenger. In particular, the agency had not set up a truly independent office for safety oversight; the CAIB felt that in this area, "NASA's response to the Rogers Commission did not meet the Commission's intent". The CAIB believed that "the causes of the institutional failure responsible for Challenger have not been fixed," saying that the same "flawed decision making process" that had resulted in the Challenger accident was responsible for Columbia's destruction seventeen years later.

Popular impact

Media coverage

While the presence of New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe on the Challenger crew had provoked some media interest, there was little live coverage of the launch. The only live national coverage was provided by CNN. After the accident, however, seventeen percent of respondents in one study reported that they had seen the shuttle launch, while eighty-five percent said that they had learned of the accident within an hour. As the authors of the paper reported, "only two studies have revealed more rapid dissemination [of news]." (One of those studies was of the spread of news in Dallas after President Kennedy's assassination, while the other was of the spread of news of President Roosevelt's death among students at Kent State.) Another study noted that "even those who were not watching television at the time of the disaster were almost certain to see the graphic pictures of the accident replayed as the television networks reported the story almost continuously for the rest of the day." Children were even more likely than adults to have seen the accident live, since many children—forty-eight percent of nine to thirteen-year-olds, according to a New York Times poll—watched the launch at school.

After the day of the accident, press interest remained high. While only 535 reporters were accredited to cover the launch, three days later there were 1467 reporters at Kennedy Space Center and another 1040 at Johnson Space Center. The accident made headlines in newspapers worldwide, including the Sydney Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail.

Use as case study

The Challenger accident has frequently been used as a case study in the study of subjects such as engineering safety, the ethics of whistleblowing, communications, and group decision-making. Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who had warned about the effect of cold weather on the O-rings, left his job at Morton Thiokol and became a speaker on workplace ethics. He argues that the caucus called by Morton Thiokol managers, which resulted in a recommendation to launch, "constituted the unethical decision-making forum resulting from intense customer intimidation." Universities such as Texas A&M and the University of Texas have also used the accident in classes on the ethics of engineering.

The graphic designer Edward Tufte has used the Challenger accident as an example of the problems that can occur when information is incorrectly presented. He argues that if Morton Thiokol engineers had more clearly presented the data that they had on the relationship between cold temperatures and burn-through in the solid rocket booster joints, they might have succeeded in persuading NASA managers to cancel the launch.

References in popular culture

In 1990, a television movie called Challenger was made about the events leading up to the launching of the shuttle. It was announced in May 2006 that another movie about the accident would be made, also called Challenger. The movie was to be directed by Philip Kaufman – whose 1983 film The Right Stuff chronicled the early history of the space program – and would focus on the role of Richard Feynman in the ensuing investigation.

The Challenger accident has also been referenced in numerous other television shows and movies. A March 1986 episode of the NBC television series Punky Brewster, entitled "Accidents Happen," dealt with the title character's reaction to the disaster as she watched it on TV at school. In past episodes Punky had shown interest in becoming an astronaut, and now she was terrified that she might meet a same fate; the episode dealt with her being afraid to pursue her career in aeronautics, and how she was convinced by her adopted parent Henry Warnimont, her teacher Mike Fulton, and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin to not give up on her dreams. The Farscape episode "Kansas" involved the main character traveling back in time in order to stop his astronaut father from becoming a crewmember on the Challenger mission. The movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was dedicated to the memory of the Challenger crew, "whose courageous spirit shall live to the 23rd century and beyond." Early in Oliver Stone's 1987 Wall Street, John McGinley tells Charlie Sheen that Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is so greedy he was short selling NASA stock within minutes of the shuttle's explosion (the scene is actually set in 1985, making it anachronistic).

French electronic music artist Jean Michel Jarre had composed a track on his album Rendez-Vous which he intended to be performed by Challenger astronaut Ronald McNair, a saxophonist and personal friend of Jarre. After McNair's death, Jarre dedicated the album to his memory, and performed a free concert in Houston in memory of the Challenger astronauts. John Denver also wrote a tribute to the crew of Challenger on his album One World, released in June 1986. The song was called Flying For Me, and ended with a 73-second instrumental to commemorate the flight's duration.

Space Science Education Memorial

The families of the Challenger crew organized the Challenger Center for Space Science Education as a permanent memorial to the crew. Fifty learning centers have been established by this non-profit organization.

References

• Boisjoly, Roger. "Ethical Decisions - Morton Thiokol and the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: Telecon Meeting". onlineethics.org. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
• CNN.com (1996), Shuttle Challenger debris washes up on shore. Retrieved on July 4 2006.
• Columbia Accident Investigation Board (2003). "Report of Columbia Accident Investigation Board".
• "Engineering Ethics:The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster". Department of Philosophy and Department of Mechanical Engineering,Texas A&M University. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
• Feynman, Richard P. (1986) Appendix F- Personal Observations on the reliability of the Shuttle.
• Feynman, Richard P.. What Do You Care What Other People Think? ISBN 0-586-21855-6.
• Greene, J.H., NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Biographical Data Sheet.
• Harwood, William (1986). "Voyage Into History; Chapter Six: The Reaction". Archived by the Internet Archive on 2006-05-04.
• Hoover, Kurt. "Studies in Ethics, Safety, and Liability for Engineers: Space Shuttle Challenger". The University of Texas at Austin and Texas Space Grant Consortium. Retrieved 2006-11-20. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Jensen, Claus. (1996) No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative about the Challenger Accident and Our Time. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. ISBN 0-374-12036-6.
• Kerwin, Joseph P. (1986). "Challenger crew cause and time of death". Retrieved July 4. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• McConnell, Malcolm. (1987) Challenger: A Major Malfunction. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 2-38523-877-0.
• M8 Entertainment Inc. (May 24 2006). "Media 8 To Produce "Challenger" Directed by Philip Kaufman". spaceref.com. Retrieved 2006-09-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• NASA (July 14 1986). "Report to the President: Actions to Implement the Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident" (PDF). NASA. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Photo and TV Analysis Team Report (1986). Space Shuttle Challenger Accident Investigation. STS-51L Data and Analysis Task Force. {{cite AV media}}: External link in |title= (help)
• Reinhold, Robert (January 29 1986). "At Mission Control, Silence and Grief Fill a Day Long Dreaded". New York Times. pp. A8. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• "Rendez-Vous Houston". jarreuk.com. Retrieved 2006-11-19.
• Riffe, Daniel (Autumn 1989). "Diffusion of News of Shuttle Disaster: What Role for Emotional Response?". Journalism Quarterly. Association for education in journalism and mass communication. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• "Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger disaster". onlineethics.org. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
• Rogers Commission report (1986). "Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident".
• Rogers Commission report (1987). "Implementation of the Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident".
• Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Address to the nation on the Challenger disaster. Retrieved on July 4 2006.
• Shuttle Challenger Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery. arlingtoncemetery.net. Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
• "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home-Production Notes, page 5". The Film Frontier. Retrieved 2006-11-19.
• Tufte, Edward. (1997) Visual Explanations, ISBN 0-9613921-2-6.
• U.S House Committee on Science and Technology (October 29 1986.). "Investigation of the Challenger Accident; Report of the Committee on Science and Technology, House of Representatives" (PDF). US Government Printing Office. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Vaughan, Diane. (1996) The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-85176-1.
• Wright, John C. (Spring 1989). "How Children Reacted to Televised Coverage of the Space Shuttle Disaster". Journal of Communication. 39 (2). {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Harwood, William. "Challenger timeline". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 2006-11-20. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• NASA History Office. "Challenger STS 51-L Accident". NASA. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
• Photo and TV Analysis Team Report (1986). Space Shuttle Challenger Accident Investigation. STS-51L Data and Analysis Task Force. {{cite AV media}}: External link in |title= (help)
• Rogers Commission report (1986). "Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident".