73 seconds to tragedy
35 years ago the US space shuttle Challenger exploded mid-flight. MARION MCMULLEN looks at the disaster which shocked the world
‘WE MOURN seven heroes,” said American president Ronald Reagan following the tragedy of the space shuttle Challenger. He changed his planned state Of
The Union live television broadcast from the Oval Office, to pay his respects to the crew who lost their lives in the first NASA mission fatality in flight. “We’ve never had a tragedy like this,” said Reagan, “and perhaps we’ve forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers.”
All the crew were killed when the shuttle exploded just 73 seconds after take-off from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida on January 28, 1986.
Teacher Christa Mcauliffe was among those on board and schoolchildren everywhere had been watching to see the start of her space adventure.
The 37-year-old was NASA’S first designated teacher in space and had planned to carry out lessons including an experiment with fluids in space to demonstrate Newton’s law of motion for schoolchildren. The mum-of-two wanted to inspire youngsters and said before the launch: “I touch the future. I teach.”
President Reagan said of the crew in his television broadcast “they were daring and brave and they had that special grace, that special spirit, that says ‘give me a challenge and I’ll meet it with joy’ .
He added: “They had the hunger to discover the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve and they did. They served all of us. We’ve grown used to wonders in this century, it’s hard to dazzle us, but for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that.
“We’ve grown used to the idea of space and perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun. We’re still pioneers. They, the members of Challenger, were pioneers.”
Christa’s fellow crew mates included Pilot Michael J Smith, Commander Francis R (Dick) Scobee, mission specialists Ronald E Mcnair, Ellison Onizuka and Judith Resnick and payload specialist Gregory Jarvis.
Christa, from Concord High School in New Hampshire, had been selected from more than 11,000 applicants to
The crew of the ill-fated Challenger mission: Front from left – Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, Ron Mcnair, back from left: Ellison Onizuka, Christa Mcauliffe, Greg Jarvis and Judith Resnik claim her historic place on the space flight. She taught English and social history and had 15 years teaching experience when she applied for the Teacher in Space Project launched by President Reagan and NASA.
After being selected, Christa spent six months in training. She said: “I have a vision of the world as a global village, a world without boundaries.”
Millions around the world were watching the launch and everything initially seemed to be going according to plan.
Commander Scobee uttered the now haunting words, “go throttle up” but just three seconds later Mission Control heard another voice as
Pilot Michael Smith simply said
“uh oh”, before all electronic communication with the space shuttle was lost and Challenger erupted into a ball of flames.
The shuttle had reached 48,000 feet above the earth’s surface but continued to shoot into the sky for another 25 seconds, before plummeting into the Atlantic.
Burning debris continued to fall into the ocean for an hour afterwards and prevented rescue teams from reaching the area to search for any possible survivors.
Television channels cut away from the live footage as soon as the shuttle started to break apart and the module that the crew had been travelling in was later found about 18 miles from the launch site in around 100 feet of water.
Challenger had originally been scheduled to take off on its mission a few days earlier on January 22, but the launch had been delayed because of bad weather that caused icicles.
It was later found that a rubber seal component on the rocket boosters had begun leaking allowing pressurized burning gas to escape and damage the external fuel tank.
Astronaut Neil Armstrong later took part in a presidential commission which concluded the cold weather conditions could have been one of the factors that contributed to the explosion.
Large barnacle-encrusted debris from the shuttle, weighing several hundred pounds, washed up on Cocoa Beach in Florida 10 years later.
The Soviet Embassy in Washington called the event “an enormous tragedy”.
Christa’s lost sciences classes – The Ultimate Field Trip and Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going Why – were finally carried out by teachersturned-astronauts Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold on the International Space Station decades later.
Christa became an overnight celebrity when she was selected to become the first civilian in space and once said: “NASA was going to pick a public school teacher to go into space, observe and make a journal about the space flight ... and I am a teacher who always dreamed of going into space.”