The Challenger explosion was one of the most terrifying live American television broadcasts of all time. Thousands of people watched and watched at the same time as this giant spaceship caught fire; under the gaze of all their family, friends and students. Christa McAuliffe was to become the first ordinary American citizen to travel to space. January 28, 1986 is a date that many remember. 76 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, all seven crew members died during the trip. The spacecraft exploded due to a failure of the ship's O-ring. The aftermath of the Challenger explosion was emotional and heartbreaking. Many people had just seen their loved ones die before their eyes. The launch failure also hit NASA hard. They had to stop and postpone all work until further notice. There has been speculation as to whether this was the case during the explosion or actually after the fall from 46,000 feet into the ocean. The explosion could have easily been avoided if they had waited until another date was set. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Space Shuttle Challenger was built by the Space Transportation Systems Division of Rockwell International in Downey, California. Construction of the spacecraft was completed in February 1978. After the spacecraft was deployed, it was sent to a Lockheed test site in Palmdale. At Palmdale, he spent more than 11 months in vibration testing, designed to simulate entire shuttle flights, from launch to landing. They ended up overtesting the spacecraft by stimulating 1.2 times the force it would actually experience during liftoff. Originally, they were going to use the Enterprise orbiter prototype, but it was missing important systems used during flight. The key elements it lacked were thermal insulation, a functional proposition system, and a life support system. Since the Challenger was essentially an airplane frame at that time, they decided to use it because it would be easier to upgrade. NASA had said it would be easier, cheaper and faster to upgrade the Challenger rather than the Enterprise. Work on the Challenger conversion began in January 1979, starting with the crew module, as the rest of the spacecraft was still in use by Lockheed. Work continued with the spacecraft until July 1982. The purpose of the Challenger spacecraft was to serve as a "structural test article" for NASA's space program. NASA was looking for a lightweight orbiter, but a "test article" was used to ensure a lighter airframe could handle the stress of space travel. Christa McAuliffe was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to participate in NASA's Teacher in Space project and was set to become the first teacher in space. As a member of the STS-51-L mission, she planned to conduct experiments and teach two lessons from space. Another main objective of the expedition was to launch the second tracking and data relay satellite. Overall, this expedition had many goals and would broaden perspectives on space travel. Unfortunately, everything changed on that cold day of January 28, 1986. Before this tragedy, the challenger had already been delayed several times. The Challenger was originally planned for July 1985, but by the time the flight crew was assigned in January 1985, the launch had already beendelayed until late November to accommodate freight changes. The launch was pushed back further and further until it was scheduled for January 1986. The date was set for January 28, 1986, for the Space Shuttle Challenger to lift off. The conditions for this launch were very dangerous that morning. Cape Canaveral reached a record low at that time, at 26 degrees that morning. The weather conditions were not ideal for this launch. It was 36 degrees at launch. Due to cold and gusty winds, ice accumulated on the launch area overnight. The ice was removed by crews and several ice checks took place before launch. There were written recommendations advising against launching when the temperature was below 53 degrees. NASA had never attempted to launch a shuttle at temperatures as low as the morning of January 28, 1986. The coldest temperature of any previous launch was 56 degrees, or 20 degrees colder. To make each solid-state rocket booster, the Morton Thiokol plant built four frame segments filled with powdered aluminum, which served as fuel, and ammonium perchlorate. At the Kennedy Space Center, the fuel segments were assembled vertically. Welded joints containing rubber O-rings were installed between each segment. These rubber O-rings have never been tested in extremely cold conditions like they experienced on launch day. Morton Thiokol told NASA that she believed the O-rings of the solid rocket boosters would do the job in the cold. On the morning of launch, the cold rubber became stiff, preventing it from completely sealing the welded joint. During liftoff, one of the joints on a booster rocket opened enough to allow a small amount of exhaust to escape. Hot gases engulfed the shell of the cold external tank filled with liquid oxygen and hydrogen until the tank ruptured. 73 seconds after liftoff and about 9 miles in the sky, the shuttle was torn apart by aerodynamic forces. The two solid boosters continued to fly until the NASA range safety officer destroyed them by remote control. The crew compartment rose to an altitude of 12.3 miles before free falling into the Atlantic Ocean. After the Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued to rise due to their momentum, reaching a maximum altitude of 65,000 feet before falling back into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after the initial disintegration, and all investigations indicate that the crew was still alive until then. What people were wondering was if they were conscious at the time. If the cabin was depressurized, which is most likely the case, the crew would have had more difficulty breathing. In the words of the other astronauts' final report, the crew "may have but not certainly lost consciousness", even though some of the emergency air bottles, designed to escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground , had been activated. The cabin hit the water at speeds in excess of 200 mph, resulting in a force of approximately 200 Gs, crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew had indeed lost consciousness, it is unclear whether they would have regained consciousness, as the air thickened during the final seconds of the fall. The Challenger explosion was almost as bad as the Bills losing 4 straight Super Bowls. This disaster could have easily been avoided if launch director Jay Greene had listened to these countless opinions and aborted the mission due to the terrible conditions.meteorological. As the space shuttle exploded into broad daylight, friends, family and loved ones watched from the Kennedy Space Center observatory in Cape Canaveral, Florida. They were all shocked and horrified by what they had just seen. Christa's replacement, Barara Morgan, was also at the launch site, in case Christa wanted to pull out at the last minute. Barara reportedly suffered from a mental condition called survivor's guilt. Survivor's guilt is a mental state that occurs when a person believes they did something wrong by surviving a traumatic event while others did not, often feeling guilty. “The whole country and the whole world was in shock when this happened because it was the first time the United States had lost a space vehicle with a crew on board,” the former astronaut said. NASA Leroy Chiao. “It was even more shocking because Christa McAuliffe was not a professional astronaut,” Chiao told Space.com. 'If you lose soldiers during a military operation, it's sad and tragic, but they are professionals doing a job, and that's a bit how I look at professional astronauts. But you take someone who is not a professional, and it is precisely this mission that was lost, that added to the shock. A reporter at the scene gave her perspective on the tragedy, saying, "I just remember seeing the cloud of smoke and what looked like fireworks coming out of the vehicle," recalled John Zarrella, who covered the launch at Florida's Kennedy Space Center for CNN. "We were all looking at each other like, 'OK, what happened here?' » President Reagan addressed the nation after the tragedy. He called it a day of mourning and remembrance. Reagan was optimistic and looked forward to our trip into space. In his address to the nation, he said: “We will continue our quest into space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, and more teachers in space. Nothing stops here; our hopes and our journeys continue. The entire country was experiencing a period of sadness and sorrow. If you ever ask anyone who was alive at that time in history, they can always describe where they were when the Challenger exploded. It broke the hearts of thousands of people in the United States watching people die on television. Christa McAuliffe Elementary School was particularly hard hit. His entire school came to the auditorium to watch the launch. Hundreds of schools across the United States witnessed this disaster. They watched live from NASA's satellite. They were prepared for many lessons from Christa, as they planned to take several lessons from up there. To their horror, they saw her and the 6 other astronauts on the mission catch fire. Some of these children were too young to understand what had happened. This created a very young audience for the launch. This quickly hit the media, with many newspapers reporting on the tragedy. These newspapers had headlines saying: “Shuttle Explodes!” », “The stunned nation mourns its loss” and “No exit for the astronauts”. Which impacted the lives of thousands of people who watched it. This disaster impacted the lives of thousands of people who watched it, but it also had a huge impact on NASA's program. This disaster caused many changes following the explosion. Immediately following the devastation, NASA suspended all projects for the next three years. NASA had to step back and think about what went wrong..