TECH

Space Shuttle Challenger: In 73 seconds, everything changed

James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY

It was a bright, clear morning, and a frigid one by Florida standards: Icicles glistened on the launch tower as the space shuttle Challenger counted down to liftoff from Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 28, 1986. Late the night before, a group of engineers had recommended against launching, uncertain how the cold might affect seals in its the shuttle’s twin solid rocket boosters. Managers overruled them, and their concerns never reached top officials or the astronauts.

Space shuttle Challenger crew. Francis “Dick” Scobee, Michael Smith, Judy Resnik, Christa McAuliffe, Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis. FLORIDA TODAY file photo --1/86---Space shuttle Challenger crew meeting the media at the launch pad. Francis "Dick" Scobee; Michael Smith; Judy Resnik; Christa McAuliffe; Ron McNair; Ellison Onizuka; Gregory Jarvis

School children across the country followed along on TV to see the launch of NASA’s Teacher in Space, Christa McAuliffe, whose participation distinguished this shuttle mission from the 24 before it.

“Any teacher or classroom student of that era, they were watching,” recalls June Scobee Rodgers, widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee. “Those of us who wanted to fly who were not astronauts, she was representing us, and we were all flying with her.”

Thirty years ago this Thursday, Challenger blasted off at 11:38 a.m.

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Then 73 seconds after liftoff, a fireball engulfed the shuttle. The boosters pitchforked away while the orbiter broke apart, dooming its crew of seven.

From the space program to classrooms, lessons continue to be learned from NASA’s worst launch disaster.

The accident forced a reassessment of the shuttle and the dangers inherent in human spaceflight, still relevant today as companies prepare commercial spacecraft to fly astronauts and space tourists.

And for the Challenger families, it began an ongoing mission to establish a positive, uplifting legacy for their loved ones.

“Part of their legacy is that their mission continues,” said Scobee Rodgers. “Their mission was so important to the nation. We thought we could do anything. We were humbled realizing that our space program was vulnerable.”

The families quickly agreed they could carry on Challenger’s education mission. Just three months after the accident, they founded the nonprofit Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

From the archive: Challenger explosion stuns nation

More than 40 Challenger Learning Centers now are based in 27 states and four countries, and have reached more than 4.4 million students, according to the organization.

Students perform hands-on simulations of space missions, from control rooms to the International Space Station, applying science and math skills and gaining exposure to high-tech careers.

“It sets an example for everybody on what we do in terrible times, and how we turn things around and make them better,” said Barbara Morgan, who was McAuliffe’s backup as Teacher in Space and in 2007 flew a shuttle mission as a NASA astronaut. “The crew showed us that, and the crew’s families showed us that.”

Morgan, who was at KSC for the launch, on Thursday will visit the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to share memories of her Challenger friends: McAuliffe, Scobee, Gregory Jarvis, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik and Michael Smith.

“For so many people now on this planet, it is history, but for those of us who were there, it’s just like yesterday still,” she said. “They were just a tremendous, tremendous crew, a wonderful group of people.”

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A family from Detroit watches the Challenger launch on Jan. 28, 1986 in Cocoa Beach.

Hosted this year on the Challenger anniversary, NASA’s annual Day of Remembrance also will honor the lost crews of Columbia and Apollo 1, and other astronauts killed in the line of duty.

Accident investigators in 1986 concluded that O-rings near the bottom of Challenger’s right solid rocket booster had failed, allowing hot gasses to burn through and cause an explosion of the shuttle’s external fuel tank.

But the Rogers Commission also criticized NASA’s process for communicating and resolving critical flight risks, and said pressure to keep flights on schedule had compromised safety.

“The decision to launch the Challenger was flawed,” the commission’s report said. “If the decision makers had known all of the facts, it is highly unlikely that they would have decided to launch (mission) 51-L on Jan. 28, 1986.”

NASA improved the designs of boosters and other systems and implemented new management structures to improve safety. After more than two-and-a-half years of work, Discovery triumphantly returned the shuttle to flight.

But the shuttle would never be seen the same way after Challenger.

Before the accident, plans called for building up to as many as 24 flights a year to fulfill promises for frequent, affordable access to low Earth orbit.

“Those high hopes got dashed by Challenger, and they’ve never really come back in quite the same way,” said Roger Launius of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. “When we lost the vehicle, we realized at that point that it was never going to be the kind of operational spacecraft that was intended, that it really was an experimental spacecraft.”

Columbia’s loss in 2003 during its reentry from space further underscored that reality.

The impact of Challenger was magnified by the way it unfolded spectacularly on TV, which replayed the event again and again, and shook a large audience that included many young people.

“It was the worst possible flight to have lost, with schoolchildren all over the nation watching the first teacher in space,” said Rand Simberg, an industry analyst and consultant, and author of “Safe Is Not An Option.” “It was the beginning of the end for the program, less than half a decade after it began.”

The accident can be seen as the start of a commercial space launch industry, as military and commercial satellite operators refused to rely exclusively on the shuttle for access to space.

Three decades later, privately developed rockets and spacecraft now hope within a few years to fly space tourists on short, suborbital trips to space and send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

Their designs are considered safer than shuttles, enabling astronauts to escape failing rockets. But several commercial ventures have stumbled over the past two two years: SpaceX and Orbital ATK rockets suffered unmanned launch failures, and a pilot was killed died during a test flight of Virgin Galactic’s space plane.

“They’ve had to relearn some of these lessons, that it’s harder to do than you think,” said Launius. “And of course the reality is, none of this ever is going to be risk-free.”

Scobee certainly understood that. He met with Teacher in Space finalists before selections were made to warn them of spaceflight’s danger, giving them an opportunity to back out.

But in figuring out the way forward after Challenger, Scobee Rodgers focused on the memory of her late husband’s return from his first shuttle flight nearly two years earlier, the first mission to repair a satellite in orbit.

The couple slipped away from neighbors and reporters outside their house to a restaurant to discuss the experience. Still re-adjusting to Earth’s gravity, Scobee kept tucking his napkin under his plate as if to keep it from floating away.

“He was so excited about the mission,” she said. “He just went over and over it. I mean, just such joy, the sparkle in eyes, schoolboy eyes.”

That’s part of the Challenger legacy she hopes the public remembers 30 years later: the importance of space exploration and joy of its pursuit, whether among astronauts or children dreaming about the future.

When Morgan thinks of the Challenger crew, as she so often does, another image always comes to mind first.

Dressed in light blue flight suits, they are smiling and waving to a cheering crowd as they board NASA’s silver Astrovan to ride to the launch pad, excited about the mission ahead.

“On that day we lost seven dear, dear people, but we did not lose their hearts and their spirits, and all the great things that they were doing for all of us, the exploration and discovery for all of us,” she said. “The work of the Challenger crew will never, ever, ever be finished.”

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdean and on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.

Remembering fallen heroes

Ceremonies this week will honor U.S. astronauts killed in three disasters:

•Wednesday: The Air Force’s 45th Space Wing at 6 p.m. will mark the 49th anniversary of the launch pad fire that killed Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The ceremony at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 34 is not open to the public.

•Thursday: NASA and the Astronauts Memorial Foundation at 10 a.m. will host the Day of Remembrance at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex’s Space Mirror Memorial. Access is included with paid admission to the Visitor Complex.

•Saturday: The City of Titusville and U.S. Space Walk of Fame Museum at 11 a.m. will host the Astronaut Memorial service at Sand Point Park. The public is invited to attend. Former NASA astronaut Greg “Box” Johnson is the keynote speaker.