![]() More than three decades later, the image of that explosion remains as iconic as Buzz Aldrin standing on the moon. For the first time in its history, NASA had lost a crew on a mission-with the nation watching. And images of the grotesque, Y-shaped explosion dominated the news cycle for days to come. Teachers scrambled to get their kids out to recess. Challenger disappeared as white vapor bloomed from the external tank. The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after lift off.īut 73 seconds after Challenger’s launch, that dream quickly became a nightmare. The 'Space for Everyone' Dream Shattered That Morning Kids nationwide would watch the launch live and know that no dream was beyond reach. ![]() As a civilian, she was PR catnip: infinitely relatable and proof that space was now truly open to average Americans, not just hot-shot fighter jocks. The sun had been up for less than an hour and air temperatures were a few notches above freezing when the crew of STS-51L boarded the orbiter Challenger that Tuesday morning.Īll around the country people were getting excited-in large part because the seven-person crew’s included Payload Specialist Christa McAuliffe, a schoolteacher and mother of two chosen to fly as part of NASA’s Teacher in Space program. The launch on January 28, 1986, was different. For many Americans, shuttle flights carried little of the bravado and romance of the Apollo era. Missions-to conduct research, repair satellites, and build the International Space Station-failed to ignite popular imaginations the way a moon landing had. Projected frequency: more than 50 flights a year.īut had space flight become…too routine? Even as the shuttle undertook fewer than one-tenth that many flights, excitement quickly waned. The government agency had debuted the space shuttle program five years earlier with an aggressive public-relations message that the reusable vehicles would make access to space both affordable and routine. A good well acted drama but a little bit too neatly packaged to make it digestible for the viewing audience.Challenger Needed to Rekindle America's Romance With Spaceīy January of 1986 America was already bored with spaceflight. The reveal at a press conference was exactly how it happened in real life. It all came down to 'O' rings and how they reacted in sub zero temperatures. In real life she was more outspoken about the deficiencies of NASA when it came to safety. Eve Best who plays Sally Ride was rather sidelined. Hurt portrays Feynman as dogged but he was also very ill at the time of the investigations. Feynman is the vehicle who was famous for making science accessible. The film had to summarise these investigations and sell it to the viewer in an easy to understand way. There are various factions, some with their own self interests who wanted to hinder the investigation or put it down to human error. ![]() The drama is based on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986 and the Presidential commission set up to investigate the accident. This is a drama-documentary that has been co produced by the BBC and they managed to attract a starry cast with Oscar winner William Hurt playing distinguished scientist Feynman and Bruce Greenwood continuing his mini run of playing nice guys as General Kutyna.
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