The Challenger

Last night I watched a docuseries on Netflix. I chose the one about the Challenger explosion from years ago. I do remember it happening as I was in 4th grade. I remember my brother was home sick that day and watched it on live tv.

Back in the early 80's the space shuttle was the greatest thing since sliced bread. My family even went to Cape Canaveral in Florida the summer before the Challenger explosion. I remember how "cool" it was I was there. Also, it stands out to me how long it took to move the shuttle to the launch pad on the huge vehicle. I want to say it moved a football field a day being it had to go so slow (I am sure I am wrong about that). The vehicle it was like 4 football fields bit in order to hold the shuttle. My mom was a teacher at the time and I so wanted her to apply to be the teacher on board the Challenger.

It was interesting how that fateful day came to be. They were to launch on the Sunday prior. However, a predicted rain storm scrubbed the launch. This day happened to be Super Bowl Sunday with the Bears winning. The next day, they were all loaded and ready to launch. Something happened to where they couldn't get the hatch handle off. A screw was stripped. The company used to fix this had all dead batteries on their equipment. So, the crew was pulled and launch was scrubbed. That night it got to 22F degrees (extreme cold for FL). The commander told his wife he expected it to be scrubbed since it was too cold to launch. Meetings were held overnight to discuss the launch. Since they didn't have any hard data to support the O-rings failure during cold weather launches, it was decided to go ahead. During the night the Challenger froze completely being some forgot to turn off the sprinklers in the area.

I find it interesting how decisions are made and why. This decision cost the lives of 7 people.

*I am purposely not giving too much information due to copyright and the creators of the series. I do not want to cross a line that should not be crossed. I do encourage you to watch the series if possible.