Florida State University History Professor Ronald Dole reflects on the Challenger disaster (Jan. 28, 1986), where O-ring failures—ignored despite Morton Thiokol engineers’ warnings—doomed the shuttle 73 seconds into flight, killing seven, including civilian teacher Christa McAuliffe. Dole contrasts NASA’s Apollo-era redundancy with Challenger’s accepted risks, citing institutional pressure and the Rogers Commission’s revelations of ignored safety concerns. Callers share personal memories: a Coast Guard commendation for debris recovery, astronaut training at Johnsville NADC’s centrifuge, and McNair’s symbolic diversity. The tragedy exposed NASA’s hubris amid Cold War optimism, reshaping public trust in space exploration while overshadowing even the Vietnam Memorial’s somber mood. [Automatically generated summary]
Today marks 40 years since the space shuttle Challenger broke apart and exploded 73 seconds after takeoff.
It was 1139 a.m. Eastern on January the 28th of 1986 when the seven members of the crew, as Ronald Reagan would later tell America, slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.
Joining us to discuss the anniversary is Florida State University History Professor Ronald Dole.
And Professor Dole, it was one of those days where people remember where they were when it happened.
Where were you when it happened?
What do you remember about that day?
unidentified
It's indeed a flashbowl memory event.
And I was lucky in one way to be a member of the Press Corps and as a historian at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, one of NASA's main facilities.
But I was there for the Voyager 2 spacecraft, the unmanned spacecraft encounter with the planet Uranus, the first time that any spacecraft had reached there.
It was an extraordinary time for discovery and then an absolute tragedy when the news broke in the press room at JPL.
Certainly 40 years ago, people, if they didn't know others, they didn't know that the astronauts on board the shuttle, some of the planetary scientists who were at JPL had trained some of the astronauts who were part of the Apollo program.
What would it be like to do geology on the moon?
So it was the kind of tragedy at JPL that we experience when there's a loss, an unexpected loss within a family.
Among all the shuttle missions had a number of components and goals, but one of the key ones was to bring the first civilian into space, the first teacher in space, which was something that President Ronald Reagan was going to announce in the State of the Union address.
And it was clear that one of the main strengths of that particular mission would be to demonstrate the reliability of the shuttle, access into space, the ability of a civilian, a teacher coming out of our school system, to be doing a classroom from space.
How did she get chosen for the Challenger mission?
unidentified
Apparently, 15,000 teachers applied from around the country.
And Kristen McCalla had a lot of energy, was able to share her enthusiasm particularly well, was suited for the physical rigor of doing astronaut training.
When that moment happened and the country saw the tragedy of the Challenger exploding, you mentioned you were shocked.
What was the history to that point till 1986 of NASA and the U.S. losing astronauts to tragedies as we tried to explore the final frontier as it was known?
unidentified
Back in the 1960s, the second half of the 60s, people remember the Apollo 1 fire.
It was a test of the capsule that would take people to the moon, and a spark on board the spacecraft when it was at the Cape ignited a fire and killed those astronauts.
It was also an enormous tragedy, but it was not a launch event.
There weren't people expecting a particular outcome.
Then came the successful Apollo missions.
Apollo 8, Christmas Eve on 1968, the first orbit of the moon, the photographs that came back of Earthrise that became iconic.
And then in July 69, the landing of Apollo 11, the first humans on the moon.
Apollo 13, there was a problem with the spacecraft, but all the astronauts came back safely.
So there was a growing sense that NASA had figured out how to operate safely in space.
And we'll be exploring the history of space travel at NASA on C-SPAN's American History TV on C-SPAN 2 for our viewers throughout the day on Saturday, this coming Saturday, starting at 8 a.m. Eastern.
Encourage viewers who want to watch eight hours of the history of NASA, tune in throughout the day.
Professor Dole, as we focus on the Challenger, what was the space shuttle?
Why was it built?
What was its purpose, especially in the wake of the Apollo missions and the successful dozen Americans who ended up walking on the moon?
unidentified
It's a great question.
And as you so well put it, we've reached the moon.
We've explored it.
What do we do now?
Where do we go from here?
And one of the ideas that emerged, could NASA figure out a way to get people and material into space cheaply, reliably, in a vehicle that could be launched, but then flown back to Earth, be reusable.
It's a bit of a crude term, but at the time, some people were thinking of the shuttle as a kind of space truck or space bus, an easy, fast way to return to space, to help build space stations.
So the focus became how to get these shuttles built, launched, quickly, refitted, sent back into space.
And in contrast, and this is something that's become much clearer over the decades since then, the numbers of redundancy systems that helped make Apollo such a robust technology that made it work in the way that it did were not as deeply engineered into the space shuttle program.
There were vulnerabilities, call them red flags, deviations from expected behavior of a particular part of the technology that increasingly became accepted.
Solid Rocket Risks00:12:36
unidentified
Perhaps it wasn't going to be that big a risk.
And in January 1986, one of those risks that had been identified came to claim the shuttle itself.
And as we said, it was a moment that if you were alive, you probably remember where you were that day.
Happy to hear those stories from callers, what you remember about that tragedy that the nation watched together.
Here's how you can call in this morning.
If you're in the Eastern or Central time zones, it's 202-748-8000.
If you're in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, 202748-8001.
Professor Dole, as folks are calling in, that day was supposed to be the day, as you mentioned, that President Reagan would give his State of the Union address.
That address was postponed, and President Reagan addressed the country from the Oval Office about five minutes.
He spoke about the tragedy and about what it meant for the United States and for space travel.
This is about a minute and a half of what he told the country.
There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews, and yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space.
Nothing ends here.
Our hopes and our journeys continue.
I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades.
And we know of your anguish.
We share it.
There's a coincidence today.
On this day, 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama.
In his lifetime, the great frontiers were the oceans.
And a historian later said he lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.
Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew, their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.
The crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger honored us for the manner in which they lived their lives.
We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.
Viewers writing in about their experience and what they remember from that day, here's a couple.
I was in elementary school.
The teachers combined a few of the classes into the same room for us to all watch live.
They wheeled in the box TV and we gathered excitedly.
And when it exploded, it was terrifying.
And the teachers' reaction, I will never forget.
I will never forget that day ever.
This is MLB saying, I was sitting watching the space launch with my children when that tragedy happened.
I remember her father's face, and it was apparent that something had happened.
And one more from Clown, who writes, was this event the biggest turning point in NASA?
How is this event the beginning of granting money out of NASA and into the hands of people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk?
How would you answer those final two questions?
Was it the biggest turning point for NASA?
unidentified
Really good questions.
There probably are numerous turning points.
The decision early on in NASA's history when President Kennedy committed NASA and the country to get humans to the moon by the end of the decade, that was certainly a pivotal moment.
The shuttle program and the tragedy and then the later tragedy of the Space Shuttle Columbia were also turning points perhaps back in 1976 when the Viking landers reached the surface of Mars, transmitted photographs.
One can think of many, many points that were pivotal for future directions.
On the good question of private investment, there are patterns we can see in history that areas that are remote initially require the resources of a state of a nation to reach.
Once technologies advance, once opportunities emerge, private ventures start to become more and more significant.
And it's 40 years since the time of the Challenger loss.
And of course, private contractors were already building key components of NASA's spacecraft and the vehicles.
Whether this was the end of the shuttle program, the Columbia disaster, and when the shuttle program actually ended.
unidentified
It helped accelerate the end, but it wasn't a turning point in the sense that it would have continued indefinitely had there not been that accident.
Shuttles that by that point, generally NASA and the broader space community had come to understand the ambitions for that technology just couldn't be reached.
The shuttles couldn't be launched.
That frequently needed care and attention between launch attempts and new ideas for getting into space were already in view by the time the Columbia disintegrated on re-entry.
On this, the 40th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, viewers writing in to say where they were and what they remember about that day.
Here's another one, Steve in Tampa, saying, I was in Orlando watching it on TV.
I went outside and I saw two plumes going in different directions, and I thought it was the boosters dropping off.
Four hours later, it was still a cloud in the same location, which I found to be quite eerie.
Steve's memories from Tampa, Florida.
Happy to hear your memories from that day from 40 years ago of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
202748-8000, if you're in the Eastern or Central time zones and you want to call in 202748-8001 if you're in the Mountain or Pacific time zones.
This is Amy in California.
Amy, good morning.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
I just wanted to make a comment.
I was home that day.
My son was sick.
He was nine at the time, so I was home from work and he was out of school and we were just here in California and we were watching that as it unfolded and it just was so shocking, you know, because we started out watching it as an exciting event on TV and you just it was just unimaginable.
It took a couple hours to process what really happened and I still remember to this day, you know, watching it.
Professor Dole, from these memories from folks that we've read and from Amy there, what do you take from everybody sort of having that reaction that you had the shock of the thing?
unidentified
You know, when Amy mentioned that, and yes, it took hours for people in the press room at JPL to recover enough to some were crying, some of the reporters who were there to cover the Voyager encounter with Uranus were immediately sent elsewhere in the country to cover the Challenger story.
You know, Amy, you were watching television in the press room.
There were monitors set up to project the newest images that were coming back from the Voyager spacecraft.
They were even at light speed taking over two and a half hours to get down to Earth.
Line by line by line, images of Uranus and the planets, the moons orbiting Uranus became visible for the first time.
And then that same television set switched to show exactly what you remembered.
Launch Day Explosion00:03:10
unidentified
The launch, the explosion, the solid rocket boosters tearing away from the spacecraft.
A little earlier, you talked about the red flags when it came to the space shuttle itself and the concerns about launching in the bitter cold that day.
When the final investigation happened, was there any blame assigned here?
What did the Rogers Commission, as it eventually was known as, what did they determine was wrong and who made the mistake?
unidentified
Initially, there was concern was somehow at the lowest levels of NASA information about the vulnerability not communicated upward.
Looking back now, knowing much more about what happened, it's easier to look at the kinds of pressures that exist for any large technological systems where the state, in this case,
the federal government is a key patron doing what seemed necessary to make certain that the federal government was happy with the progress NASA was making with the shuttle program and all of NASA's programs.
It influenced the thinking of people at higher levels of NASA to minimize risks that in a different environment might have been taken far more seriously.
So in the end, I think the best perception and perspective on what happened is we need to be careful when we are developing these complex systems to find ways to try to really value the expert opinion,
the engineers' opinions, and figure out ways to weigh that against the larger concerns about survivability of institutions and agencies that occur at higher levels.
This is Daoud in New York City saying, yesterday I was released from jury duty.
The day of this tragedy, I was serving jury duty.
I was late that day.
I walked into the jury room and it was empty and silent.
And I heard a gasp coming from the TV room.
Everyone was there watching the replay of the event.
It was a chilling moment, Daoud in New York City.
Taking your phone calls, if you want to share your memories from that day.
Again, one of these moments in U.S. history where people remember where they were 40 years ago today, the Challenger disaster.
202-748-8000.
If you're in the Eastern and Mountain, Eastern or Central time zones, if you're in the Mountain North Pacific time zones, 202-748-8001.
This is Patrick in Norfolk, Virginia.
Good morning.
unidentified
I was a supply officer on board USS Guam, LPH-9, and we were doing an exercise with Marines off of Onslow Beach in North Carolina.
And so we were close enough to get a TV signal.
And I went into the wardroom for lunch that day and saw this tragedy unfold on TV of the Challenger exploding.
And then a number of days later, as we were making our way to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, we got vectored to pick up one of the shuttle booster rockets because we had a boat and anchor crane that was strong enough to lift that booster rocket.
And then we placed it on another Navy ship so it could be taken ashore.
So that was a very, very momentous moment.
It's something I'll never forget for the rest of my life.
Patrick, what was it like seeing a piece of the Challenger after watching the explosion in the sky?
unidentified
It was very eerie.
We had to put our rescue swimmer in the water so that he could hook up the slings to pick the booster rocket up.
It was just very eerie to watch it.
And then the other weird thing was we were given a medal, actually not a medal, a ribbon, called a Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendation with Operational Device.
And it came with it, a big long scroll from NASA thanking us for our efforts to help advance space.
People would see it on my chest, and they go, what the heck is that?
I've never seen that before.
And then I would say, well, that's the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendation with Operational Device, which we received for picking up the shuttle booster rocket when I was on board USS Guam.
Patrick, thanks for sharing that story this morning.
40 years since the Challenger explosion.
Frank is in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Frank, go ahead.
unidentified
Hey, John, this is related to your topic today.
Your author may like this or may use this in a book.
My dad worked at Johnsville, NADC, in Warminster Township, Bucks County, just outside Philadelphia, for approximately 35 years.
He was a seven-year active duty Navy that got a job there from 53 to 86.
I bring this up because in the late 50s when they were training monkeys and whatnot to go into space and the Mercury astronauts, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Johnsville was the high-tech capital of America because they had the only centrifuge that these astronauts could train in.
And basically, they all trained.
When we were growing up, we would be going over there for Armed Forces Day and see these people over there.
But it was the high-tech capital of America.
And a lot of these guys, like John Glenn and Gus Grissom, ended up going into Apollo and, you know, later on.
So just, I thought I just threw that out there that people don't know the history.
I say it to people that Johnsville was the high-tech capital of America with the space program.
They look at me like I'm crazy, but it was.
The centrifuge is still in existence right on Jacksonville Road.
And the base closed in 95.
And now it's a, believe it or not, it's a nightclub now called the Fuge.
But that was, it was a high-tech capital of America when I was growing up.
We moved up from Philadelphia in 64, and I lived, you know, in, our whole family still lived except for me, still lives in Warminster area.
But just to let you know, that's where John Glenn and Gus Grissom trained.
Just a reminder for C-SPAN viewers, we are going to head over to Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State's testimony on Capitol Hill.
He's before the Foreign Relations Committee today, testifying on the future of Venezuela.
That's where we're going to head after this program ends.
We're waiting for him to enter the hearing room there on the Senate side before the Foreign Relations Committee.
So we'll stay with this conversation on the 40th anniversary of the Challenger disaster until that hearing begins.
And we will hear from Jerome in Wisconsin.
Thanks for waiting.
Go ahead.
Go ahead, Jerome.
Turn your television down.
Just speak through your phone, please.
unidentified
Yes.
Thank you for taking my call.
My name is Jerome Johnson.
I'm a former student athlete at South Carolina State University.
And Eric McNair was my roommate.
And when he first became my roommate, he would tell me about his brother.
And me and the guys on the football team, we really didn't believe him because you got to think that in 1973, I think that was, in South Carolina, that just wasn't something that we were thinking about.
But he was.
That was Eric's brother, Ronald McNair.
And I'd like to give them my condolences and all my love for the sacrifices that he made.
Yep, this was also a moment when The crews of the space shuttle began to reflect America better than had been the case, and certainly more than in the Apollo era.
So really good to be reminded of a personal story of Ron McNair.
That's John in Illinois, and that's going to do it for this morning on the Washington Journal.
I want to thank you, Professor Ronald Dole, for joining us on this 40th anniversary of the Challenger disaster.
unidentified
Thank you very much, and thank all the folks who contributed memories.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio took questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the seizure of oil tankers near Venezuela.
He also addressed U.S. involvement with NATO, Greenland, and Iran.