The Challenger explosion was one of the most terrifying live US television broadcasts of all time. Thousands of people watched and watched together as they watched this giant spaceship catch fire; while all their family, friends and students watched. Christa McAuliffe would have been the first American citizen to travel into space. January 28, 1986 is a date that many people remember. 76 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, all seven crew members died en route. The spacecraft exploded due to a failure in the ship's O-ring. The aftermath of the Challenger explosion was thrilling and heartbreaking. Many people had just seen their loved ones die right before their eyes. The launch failure also hit NASA hard. They had to close and postpone all work until further notice. There was speculation whether this happened during the explosion or actually after the fall into the ocean from 46,000 feet. The explosion could have easily been avoided if they had waited for another date to be set. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Space Shuttle Challenger was built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems division in Downey, California. Construction of the spacecraft finished in February 1978. After the spacecraft's launch, it was sent to a Lockheed test site in Palmdale. At Palmdale, it 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. They were initially supposed to use the prototype Enterprise orbiter, but it lacked important systems used during the flight. The key components that were missing were thermal insulation, a functional proposal system, and a life support system. Since the Challenger was basically a rough-hewn airplane chassis at the time, they decided to use it because it would be easier to upgrade. NASA had said it would be easier, cheaper and quicker to upgrade the Challenger than the Enterprise. Work to convert Challenger began in January 1979, starting with the crew module, because the rest of the spacecraft was still in use by Lockheed. Work continued with the spacecraft until July 1982. The goal 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 withstand the stress of space travel. Christa McAuliffe was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space project and was expected to become the first teacher in space. As a member of the STS-51-L mission, he was planning to conduct experiments and teach two lessons from space. Another main objective of the expedition was to launch the second tracking and data transmission satellite. All in all, this expedition had many goals and would broaden the perspectives on space travel. Unfortunately, everything changed on that cold day of January 28, 1986. Before this tragedy, the challenger had already been delayed many times. The Challenger was originally scheduled for July 1985, but by the time the flight crew was assigned in January 1985, the launch had already been delayed to late November to accommodate changes in loading. The launchit continued to be pushed back further and further until it was scheduled for a January 1986 date. The date was set: on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger will lift off. Conditions for this launch were very treacherous that morning. Cape Canaveral hit a record low at the time with 26 degrees that morning. The weather conditions were not ideal for this launch. It was said to be 36 degrees at the time of launch. Due to the cold and gusty winds, ice accumulated overnight on the launch pad area. The ice was removed by crews and numerous ice checks were carried out prior to launch. There were written recommendations against launching when the temperature was below 53 degrees. NASA had never attempted to launch a shuttle in temperatures as cold as that on the morning of January 28, 1986. The coldest temperature of any previous launch was 56 degrees, which was 20 degrees warmer. To make each solid-fuel rocket, the Morton Thiokol factory built four frame segments filled with powdered aluminum, which served as fuel, and ammonium perchlorate. At Kennedy Space Center, the fuel segments were assembled vertically. Welded joints containing rubber O-ring seals were installed between each segment. These rubber O-rings have never been tested in extremely cold conditions like those experienced on launch day. Morton Thiokol told NASA that they believed O-ring seals in solid rocket boosters would do the job in the cold. On the morning of the launch, the cold rubber stiffened and failed to completely seal the welded joint. During liftoff, one of the seals on a booster rocket opened enough to allow a small amount of exhaust gas to escape. The hot gases engulfed the hull 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 rocket boosters continued to fly until NASA's safety officer destroyed them via 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 to pieces, the pieces continued upward due to their momentum, reaching a maximum altitude of 65,000 feet before returning to the water. The cabin touched the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after the initial rupture and all investigations indicate that the crew were still alive at that time. What people are wondering is whether they were conscious at this point. If the cabin had depressurized, which it most likely did, the crew would have had more difficulty breathing. According to the final report from the other astronauts, the crew "possibly, but not certainly, lost consciousness", although some emergency air tanks, designed for escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground, had been activated. The cabin hit the water at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour, resulting in a force of approximately 200 Gs, crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew had lost consciousness, it is unknown whether they would have regained consciousness, as the air had thickened during the final seconds of the fall. The Challenger blowout was almost as bad as the Bills losing 4 straight Super Bowls. This disaster could have easily been avoided if the launch director, Jay Greene, had listened to those countless opinions to abort the mission due to terrible weather conditions. those observed by the Kennedy Space Center observatory on the CapeCanaveral, Florida. They were all shocked and horrified by what they had just witnessed. Christa's backup, Barara Morgan, was also at the launch site, in case Christa wanted to back out at the last minute. Barara reportedly experienced a mental condition called survivor's guilt. Survivor's guilt is a mental condition that occurs when a person believes they did something wrong by surviving a traumatic event while others did not, often feeling guilty. Some quotes taken after the accident in "The whole country and the whole world was shocked when this happened because that was the first time the United States actually lost a manned spacecraft 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 it's tragic, but they're professionals doing a job, and that's kind of the way I look at professional astronauts. But you're taking someone who's not a professional, and that mission just happened to be lost, and that added to the shock.' A journalist at the scene gave his perspective on the tragedy by saying: "I just remember seeing the cloud of smoke and what looked like fireworks coming out of the vehicle," recalled John Zarrella, who followed 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 journey into space. During his address to the nation, he said: “We will continue our research in space. There will be more flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians and more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue”. The whole country was in a time of sadness and pain. If you ever ask anyone who was alive during this time in history, they can always describe where they were when the Challenger exploded. This crushed the hearts of thousands of people across the United States as they watched people die on TV. The blow was especially hard for Christa McAuliffe Elementary School. His entire school came to the auditorium to watch the launch. Hundreds of schools across the United States watched this disaster unfold. They watched from a live feed from NASA satellite. They were prepared for many lessons from Christa, as they had planned to take more lessons from up there. To their horror, they saw her and all 6 other astronauts on the mission catch fire. Some of these children were too young to even understand what had happened. This created a very young audience for the launch. This hit the media quickly, with numerous newspapers covering the tragedy. These newspapers had headlines that read: “Shuttle Explodes!”, “Stunned Nation Mourns Loss,” and “No Exit for Astronauts.” This impacted the lives of thousands of viewers. This disaster impacted the lives of thousands of spectators, but it also had a large impact on NASA's program. This disaster caused many changes following the explosion. Immediately following the devastation, NASA suspended all projects for the next 3 years. NASA had to take a step back and reflect on what went wrong. They were creating precautionary ideas to make this work safer. Robert Cabana, former NASA astronaut and director of the Kennedy Space Center, said he made over 100 modifications to the shuttle to ensure the.