The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

Challenger was carrying seven crew members, including a New Hampshire schoolteacher. They had no parachutes and no way to jettison the hatch. All seven members of the crew were killed. They were Francis R. Scobee, commander; Michael J. Smith, pilot; three mission specialists, Judith A. Resnik, Ellison Onizuka and Ronald E. McNair; payload specialist, Gregory Jarvis of Hughes Aircraft; and payload specialist, S. Christa McAuliffe. McAuliffe, a New Hampshire teacher, was the first Space Shuttle passenger/observer to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Program and had intended to teach planned lessons during live television transmissions.

McAuliffe was selected by NASA in 1984 from among more than 11,000 teachers who applied for the Challenger mission and took a leave of absence that fall to train for it.

It was the 25th mission in the Space Shuttle program and was designated mission 51-L.

NASA managers had been anxious to launch the Challenger for several reasons, including economic considerations, political pressures, and scheduling backlogs. The previous shuttle mission had been delayed a record number of times due to foul weather and mechanical factors. NASA wanted to launch the Challenger without any delays so the launch pad could be refurbished in time for the next mission, which would be carrying a probe that would examine Halley’s Comet. If launched on time, this probe would have collected data a few days before a similar Russian probe would be launched.

There was probably also pressure to launch Challenger so it could be in space when President Reagan gave his State of the Union address. Ronald Reagan’s main topic was to be education, and he was expected to mention the shuttle and the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe.

On 3 February 1986 President Reagan ordered a Commission to report on the Space Shuttle Accident (Executive Order 12546). The Commission reported:

The shuttle’s solid rocket boosters are key elements in the operation of the shuttle. Without the boosters, the shuttle cannot produce enough thrust to overcome the earth’s gravitational pull and achieve orbit. There is a solid rocket booster attached to each side of the external fuel tank. Each booster is 149 feet long and 12 feet in diameter. Before ignition, each booster weighs 2 million pounds. Solid rockets in general produce much more thrust per pound than their liquid fuel counterparts. The problem is that once the solid rocket fuel has been ignited, it cannot be turned off or even controlled. So it was extremely important that the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters were properly designed. Morton Thiokol was awarded the contract to design and build the solid rocket boosters in 1974. Thiokol’s design is a scaled-up version of a Titan missile which had been used successfully for years. NASA accepted the design in 1976.