CHALLENGER EXPLODES:

Do you remember where you were when this happened?????????.................PEACE............Scott


CHALLENGER EXPLODES:
January 28, 1986

At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off
from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming
the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old
high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that
earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent
months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait
six long days as the Challenger's launch countdown was repeatedly delayed
because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle
lifted off.Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including
Christa's family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle exploded in a forking plume
of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live
television. There were no survivors.In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) unveiled the world's first reusable manned spacecraft, the
Enterprise. Five years later, space flights of the shuttle began when Columbia
traveled into space on a 54-hour mission. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters
and an external tank, only the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit around
Earth. When the mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed
and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider. Early
shuttles took satellite equipment into space and carried out various scientific
experiments. The Challenger disaster was the first major shuttle accident.In the
aftermath of the explosion, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special
commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future
corrective measures. The presidential commission was headed by former secretary
of state William Rogers, and included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former
test pilot Chuck Yeager. The investigation determined that the explosion was
caused by the failure of an "O-ring" seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets.
The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature
at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the massive
explosion. As a result of the explosion, NASA did not send astronauts into space
for more than two years as it redesigned a number of features of the space
shuttle.In September 1988, space shuttle flights resumed with the successful
launching of the Discovery. Since then, the space shuttle has carried out
numerous important missions, such as the repair and maintenance of the Hubble
Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station. On
February 1, 2003, a second space-shuttle disaster rocked the United States when
Columbia disintegrated upon reentry of the Earth's atmosphere. All aboard were
killed. Despite fears that the problems that downed Columbia had not been
satisfactorily addressed, space-shuttle flights resumed on July 26, 2005, when
Discovery was again put into orbit.