Challenger
The definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster based on new archival research and in-depth reporting.On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of a crew including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like 9/11 or JFK’s assassination, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in 20th-century history—yet the details of what took place that day, and why, have largely been forgotten. Until now.Based on extensive archival records and meticulous, original reporting,Challengerfollows a handful of central protagonists—including each of the seven members of the doomed crew—through the years leading up to the accident, a detailed account of the tragedy itself, and into the investigation that followed. It’s a tale of optimism and promise undermined by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubris and heroism; and of an investigation driven by leakers and whistleblowers determined to bring the truth to light.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
2mentions
2people
2024years
100% recommend
What Hacker News says
- Not sure if this was posted because of the book - but a book on Challenger was released a month or two ago (https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Story-Heroism-Disaster-Spa...).
I just finished reading and would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in Challenger or aerospace in general. One of my better reads in the last few years.
And also infuriating to read...my previous impression was that there was some concern about cold weather + the o-rings, and one guy thought they shouldn't launch.
But the management mistakes were far more grievous than I realized. There was a repeated pattern of near misses on the SRB's over the years before Challenger, and most engineers working on the SRB's felt very strongly that they should not launch. The previous coldest launch was 15+ degrees warmer than Challenger's, and came very very close to failure itself.
(And while it ended up not being what killed them, Rockwell, the folks who build the Shuttle itself, also did not want to launch, out of concerns about ice).
- I hadn't heard of McDonald either, but there's a recent book (https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Story-Heroism-Disaster-Spa...) that covers his contribution well.
(TBH I'm reading this book right now - probably 2/3 the way through or so - and it's kind of weird to see something like this randomly pop up on HN today.)
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