RP109 The Challenger Tragedy

 RP109 The Challenger Tragedy

On January 28, 1986, thousands of people watched the launch of the Challenger space shuttle on television. Many were students in classrooms, like I was.

Challenger stood on the launch pad. Rocket boosters underneath it lit up, and Challenger shot up into the blue sky. We students watched. Then, just over a minute after takeoff, Challenger broke apart. Streams of smoke spilled from it, and the shuttle fell in pieces into the ocean.

People experienced a tragedy that day, and at NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), experts wanted to learn what went wrong.

Challenger had minor problems from the start, but the disaster was caused by something called an O-ring. The O-ring was supposed to protect Challenger from the hot gas of a rocket booster. But the cold weather on the morning of the launch stopped the O-ring from working. Gases and flames burned through one fuel tank as the shuttle lifted off. Strong winds helped the flames. A fuel tank and a rocket booster collided. The fuel exploded and tore Challenger apart.

Bad mechanics and bad weather both contributed, but humans could have stopped this disaster. NASA investigators learned that engineers knew the O-ring was flawed. It should have been redesigned, but its flaws weren't reported. Instead, the flaws were accepted. Investigators found that engineers only told the O-ring designer about its problems, not their NASA managers. This was against the rules, but the safety culture at NASA discouraged talking about problems.

The Challenger disaster teaches us to speak up. Problems must be faced, not avoided, even if talking about them is unpopular. When people are afraid to say anything but "yes," terrible accidents can happen. NASA's new regulations are designed to prevent that. Let's hope we've learned our lesson from Challenger.