January 28, 1986. It's freezing in Central Florida, a historically cold day. That's bad news for citrus growers, and for NASA, which is scheduled to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger from Cape Canaveral this morning.
Engineers have ben cautioning NASA that cold temperatures can make space launches dangerous. And yet, NASA decides to move ahead. They consider it an "acceptable risk" and send seven astronauts hurtling into the sky.
What went wrong with the Space Shuttle Challenger? And if engineers knew what could happen, why wasn’t this disaster avoided?
Special thanks to Adam Higginbotham, author of Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space.
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