The explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in January 1986 riveted millions of Americans, who watched the horrific event live on television. What they didn’t know then was that the tragedy was largely preventable, a disastrous result of hubris and “magical thinking” as much as flawed engineering. 

Journalist Adam Higginbotham’s new book, “Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space,” is a definitive account of what went wrong, and how NASA failed to learn from its own mistakes. Higginbotham’s story begins with an earlier fatal accident, a fire in the capsule of the Apollo 1 mission, which presaged Challenger’s fate. He then recounts the early days of the space shuttle program. Astonishingly, the very mechanical flaws that led to Challenger’s destruction were known, but the warnings of a few engineers were ignored by more senior officials, who by the time Challenger was set to launch the first teacher into space faced tremendous political and public pressure to make the mission happen, despite obvious risks. 

Higginbotham spoke with Shane Harris about his book, why he wanted to tell the Challenger story, and the future of human spaceflight. 

Books, events, and people discussed on this episode include: 

“Challenger”: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Challenger/Adam-Higginbotham/9781982176617 

“Midnight in Chernobyl”: 

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Midnight-in-Chernobyl/Adam-Higginbotham/9781508278511 

The Apollo 1 fire: 

https://www.nasa.gov/mission/apollo-1/ 

Roger Boisjoly, rocket engineer: 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/02/06/146490064/remembering-roger-boisjoly-he-tried-to-stop-shuttle-challenger-launch 

The crew of Challenger STS-51L: 

https://www.nasa.gov/challenger-sts-51l-accident/ 

The Columbia disaster: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/09/denial-of-shuttle-image-requests-questioned/80957e7c-92f1-48ae-8272-0dcfbcb57b9d/ 

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Jay Venables of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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