Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

Since 1961, NASA had received hundreds of letters from ordinary Americans wanting to travel to space. In 1982, they began a search for a private citizen to be a passenger on a space shuttle. By the next year, the “Space Flight Participant Program” had begun in earnest. By 1984, President Reagan was fully behind the initiative, recognizing that the support by the public could reflect well on him. NASA decided that two separate missions would include citizen participants: the first, a teacher, and the second, a journalist.

For the first trip, each American state would offer two final candidates. The application was daunting, requiring more than 150 hours to complete, though the requirements were not particularly stringent. Christa McAuliffe was born in 1948 in Massachusetts. She had a master’s degree in education and was a strong advocate for the rights of women and minorities. She taught American history, English, and civics. A mother of two, she was a busy volunteer in many organizations outside of school. McAuliffe completed the application, due February 1, 1985, at the very last minute.

Meanwhile, Greg Jarvis and backup Bill Butterworth moved with their wives to Houston; Jarvis was scheduled to participate in the March 1985 launch. Though some of NASA’s personnel were initially dubious about the Payload Specialist Program, they ultimately worked to make Jarvis feel welcome and accepted. Jarvis, however, was bumped up from the March launch—which was once again postponed—due to pressure from a senator named Jake Garn. Garn, who chaired the senate committee who funded NASA, had been putting pressure on NASA to enable him to travel to space himself as a kind of watchdog to report on the merits of the space program.

In June, interviews of the 113 teacher finalists began in order to winnow them down to 10. The final teacher would board the shuttle scheduled to launch in January 1986.

As 1985 unfolded, NASA was under increased pressure by the government to justify the space shuttle program. Envisioned as being able to return to space quickly and thus frequently, the reusable space shuttles were proving much more costly—more than 20 times so—than initially projected. Further, the components of the spacecraft, each meticulously examined and tested after flight, were proving less robust and resilient than NASA had hoped.

Meanwhile, Christa McAuliffe was among the 10 finalists for the Space Flight Participant Program. She stood out to the panel, despite not being the most impressive candidate in some respects. Her affability and enthusiasm for the space program made her an instant favorite. The 10 finalists went on to the Johnson Space Center, where they would undergo medical and physiological tests. They were subjected to difficult conditions, such as oxygen starvation, to determine their ability to handle stressful situations. McAuliffe was repeatedly deemed the most “well-adjusted” (236). 

There, the 10 also watched a launch at Mission Control. The shuttle briefly suffered engine failure—an opportunity to once again remind the teachers of the risk they were accepting. Before the public announcement of the winner on July 19, McAuliffe was taken aside and told privately that she had been chosen.

A new problem concerning the engines had been discovered. The temperature sensors were giving faulty readings, inaccurately reporting that the engines were too hot and thus forcing a shutdown in order to prevent an explosion. This forced rocket engineer Jenny Howard, stationed at Mission Control, to act quickly to determine whether an engine was truly about to combust, and thus abort the mission, or whether the sensor was merely giving a false reading.

In January 1985, Florida experienced record low temperatures that killed citrus crops. The scheduled launch of the shuttle Discovery had to be postponed.

Back at Thiokol, Roger Boisjoly, a structural design engineer, had been one of the postflight inspectors of the rocket boosters since the initial discovery of the O-ring problem in 1981. Like others on the team, he had come to believe that the damage was still within the range of acceptable risk. In January 1985, he flew to the hangar at Cape Canaveral, where the boosters were once again being dismantled in preparation for inspection. This time, however, the O-rings were damaged worse than before. 

Boisjoly was shocked that such leaks of fuel had not destroyed the shuttle upon launch. He immediately reported his findings and was asked to present them to NASA the very next day. He insisted that the cold temperatures at the time of the launch were a factor in the O-ring erosion. Upon returning to Thiokol, he set about trying to pinpoint a scientific explanation for how the temperature had affected the O-rings. He and his team postulated that the fuel within the rocket had cooled overnight before the launch, causing the rubber O-rings inside to shrink, thus reducing “the squeeze.” As they warmed, the O-rings required more time than usual to seal the joints in the rocket. This was a logical hypothesis, but Boisjoly needed data to prove his hunch to the Flight Readiness Review board. NASA, however, countered that the temperature lows in Florida were an extreme anomaly.

By April, Boisjoly had completed tests on the O-rings that proved his hypothesis; he was told to keep the findings quiet, as this could be damaging for NASA in the media and further jeopardize Thiokol’s contract. Further, when boosters were recovered from subsequent launches that spring, they revealed that the O-rings had failed completely, making the astronauts (unknowingly) completely reliant on the backup system of the second O-ring. 

Boisjoly no longer believed that the booster joints were failsafe. Nevertheless, because the second O-ring remained functioning, Boisjoly’s doubts were overruled, and the issue was not deemed a cause to ground future scheduled missions. Boisjoly and other personnel at Thiokol, however, began researching a new design for the joints. Fearful that no one was taking him seriously, Boisjoly voiced his concerns in an internal memo in July 1985.

When the findings about the O-rings were later presented to officials in Washington, DC, the details about cold temperatures had been removed.

Forty-year-old astronaut Mike Smith had yet to travel to space. By 1985, he was being briefed on a secret mission, which Ellison Onizuka was also involved in. Meanwhile, the O-ring report was presented to a committee of NASA’s most senior managers at its headquarters in Washington, DC. The briefing on the joints ultimately argued that they remained within the limits of acceptable risk. It was thought that the issues with the engines were a far more pressing problem.

Back in Utah, Boisjoly’s task force was finally granted official status. However, it was still not given the time or resources it needed to convince others of the true dangers of the O-rings. His colleagues merely dismissed Boisjoly as an alarmist.

In early September 1985, Christa McAuliffe arrived in Houston for training. She had grown accustomed to the media attention, but it grew so extensive that NASA assigned her a publicist. Some of the astronauts were still skeptical about the merits of including a civilian on a mission, especially since spots aboard each shuttle were so coveted by highly qualified astronauts who had trained for years. Greg Jarvis was to finally be aboard the same flight as McAuliffe, after getting bumped up once more by a politician—this time Florida representative Bill Nelson. 

Once in space, Jarvis would conduct experiments on fluid mechanics in order to develop more stable fuel tanks for future missions. Judy Resnik and Ron McNair would operate the robotic arm to collect data on Haley’s Comet. McNair and Ellison Onizuka would also be prepared to take space walks with the jet packs once again, if needed. The team would also launch two enormous satellites into orbit. Finally, McNair was collaborating with a French musician on a piece of music that he would play on the saxophone, broadcast live from space. As part of the program requirements, McAuliffe would conduct school lessons in space that would be recorded and later presented to students nationwide. She had also promised, in her application, that she would keep an extensive journal of her experience.

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, NASA administrator James Beggs fell prey to a political scheme designed to replace him with the far-right-leaning William R. Graham. Graham’s vision for NASA was in line with much of the far right’s desire for the space program to be an anti-communist military operation instead of focused on scientific exploration. Beggs was certain that the position would prove far more complex than Graham was expecting. Beggs refused to resign, as insiders in Washington hoped he would, and instead took another job in the same building.