Challenger

Challenger

It was a cold, crisp, and damp morning on the Florida Space Coast as the space shuttle Challenger raced through the sky at speeds approaching mach 2 at an altitude of 104,000 feet when something went perilously wrong. All of America watched, including the family members of the seven doomed crew members, as Challenger exploded into an expansive ball of fire, smoke and steam. An "Oh. . . no!" came as the crew’s final utterance from the shuttle as the orbiter broke-up. As the reality of what she was seeing became apparent, Pilot Michael John Smith’s daughter, 9 year old Erin Smith, could be heard yelling, "Daddy! Daddy! I want you, Daddy! You promised nothing would happen!" Unfortunately, the events of that tragic day could have been easily prevented. Weather had been the main cause for five delays during the last month. The launch had been carried out in spite on the fact that weather was the worst it had ever been in NASA’s history of manned space flight. With so many !
delays encountered in that twenty-fifth shuttle mission, NASA had become careless in getting Challenger on its way. As Challenger sat on the pad awaiting it’s ill-fated mission, there were signs that there was something wrong with the Right hand SRB (Solid Rocket Booster). Nevertheless these signs were ignored by a neglectful staff whose only concern was scheduling and not safety. Also, at the time of the accident, for purely monetary reasons, the shuttle had not been fitted with a means...

Challenger

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