Thirty years ago, the United States suffered a serious blow to its psyche. Even more importantly, it suffered a serious blow to its worldly exceptionalism. And our nation has never truly recovered.
It was during the crisp morning hours of January 28, 1986, when the Challenger space shuttle soared into the robin’s-egg sky like so many prior missions. But just 73 seconds into its flight, disaster struck, with an explosion that ended up killing all seven crew members: Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik, and New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe.
The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the space shuttle program, as well as the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. In its study, the Rogers Commission found NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident. Further, NASA managers had known for nearly 10 years that the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters’ design contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in its O-ring seals, but they had failed to address this problem properly.
The disintegration of Challenger remains one of those unique and singular moments etched into the collective and individual souls of those who watched it unfold. Like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the falling of the Twin Towers, there are millions who can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when Challenger and its passengers died. In fact, it may have been the first major disaster broadcast live and uncut to the world; the launch was broadcast live on CNN and was being simultaneously shown at countless schools across the United States in recognition of McAuliffe’s involvement with NASA’s “Teacher in Space Project.” It is likely more children than adults witnessed the event while at school that day. Media coverage of the accident was extensive; one study reported 85 percent of Americans surveyed had heard the news within an hour of the accident.
In a televised address to the nation that night, President Reagan told a shocked and grieving nation the legacy of Challenger would not be curtailed ambition for the space program, but accomplishments that would have made Challenger's crew proud: “To reach out for new goals and ever-greater achievements - that is the way we shall commemorate our seven Challenger heroes.”
But 30 years later, this promise seems very far away; despite occasional successes, like the Hubble Telescope in 1990, in many ways the American space program has never fully recovered from the damage to its reputation, especially following the disintegration of the Columbia space shuttle during re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere in February 2003. This is ironic, given the near universal reverence citizens had for NASA from the mid-1960s until Challenger. The space race of the 1960s pitted the Soviet Union and the United States, a scientific extension of the post-World War II “Cold War.” Fifty years ago, we the people had an enemy, which Reagan-dubbed the “Evil Empire.” By 1986, the United States had far and away won the space battle, and Challenger became not only a signal of our own mortality, but of NASA’s insulation from accountability.
Since then, it seems our closest ability to touch the skies has been through the fantasies of film, of Star Wars and Star Trek. NASA has neither funding nor a spacecraft to deliver astronauts to Mars any time soon, and its budget is minuscule compared to other federal projects.
This is depressing. If the United States is going to again stand high on the lofty pedestal of world leadership, space exploration is the one thing where we have a chance of truly taking the torch and running with it. Fifty years ago, we were champions of space; we have a duty and an obligation to reclaim that crown.
