Remembering CHALLENGER 39 Years Later

 Today marks the 39th anniversary of space shuttle CHALLENGER exploding shortly after lift-off. I was in 6th grade. A kid, Jeff S., complained of a headache, so my dad, who was our homeroom teacher, sent him to the office for some Tylenol (back then, the school secretary doubled as the nurse, and she was permitted to give kids meds). Jeff came back reporting the shuttle just exploded. I remember everyone called him a liar. Dad told him to sit down and get to work - everyone knew the shuttle didn't just explode. 

A few minutes later the secretary came over the intercom, calling Dad to the office (he did double duty as the school principal and 5th & 6th grade homeroom teacher). Shortly after that, he went room to room, telling each class what had happened. Years later, he said that was one of the hardest days in his career, because so many kids were curious about the teacher-in-space, and having to see their faces when they heard about the accident. 

The night of January 28, 1986, I was glued to the TV, watching the news, filled with a child's curiosity of what happened. It was the day before my 12th birthday. In the weeks to come, I read the various reports in Time and Newsweek. Like so many others, both kids and adults, I wanted to know what happened. 

For whatever reason, these last almost 4 decades, I have continued to be curious about what happened. Over the weekend, I finished reading CHALLENGER by Alan Higgenbotham. It's a hard read because it shattered the vestige of my childlike innocence that was a mere "oops" accident. Instead, it shows NASA's dirty laundry, what they knew and what they chose to keep secret from the public, from various levels of management, from contractors, and even from astronauts. In short, it reveals all three deadly NASA accidents, Apollo 1, CHALLENGER, and almost twenty years later, COLUMBIA, were completely avoidable, the tragic ending to hubris and arrogant thinking, "It can't happen to us." 

Like I said, Dad was a teacher. I remember asking him, after the shuttle explosion, if he had ever thought of applying for the teacher-in-space program. Never, he said - it never occurred to him, having neither the desire to fly into space nor to be gone from the school for a year or more. He was content to be on the ground. 

This is almost 40 years late, but Jeff, we owe you an apology for calling you a liar that January morning. What you said seemed impossible, beyond imagination. It's only too bad NASA thought the same thing.