1986- The Challenger Crashes

On January 28, 1986 at 11:38 a.m. EST, the space shuttle Challenger lifts of.

Christa McAuliffe, a 37 year old social studies teacher from New Hampshire is about to be the first ordinary U.S citizen to travel into space. She had won a contest and underwent months of training before being places of the Challenger with the 7-member crew. The flight was originally postponed for six days because of weather and technical problems. Finally, the day had come for the flight.

The liftoff was broadcasted on live TV and the world, including Christa’s family, who were on the ground with hundreds more, were watching in anticipation. But just seventy-three seconds into liftoff, the shuttle broke apart and caught fire. There were no survivors. Investigations determined that the disaster was caused by the failure of an “O-ring” seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets.  The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the explosion. For two years after that, no more astronauts were sent into space until a solution to the problem was found.

(Taken from: www.history.com)