How Did The NASA Challenger Explosion

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Many people throughout their lives may not witness anything terrifying or horrible, but for some people they will have the misfortune of having to witness something bad happen to someone else. “On January 28, 1986, the world was stunned by the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.” Many Americans around the world gathered around their televisions to watch the NASA Challenger flight 51-L launch into space. Everyone sat with anticipation as the launch time was getting closer. Finally when it was time, The Challenger was launched and within 73 seconds into the mission, The Challenger exploded. Americans were horrified as they sat and watched the space ship be engulfed with flames and not one person knew how to react. They later figured out that what caused the explosion was “two rubber O-rings, which…show more content…
“NASA originally intended Challenger to be a test vehicle.” They put the Challenger through many simulations or tests to see how it could handle being launched into space. However they did not have a test that was able to calculate the stresses on the shuttle. After two years of testing, NASA agreed to have the Challenger converted into a space craft instead of continuing it as a test object. The very first launch date for the Challenger was January 20, 1983 but as they were going over last minute tests there were things they had detected that made them decide not to send it. After spending several months working on fixing the Challenger, it finally came time to be able to launch it for the first time. The first time it was launched in 1984 was a successful launch and everything went smoothly. It was sent up a few other times over the next 2 years and each of these launches never seemed to go wrong. Then on the morning of January 28, 1986, the Challenger was scheduled to launch once again. There was a teacher on
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