Space Shuttle Challenger Research Paper

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On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger launched for its tenth and final time. The shuttle came apart midair in a massive explosion and landed not as a glider but as a mangled mess of debris. The mess of debris included what had been one of NASA’s greatest creations and the scattered remains of seven brave men and women who dedicated their lives to science (Challenger 1). The explosion of the Challenger was a horrible event that touched the lives of people all across America. The national aeronautics and space administration or NASA was founded on October 1, 1958. In NASA’s fifty-seven years around it has done many amazing things including landing probes on Mars, sending men to the moon, and groundbreaking research in aerodynamics,…show more content…
One reason for the excitement was the Challenger had been delayed several times (Challenger 1). These delays happened for many reasons, but the main reason was that of cold weather. The day before the launch engineers at NASA warned their superiors about possible O-rings failures. These concerns were taken into consideration by NASA but were ultimately ignored because shuttle launches in colder weather had been successful (Challenger 2). But the reason that most people were excited about the tenth launch of the Challenger was that this mission was going to send the first teacher into space, Christa McAuliffe (Challenger 1). A contest was held, and Christa was selected from thousands of applicants to be the first teacher in space. One applicant that ultimately got rejected was Kate Campbell’s high school science teacher…show more content…
The fatal error was the catastrophic failure of the seal between the joints of the right solid rocket booster. This failure caused the right booster to spill out some of its hydrogen fuel. The fuel then ignited and created 2.8 million pounds of extra thrust. The massive force tore the structure of the Challenger apart exposing and igniting all of the fuel at once creating a massive fireball. This ball of flames instantly transformed the shuttle into a cloud of debris that would change perspectives on space travel for years to come
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