In Memoriam: Challenger
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary
of the Challenger disaster
By Robert Gounley
Early on the morning of January 28, 1986, the Galileo flight team assembled in a large conference room for another in a long series of training lectures. Some of us rubbed sleep from our eyes while others fidgeted, thinking of the work remaining back at our desks. Overhead, the TV monitors were all tuned to NASA's internal television network. Later that day, there would be a press conference announcing Voyager 2's discoveries at the planet Uranus. Meanwhile, the monitors showed preparations to launch another Space Shuttle. For us, that launch meant that there would be only one more to go before our own.
The lecture crept along, broken by many questions and clarifications. Finally, someone suggested we take a short break to watch the shuttle launch. We all looked up in time to watch the Space Shuttle Challenger lift off and clear the tower. As the TV monitors had their sound off, people chatted freely. Over my shoulder, someone said, "It's amazing how that thing works every time."
On the screen above, Challenger was fading into the sky. By now, we knew the shuttle launch sequence by heart. Soon the solid rocket motors would burn out and separate. We were all startled when we saw what appeared to be an early separation of the solid motors. As the seconds dragged, a growing fireball filled the screen, showing many pieces dropping from the sky.
Without spoken commentary from the TV, no one knew for sure what was happening.
In some launch failures, the shuttle can return to the launch site for a runway landing. Was Challenger on its way there now, out of sight of the TV camera?
Someone said the monitors in the cafeteria next door might have sound. About a dozen of us bolted for the doors. The cafeteria monitors were silent also, but as we arrived the NASA cameras had panned downward to watch large pieces of debris hit the ocean. There was no sign of Challenger gliding toward a runway.
We all felt grief in our own ways. A few cried. Others stared vacantly at the screen, and then slowly ambled away. The Astronaut Corps, the most visible side of NASA, came to represent the many thousands of us that worked in the space program. We lost family that day.
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