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FIGURE 9.7 The explosion of the Challenger killed seven astronauts, including the first
civilian in space, Christa McAuliffe. (Courtesy of NASA)
9.6.1 Morton Thiokol/NASA
On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral. On
board were seven astronauts, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian
to fly into space. Just 73 seconds after liftoff, hot gases leaking from one of the booster
rockets led to an explosion that destroyed the Challenger and killed everyone on board
(Figure 9.7).
Engineer Roger Boisjoly was in charge of inspecting the O-rings on the boosters
recovered after launches of the space shuttle. The O-rings were supposed to seal con-
nections between sections of the booster rockets. On two occasions in 1985, he had seen
evidence that a primary O-ring seal had failed. Boisjoly presented a report on his find-
ings to NASA officials at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Frustrated that NASA officials
were not giving sufficient attention to the problem, he wrote a memo to vice president
for engineering Robert Lund, stating that an O-ring failure could lead to the loss of a
shuttle flight and the launch pad. Despite Boisjoly's persistent efforts to get the seals
redesigned, the problem was not fixed.
On January 27, 1986, Boisjoly and a group of Morton Thiokol engineers met to
discuss the proposed launch for the following day. Florida was in the middle of an
unusual cold snap; the weather forecast for northern Florida called for an overnight low
 
 
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