the challenger explosion was extremely devastating. STS-51 had a teacher onboard as a payload specialist in order to respark student interest. millions of school children watched the launch and the break up of the rocket. both of my parents vividly remember this day and they were in third grade. this was not only traumatic due to the loss of these astronauts but also to the numbers of children watching.

also white the challenger there is a specific point I always talk about; the engineers were well aware that something like this could happen and notified management many many times. but because of the increased press and overall workplace climate at NASA at the time all warnings were dismissed. this was a preventable accident if only they had listened to the engineers and waited an extra day.

with*