January 28th, 1986.

[CG2014]

Today is the 32nd anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger STS-51-L Disaster.

This speech by President Ronald Reagan is listed as one of the most significant speeches of the 20th century in a survey of 137 communication scholars.

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa7icmqgsow

I can't remember where I was or what I was doing when I first heard the news of this tragedy.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/26/h...ons/index.html

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ngerSimple.png

someone cleared it for launch despite objections by many engineers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_...onference_call

go down to Flawed launch decision

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report

[Shart Attack TX]

Saw it in school when I was a kid. Terrible.

[lipsandhipster]

They were doing what they loved and wanted to do. Too bad the idiot decision makers who never had to get off the ground were not willing to take all safety advice for the sake a meeting a dead line. The decision makers are still here, the brave astronauts are gone.

[Guest121318-1]

Just watched a history channel special on this. The series is Days That Shaped America. Great episode. It all came down to a rubber seal thats as leaking due to sub freezing temps. The seal allowed a fuel leak.

The schedule was being pushed because on day the teacher was going to give the first school lesson from space to her class. Had they delayed one more time, her lesson would have been on a saturday.

So the powers, who remained unnamed, decided to ignore the advice of the engineers, and launched with ice on the launch platform....crazy.

I remember watching it in school as it happened. One of my earliest memories.