Close to four decades
ago, NASA and the American space program faced one of their biggest setbacks
ever. In January 1986, one of the two rocket boosters attached to the space
shuttle Challenger sprung a leak and exploded. The explosion happened
just 73 seconds after the shuttle had taken off and Challenger crashed
into the Atlantic Ocean less than three minutes later, killing all seven
astronauts on board. It was a disaster of epic proportions and one that was
watched live, on television, by millions of Americans. The story of how – and why
– this happened, has been told in bits and pieces in thousands of magazine and
newspaper articles, and on many TV shows. But now we have Adam Higginbotham’s
book, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space,
which was published in 2024 and which is the full, deeply researched,
comprehensive account of what really happened on that day in ’86 and how a multi-million-dollar
piece of machinery fell apart due to sheer carelessness, apathy and
incompetence of those involved. The book is an incisive piece of work, sharp
and very well-written.
In the book, the story starts in the late-1960s, a time when the American space program was picking up pace and NASA was preparing to put the first human being on the Moon. Space travel was a big thing, of course, in the 1960s and there was a huge amount of genuine enthusiasm around everything related to space, which then represented one of the last frontiers, seen as something that had to be ‘conquered.’ To lead the race into space was a matter of prestige for the United States and Russia, two of the leading contenders in the race to space, with each country vying to get an edge over the other. Higginbotham writes about the huge challenges in going to space and travelling to the Moon, what with the very limited computing power available at the time and a range of flight and propulsion technologies that were still in their infancy. Still, with whatever they had at their disposal, the NASA boys pulled off some truly astonishing feats, pushed ahead relentlessly by their go-for-broke, can-do spirit and immense capacity for taking huge risks.
The story moves to the space shuttle program, which was envisioned as something that would reduce the costs and complexity of going to space, making space travel as ‘regular’ as normal airplane flights. Well, almost, if not quite. And here, the author describes how, over a period of two decades, things went off the rails due to a complex mix of politics, the constant pressure to ‘perform,’ shortsighted leaders who put the achievement of short-term goals ahead of human lives, contractors who put million-dollar contracts ahead of basic safety and fragmented management teams that ignored engineers’ warnings and chose to go ahead with their ill-fated decisions, knowing full well the potential for disaster and the possibility of the loss of human lives.
It’s a fascinating tale of starry-eyed dreams, unbridled ambition, and a few individuals who thought they were so powerful, they could even transcend the basic laws of physics. In the end that meant the lives of seven individuals were lost, and seven families destroyed, plus the loss of equipment worth millions of dollars – all due to the failure of one small, seemingly insignificant part in one of the booster rockets. A part – O-ring seals made of rubber, which engineers expected would not work in very cold weather – that could have been reengineered and reworked, since the probability of malfunction was well known long before the actual accident happened.
The seven astronauts who left in Challenger and never came back, knew nothing of the existence of the malfunctioning rubber seals and they never had a chance at survival once they stepped inside the ill-fated Challenger. All the computers, advanced technology, power, money, resources and what have you, couldn’t save their lives, because a bunch of misguided idiots at the top wanted a bit of glory, wanted to achieve their ‘target’ of notching up a certain number of space shuttle flights every year. And in this, they knowingly sent a group of seven people to their inevitable deaths.
In the book, the story starts in the late-1960s, a time when the American space program was picking up pace and NASA was preparing to put the first human being on the Moon. Space travel was a big thing, of course, in the 1960s and there was a huge amount of genuine enthusiasm around everything related to space, which then represented one of the last frontiers, seen as something that had to be ‘conquered.’ To lead the race into space was a matter of prestige for the United States and Russia, two of the leading contenders in the race to space, with each country vying to get an edge over the other. Higginbotham writes about the huge challenges in going to space and travelling to the Moon, what with the very limited computing power available at the time and a range of flight and propulsion technologies that were still in their infancy. Still, with whatever they had at their disposal, the NASA boys pulled off some truly astonishing feats, pushed ahead relentlessly by their go-for-broke, can-do spirit and immense capacity for taking huge risks.
The story moves to the space shuttle program, which was envisioned as something that would reduce the costs and complexity of going to space, making space travel as ‘regular’ as normal airplane flights. Well, almost, if not quite. And here, the author describes how, over a period of two decades, things went off the rails due to a complex mix of politics, the constant pressure to ‘perform,’ shortsighted leaders who put the achievement of short-term goals ahead of human lives, contractors who put million-dollar contracts ahead of basic safety and fragmented management teams that ignored engineers’ warnings and chose to go ahead with their ill-fated decisions, knowing full well the potential for disaster and the possibility of the loss of human lives.
It’s a fascinating tale of starry-eyed dreams, unbridled ambition, and a few individuals who thought they were so powerful, they could even transcend the basic laws of physics. In the end that meant the lives of seven individuals were lost, and seven families destroyed, plus the loss of equipment worth millions of dollars – all due to the failure of one small, seemingly insignificant part in one of the booster rockets. A part – O-ring seals made of rubber, which engineers expected would not work in very cold weather – that could have been reengineered and reworked, since the probability of malfunction was well known long before the actual accident happened.
The seven astronauts who left in Challenger and never came back, knew nothing of the existence of the malfunctioning rubber seals and they never had a chance at survival once they stepped inside the ill-fated Challenger. All the computers, advanced technology, power, money, resources and what have you, couldn’t save their lives, because a bunch of misguided idiots at the top wanted a bit of glory, wanted to achieve their ‘target’ of notching up a certain number of space shuttle flights every year. And in this, they knowingly sent a group of seven people to their inevitable deaths.
In itself, Challenger is a fascinating book and well worth a read, even
if it’s a bit lengthy at almost 460 pages. But it’s also a cautionary tale, a story that has
some lessons for those who are pushing the technology envelope today. For most
people today, the prospect of space travel (and perhaps the prospect of yet another
Lunar landing) is no longer as exciting, as seemingly ‘futuristic’ as it was
for people in the 1960s. The big thing these days is artificial intelligence
(AI), with big new AI apps and strange new AI use cases coming up every other
month. Again, a powerful technology and one that, if inadvertently pushed in
the wrong direction, may have the potential to wreak immense harm, create havoc.
Metaphorically speaking, there may well be a leaking ‘rubber seal’ for any new
technology that comes along, which if not contained well in time, could cause
tragedy. We can only hope that Challenger has served – and will continue
to serve – as a powerful lesson for those who chose to push the technology
envelope to its extremes.
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disasteron the Edge of Space is available on Amazon
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disasteron the Edge of Space is available on Amazon
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