Thirty Years Ago, the Challenger Crew Plunged Alive and Aware to Their Deaths
On January 28, 1986, America watched on television as the space shuttle Challenger—carrying six astronauts and one schoolteacher—disappeared in a twisting cloud of smoke, nine miles above the launch pad it had just left. To a stunned nation, it appeared that seven lives had instantly been lost.
Hasnain says:
"But the myth of instantaneous and inevitable death won out. That was the story NASA wanted told, the story it was safe to tell the schoolchildren who’d watched it happen. The Tropic investigation is nowhere to be found in the Miami Herald’s anniversary coverage, nor does the paper appear to have put a version online at all."
Posted on 2018-04-24T14:13:14+0000