Challenger Disaster

General Sources

NASA has TONS of information and documents, including transcripts, press releases, and congressional hearings about the disaster.

40 years after Challenger: Lingering guilt and lessons learnedForty years after the Challenger disaster, NPR explores the engineers' last-minute efforts to stop the launch, their decades of guilt and the vital lessons that remain critical for NASA today.

Christa's Lost Lessons | Challenger Center

The Challenger Center, a STEM education nonprofit created by the families of the Challenger crew, has videos of Christa McAuliffe's lessons (recorded by her and completed by two astronauts in 2017-18).

News Coverage

from The New York Times

"Cloudy Forecast Delays Teacher's Space Flight", Jan 26, 1986

"Shuttle Launching Delayed Again Over Weather Fears", Jan 27, 1986

"24-Hour Delay Called for Shuttle Flight as Wind and Balky Bolt Bar Launching", Jan 28, 1986

"The Shuttle Explosion; Troubling Questions", Jan 29, 1986

NASA news conference transcript, Jan 29, 1986

"Inquiry Agenda: Many Questions but No Answers", Jan 30, 1986

"Shuttle Experts Doubt Computers Could Detect Fire", Feb 2, 1986

Excerpts from presidential panel hearing, Feb 7, 1986

"NASA was worried by cold's effects, commission is told", Feb 7. 1986

"Virtual certainty of failure shown for shuttle seal", April 1986

"'85 Tape Shows NASA Briefing on Shuttle Flaw", June 1986

"A long series of failures, key portions of commission report on challenger accident", June 1986

Technical Aspects & Principles

Journal article on normalization of deviance

"The Shuttle Explosion; Cost of Insurance in Space May Rise", Jan 29, 1986

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