11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the spacecraft Challenger is leaving Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to become the first regular U.S. citizen. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old New Hampshire social studies teacher, won a competition that earned him a place among the seven-member Challenger team. He received months of shuttle training but, from January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger launch count was delayed several times due to weather and technical issues. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle went off.
Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds below, including Christa's family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle plunged into a stream of smoke and flames. Millions more watched this tragic event live on television. There are no survivors.
In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the world's first reusable spacecraft, the Enterprise. Five years later, shuttle spacecraft began when Columbia flew into space with a 54-hour flight. Introduced by two solid booster-rocket and an outer tank, a shuttle-like plane that has just entered orbit around Earth. When the work was completed, the shuttle fired engines to slow down and, after descending from space, landed like a plane. Early shuttles took satellite equipment into space and conducted a variety of scientific research. The Challenger disaster was the first major shuttle accident.
Following the tragedy, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with the Challenger and build future solutions. The presidential commission was led by former secretary of state William Rogers, and included former astronomer Neil Armstrong and former exploration pilot Chuck Yeager. Investigations found that the disaster was caused by the failure of the "O-ring" sign on one of the two powerful rockets. The expandable O-ring did not respond as expected due to the cold during the launch, which triggered a series of events that resulted in significant losses. As a result, NASA has not sent astronauts for more than two years as it redesigned many of the features of the space shuttle.
In September 1988, space flights relaunched with the successful launch of Discovery. Since then, the spacecraft has undertaken many important projects, such as the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station.
On February 1, 2003, the second spacecraft shook the United States as Columbia split as it reopened Earth's atmosphere. All on board were killed. Despite fears that the problems plaguing Columbia had not been resolved satisfactorily, the space shuttle resumed on July 26, 2005, when Discovery was re-routed.
During the day of the shuttle disaster, rescue operations found hundreds of pounds of metal in the Challenger. In March 1986, the remains of astronomers were found in the rubble of a staff house. Although all the important pieces of the shuttle were discovered when NASA closed its Challenger investigation in 1986, most of the spacecraft remained in the Atlantic Ocean.
A decade later, tragic memories resurfaced as two large pieces of Challenger flooded Cocoa Beach, 20 miles south of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. NASA believes that two pieces covered with a barnacle, one more than 20 feet [6 m] wide and 13 feet [13 m] long, were initially connected, and that they came from the left wing of the shuttle.
After confirmation, the newly recovered parts were placed in two abandoned dungeons and other shuttle debris, valued at approximately 5,000 pieces and weighing 250,000 pounds.
The Space Shuttle program officially ended on August 31, 2011 after its final mission, the STS-135 that flew Atlantis, in July 2011.More than a decade after the Challenger disaster, two large spacecraft flooded the local coastline.
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