What was the impact of the Challenger disaster on the U.S. space program?
The Challenger was a U.S. space shuttle that exploded on January 28, 1986, only seventy-three seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. Among them was schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian in space. The immediate effect of the disaster was the cancellation of all scheduled U.S. space launches, pending the outcome of a government investigation. President Ronald Reagan (1911– ) acted quickly to establish a presidential commission to look into the accident, appointing former Secretary of State William B. Rogers (1927– ) to head the group. Rogers conducted a thorough investigation with both public and private hearings that involved more than 6,000 people, 15,000 pages of testimony, 170,000 pages of documents, and hundreds of photographs and reports of independent technical…
