It is a sense of national pride for many Americans. If you ask anyone who was alive at the time, they could probably tell you exactly where they were when they heard that Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the Moon. But all of the success in our space programs is overshadowed by tragedy. On January 28, 1986, one of the worst
disasters in our space program's history occurred. Many people were watching at the moment because it was the highly televised space mission where, for the first time, a civilian was a member of the crew that was to be shot into space. This civilian was the winner of the "Teacher in Space" contest, Christa McAuliffe. The disaster: the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. (Compton's 1) Many people thought that disaster couldn't strike because a civilian was on board. But as the whole nation found out, nobody is immortal. By examining this further, we will look at the lives of the seven who died in this dumbfounding calamity, take a look at exactly what went wrong during this fateful mission, and the outcome from this sorrowful occurrence.
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