Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. Today is the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Challenger story. By the morning of January 29, 1986, recovery efforts had already begun. The New York Times described the disaster as “The worst accident in the history of the American space program.” Later in the same story, the Times notes, “Officials discounted speculation that cold weather at Cape Canaveral or an accident several days ago that slightly damaged insulation on the external fuel tank might have been a factor.”
There’s no way to tell if the anonymous NASA officials quoted above knew the truth or not, and it’s more than a little eerie that a NASA official dismissed a foam strike as problematic when it was a foam strike that doomed Columbia 17 years later. Either way, it didn’t take long for the agency’s explanation of events to come under fire.
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