Challenger Explosion Essay

The Explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle was a national tragedy as it was the first time we had astronauts die during flight on a shuttle. The type of Speech that former President Ronald Reagan gave was an informative speech on the Challenger explosion that occurred January 28, 1986. During this time, the United States were still pioneering the way for space travel, even though we had already gone to the moon. As Reagan Stated, “We’ve grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun” (Regan), meaning that the reason this tragedy struck a chord with the nation was because we did not expect trivial outcome. Ronald Reagan effectively comforts the nation through the use of rhetoric while also addressing the

The use of phrases such as “Nancy and I”, and “together as a nation” allows the speech feel personal to the audience showing that the everyone was affected by this event, not just the families of the crew members. Another way he appeals to emotion is by addressing to all the school children who watched the live shuttle explosion and saying, “I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery.” This appeals to the parents in the audience as it portrays Reagan as an empathizing parent, instead of a national leader. This also allows Reagan to seem he is on the same level of authority as the nation. Regan has great usage of transitions throughout the speech by ending off on a subject and applying it to a new point. For example, Reagan ends off a section by say Challenger crew members, “were pioneers”, then goes to explain how exploration and discovery is all a part of the process in, “expanding man’s horizons” (Reagan). I believe the organizational pattern of the speech was topical as it was pertaining to a recent event at the time, and logically breaking it up. It is hard to deny the credibility of someone in such a high position, such as the president of the united states, because why would a person of great influence want to steer the nation wrong. This does not mean I believe all presidents are truthful, but I believe Reagan was a credible source of information. Towards the second half of the speech, Reagan goes on to state, “We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way freedom is”, this can be seen as a subtle attack to the Soviet Union as during the space race, information was not always shared (Reagan). He is trying to turn the audience to blame