Challenger Explosion Tragic Hero

Jade Lung

Ms. Davis

College Prep English 1

11 April 2017

Challenger Explosion Tragedy

When the shuttle was launched, everyone was full of joy, but seventy three seconds later everyone became dumbfounded. The shuttle had exploded and seven crew members died.

Monica Cunningham was twenty years old when the terrible disaster of the STS-51-L NASA shuttle orbiter had occurred. Monica was part of the navy and happened to be on board the USS Nimitz the day of this accident. January twenty eighth of 1986 was the day NASA’s shuttle orbiter would be launched into space. The mission was to deploy the second tracking and data relay satellite (Forrest 1).

Monica was off the coast of Okinawa of Japan and a couple days before the incident she

and her crew had gotten off the ship and hung out together. They heard there was going to be a big shuttle take off and they gathered around the TV to watch the news in their department. Everyone was filled with excitement due to the launching of the shuttle. “This was such an exciting day for me, due to seeing a shuttle go off into because us Americans never see that”(Cunningham). The shuttle was planning to take off from the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral (WPVI-TV).Once this terrible accident happened, Monica and her crew had gone into shock. Monica couldn’t believe anything at that moment. Everything had seemed to be fine and everything was in place before the launching, at least for the moment.

Many Americans were affected by this explosion, and Monica was no exception. The explosion affected Monica because she had a personal relationship with the Lieutenant who was the head of her department . Her Lieutenant had close relationships with two of the pilots from the crew. He had been a close associate with them and Monica was introduced to both pilots. She had known them for years and, throughout the years, they developed a strong friendship. “Losing close friends is like losing brothers and sisters. The worst part about losing someone that you’ve developed a strong relationship with, is not being able to experience the rest of your life with them”(Cunningham).

“When I was younger, I thought I knew everything.

I made straight A’s and everyone came to me for help, but at the moment of the explosion no one knew anything. Everyone was constantly throwing out ideas about what could’ve happened. As of now, we all know what happened and it was time to fix it”(Cunningham). Monica didn’t know much about what had caused the explosion, but no one really did. The crew in Monica’s department had thought the explosion was due to fuel tanks, but after investigations were held, it was concluded that an O ring in one of the solid rocket boosters had burned through causing the challenger to be ripped apart at altitude. Also, there was a leakage of two rubber O rings in a segmented solid rocket booster. The rings lost their ability to stop hot gas because on the day of the launch the O rings were cold due to the temperature (Challenger Disaster). That Tuesday morning at two in the morning, temperatures had dropped and ice had spread across the Fixed Service Structure of the 39B launch pad. Despite that, thick ice was also forming in the sound suppression troughs beneath the booster blast holes in the Mobile Launching Platform (McConnell

207).

One fact that was clear, was that seven Americans were dead. A couple days after the shuttle exploded over the Atlantic, Gregory Jarvis’s body was floating on the water, but every time someone tried to grab him he’d sink back down. In saying that, one of Monica’s friends took it upon himself and rented a fishing boat to search for Jarvis’s body and it was found. “No one knew what caused the death of the crew members. I thought maybe it had been them hitting the water too hard after the fall or the shuttle exploding. Either way, it is devastating to find out that seven Americans had died due to something so tragic. Doing an autopsy on the crew members was a struggle because their bodies were severely messed up and we couldn’t tell who was who ”(Cunningham).

Monica mentioned that the biggest part about those pilots going to space was that for the first time ever, Christa McAuliffe was the very first teacher to ever travel through space. Another thing she mentioned was Christa’s career and how that had an affect on her. She had said that Christa taught history and english at a junior high school in Maryland. This affected Monica because Christa had enjoyed her job and loved being part of a wonderful family and Monica had implied that being a family is one of the best things to have. Being part of a family is something you want to cherish forever and it was devastating to Monica knowing Christa won’t be able to experience that anymore.
Monica was interested with aviation and that inspired her to get more into the future of the NASA. With the future of the NASA, she and others wanted to do several investigations about what they could do to not make an incident like that happen again. They made sure the O Rings had been geared out and made sure the temperatures was at its right measure. NASA made technical changes to the shuttle and worked to change the culture of its workforce in the wake of what happened. NASA engineers made two hundred changes to the rocket, shuttle and rocket boosters. Also, they opened up to an increased level of external oversight and became more conservative in the pace of scheduled launches. Since the O Rings didn’t do their job, Monica and the crew traced it back to cutting costs and went with a cheaper supply. “Overall, NASA became more scrutinized. After years of investigating, I had realized that everything seemed to have gone back to normal”(Cunningham).

After the explosion, many changes were made. NASA refrained from sending astronauts into space for more than two years as engineers redesigned shuttle features. Flights began again in September of 1988 and launchings had been successful. Since then, the space shuttle had carried out important missions. Those missions include the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope, construction of the International Space station, and many more. Ten years after the Challenger explosion, two large pieces from the shuttle has washed ashore on a Florida beach and the remaining debris is now stored in a missile silo at Cape Canaveral (Broad 2).

Monica had never experienced such a terrible accident.

She was only twenty years old when the explosion happened. At that time, she was in the navy and never had spare time to know what is going on outside of the navy. She was never able to communicate with her family or friends which was tough for her. Growing up Monica loved science and history, but didn’t have the opportunity to go explore the museums or the outside because she was more focused on school and sports. Monica was never interested with big events or what was going on around her because she wanted to focus more on finishing school. When the time of graduation came, Monica went straight into the navy. While she was in the navy, she was also a part of aviation. She had been in the navy field for about a year before the explosion. When the time of the explosion came, Monica had been devastated. Monica may not of been interested in tragic events, but the Challenger Explosion had a huge impact on her life. Aviation deals with operating and flying aircrafts and that was something Monica really enjoyed doing. Monica had felt a connection with the incident due to her being a part of that career.

One thing that had impacted Monica the most was the good that had came out of the accident. She had mentioned that the families of the pilots organized a non profit organization called “The Challenger center for space science education” and everyone ended up creating fifty two learning centers for the organization. “Doing the

organization was probably one of my favorite aftermaths and the best thing that has came out of the explosion. It was probably best to spread the word and keep it going and keeping the memories”(Cunningham).

This event had a huge effect on Monica’s life. It had been a huge effect because being part of the military made her become more interested in aviation and that took up a big part of her life. This event had made her want to go deeper into aviation and helped lead her toward that route. She had become interested in servicewide aviation which supports many discipline including wildland fire, law enforcement, search and rescue, cultural and natural resource management, and general administrative missions. There are many more programs to choose, but these are the ones she looked more into. These programs require highly technical aircraft and equipment and, in that case, Monica did years of schooling and studying for that course. Later on, she had become an auditor for supply chain and aviation and achieved high stats on auditing. Overall, the Challenger Explosion an incredible effect on Monica’s life and many changes were made. The problems of space shuttles had been resolved and to this day there has not been another incident.

Works Cited

Cunningham, Monica. Personal Interview. 28 Mar. 2017.

Forrest, Jeff. "The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster." Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster 1986.

N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.

McConnell, Malcolm. Challenger: A Major Malfunction. London: Doubleday, 1988. Print.

"The Shuttle Explodes." The New York Times.” The New York Times, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.

Wpvi. "Saturday Marks Anniversary of Challenger Explosion." 6abc Philadelphia. N.p., 28 Jan.

2017. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.