The Challenger space shuttle disaster is a tragedy that defined America in the 1980s. At the time, space exploration was growing at a rapid rate, and NASA had successfully completed a numerous amount of missions. The crew consisted of the typical seven members, however this exploration was especially exciting. NASA would be sending its first teacher, Christa McAuliffe, to space. She would be completing two lessons while aboard the Challenger. The popularity of this specific mission caused Americans of all ages to be glued to their televisions the morning of January 28th, 1986. Children were watching the launch from their classrooms at school, and adults were watching from at work or at home that fateful morning. Eyes were peeled to television …show more content…
The State of The Union was scheduled to take place that evening, but Reagan concluded that America needed its leader to guide them in comfort and recovery in regards to the loss of its country. The “Challenger” speech Reagan delivered was to provide comfort to Americans, especially those who witnessed the scarring footage of the explosion. Reagan also tried to instill encouragement and hope, not wanting people to give up on space exploration. He also strived to eulogize the seven individuals whose lives were lost and praise them for the job they had done for their …show more content…
He said to them, “I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen.” This sentence greatly resembles a phrase a parent would say to their child. It is loving and supportive, but it’s also brutally honesty. This was an opportunity for parents and teachers to take time to teach the children about tragedies like this. Being so young, it’s difficult for children to grasp the concept of tragedy and loss. Instead of being discouraging towards them, he told them that these things happen but it doesn’t mean to give up. Reagan took this opportunity to tell children that this isn’t the end of the world. He instilled hope and encouragement in the children when he said, “The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to continue to follow them.” Although this time the exploration didn’t succeed, that doesn’t mean America will give
The world would have been very different if we had not landed on the moon and made it back safely those couple days in July of 1969. Many people were nervous and skeptical that the mission of Apollo 11 wouldn’t work, some even coming to the worst case scenario. As a president, President Nixon had to be prepared for any outcome of this great event in history. Regardless of the mission’s success, a speech was prepared for the outcome of Apollo 11 failing. The speech, In Event of Moon Disaster, written for President Nixon, effectively uses pathos and logos to appeal to a distraught nation in fragile time and uses descriptive language to regain the embodiment of hope again in the country. Because it was written before the event took place, however,
On January 28, 1986, Ronald Reagan, the President who takes on the grievances of America and establishes hope, in his inspiring speech entitled the “Speech on the Challenger Disaster,” is able to guide the United States to prosperity. He guides the United States. by emphasizing the courage and bravery of the Challenger crew, then he drives the focus to the good that NASA allows us to accomplish, and finally tells the people that the crew dies doing what they loved. Through Reagan's use of Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals, tone, and rhetorical devices, he is able to inspire hope in the people instead of the failure of NASA.
On January 28, 1986, a day that was supposed to be filled with excitement and exploration, suddenly turned into a day filled with tragedy and sadness. The space shuttle Challenger was supposed to carry a seven member crew into orbit with one unique member along for this particular mission. Christa McAuliffe was supposed to be the first teacher to go into space as a member of the Teacher in Space Project. Due to this occasion, the media coverage and the number of viewers of this mission was extensive, particularly in schools across the nation. The Challenger lifted off shortly after 11:30 A.M., but tragically only seventy three seconds after takeoff it exploded sending debris and the seven crew members back to earth and into the Atlantic Ocean. All seven crew members aboard were killed in the crash as America helplessly watched. A faulty O-ring in the right solid rocket booster was said to have been the cause of the crash. Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, was in office at the time of this tragic event. President Reagan was scheduled to deliver his State of the Union Address that same evening. His intentions were to mention the Challenger and the significance of that particular mission during his speech. This would not be the case following the events of that day.
Ronald Reagan was one of the most liked Presidents. When being elected for his second term, he won by a landslide—winning all the states minus Minnesota and Washington D.C. Reagan addresses the people of the United States of America. He wants the American people to reflect on his presidency, and as all presidents do in their farewell addresses, he wants to say goodbye to the nation that he's led for the past eight years. Ronald Reagan uses repetition, parallel structure, and allusion to reflect on his presidency and to say farewell to the American people.
Reagan says in his speech, “Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle challenger” (1). For example, Reagan talks about mourning the loss of the astronauts from the space shuttle challenger. Reagan did not know what to think when he got the news of the shuttle challenger’s explosion. As president of the United States, he needed to send his remorse to the families of the individuals. Therefore, he would mourn with the families as well as the nation. Another example, Reagan talks about how space is not for the fainthearted and that he knew the school children, who had been watching the launch, would not understand what was happening (2). With the children watching the launch in their classrooms of their school the lesson started out to be about space, then when the explosion happened the children would have grown concerned and emotional, then would want to know what happened. They would have asked questions about what they saw that day of the explosion. Therefore, if the children of the astronauts were watching, they would need a little more attention and may need to see a guidance counselor. Thus, we as adults needed to be prepared to answer the questions that the children would
critical time. Reagan did not start out as a man of politics. In fact, he made his
...speech to the world where he was quoted as saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The speech was given at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin (“Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall: President Ronald Reagan”). This speech signified the beginning of the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. President Reagan’s foreign policy tactics are another reason why he was a great president.
Primarily he starts out his address by speaking directly to his audience, the American people. He states: “We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.” By doing so he establishes who his intended audience is, which is very important in a speech like this. It helps the audience feel a greater connection to the speaker since he is addressing them directly and relating to them.
Since the presidency of George Washington, the people of The United States have turned to the commander in chief in times of distress to receive assurance and hope. Kurt Ritter comments on President Reagan’s address to the nation given on January 28, 1986 saying, “Perhaps no president could have fulfilled the country’s need to mourn and, then, to begin to heal as skillfully as Ronald Reagan (Ritter, 3).” On that morning the space shuttle “Challenger” violently exploded while the nation watched live televised coverage of the shuttle’s launch. President Reagan was scheduled to give his State of the Union Address on that date, but instead he reached out the country in this time of mourning. He spoke from his oval office to heartbroken teachers, children, NASA Space Engineers, and the entire country. President Reagan’s reaction to the tragedy of the challenger guided the United States out of despair and into a new light of hope behind seven fallen heroes. In this essay I will show that Reagan gave our country a new light of hope through his emphasis on Pathos but also incorporating Ethos and Logos in this memorable presentation.
In Ronald Reagan’s eulogy, Margret Thatcher uses many rhetorical strategies to convey the patriotic and loving feelings both she and the country had toward Reagan.
A couple of the heroic values that Reagan possessed were strength and courage. Most people would agree that it took an agglomeration of strength and courage during the cold war era to make his ever famous, “Tear Down This Wall Speech” in Berlin. Ramesh Jaura explains how many people believe this speech made a positive effect toward ending the cold war:
In his “Challenger Explosion” speech, Pres. Ronald Reagan comforts the nation in the aftermath of NASA’s Challenger Space Shuttle exploded shortly after takeoff killing all seven astronauts. In this speech, he used rhetorical devices, such as alliteration, allusion, anaphora, and euphemism to relay his feelings of sadness and grief.
The Challenger disaster of 1986 was a shock felt around the country. During liftoff, the shuttle exploded, creating a fireball in the sky. The seven astronauts on board were killed and the shuttle was obliterated. Immediately after the catastrophe, blame was spread to various people who were in charge of creating the shuttle and the parts of the shuttle itself. The Presidential Commission was decisive in blaming the disaster on a faulty O-ring, used to connect the pieces of the craft. On the other hand, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, in The Golem at Large, believe that blame cannot be isolated to any person or reason of failure. The authors prove that there are too many factors to decide concretely as to why the Challenger exploded. Collins and Pinch do believe that it was the organizational culture of NASA and Morton Thiokol that allowed the disaster. While NASA and Thiokol were deciding whether to launch, there was not a concrete reason to postpone the mission.
He emphasizes the horror when he states, “I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost.” He tries to gain the confidence of the the American people by stating that other countries have been attacked, as well. He uses parallel structure and repetition to indicate that places other than the US were attacked. He repeats this framework to emphasize that many other places were attacked. He does this so that his audience can understand the greater impact of the event. FDR then concludes this section of his speech by stressing the fact that he knows what the Americans are feeling and the opinions that have been formed. Roosevelt implies that he knows their lives will change and that the people are concerned for their safety. He does this to make the listeners understand that they are not alone in their reaction to this attack and that everybody in America feels this
On a cold winter’s morning on the 28th day of January in the year 1986, America was profoundly shaken and sent to its knees as the space shuttle Challenger gruesomely exploded just seconds after launching. The seven members of its crew, including one civilian teacher, were all lost. This was a game changer, we had never lost a single astronaut in flight. The United States by this time had unfortunately grown accustomed to successful space missions, and this reality check was all too sudden, too brutal for a complacent and oblivious nation (“Space”). The outbreak of sympathy that poured from its citizens had not been seen since President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The disturbing scenes were shown repeatedly on news networks which undeniably made it troublesome to keep it from haunting the nation’s cognizance (“Space”). The current president had more than situation to address, he had the problematic undertaking of gracefully picking America back up by its boot straps.