Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

On January 27, 1967, Martha Chaffee was preparing dinner for her children when she learned that her husband, Roger, had died in training. Chaffee was one of three men preparing to man the Apollo 1—the first test flight in preparation for the moon landing. Chaffee, along with mission commander Gus Grissom and senior pilot Ed White, was scheduled to spend 14 days in orbit on a data collection mission. In fierce competition with the USSR, the United States was determined to reach the moon first.

The risk of fire inside the craft had been impressed upon Chaffee, Grissom, and White. Since it was to be filled with pure oxygen—rather than the mix of oxygen and nitrogen contained in the air that humans breathe on Earth—anything inside the capsule that was flammable would fuel a fire rapidly. There was much correspondence between the manufacturers of the capsule and NASA about this risk. Specifically, pieces of Velcro used to affix paper instructions to the walls of the capsule needed to be kept to an absolute minimum. This Velcro—though useful in zero-gravity conditions—was flammable.

On the morning of January 27, the three men suited up for the flight simulation—a test run to make certain that everything was in working order and functioned as designed. When the astronauts entered the hatch, however, it took them more than an hour to seal it behind them. Once inside, pure oxygen was pumped into the chamber. Then, a problem with the radio transmitters occurred, and the astronauts could not hear the instructions from the control tower. This problem took hours to remedy. Just as the countdown was about to begin, fire ignited inside the capsule. The three men inside were quickly killed, unable to escape via the difficult-to-unlatch hatch.

Back in Houston, the command center received a phone call with the details of the fire. Personnel were immediately sent to inform the astronauts’ families before the media could release the information.

A 10-week investigation of the fire was immediately conducted by NASA, which revealed numerous errors and oversights, including the faulty hatch that prevented quick escape, faulty wiring, and excessive flammable material inside the hatch itself. Specifically, a wire with worn insulation had short-circuited. The wire was next to a pipeline, which carried flammable gas and had a small leak. The men died by asphyxiation when the heat quickly melted their oxygen hoses.

There was much resistance in Congress to continuing the Apollo mission; it took a year before efforts got underway once again. Joseph Shea, the director of the Apollo mission, became wracked with guilt over the deaths and resigned. Though a successful moon landing would take place in 1969, public interest in space exploration waned with each subsequent successful mission. By then, NASA’s budget had swelled to one-third that of the nation’s military budget at the height of the Vietnam War. Some also pointed to the inequality plaguing African Americans who were angered by the whiteness of the space program.

Though NASA had hoped to establish a base on the moon and begin missions to Mars, it faced drastic budget cuts as the American public began to question its utility. However, in 1972, President Nixon decreed his support for the space program—in large part because it was deemed important to the Cold War defense—and renewed efforts to launch shuttles into space.

This chapter provides background information on Max Faget, the Houston Spacecraft Center’s director of engineering and development. Faget was responsible for the design of the US’s first spacecraft when NASA was formed. In the early part of 1969, he was tasked with designing a reusable winged spacecraft that could “be launched into orbit but then return to Earth to repeat the voyage again” (37). The moon landing in 1969, by contrast, was designed to shed parts of itself as waste at various points of the mission. 

Faget built a prototype out of balsa wood, which was designed to move horizontally though the air, like a plane. The aim was for the shuttle to circle the Earth for one week and then return. The desire for a reusable spacecraft marked a shift away from the post-World War II emphasis on pursuing a spacecraft equipped with missiles to attack the Soviet Union and toward space exploration for the greater good of all humanity.

A piloted research aircraft called the X-15 had been in use since 1954. It was an Earth-bound plane that gathered valuable information that could be used in the design of future crafts that could return to Earth after flight. These planes were flown without incident until Air Force Major Mike Adams was killed in a crash in 1967. His computer malfunctioned due to radio interference, and the craft entered into a spin that Adams could not maneuver out of. Adams was afflicted with vertigo, which disoriented him. He became the first American to die in space flight.

After the moon landing, NASA faced pressure to justify its existence. President Nixon, unlike Johnson, had no interest in space exploration. Though NASA was increasingly interested in traveling to Mars, polls revealed little support among the American public. In early 1969, however, secret work on a reusable space shuttle had begun under the direction of Max Faget. It would consist of two separate vehicles: A booster carrying an orbiter on its back. The booster, once it had launched the orbiter into space, would return to Earth. 

However, it had to be built on an extremely tight budget. Paired with the Air Force, Faget’s team began work on a design that was within budgetary constraints and would be capable of capturing Soviet crafts in orbit. To cut costs, the design eliminated the escape system that would save the crew in the event that the craft faced destruction. Faget was adamant that such life-saving features remain in place, but he was overruled by Air Force personnel. 

By 1972, budget constraints also meant abandoning all plans for entirely reusable materials: Fuel tanks, once emptied, would instead be dumped at the edge of space, with the debris then falling into the Indian Ocean. Further, solid rockets—which, once lit, burned themselves out and could not be controlled—were opted for over more expensive engines that could be controlled after their ignition. The design was approved in the summer of 1972 and named the “Constitution.”

In March 1976, a board was convened to select 40 new astronauts. It was headed by George Abbey, director of flight operations in Houston. The board was charged with ensuring that the recruits included women and were racially diverse. Former Director of Flight Operations Deke Slayton left his seat on the selection board when he learned of this, certain that widening the selection pool to include such minorities would prove harmful.

The possibility of female astronauts was raised in 1959 by Dr. Randy Lovelace. Lovelace hailed from a private research foundation that provided medical testing of astronauts to determine their physical and psychological readiness for space. Lovelace tested 12 women and deemed all of them just as fit for space travel as their male counterparts. Though Russia was training female cosmonauts, NASA resisted accepting female applicants. In 1962, when applications from civilians were accepted for the first time, there were six women. All of them were dismissed by NASA for various disqualifications.

Similarly, by 1961, NASA was being pressured to accept African American astronauts, due in large part to President Kennedy’s affirmative action measures. NASA continued to insist that none of the Black applicants met its criteria. In 1962, the government invited 27-year-old African American Edward Dwight to enroll in the new Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School. Passing the program would make him eligible to apply to become an astronaut. Despite racist attempts to deter Dwight, he completed the program successfully. However, he was denied a spot at NASA. 

In 1967, Major Robert H. Lawrence of the Air Force became the first African American to officially become an astronaut. However, Lawrence died six months later in a training exercise.

In July 1976, NASA put out its call for new recruits for space travel. Women and minorities were encouraged to apply. Six months later, the applicant pools of both were small. NASA increased its efforts, directly inviting promising potential candidates to apply. Among those who received an invitation were Ron McNair, an African American who had recently completed a PhD in laser physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. McNair, who was also a gifted musician, had been an outstanding student his entire life, battling racist limitations each step of the way.

Other applicants included Ellison Onizuka, Dick Scobee, and Judy Resnik. Onizuka was an Air Force flight engineer of Japanese descent; he had always had an interest in space but kept his application to NASA a secret, even from his wife. Scobee, an Air Force pilot who had always lamented that he was too tall for space travel, applied as soon as he learned that NASA had abolished the height limits. Resnik was 27 and completing a doctorate in biomedical engineering.

By June 1977, NASA had received 8,000 completed applications, from which it selected 208 finalists. Twenty-one of these were women. Applicants were brought to Johnson Space Center in Houston in groups of 20 for interviews. These included psychological interviews, physical tests, and exercises to determine whether candidates were equipped to handle stress. Ultimately, 35 were offered a position with NASA, among them six women and three African Americans. Offers were extended to both Resnik and Onizuka, who became the first Asian American chosen for astronaut training.

When the recruits began formal training in July 1978, they dubbed themselves the “FNGs”—short for the “Fucking New Guys,” a moniker familiar among those with experience in Vietnam.

A prototype of the new space shuttle was displayed on September 17, 1976, though the actual vehicle was far from finished. The orbiter had been renamed from the Constitution to the Enterprise, in light of the enthusiasm for the television program Star Trek. Among the problems still facing the design of the shuttle was that of the engines: Three engines were needed, and it was necessary that they be lightweight. However, they also had to carry a dangerous mix of hydrogen (which is flammable) and the oxygen needed for ignition (in light of the absence of oxygen in space). 

Devising a way to safely transport both materials while operating within budget constraints was a challenge. Tests of the engines repeatedly failed, with each test costing $40 million. It was also challenging to design the heat-insulation tiles that were to line the shuttle. They would need to withstand the heat of reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere without disintegrating. As a result, the tiles would need to vary in size and thickness, depending on which part of the shuttle they were to be fitted onto. Manufacturers of the tiles collaborated with researchers but could not find a way to uniquely design each of the 34,000 tiles.

When Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, he was skeptical about the utility of the space shuttle in light of the poor state of the economy at large. In the end, he approved more funding for NASA, and the “FNGs” (formally “Astronaut Group 8”) began training in July of 1978. Nearly all of them accepted dramatic pay cuts in exchange for the possibility of traveling to space—this was not guaranteed, and many senior astronauts who had yet to experience space were resentful of the new competition. Though the new recruits were largely oblivious to the obstacles that NASA faced in making the shuttle a reality, the old guard was accustomed to NASA presenting an optimistic view to the public. They joked that NASA truly stood for “Never A Straight Answer” (105).

The new recruits’ training was rigorous and intense, beginning with flight training that involved practice in surviving emergency water landings. Daily lectures contained massive amounts of information on subjects including geology, oceanography, meteorology, engineering, and the history of the space program—to name a few. Would-be astronauts also began learning the intricate workings of the shuttle itself and were tested using simulators in which instructors programed potential problems, which recruits had to learn to successfully troubleshoot.

Despite or because of the stress of the training, camaraderie and friendship developed quickly among the group of 35.

The problem of the tiles continued to plague the space shuttle. They needed to provide a layer of insulation for the shuttle, and manufacturers could not find a way to successfully adhere the tiles to the shell of the shuttle without many of them chipping, breaking, and falling off during tests. 

In April of 1979, NASA sent a sort of spy—engineer Larry Kuznetz—to the companies who were developing the tiles, Rockwell International and Lockheed Corporation. An adhesive was finally created that would affix the tiles without melting from the heat of reentry to Earth, but it would need to be painstakingly applied to each tile by hand. Each tile would then need to be individually tested and assigned a coded number that indicated its exact positioning on the shuttle. A team of “puzzle fitters” was responsible for ensuring successful placement of each piece. Additionally, development of a repair kit was underway to ensure that astronauts could repair damaged tiles in space as needed.

Initially promising President Carter that the shuttle would be ready to launch by November 1979, NASA was forced to admit that the early part of 1980 was more likely. Meanwhile, it cut the training of the new recruits short, thrusting them into the field to work in their respective roles for the shuttle launch. By the time the shuttle was finally deemed ready in June 1980, many NASA officials were still skeptical: NASA head Robert Frosch deemed its chance of success or failure as 50/50.