Book Review: Challenger by Adam Higginbotham

One of the things that really separates Gen X childhoods from the childhoods of other generations is that we were generally excited by the future. It was a prevalent topic of discussion growing up, and I think that no matter how many problems there were in the world, we were going to (1) win the Cold War (TRUE!); (2) enter an era of peace and prosperity (about that....); and (3) allow science and technology to take us to new frontiers (how would you feel about MOST people believing in life-saving vaccines?).

For me, there were two centerpieces to my future-forward worldview. The first was Epcot - thanks to the Horizons ride, I TRULY thought that I'd be living at the bottom of the ocean by now (doing what...I have no idea). And the second was the space shuttle. So much more advanced and refined than a rocket, it really seemed like we had entered into a new age. I was mesmerized when Crippen and Young launched the first mission into orbit, and I followed it throughout its missions.

Then the Challenger exploded.

My experience with the Challenger explosion was very odd. I remember being in fifth grade, and after lunch/recess we were waiting for the teacher to come in. She entered the room and asked us if we heard about the space shuttle, and a few of us muttered that it was launching that day (it was well-known since it was the "Teacher In Space" mission). She said "No - it EXPLODED! YEAH!" like she had bets on it. Most of us were shocked. Then she told us we were taking a trip to the school library, where she re-played the death of seven astronauts for us on the TV while saying "See? SEE?!?! Yeah, it exploded!", not recognizing the distress this was putting many of us through. Some people really shouldn't handle commentary on major events.

What was so shocking to us about the shuttle explosion is that the missions had seemed flawless for the previous five years. I didn't follow the ensuing investigation too closely afterwards, but it felt like the discovery of the O-ring problem in the solid rocket boosters came out of nowhere and was a one in a million chance.

Adam Higginbotham's Challenger proves that wrong. There had been damage to the O-rings in more than half the missions. There had been several missions before the explosion that were on the verge of catastrophe. And the very night before the Challenger launched for the final time, the chief engineers responsible for the O-rings told NASA to scrub the mission. But NASA moved forward anyway.

This book is an exhaustive study, starting with the deadly Apollo 1 fire and the birth of the shuttle program (like most people my age, I associated the shuttle with President Reagan - turns out the person who signed off on it was Tricky Dick). The key benefit for replacing rockets with shuttles is that the shuttle program would eventually save money and even pay for itself...once missions were going up every week.

Due to its complicated nature, the shuttle program was years behind schedule (originally supposed to launch in the mid-70s) and millions of dollars overbudget, so once it was available it was rushed to operation. Do you remember all of the unmanned and then animal-crewed rocket missions in the 60s at the dawn of the space race (maybe from the montage in The Right Stuff)? Remember how many of them ended in explosions? Then think about how the very first time the Columbia launched it was piloted by Crippen and Young. Turns out both of them actually expected to die on the mission.

Throughout these missions, there were constant problems with the solid rocket boosters, the most dangerous part of the shuttle unit, as they were hard to control and could not be shut off once lit. As the boosters were recovered from the ocean in mission after mission, it became clear that there were more and more scorch marks in the O rings. The original shuttle engineers and administrators kept the information to themselves and found ways to sweep it under the rug - I mean, the shuttles kept returning at the end, right? - but over time, as new engineers took over the program, they were horrified at what they found and found that any attempts to fix the problem, or stop the astronauts from flying potential death machines, fell on deaf ears.

Then this book turns into a funeral dirge, as we go in-depth with the astronauts who would take that fateful ride. Christa McAuliffe, the Teacher in Space, was the most famous, but the one that hit me hardest was Ron McNair, one of the first black astronauts. McNair grew up in segregated South Carolina (note to Florida readers: yes, segregation DID happen) and had the police called on him the first time he tried to check out library books (that building now bears his name). He grew into a brilliant and dedicated scientist, but also jazz saxophone player. In fact, there was a jazz festival taking place in Houston during the middle of the mission, and the plan was for the festival to show a live feed of McNair playing a saxophone part from space. A sign of how well this book was written - I already knew he was on the mission, but as I read through the book i kept hoping against hope that he would somehow survive.

After the explosion, the book takes you through the impact on the families, the investigation, and the subsequent cover-ups by NASA. Not only did everyone at NASA originally deny that they had been told to scrub the mission, but later on they maintained that the shuttle immediately disintegrated in the explosion and the crew was killed instantly. However, they were sitting on evidence like the recovered crew compartment, where the remains of the astronauts showed that they were frantically trying to save themselves, as well as a telling last word on the voice recorder: "Uh-oh".

There are tons of characters to keep track of in this book, but there's no going around that - that's real life. The only drawback to this book is that once the final report on the explosion is released to the public, there's only half a chapter left to go - no real discussion of what changes were made once the shuttle program was allowed to continue, and only a small portion about the 2004 Columbia disaster (which proved NASA hadn't really taken the lessons from Challenger as seriously as they had said). But what is there is solid, and is a chilling recount of what happens when the government ignores the science and ignores the evidence and only looks to save a couple bucks. Definitely recommended, and the best book I've read in a long time - Challenger earns all ten hot dogs.