Years later, Challenger explosion still felt
- Brett Hiner: A Work in Progress
- September 28, 2020
- 1003
I remember gazing out my eighth-grade science classroom window. Like most mid-January days, it was dreary, based partly on the weather but also based on the fact winter break was over and early second semester doldrums had kicked in.
My science teacher’s classroom had a back door where we would go when it was time for labs. Rarely could anyone walk through that door and not draw the attention of the inquisitive minds of nosy eighth-graders.
Naturally, we found it curious when a social-studies teacher poked his head in.
“It exploded,” he said to Mr. Pavone, sitting in the front of the room. Most students were unaware of what he was talking about, but obviously, based on Pavone’s facial expression, no more of an explanation of “it” was needed.
Visibly shaken, he said, “Go ahead and put your heads on your desk for the remaining part of class,” and he then left the room. We sat in silence.
As the day progressed, word began to spread about what had happened. In the pre-cell-phone/internet world, rumors, during the school day, were all we had. It was not until I got home and turned on the television that the images of the Challenger explosion began to fill my 13-year-old mind.
The actual shuttle explosion, the booster rockets forming what looked to me like the letter “Y,” the stunned expression on the faces of those watching live and the repeated shots of Christa McAuliffe’s parents, confused and uncertain and grieving, are as vivid today as they were 34 years ago.
For a generation that had, up to that point, lived a pretty innocent existence, most sadly knew we had our “where were you when … ” moment, similar to the generation before with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or the generation after with 9/11.
Many of these memories came flooding back after streaming Netflix’s just-released four-episode series, “Challenger: The Final Flight.”
It is not at all accidental that the documentary begins with a teacher wheeling an old television set into her classroom and turning on the televised event. In part, this is because it is how so many folks experienced the tragedy, but it also serves as a metaphor of sorts given the attention real-life teacher Christa McAuliffe received after being selected from a large pool of candidates to be the first civilian selected to journey into space.
As a result, the school where she taught in Concord, New Hampshire was filled with TV cameras covering an assembly of students filled with hope, wonder, innocence and, ultimately, horror.
Moments like this become the strength of the docu-series, humanizing the story while planting questions in the minds of its viewers that we may not have considered or thought much about since the late ‘80s.
Some of these questions are answered by students, some by family members and some by NASA themselves, and the show pulls no punches regarding NASA and the Reagan administration’s culpability in the tragedy. The series devotes a considerable amount of time in all four episodes pointing out that, perhaps, the bigger tragedy is that it was preventable.
Every engineer working for Morton Thiokol, the company responsible for making the infamous O-rings, agreed the O-rings in the rocket boosters might not withstand the cold temperatures Florida was experiencing that final week of January. However, the evening before the launch, those voices were overruled by the company and higher-ups at NASA who were anxious to get the shuttle launched after two postponements.
Unlike many of those higher-ups who still say they would make the same decision given all the evidence, engineer Brian Russell carries the moral weight of that decision daily. He weeps as he says, “What we had feared had come to pass, and we just felt terrible about it.”
Much attention is given to McAuliffe, the politics and the science behind the explosion, but equal time also is given to some of the diverse cast of astronauts. It is clear NASA was well ahead of its nation when it came to equality and inclusiveness regarding minorities and women. And I also appreciated the series connective efforts to that generation of inquiring minds. Maybe the best example is the appearance of actor Peter Billingsley, Ralphie of “A Christmas Story” fame.
Billingsley was the spokesperson for the Young Astronaut’s Program and, as a result, was present for the live launch at Cape Canaveral. Listening to him reflecting on the events at the end of Episode 3 will leave you deeply moved. Watch his body language. I write this in all sincerity: It is as if he reverts to his famous childhood character and tells the story as that 10-year-old boy seeing the tragedy unfold for the first time.
The documentary is not perfect. It would have benefited from another episode or two going into more detail about the Challenger disaster’s impact on NASA. And I would guess the offer was made to talk to all the astronauts’ families. Of the handful that appear, there is definitely more post-explosion story worth telling.
But on every other level it succeeds, taking us all back, in my case to an eighth-grade classroom where a generation of students were left questioning, a bit, America’s supposed infallibility.
Brett Hiner is in his 24th year of teaching English/language arts at Wooster High School, where he also serves as the yearbook advisor and Drama Club advisor/director. He can be emailed at workinprogressWWN@gmail.com.