On a cold January morning in 1986, a launch that had been promoted as a celebration of science and education went catastrophically wrong in front of a watching nation. But the real story of this disaster didn't begin on the launch pad. It began six months earlier, in a memo an engineer wrote to his boss. It continued the night before, in a conference room in Utah, where that engineer laid photographs on a table and begged four men not to kill seven people. Join Alice and Zach as they unravel the story of how the warnings were raised, how they were overruled, and what it cost the people who tried to tell the truth.
Sources:
- Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (Rogers Commission Report), Volumes I–V — NASA History Division
- "Personal Observations on the Reliability of the Shuttle," Appendix F to the Rogers Commission Report — Richard P. Feynman
- The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA — Diane Vaughan, University of Chicago Press
- Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster — Allan J. McDonald with James R. Hansen
- "Challenger: The Final Voyage" — report by Dr. Joseph P. Kerwin to NASA Administrator, July 28, 1986
- "Ethical Decisions — Morton Thiokol and the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster" — Roger Boisjoly, MIT lecture, January 1989
- "The Challenger Disaster: Making it Personal" — paper presented at ASEE Annual Conference
- NASA Challenger STS-51-L crew report and transcript release, 1986
- "Christa McAuliffe's Lost Lessons" — NASA STEM archive
- "Former Students Remember Christa McAuliffe" — New Hampshire Public Radio
- President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Challenger Disaster, January 28, 1986 — Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
- Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report, Volume I, August 2003
Find FINAL BOARDING CALL online:
- Website: finalboardingcallpodcast.com
- Email: finalboardingcallpodcast@gmail.com
- Instagram: @FinalBoardingCallPod
- Facebook: Final Boarding Call
Credits:
Final Boarding Call is hosted by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas, researched and written by Alice Stern, produced and edited by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas.
