January 28 1986
TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:

Thank you for allowing me to delay my address until this evening. We paused together to mourn and honor the valor of our seven challenger heroes. And I hope we are now ready to do what they would want us to do– go forward America, reach for the stars. We will never forget those brave seven, but we shall go forward.

I have come to review with you the progress of our nation, to speak of unfinished work, and to set our sights on the future. I am pleased to report the state of our Union is stronger than a year ago, and growing stronger each day. Tonight, we look out on a Rising America– firm of heart, united in spirit, powerful in pride and patriotism– American is on the move!

But, it wasn’t long ago that we looked out on a different land– locked factory gates and long gasoline lines, intolerable prices and interest rates turning the greatest country on Earth into a land of broken dreams. Government growing beyond our consent had become a lumbering giant, slamming shut the gates of opportunity, threatening to crush the very roots of our freedom.

What brought America back? The American people brought us back– with quiet courage and common sense; with undying faith that in this nation under God the future will be ours, for the future belongs to the free.

Tonight the American people deserve our thanks– for 37 straight months of economic growth; for sunrise firms and modernized industries creating 9 million new jobs in 3 years; interest rates cut in half and inflation falling from over 12 percent in 1980 to under 4 today; and a mighty river of good works, a record $74 billion in voluntary giving last year alone.

Despite the pressures of our modern world, family and community remain the moral core of our society, guardians of our values and hopes for the future. Family and community are the…

Source: Congress Archives

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[Text] First Page of Reagan’s State of the Union Address After Challenger Disaster appeared first on Witnify.

Author: Ben Nussbaum

It was a cold morning at Cape Canaveral on January 28, 1986. Crews had worked the night before clearing ice from the launch tower that held the Challenger Space Shuttle.

Inside the Shuttle, five men and two women waited to lift off. They would spend six days in space. The vast apparatus of Cape Canaveral, the ornate prelaunch routine, and the many hundreds of millions of dollars that had been spent to put the crew inside the Shuttle and ready it for launch disguised the fact that for most of the nation the launch was no big deal.

In 1985 alone there had been nine Space Shuttle missions, and Columbia had already completed a mission earlier in January of 1986. The Challenger crew included Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher from New Hampshire; the Teacher in Space program was a way to drum up continued buzz about the Shuttle program.

The fact that Shuttle flights were becoming commonplace meant the vehicle was working. Originally the Shuttle was meant to fly as many as 50 times in a year, making space travel routine — even affordable.

In some schools students watched a live telecast, provided by NASA to celebrate McAuliffe’s launch. The major networks ignored the launch, continuing with their regular programs. Only CNN carried the broadcast live.

At 11:38 Challenger blasted off, leaving a trial of white vapor in a clear blue sky. CNN patched into audio of NASA public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt, who clicked off constant updates: “Roll program confirmed. … Engines beginning throttle down now. … Three good fuel cells.” The network’s Tom Mintier broke in to say the mission was on its way. As Mintier started to recount the delays Challenger had faced (the flight had been postponed five times), he paused. It was 73 seconds after blastoff. On screen the Shuttle — 10 miles up in the sky — had exploded. Mintier stuttered something about an explosion and waited. The voice of NASA’s Nesbitt returned, saying “flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. obviously a major malfunction.”

The screen showed fireballs and falling debris, but no one on CNN’s coverage spoke. Finally, almost a minute later, Nesbitt was back on, saying the inevitable: “We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded. Flight director has confirmed that.”

Before NASA confirmed the explosion, the few people watching live on CNN that day had already shifted into mourning — the images on the television screen were undeniable. What no one knew then was that the seven crew members were almost definitely still alive, hurtling to Earth inside the cabin of the Space Shuttle. They may or may not have lost consciousness, but if they did they almost certainly regained awareness at some point during the nearly three minutes that the cabin plummeted downwards. It hit the sea going over 200 miles per hour, killing all seven crew members immediately; CNN was already airing a replay of the initial explosion.

The cause of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion was an O-ring that malfunctioned in the cold. Engineers were aware of the problem; their warnings had been lost in NASA’s bureaucratic maze. The result: The Shuttle program was grounded for nearly three years. The program rebounded, then suffered another devastating blow in 2003 with the Columbia disaster. U.S. space exploration is now a private-public partnership, with SpaceX leading the way.

Ronald Reagan, scheduled to give the State of the Union address that night, instead appeared on television to commemorate the Challenger crew. He quoted a World War II era poem written by an airman shot down at the age of 19: The crew had “slipped the surly bonds of Earth,” he said, “to touch the face of God.”

Where were you when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded? To share your memories of the event with Witnify, click here.

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[Blog] Remembering the Challenger Disaster appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi7RHXnYB5Y

A man who was a student at Christ the King school in Florida recollects how he and his classmates ran outside immediately after the explosion and saw pieces of debris falling from the sky. The Challenger exploded January 28, 1986. NASA had arranged for many schools to watch the blastoff live, in part because a schoolteacher, Christa McAuliffe, was onboard the shuttle.

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Florida Man Remembers Watching Challenger Debris Fall From the Sky appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJtKvut0zjY

Jack Moss, an optometrist from Corydon, Indiana, traveled to Florida to watch the Challenger blastoff. He recorded the event on his new video camera, still a novelty in 1986. In this eyewitness footage, Moss and others react to the explosion. First they are confused by the twin vapor clouds, then they realize that the launch has gone wrong. Moss gave this footage to the Space Exploration Archive shortly before he passed away in 2009. The Challenger explosion took place on January 28, 1986.

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Home Video: ‘That’s Trouble of Some Kind, Isn’t It?’ appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZSPK1h3g2A

Astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman remembers his friend and fellow astronaut Ron McNair, one of the seven people who were killed in the Challenger explosion on January 28, 1986. Hoffman gives a first-person account of his interaction with McNair, who earned a PhD at MIT before being selected as an astronaut. Hoffman flew five missions on the Space Shuttle, the last in 1996, and was one of the astronauts who helped fix the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Fellow Astronaut Remembers Challenger Crew Member Ron McNair appeared first on Witnify.