And there they found fundamental issues with how the shuttle program had been developed and funded from the very beginning: They lookedВ at the entire shuttle program and how NASA came toВ operateВ a balky and expensive spacecraft that lacked some of the basic safety features of the agencyвЂ™s earlier spacecraft, such as a launch escape tower or ejection seats. вЂњ.a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted internal flight safety problems to bypass key Shuttle managers.вЂќД«ut the commission didnвЂ™t stop there. At the next level, the Rogers commission determined that the flawed decision to launch the shuttle on thatВ bitterly cold January day 3 decades ago was the result of miscommunication and more damningly: The Rogers commission, likeВ allВ thorough accidents reports, examined both the proximate cause of the loss of the Challenger-the O-ring burn-through-and the wider systematic problems that contributed to that failure. And yet, you can leave things undone, with the added danger of harboringВ a false sense of security. And this is the final, painful, lesson of Challenger: You can utterly and sincerelyВ think youвЂ™ve made all the fixes you need to,В to the point where you get start gettingВ quite exasperatedВ if people ask you if youвЂ™ve fixed things and just how you fixed them (witness NASAвЂ™s defensiveness on safety issuesВ during the 1990s). OвЂ™Keefe was sincere.В I haveВ no doubt that many people kept a copy of the Rogers report close to hand, andВ that these people had dedicated themselves to ensuringВ that none of theВ mistakes detailed withinВ would be repeated. OвЂ™Keefe assured me that NASAвЂ™s safety culture was strong, that managers kept a copy of the report of Rogers commission in their desks to make sure they kept its lessons to heart.

At the time, questions were being raised about NASAвЂ™s attitude to safety in its collaboration with Russian space program. In 2002, while covering the space beat for Spectrum, I metВ with NASAвЂ™s then-chief administrator Sean OвЂ™Keefe in the agency'sВ Washington D.C. And NASA assured us that management failures, whichВ had led the agency to ignoreВ repeated warning signsВ that the solid-fuel booster O-ring design was flawed, had been corrected. But I was wrong, as the break up of the Columbia on re-entry and the loss of its crew would prove in 2003.ДЄs IEEE Spectrum reported in the wake of the disaster, many improvements were made in the wake of ChallengerвЂ™s destruction, including redesigns of the infamous O-rings that allowed errant rocket exhaust to ignite the shuttleвЂ™s external fuel tank and an attempt to put risk management on a firmer statistical footing. government would never repeat any of the mistakes that had been revealed as leading to the deaths of seven astronauts. Like most people, I assumed that NASA and the U.S. I followed news reports of the Rogers commission as it investigated the disaster, and cheered when, two-and-a-half years later, the Discovery resumed shuttle operations. Of course, for many of my American peers, the shock was amplifiedВ because the presence of Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space, meant that they were watching the launch live in their classrooms.Д«ut even as a twelve-year-old living in Ireland, I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the radio bulletin announcing the tragedyВ and experiencedВ the sharp pang of dismay and loss.

Like many of my generation, the loss of the Challenger space shuttle and its crew on this day in 1986В was a defining moment in our childhoods.

Space shuttle columbia disaster