Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

by Adam Higginbotham

Intended to blast off like a rocket, go into orbit like a spacecraft, and land like an airplane, almost every element of the proposed new ship would have to survive the full range of the extraordinary forces exerted on man and machine by spaceflight. These would begin with liftoff, where the acoustic shock of its rocket engines screaming in unison could reach 167 decibels—powerful enough to kill a human being. As it ascended and accelerated, the shuttle would be buffeted by wind resistance and drag equivalent to several times its weight on the ground, until it reached the point known by the engineers as “Max Q”—the point at which the airframe risks being torn to pieces by the forces of maximum aerodynamic stress. On reaching the vacuum of space, it would be plunged into temperatures of minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit—the “cold soak,” low enough to embrittle metal to the point that it can shatter like hard candy. On reentry, the skin of the craft, enveloped by ionizing air and blazing plasma, would heat from cold soak to 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit—high enough to melt steel—and reach a velocity of up to twenty-five times the speed of sound before slowing to a few hundred miles an hour to land on its own undercarriage under the control of its pilots.