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

by Adam Higginbotham

When asked what he was thinking about when preparing for launch aboard his Mercury-Redstone rocket, Alan Shepard, the first American in space, had infamously replied, “The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.”

Just as they had when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the lunar surface some three years earlier, US TV networks carried live pictures of the Apollo 17 mission. This time, however, viewers called the CBS switchboard in frustration: the coverage had made them miss the latest developments in the hot hospital drama, Medical Center.

In July 1972, news emerged that the crew of Apollo 15 had been reprimanded by NASA for smuggling hundreds of specially stamped envelopes to the moon and back as part of a scheme to sell them privately on their return and use the money to set up trust funds for their children.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, Feynman wrote, for nature cannot be fooled.