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

by Adam Higginbotham

In meticulous detail, Rogers and his team exposed the concatenation of cost cutting, faulty design, management blunders, and institutional hubris that had led to the catastrophic end of Space Shuttle mission 51-L. In clear, simple language, the report described the development of the shuttle program and the background of Challenger’s final flight, from the crew’s training schedule to the record freeze that swept across Merritt Island on the night of January 27. It examined the most likely causes of the accident, provided a forensic description of the physical evidence hauled out of the Atlantic by the search and recovery teams, and concluded that—without doubt—the seven astronauts had been doomed by the failure of a single Viton pressure seal in the aft field joint of their spacecraft’s right-hand solid rocket booster.