/The Astronaut Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center.
The three greatest disasters to hit NASA’s space exploration program all happened over the course of six days between January 27 and February 1, on three different years.
On January 27, 1967, a launch pad fire took the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The three astronauts were in the spacecraft during a test firing of the rockets on the launch pad when a flash fire enveloped the command module. Despite the tragedy, the Apollo program went on to put the first man on the moon on July 20, 1969.
On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke up 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven astronauts on board: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. Due to low temperatures in Florida the morning of the accident, the O-ring seals in the solid rocket boosters became frozen and lost their flexibility. High temperature gas was able to escape the seals, resulting in the destruction of the vehicle.
The next spaceflight tragedy occurred on February 1, 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. Seven crew members, Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, and Laurel Clark, lost their lives when the shuttle’s thermal protection system failed over Texas twenty minutes before its scheduled landing in Florida.
The three greatest disasters to hit NASA’s space exploration program all happened over the course of six days between January 27 and February 1, on three different years.
On January 27, 1967, a launch pad fire took the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The three astronauts were in the spacecraft during a test firing of the rockets on the launch pad when a flash fire enveloped the command module. Despite the tragedy, the Apollo program went on to put the first man on the moon on July 20, 1969.
On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke up 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven astronauts on board: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. Due to low temperatures in Florida the morning of the accident, the O-ring seals in the solid rocket boosters became frozen and lost their flexibility. High temperature gas was able to escape the seals, resulting in the destruction of the vehicle.
The next spaceflight tragedy occurred on February 1, 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. Seven crew members, Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, and Laurel Clark, lost their lives when the shuttle’s thermal protection system failed over Texas twenty minutes before its scheduled landing in Florida.
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