The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred 30 years ago yesterday. The nation watched on live TV as, just 73 seconds after liftoff, Challenger exploded, killing all seven crew members on board. Everyone was shocked. Well, everyone except Bob Ebeling.
Ebeling was an engineer at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol back in 1986 and tried to stop the Challenger launch the night before. Bob and his colleagues had predicted that the shuttle would indeed explode, due to the very cold temperatures at launch time. They knew that the seals would fail, which ultimately happened, leading to the catastrophe.
Ebeling has been living with this for the last 30 years, only speaking to NPR back in 1986 anonymously. NPR recently interviewed Ebeling again, and it’s just so damn heartbreaking. Check out the piece below.
