--- title: Challenger: The Science of a Space Shuttle Disaster description: It's been thirty years since that awful morning on Jan. 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger became a fireball in the Florida sky. canonical: https://time.com/4196145/space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-science/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-28T09:45:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:40:55.966Z article:section: Science og:title: Challenger: The Science of a Space Shuttle Disaster og:description: Remembering, thirty years later, the tragic events of Jan. 28, 1986 og:url: https://time.com/4196145/space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-science/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6fe842770228b3d5/69887b0cab6d77f2406a828a/space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-30-anniversary-facebook.jpg?branch=production&width=1120&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1120 og:image:height: 630 og:image:alt: The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Jan. 28, 1986. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Challenger: The Science of a Space Shuttle Disaster twitter:description: Remembering, thirty years later, the tragic events of Jan. 28, 1986 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6fe842770228b3d5/69887b0cab6d77f2406a828a/space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-30-anniversary-facebook.jpg?branch=production&width=1120&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Challenger: The Science of a Space Shuttle Disaster > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=d294bd74-4717-4b53-b6db-8aa5d73d2999&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Challenger: The Science of a Shuttle Disaster [Watch (HLS stream): Challenger: The Science of a Shuttle Disaster](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bnipliOt.m3u8) (3:26)  _Published 2016-01-28. TIME's Senior Editor Jeffrey Kluger explains the science behind the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster_  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Jan 28, 2016 9:45 AM UTC  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Jan 28, 2016 9:45 AM UTC There’s a terrible power to the iconic pictures of the space shuttle Challenger exploding — the orange-white fireball in the Florida sky, with the twin contrails of the solid rocket boosters briefly continuing on their journey to nowhere. It’s been 30 years since that awful morning on Jan. 28, 1986, and an entire generation of Americans has been born and grown into young adulthood since. Yet the scenes and sounds of that moment — including the faces of the astronauts’ family members watching the disaster unfold, and the voice of the NASA announcer saying, with incongruous flatness, “Obviously a major malfunction”— have become part of the nation’s shared experience. You don’t have to have been alive on December 7, 1941 or September 11, 2001 to see the pictures from Pearl Harbor or downtown New York and feel strangely part of the day. [**MORE: Challenger Disaster at 30 — How Reagan Mourned a Space Shuttle**](http://ti.me/1npISnM) The space shuttles never became the safe and reliable spacecraft they were originally advertised to be. They flew for 25 more years after Challenger, yes, but before they were through they claimed a second crew, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on reentry in 2003\. It’s partly for that reason that the U.S. has since returned to the old way of getting people to space —putting them in a vehicle at the top of a rocket and bringing them home by parachute. That keeps them farther from the flaming engines during liftoff and simplifies the physics of coming back down. But space travel will never be, and has never been, a risk-free undertaking. The day before the Challenger crew was lost, the people of NASA observed the anniversary of the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, who burned to death in an Apollo spacecraft on the launch pad during a countdown rehearsal on January 27, 1967\. Those three astronauts were quietly remembered that day — and the very next morning the nation had seven more to mourn. And yet the fact that human beings keep going back to space, and surely always will, says something about the allure of the worlds beyond our own. ## Transcript This was the space shuttle Challenger. These were Challenger's solid rocket boosters. This was Challenger's external fuel tank. These were the seven men and women who climbed into the spacecraft on the morning of January 28th, 1986. [ MUSIC ] And this is what their launch pad looked like. [ MUSIC ] It's a tragic fact of history the Challenger never should have left the pad on that cold day in central Florida. It's a fact of history to that less than a second after the rocket did lift off and ominous puff of gray smoke became visible on the right hand solid booster. Emerging from a spot where a rubber ring that was supposed to seal a joint had cracked in the cold. [ MUSIC ] The astronauts didn't know this, no one knew this. As the shuttle climbed in its usual way at its usual speeds, giving the crew a thrilling ride, go you mother [ BLEEP ] the pilot Mike Smith shouted. Urging his ship on. The spacecraft responded, climbing to an altitude of 46, 000 feet and reaching a velocity nearly twice the speed of sound until 73 seconds into the flight when it all came undone. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] The smoke pouring from the solid booster had given way to a flame. And the flame had burned through a strut attaching the booster to the fuel tank. And eventually through the tank itself. Igniting the hydrogen inside. The explosion that resulted produced and eerie two- fingered fireball. As the tank and spacecraft were consumed by the blast and the solid rockets now liberated Briefly continued on their way. The last words that came from the cockpit were a simple uh- oh from Smith, after which there was nothing. [ MUSIC ] Lost with Smith that day were payload specialist Gregory Jarvis, mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, and Ellison Onizuka, Commander **** Scobee, and teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe who was on board to help demonstrate That space flight was now a thing that could be almost routine. The space shuttle would fly again and it would kill again when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re- entry in 2003, claiming seven more lives. But no man or woman who has ever flown in space did so under the illusion that it was not a dangerous Risk business. That doesn't make the loss of life any less tragic. But it does make the willingness to fly despite the risks even more remarkable. 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