It was the 25th shuttle launch; the launch that was to carry the first teacher, Christa McAuliffe to space.
On Thursday, three decades will have passed since seven astronauts lost their lives onboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
A WJXT original documentary looks back at that day to see what went so terribly wrong, and why it never had to happen.
Those of us old enough to remember know exactly where we were when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. But in an era before 24/7 news, few may be aware that the shuttle program was a ticking time bomb -- a disaster waiting to happen.
Shuttle astronaut, Norman Thagard flew on the Challenger twice. He told News4jax that the orbiter was tremendously complicated.
"It obviously wasn’t as safe as some other vehicles,"
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that space travel is inherently dangerous. Still, the re-usable shuttles with their breathtaking lift-offs, futuristic science missions, and oooh and ahhh landings made it all look so easy. In reality, alarm bells were ringing.
Channel 4 sat down with the top engineer, Allen McDonald, who helped design the solid rocket boosters at the Morton Thiokol plant in Utah. Those boosters would be directly linked to the disaster.
McDonald, was well aware of a flaw in solid rocket boosters O-rings. He and others warned his managers that they didn't have enough data to know if the O-rings would seal property below 53 degrees and refused to sign off on the launch that morning.
NASA said it was 36 degrees on Launch Pad 39B at 11:38 a.m. when the Challenger launched.
As we would all learn, the O-rings did lose elasticity in the cold, leaving gaps where dangerous gases could escape and catch fire.
On the eve of the launch, forecasters predicted freezing temperatures at the Cape. While the astronauts were getting ready for a good night’s sleep, they had no idea that engineers were pleading with NASA to delay lift-off.
McDonald was there when his engineers presented their case, only to hear NASA’s Larry Mulloy say, “Thiokol, when the hell do you want me to launch, next April?”
The launch went on, and we all know what happened. But even before the first piece of debris was recovered, McDonald and others believed a cover-up was underway.