Jan. 28, 2026, marks the 40th anniversary of the Challenger space shuttle accident in Cape Canaveral, Florida – the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft during its mission.
Just 73 seconds after takeoff on an unusually frigid morning in 1986, seven astronauts lost their lives due to failing primary and secondary O-ring seals within the space shuttle solid rocket booster. The Challenger space shuttle crew was scheduled to deploy a communications satellite and study Halley’s Comet while in orbit.
Ronald Doel, a Florida State University professor of history, has a firsthand perspective of the Challenger accident and the grief it caused within the NASA community. At the time, he was stationed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a member of the press covering the Voyager spacecraft’s significant encounter with Uranus – the first time the planet was explored.
Doel feels Challenger is an outsized event in American history that impacts modern-day space exploration.
“The loss of Challenger – like the loss of Columbia 17 years later – underscores that what motivates citizen support for space exploration are people in space; not merely machines,” Doel said. “No matter how we might marvel over photographs from remote robotic missions to Mars and the outer planets, and how much we have learned about other worlds, people in space commands attention.”
Doel is an expert in the history of science and technology and has written several related books. His research includes over 100 transcribed oral history interviews that he led with natural scientists, administrators and others whose lives intersected with the practice of modern science.
Media interested in a broad perspective of the 40th anniversary of the Challenger space shuttle accident may reach out to Professor Ronald Doel at rdoel@fsu.edu.
Ronald Doel, professor of history, College of Arts and Sciences
Speaking from a historical perspective, what do you feel is the lasting impact of Challenger 40 years later?
The shuttle disaster reminded Americans and the rest of the globe that human space exploration remains risky and dangerous. After the Apollo 1 fire had killed three astronauts in 1967, Apollo missions to the moon succeeded without the loss of life. Even when an oxygen tank exploded in the service module of Apollo 13, NASA found a way to return astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert safely back to Earth. Many still remember that Challenger carried the first teacher, Christa McAuliffe, into space. The hope of routinely bringing people into space seemed premature.
What are some of the most critical lessons learned from this event?
Robust technological systems, including spacecraft, are costly. NASA was authorized to devote considerable resources to make sure the Apollo program that brings humans to the moon had redundancy systems built in. They mattered. In contrast, the space shuttle program had been justified to bring humans and cargo routinely into orbit – shuttles were akin to a space bus with frequent, routine launches anticipated. Concern with shuttle components that might malfunction – red flags – were often disregarded.
Another key lesson was appreciating the challenge of maintaining funding as NASA persuaded NASA leaders to downplay reported risks. President Ronald Reagan intended to mention Challenger and the first teacher in space in his State of the Union address; NASA leaders were aware of this when they overruled the clear concerns raised by Morton Thiokol engineers that the shuttle’s solid-rocket boosters might fail given frigid temperatures at Cape Canaveral when the January 1986 launch window approached. Scholars have explored this incident in depth – one of the best books is Diane Vaughn’s “The Challenger Launch Decision.”