40 Years Ago: Ronald Reagan Addresses The Nation After Challenger Disaster

Wednesday marked 40 years since the in-flight explosion of NASA’s Space Shuttle Challenger — just 73 seconds after lift-off — and then-President Ronald Reagan’s address to a nation in shock.

STS-51-L, according to NASA, was the 25th mission of the NASA Space Shuttle program. Children in classrooms across the nation gathered around televisions to watch the shuttle that would carry the first teacher, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, to space. But just over one minute after the launch, it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong.

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An investigation following the disaster determined that an o-ring in the right solid rocket booster had failed, likely in part due to the extreme cold weather in Cape Canaveral at the time.

The Crew

• Spacecraft commander Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, a veteran Air Force test pilot who’d logged thousands of flight hours and flown in combat in Vietnam, joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 1978. He piloted STS-41C, the fifth orbital flight of the Challenger spacecraft, after a successful launch in April of 1984.
• Mission pilot Michael J. Smith was an instructor at the Navy’s Advanced Jet Training Command before flying A-6 “Intruders” from the deck of the USS Kitty Hawk in Southeast Asia. He was selected for NASA in 1980, and the 1986 mission was to be his first.
• Judith A. Resnik, mission specialist, was the second American woman ever to orbit the earth aboard the maiden flight of Discovery, STS-41D, in the fall of 1984.
• Ronald McNair, mission specialist, was selected by NASA in 1978 — and became the second black American in space when he flew in the Challenger Shuttle mission STS-41B in February of 1984.
• Ellison S. Onizuka, mission specialist, served in the Air Force prior to being selected for NASA in 1978. He also served as a mission specialist on STS-51C in January of 1985, on the Discovery orbiter.
• Gregory B. Jarvis, a payload specialist with Hughes Aircraft Corp.’s Space and Communications Group, competed with 600 others in his company for a spot on the shuttle.
• Sharon Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher, also competed against 11,000 applicants for a spot on the Challenger crew. After being fascinated as a child by the Apollo moon landing, she wrote on her application, “I watched the Space Age being born and I would like to participate.”

That evening, President Reagan addressed the nation, announcing at the beginning of his remarks that he’d originally planned to deliver a very different speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss,” he said.

He went on to speak of the dedication and bravery of all who worked in NASA’s space program, telling the families of those who’d tragically lost their lives that their loved ones had been true pioneers and true patriots.

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“To the children who’d watched the disaster unfold on live television,” he added, “I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.”

“There’s a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard a ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and an historian later said, ‘He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it,'” Reagan added. “Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.'”