Challenger Explosion

-The cause of the explosion was really weather and slight miscalculation. The o-rings, which are just rubber rings that insulate the inside of containers so that nothing can get in or out, on the rocket boosters became to cold and fractured allowing gas to leak out and, with it being so volatile, get lit and explode.

-The big picture problem was that scientists did not account for the unusually cold weather that day and the fact that rubber becomes slightly brittle when it gets frozen then heated back again. Simply changing the o-rings to something more reliable and unaffected by weather would have saved the seven astronauts.

-NASA and the nation faced similar problems. NASA's space missions became less popular with common Americans because of the fear of another tragedy and thus didn't send another shuttle for a while. The United States themselves were unsure about NASA and the safety of the people that work there as astronauts, and furthermore other countries would have heard of this and that was not good for a leading scientific power.

-Other problems have come with the hardware interface module, other weather conditions, and safety issues but with the explosion of the challenger stricter regulations and weather checks have prevented other major disasters of that caliber from happening with shuttles again.

-Just a cool little fact: my father worked at the manufacturing company that made the o-rings on the challenger, he remembers federal agents coming in and asking him and several other people questions and looking at the paperwork that he stamped verifying the quality of the rings.