Skip to main content

Did The White House Trigger The Challenger Catastrophe?

March 2023
1min read

An awareness of public relations considerations hasn’t been lacking
in American political practice, from the time of Sam Adams and the Boston Tea Party on. Only in our own day, though, have we seen such considerations threatening to control events to an alarmingly increased extent.

Quite possibly as planned dramatic background for President Reagan’s State of the Union address, originally scheduled for January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger was sent aloft despite weather too cold for hours beforehand to promise favorable conditions for a launching. There was no disclosure then or later of what last-minute messages may have gone from the White House to NASA executives at Huntsville, Alabama, or to officials at Cape Canaveral, bearing on the takeoff decision.

For the period from noon of January 27 to 11:38 A.M. of the 28th, by examination of White House logs or otherwise, I’d like it clearly proven or clearly disproven whether word from or on behalf of the President went to Alabama or Florida bidding those in charge not to be too finicky—given the upcoming address—about getting the Challenger and its seven astronauts into the air, cold weather or no cold weather.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "December 1990"

Authored by: Tom Carter

1890•1990

Authored by: Richard Brophy

Like any other popular art, jigsaw puzzles can tell us a lot about pieces of the past

Authored by: The Editors

The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron

Authored by: The Editors

The Story of the United States Portrayed on its Postage Stamps

Authored by: The Editors

We asked dozens of historians to play detective and tell us what case in all of American history they would most like to see cracked

For a good part of his life, the governor of New York has used history as a guide—and a solace

Authored by: Judith Dunford

Fewer than half of O. Henry’s short stories actually take place in New York, but we still see the city through his eyes

Authored by: Jeffrey W. Miller

In the early sixties it was going to revolutionize American education. By the early seventies it had confounded a generation of schoolchildren. Today it is virtually forgotten. But as we head toward another round of educational reforms, we should recall why it went wrong.

Authored by: Carmine Prioli

Giving the men who died aboard America’s first battleship a decent funeral took fourteen years, three-quarters of a million dollars, and some hair-raising engineering. But in the end, they did it right.

Featured Articles

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Rarely has the full story been told how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.