Challenger Tragedy: White House Memo

By Marty McDowell/NASA

The White House staff, some of which had been preparing for the televised "State of the Union" speech Reagan was to give that night, had to assist Reagan and his speechwriters in the difficult task of quickly preparing a speech expressing the country's grief and concern. In the internal memo below, which has Ronald Reagan's handwritten "FYI" to "DTR" (presumably Donald T. Regan, his chief of Staff) note, a member of the White House staff outlines what actions President Johnson took after the Apollo 1 accident.

Source: NASA.

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		Your Memories Shared!

"I believe that the Challenger should have never even launched. The people launching it were warned that it was too cold. In my opinion, they were very ignorant in ignoring warnings tha could have saved Christa McAuliffe, Dick Scobee, Judy Resnik, Micheal Smith, Robert McNair, Ellison Onizuka, and Gregory Jarvis' lives. Also, it was not right for the astronauts to be aware of the problems and warnings concerning them! If they had been warned they would probably not have wanted to launch. Of course this is just my opinion." --Anonymous

"It to this day remains my belief that the deaths of Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger crew could very well have stemmed from a go ahead by Nancy Reagan's astrologer." --Mohammed H. Chang

Space References (Videos):
Cosmos. PBS, 2000.
Stephen Hawking's Universe. PBS, 1997.
Hyperspace. BBC, 2002.
Life Beyond Earth PBS, 1999.
The Planets. BBC, 1999.
Understanding The Universe. A&E, 1996.