On January 28, 1986, at 11:30 a.m., many Americans were "glued to the tube" watching the takeoff of the Challenger on another NASA space shuttle launch. Suddenly, the unthinkable happened. Only 73 seconds into the flight, the spacecraft exploded and burst into flames. TV cameras captured this disaster as a right flash in the sky followed by a white trail of smoke.
From one perspective, the root cause of this catastrophe was an engineering flaw. The rocket seals did not hold up under freezing temperatures. But the engineers of the rocket booster had anticipated a potential seal problem under the weather conditions and warned against the launch. Unfortunately, the NASA executive who made the final "go" decision was shielded from the engineers' warnings. Frustrated by several launch delays, but emboldened by prior successes, a NASA management group decided to silence the engineers' warnings.