geekosystem

Space flight, if you think about it, is really terrifying. Ambitious, absolutely. Also dangerous and risky, and every astronaut knows this. Most of us will be Earth-bound the entire time we exist and never even fathom ourselves leaving our home planet's atmosphere. But a small amount of people do -- literally -- go above and beyond places we will never go, and that should be celebrated. And when we lose some of those people in their question to discover, it's best to mourn what could have been and honor what they had strived to achieve. Today marks 25 years since the Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after it launched, on an uncharacteristically cold day in Florida, and at the insistence of people who flew, figuratively, a little too close to the sun.

The explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle in January of 1986 permanently dampened Americans' infatuation with space exploration. The nation was shocked by the tragic deaths of all seven of the Challenger's crew members, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, and to this day, NASA has not fully recovered from the damage the accident did to its reputation. A report on the explosion commissioned by President Reagan specifically called out NASA's organizational culture and decision-making process as key factors behind its occurrence. Recently, a video of the Challenger explosion has surfaced. It was taken by a recently deceased optometrist, who lived not far from the launch site: