Book excerpt: “Challenger” by Adam Higginbotham

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British journalist Adam Higginbotham, author of Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster, returns with his exhaustively researched new book, “Challenger: a true story of heroism and disaster at the edge of space” (Simon & Schuster), about the 1986 space shuttle disaster.

Read an excerpt below.

“Defiant” by Adam Higginbotham

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Flight control room one
Johnson Space Center, Houston
January 28, 1986, 8:30 am

The coffee, as always, was horrible: bitter and thin, the color of tea; almost certainly inedible. Regardless, he filled a glass, returned to the console, and plugged in his headphones. It promised to be a long morning.

Steve Nesbitt arrived at his office early, checking the Cape’s latest weather updates before taking a short walk past the duck ponds to Building 30 and up the elevator to Mission Control. But from what he had already seen on TV, there was no way they could launch today: it was very cold in Florida and there were two-foot-high icicles hanging from the porch. Space Shuttle Mission 51-L seemed certain to face yet another delay.

Nesbitt had been in NASA’s public affairs office for just over five years and was present at the triumph of the first space shuttle launch in 1981 – helping to answer a clamor of questions from press and media around the world. He has since become chief commentator for Mission Control and has provided live commentary from Houston on nearly all twenty-four Space Shuttle flights. But he was still nervous.

The responsibility of translating the bewildering dialect of engineering jargon and acronyms spoken by NASA engineers and astronauts into language the public could understand began with the launch countdown commentary that echoed over the speakers at Cape Canaveral. After that – when the count reached zero and the spacecraft left the ground – everything that happened was under Nesbitt’s supervision. There was no script, and he knew his words would be broadcast live to anyone watching a launch on television — whether on the three national networks, the newly launched cable channel CNN, or via NASA’s own dedicated satellite feed. ; instead, he relied on his Ascension Event List, which mapped out a series of milestones the shuttle would pass through on its way to orbit, from the slow rotation it would perform as it moved away from the launch pad to the moment in which its main engines shut down, at the edge of space.

The quiet environment of the Flight Control Rooms was designed to focus the minds of each of the flight controllers on their own tasks, and only recently was a TV set installed next to the Flight Director’s console to display images from the space shuttle. in flight. Nesbitt rarely had time to look at it, as he focused his attention on the console in front of him. Here, he had access to real-time information about the spacecraft: in his headset, he could hear dozens of audio “loops” connecting groups of NASA engineers and flight controllers in the internal communications network; and on a pair of black-and-white monitors he could see telemetry data transmitted back to Earth by the shuttle, columns of numbers updated every second describing any one of hundreds of technical parameters of its flight performance.

With a few hundred feeds to choose from, Nesbitt had his regular preferences: “Flight Operations Procedures,” which included data about the shuttle’s engine performance, and the “Trajectory” screen, which showed its speed, altitude, and distance of flight. descent. Even with all this at his fingertips, Nesbitt found live commentary nerve-wracking and practiced frequently. He took his public service duty seriously and hated it when other commentators got away with flowery language, like Hollywood PR people. He wanted to play fair.

And yet, suffering the effects of a cold he had contracted the day before, even as the final countdown began, Nesbitt would have welcomed another launch delay: his throat was sore and he wasn’t sure he would be able to talk through the entire climb. without your voice becoming tense or choking. He waited silently for his cue: the shuttle engines and gigantic solid rockets would ignite; for his counterpart in the Cape to announce that Challenger had cleared the tower.

It was almost exactly 11:38 in the morning when Nesbitt saw the numbers on his screen start to move and, a few seconds later, he activated his microphone to speak:

“Good rolling program confirmed. Challenger Now going down.”

On the console next to him, the flight surgeon – a Navy doctor in full uniform – was keeping an eye on the large TV on the other side of the room. It was a perfect launch. Challenger There was less than half a minute left in the flight when Nesbitt gave his next update.

“The engines are starting to slow down, now at 94%,” he said. “Normal acceleration for most of the flight is 104 percent. We will soon reduce it to 65 percent.”

The flight surgeon watched the shuttle climb higher into the cloudless sky over the Atlantic; Nesbitt kept his eyes on the monitors. “Speed ​​of 2,257 feet per second,” he said. “Altitude 4.3 nautical miles, distance less than three nautical miles.” All the numbers looked good; at sixty-eight seconds, he related the next key moment on the list in front of him. “Engines are revving. Three engines now at 104 percent.”

Three meters away, in the next row of consoles, astronaut Dick Covey confirmed the change with the shuttle commander: “Challengerspeed up.”

“Roger, speed up.”

The spacecraft was one minute and ten seconds into the flight.

Four seconds later, Nesbitt heard a loud pop in his headphones. Beside him, the surgeon saw Challenger abruptly obscured by a ball of orange and white flame.

“What was that?” she said.

But Nesbitt was looking at his monitors.

“One minute and fifteen seconds. Speed ​​of 2,900 feet per second,” he said.

“Altitude nine nautical miles. Lower distance seven nautical miles.” Then Nesbitt looked up and followed the surgeon’s gaze toward the TV set. Something terrible happened. There was no sign of Challenger, just the expanding fireball where it once was – and the exhaust trails of the space shuttle’s two booster rockets, spinning in opposite directions across the sky. His console was of no help: the data streams had frozen. Around him, the other flight controllers were stunned, their faces relaxed with shock. Nobody said a word.

Nesbitt knew he needed to speak, but he had no information to explain what he was witnessing. His mind raced. He thought about his responsibility to the public and to the astronauts’ families. He thought, suddenly, of the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life almost five years earlier: In the ensuing confusion, CBS anchor Dan Rather announced that White House Press Secretary James Brady had been killed – only to discover that Brady, despite the bullet in his head, remained very much alive. Nesbitt didn’t want to make a mistake like that.

A few moments of silence stretched on for half a minute. An agonizing silence enveloped the NASA feedback loop; an eternity of dead air. On the TV screen, the cloud floated in the wind; fragments of debris floated toward the ocean. The Flight Director consulted his team in vain for answers.

Forty-one seconds passed before Steve Nesbitt spoke again.

“The flight controllers here are analyzing the situation very carefully,” he said, his voice monotone and impassive. “Obviously a serious malfunction.”

Excerpted from “Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster at the Edge of Space” by Adam Higginbotham. Published by Avid Reader Press/Simon and Schuster. Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.

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