Now........ that man was a magnificent LEADER.

I just can't. As a Florida girl, I just can't bear it. I can still remember looking up at the horrible, wrong contrails.

A local guy, Mike Reynolds of Jacksonville, was up for the Teacher in Space gig and was passed over for Sally Ride. He was the alternate. He has never gotten over it, either. It haunts him.

All that engineering. All that fail-safe protocol. All that brain-power. All that cold. And someone, somewhere said, "Nah, it'll be fine."

"...the crew compartment suddenly engulfed in brilliant orange flame ... fireball..."

No, not just the fuel prematurely burning.
Breaking through its bond of flesh, yearning,
'Twas the crew's single spirit's force
A new bright star on its heavenward course.

Let's not forget what happened next. The DC filth made it crime to touch the debris that they had rained down on people's private property.

And let's not forget those loved ones left behind. In the musical tears of Ashokan Farewell --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RMNoIzUY-0

and some of its lyrics --
"... My thoughts will return to the sound of your laughter,
The magic of moving as one,
And a time we'll remember long ever after
The moonlight and music and dancing are done.

Will we climb the hills once more?
Will we walk the woods together?
Will I feel you holding me close once again?
Will every song we've sung stay with us forever?
Will you dance in my dreams or my arms until then?
..."
http://www.lyrics.net/lyric/1175072

O-ring design (including operating temperature & pressure) is a very basic part of engineering a system in which dangerous fluids are kept within pipes. That NASA should have gotten this so wrong is quite unbelievable.

...That NASA should have gotten this so wrong is quite unbelievable...

Not so fast there.
Everything was engineered correctly, as evidenced by the tens of successful flights. Management (not Engineering) forced the issue of the launch occurring in conditions that were outside of design specs (too cold out).
Having said that, I do wish that Engineering had stuck to their principles and refused to participate.

I watched this happen from my back yard in Melbourne, FL.

Charlie, NPR just released this, after 30 years:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/28/464744781/30-years-after-disaster-challenger-engineer-still-blames-himself

It's horrible to contemplate the poor, good engineer who feels he didn't say enough. Dear man.

High Flight
By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

"Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God."

---
Cut and pasted with leaking eyes...
God be with you.
tom

Today's 'leader':

The shuttle crashed.
Gotta go, tee time in 25...

Yeah, I doan like'im.

@Charlie

NASA's part in the O-ring design that they got so wrong was not the actual design of the ring but the managerial decision that the operating conditions in which the O-ring was sound could be bypassed.

WE all saw it. True, it wasn't hidden. But why it happened was hidden- namely sabotage. We pay large prices for allowing foreign influence into our country, including the loss of our liberty because of the necessity of enhanced security everywhere.