Challenger: Voo Final

Many born in the 90's have no recollection of a time when space exploration failed. This documentary looks at the successes of NASA in terms of inclusion during the 1970's and 80's. Then looked at how NASA got greedy and tried to do too many things at once, 7 great people were sacrificed in this greediness in January of 1986.

Full disclosure: I am a space enthusiast. I would have loved to go to space. And I vehemently support the US manned space program.

However... I have lived through all three major US space catastrophes, where we managed to kill (as of today) 17 astronauts in spacecraft (albeit three of those on the ground), and the sad truth about each of those tragedies is that they occurred because of people who put "schedules" and/or "money", ahead of crew safety. My "impression" is that, at the moment, we seem as though we might be over that hurdle (in our space program), but if for no other reason, this four-part documentary should serve as a cautionary tale, as it clearly shows how seemingly intelligent people, can make extremely dumb (or selfish) decisions, with total disregard for human life. It also clearly shows how, when incidents like these occur, you absolutely need to bring in a bevy of _independent_ outsiders to oversee the inevitable investigations that follow, because the guilty parties (be they individuals, or corporations) will go out of their way to try to gloss over their culpability, in having caused failures on this scale.

The focus of this documentary is different than a lot a previous efforts that cover this tragedy. It does go into a lot of detail about the root cause of the accident, how it was already a known (and very concerning) problem, and how/why managers within the contractor (Morton Thiokol) and NASA ranks choose to rationalize away the risks, simply to try to keep the shuttle program "on schedule". But this documentary spends just as much time talking about the seven people who lost their lives, and numerous family members and friends of the astronauts participated in new interviews, to give a more thorough understanding of who these people were, and what their lives were before the tragedy, and could have been, had their lives not ended so unnecessarily.

Also, there are interviews with people who risked the livelihoods to come forward during the Rogers Commission investigation, to provide information that no one else was providing, which clearly detailed the root cause of the accident, and the culpability of the people who decided to ignore the warnings of "impending doom". And, as with the family members, there are also new interviews (somewhat surprisingly) with the key (living) Thiokol and NASA employees who participated in the (flawed) recommendation to launch Challenger, even though their own engineers were vehemently opposed to doing so.

Anyway, this is an important slice of US Space Program history, and the series gives a solid understanding of how/why this tragedy occurred, as well as an "up close and personal" look at the people involved. I highly recommend it.

I can remember this as a kid and always had a fascination with the disaster. And this is a amazing documentary. Brings back so many feelings.

I have spent much of my adult life avoiding thinking about this tragedy. It is a case study on how an organization can become wicked and its members essentially the epitome of evil.

For me it was just horribly sad to watch this and there is a prevalent sense of horror as events move toward the inevitable ending.

What made it worth watching for me was to learn about Feynman's role. I knew the outline of it but not the specifics. It's quite amazing.

What astonishes me is there are these awful, old, gross NASA administrators who are still totally unrepentant, although they are clearly and obviously to blame for what happened.

Much like President Kennedy's assassination on 11/22/63 or the terrorist events of 9/11/01, the moment that the space shuttle Challenger exploded just minutes after take-off in 1986 is one of those "where were you when..." moments. This documentary looks back at the tragedy and its context in American culture at the time.

The first two episodes are more history lessons than anything else, setting the groundwork for why the space shuttle program--and Challenger specifically--was a topic of conversation throughout the 1980s. It also examines all the crew members of that fateful voyage, including of course the much-publicized schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Your enjoyment mileage may vary for these episodes, as besides interviews with surviving family members they don't bring much more to the table other than context.

The final two episodes, however, really dig into the exact reason behind the malfunction (faulty o-rings) and clearly re-trace a faulty decision-making process from NASA that placed slavish devotion to schedule (and some hubris mixed in) over protecting human life. These episodes are riveting, especially when key NASA players are interviewed for their thoughts after the passage of time. You might be surprised at the recalcitrance of some of them.

Overall, this is a solid and balanced (both context and deep-dive) look at an incredibly sad event. It will bring tears to your eyes on multiple occasions. The access to family members of the astronauts, former high-level NASA officials, and even certain celebrities of the time are the hallmark here, along with a solemn lesson to be learned about the value of safety versus hubris.