In 1986, seven astronauts boarded Space Shuttle Challenger for what was meant to be a routine tenth flight of the orbiter. Seventy-three seconds after lift-off, the shuttle broke apart in front of millions of viewers, in what remains one of the worst disasters in the history of human spaceflight.

But how did a craft NASA claimed was as safe as an airliner come to fail in full view of a watching nation? Who knew the risks, and when? And why, seventeen years later, did it happen again?

This is a Short History Of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster.

A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Dr. Matthew Hersch, an historian at New York and Harvard universities, and author of Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle.

Written by Kate Harrison | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Mirianna Pitman-Latham and Matthew Peaty | Assembly edit by Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Fact check: Sean Coleman

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