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Challenger

A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

Audiobook
0 of 2 copies available
0 of 2 copies available
Winner of the 2024 Kirkus Nonfiction Prize
  • Shortlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
  • Finalist for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction
  • A New York Times Notable Book of 2024

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
  • "Stunning...A heart-pounding thriller...Challenger is a remarkable book." —The Atlantic
  • "Devastating...A universal story that transcends time." —The New York Times
  • "Dramatic...a moving narrative." —The Wall Street Journal

    From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, "compelling, and exhaustively researched" (The Washington Post) minute-by-minute account of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating and new archival research—a riveting history that reads like a thriller.
    On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which included New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in 20th-century history—one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened, and why, has never been told.

    Based on extensive archival research and metic­ulous, original reporting, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space follows a handful of central protagonists—including each of the seven members of the doomed crew—through the years leading up to the accident, and offers a detailed account of the tragedy itself and the inves­tigation afterward. It's a compelling tale of ambition and ingenuity undermined by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubris and heroism; and of an investigation driven by leakers and whistleblowers determined to bring the truth to light. Throughout, there are the ominous warning signs of a tragedy to come, recognized but then ignored, and later hidden from the public.

    Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program and the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster, as well as the designers, engineers, and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space. A masterful blend of riveting human drama and fascinating and absorbing science, Challenger identifies a turning point in history—and brings to life an even more complex and astonishing story than we remember.
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      • Publisher's Weekly

        Starred review from March 18, 2024
        In this gripping history, bestseller Higginbotham (Midnight in Chernobyl) recaps the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion that destroyed the space shuttle Challenger soon after liftoff, killing all seven crew members, and the tragedy’s roots in a culture of negligence and recklessness at NASA. He explores the flaws that plagued the fiendishly complex shuttle design, focusing on the rubber O-rings used to seal joints in the shuttle’s twin solid rocket boosters to prevent catastrophic leaks of hot gas during lift-off. Engineers at Morton Thiokol, the rockets’ manufacturer, noticed worrisome signs that the O-rings could fail, especially in cold weather—like the sub-freezing temperatures at Cape Canaveral on the day of the launch. Higginbotham narrates the tense conference at which Morton Thiokol’s engineers pleaded with NASA to postpone the launch, only to have NASA officials, determined to quicken the pace of launches for budgetary reasons, pressure them into green-lighting it. Higginbotham’s colorful narrative contrasts the eager idealism of Challenger’s crew, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, with the arrogance of NASA honchos who dismissed warnings and casually gambled with the astronauts’ lives. His account of the engineering issues is lucid and meticulous, and his evocative prose conveys both the extraordinary achievement of rocket scientists in harnessing colossal energies with delicate mechanisms and the sudden cataclysms that erupt when the machinery fails. The result is a beguiling saga of the peril and promise of spaceflight.

      • AudioFile Magazine
        Jacques Roy adeptly treads the line between measured and conversational in this excellent performance of Higginbotham's investigation of the 1986 CHALLENGER catastrophe. Roy maintains the listener's attention through detailed accounts of the science and engineering underlying the NASA space program while also bringing to life the people involved. We hear the cheerfulness of Christa McAuliffe, who was to be the first teacher in space; the smoldering dread of engineer Roger Boisjoly as he consistently warned that the O-rings could fail in cold weather; and the scathing disbelief of Richard Feynman, who famously plunged an O-ring into ice water during the investigation. The hubris of NASA will remain with listeners, as will smaller moments like crew member Ron McNair playing his saxophone in space. A.B. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
      • Library Journal

        September 1, 2024

        Journalist and former U.S. correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph Magazine, Higginbotham (Midnight in Chernobyl) offers an expansive retrospective view of the 1986 Challenger disaster. Shortly after beginning its launch on January 28, the space shuttle orbiter disintegrated into pieces, killing all seven crew members aboard. In the aftermath, fingers were pointed at various groups within NASA and its contractors in an attempt to discover fault and assign blame. Jacques Roy's smooth narration carries listeners through a highly detailed exploration of the history of the space program to contextualize how small flaws--both mechanical and human--accumulated along the path to seemingly inevitable tragedy in the quest to make manned space flight an everyday reality. While Roy holds to a resonant evenness that some listeners may find monotonous during the more technical sections, this is balanced by the subtle use of accents and varied tones for the paraphrased conversations that reflect the range of experience and background among the people who designed, built, directed, and manned the Challenger and its sibling orbiters. VERDICT Recommended for fans of John Carreyrou's Bad Blood and the works of Patrick Radden Keefe.--Natalie Marshall

        Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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