page_title: Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
section_title: White House response
hierarchical_section_title: Space Shuttle Challenger disaster / Aftermath / White House response
caption_attribution_description: Image C33141-14: President Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Nancy Reagan with families of the Challenger victims at the memorial service for the space shuttle crew in Houston, Texas.
context_page_description: The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a fatal incident in the United States space program that occurred on January 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The crew consisted of five NASA astronauts, and two payload specialists. The mission carried the designation STS-51-L and was the tenth flight for the Challenger orbiter.
  The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST. The disintegration of the vehicle began after a joint in its right solid rocket booster failed at liftoff. The failure was caused by the failure of O-ring seals used in the joint that were not designed to handle the unusually cold conditions that existed at this launch. The seals' failure caused a breach in the SRB joint, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank.
context_section_description: President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give the 1986 State of the Union Address on the evening of the Challenger disaster. After a discussion with his aides, Reagan postponed the State of the Union, and instead addressed the nation about the disaster from the Oval Office of the White House. Reagan's national address was written by Peggy Noonan, and was listed as one of the most significant speeches of the 20th century in a survey of 137 communication scholars. It finished with the following statement, which quoted from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr.:
  We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'
  
  Three days later, Ronald and Nancy Reagan traveled to the Johnson Space Center to speak at a memorial service honoring the crew members, where he stated:
  Sometimes, when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain.
  It was attended by 6,000 NASA employees and 4,000 guests, as well as by the families of the crew. During the ceremony, an Air Force band led the singing of "God Bless America" as NASA T-38 Talon jets flew directly over the scene, in the traditional missing-man formation. All activities were broadcast live by the national television networks.
  Rumors surfaced in the weeks after the disaster that the White House itself had pressed for Challenger to launch before the scheduled January 28 State of the Union address, because Reagan had intended to mention the launch in his remarks. Three weeks before the State of the Union address was to have been given, NASA did suggest that Reagan make callouts to the assumed successful Challenger launch, and to mention Christa McAuliffe's shuttle voyage as "'the ultimate field trip' of an American schoolteacher". In March 1986, The White House released a copy of the original State of the Union speech as it would have been given before the disaster. In that speech, Reagan intended to mention an X-ray experiment launched on Challenger and designed by a guest he'd invited to the address, but he did not plan any other specific discussion about the launch or NASA in the address. Inclusion of extensive discussion of NASA, the launch, or McAuliffe in the State of the Union address effectively stopped at the desk of Cabinet Secretary Alfred H. Kingon. In the rescheduled State of the Union address on February 4, President Reagan did mention the deceased Challenger crew members, and modified his remarks about the X-ray experiment as "launched and lost".
caption: Memorial service on January 31, 1986, at Houston, Texas, attended by President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan (left)