Review of ‘Challenger’ by Adam Higginbotham

28th January, 1986. The space shuttle Challenger tragedy. As with his excellent book about the Chernobyl disaster (an event which occurred three months after), Adam Higginbotham does a brilliant job of piecing together everything into a compelling narrative which helps us to understand how and why these awful, history-making events happened and an exploration of the aftermath.

Book cover shows part of shuttle with US flag visible.

The majority of the book is about what led to the disaster, including the history of spaceflight, the design of the shuttle, the lives and careers of the key people, the culture of working at NASA, astronaut selection and political factors. The book demonstrates how it was not a question of if, but when, such a disaster would happen. The chapters devoted to what happened during the disaster are relatively few, because of course it happened so quickly, but the chapters afterward explore the effect on the astronauts’ families and on the nation, the investigation and recovery operations, and concludes that sadly some things did not change as a result, because of what happened later with the Columbia shuttle in 2003.

It’s very detailed and clearly well-researched, telling you everything you might want to know about the context of the disaster, as well as the human stories. In summary, an impressive, brilliantly-written book which pays tribute to the heroes who have lost their lives in humanity’s quest to know more about the universe.

Published by Penguin, 2024.

Leave a Reply