The Tragic Challenger Explosion Essay Research Paper — страница 4

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space shuttle. Also, they don’t allow launches when the temperature is that low. Also, the explosion delayed the now famous Hubble Telescope program (Church 38). We have seen the tremendous photographs the Telescope has sent to Earth, it’s a shame they couldn’t have been received sooner. From a media standpoint, this disaster really changed the way television was used to report major disasters. It may seem fairly common when Special Reports interrupt normal programming, but in 1986, it was pretty unusual. In fact, ABC switchboards alone fielded more than 1,200 complaints from people who wanted to watch soap operas rather than an all-day report about the Challenger and the late breaking news related to it (Zoglin 42). Television definitely had a tremendous impact on

reporting this story. ABC Anchorman Peter Jennings said, “We all shared in this experience in an instantaneous way because of television. I can’t recall any time or crisis in history when television has had such an impact. (Zoglin 42)” The disaster even affected President Reagan’s State of the Union address. When asked about the State of the Union speech, Reagan replied, “There could be no speech without mentioning this, but you can’t stop governing the nation because of a tragedy of this kind (Magnuson 29).” In conclusion, it is such a sad tragedy that this negligence led to such a disaster. If we learn from our mistakes, then hopefully, this sort of disaster won’t happen again. Works Cited “Space Shuttle Missions: Challenger.” Compton’s Encyclopedia of

American History on CD-ROM. Compton’s New Media, Inc., 1994. Morrow, Lance. “A Nation Mourns.” Time 10 February 1986: 23. Magnuson, Ed. “A Nation Mourns.” Time 10 February 1986: 24-31. Gray, Paul. “Seven Who Flew for All of Us.” Time 10 February 1986: 32-35. Friedrich, Otto. “Looking for What Went Wrong.” Time 10 February 1986: 36-37. Church, George J. “Putting the Future on Hold.” Time 10 February 1986: 38-41. Zoglin, Richard. “Covering the Awful Unexpected.” Time 10 February 1986: 42- 45. Murphy, Jamie. “It Was Not the First Time.” Time 10 February 1986: 45. Dumoulin, Jim. “51-L” [Online] Available http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/mission-51-l.html, October 5, 1996. Annotated Bibliography “Space Shuttle Missions: Challenger.”

Compton’s Encyclopedia of American History on CD-ROM. Compton’s New Media, Inc., 1994. This article gave a nice overview of the incident, but didn’t really get detailed. It helped me get a picture of what happened and what caused the failure. This is a secondary source. Morrow, Lance. “A Nation Mourns.” Time 10 February 1986: 23. This article gave a nice portrayal of what people felt while watching the launch on television. This is a secondary source. Magnuson, Ed. “A Nation Mourns.” Time 10 February 1986: 24-31. This article gave a good look at the National perspective of things after the explosion. It also gave a good account of the memorial service. This is a secondary source. Gray, Paul. “Seven Who Flew for All of Us.” Time 10 February 1986: 32-35. This

article gave me most of my report. It gave a nice description of the seven astronauts that died on the shuttle. This is a secondary source. Friedrich, Otto. “Looking for What Went Wrong.” Time 10 February 1986: 36- 37. This article gave an account of the theories that appeared afterwards about why the shuttle exploded. It also told about the NASA press conference held afterwards. This is a secondary source. Church, George J. “Putting the Future on Hold.” Time 10 February 1986: 38-41. This article told about the setbacks to the space program that the explosion would cause. It mainly told about the Hubble space telescope. This is a secondary source. Zoglin, Richard. “Covering the Awful Unexpected.” Time 10 February 1986: 42-45. This article went to the media’s

perspective of covering the accident. It told about how the three major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) spend their time covering the disaster. This is a secondary source. Murphy, Jamie. “It Was Not the First Time.” Time 10 February 1986: 45. This article told about previous disasters in the space programs of the United States and Russia. This is a secondary source. Dumoulin, Jim. “51-L” [Online] Available http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/mission-51-l.html, October 5, 1996. This article from NASA also contributed a lot to my report. It is the official report about the Challenger explosion. This is a primary source.