Challenger: The Final Flight

How funny that the Challenger disaster came up as a topic recently in my LJ and this documentary series popped up on Netflix. I found it extremely compelling and watched the whole series while working from home. Spouses, family members, engineers, NASA leadership along with former shuttle astronauts, tell their stories in a narrative from the history of the US space shuttle program to the aftermath of the disaster. What made it so compelling was hearing people speak in their own words, from their own memories, instead of a news anchor. There is so much emotion and empathy (INFJ here!) that it was a reminder of the risks of technology. One review called it a study in guilt and certainly there is no shortage of regret. 30+ years later, everyone connected to the disaster is still devastated. For me, I didn't realize that there was so much shoulda coulda woulda with the space shuttle program and that there were so many problems. To me, as a child, it seemed like something that operated smoothly until it didn't. If it surprised me, if also was a surprise to NASA where a culture of arrogance and "normalization of deviance" combined with intense pressure to succeed created the perfect conditions for disaster.

Watch on YouTube