Challenger

 Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higgenbotham (2024) 563 pages

A friend has planned a Jolabokaflod, or Yule Book Flood, book gift exchange for New Years for the past several years. This is the book that was gifted to me this year. It is very in-depth. I appreciated the brief biographies of ALL the major people involved. The engineering of the solid rocket boosters are covered in great detail since the joints where the sections stack together were the main flaw that led to the explosion. Also Higgenbotham spends a good deal of time examining the chain of command and decision-making process of NASA and their contractors. The decision to launch the shuttles through the 1980s often ignored engineers' advice about risky technological problems. The book goes back to the beginning of the space rocket program and shows a pattern that existed since the Apollo 1 disaster in 1967. Then the book covers the Congressional investigation into the 1986 disaster and loss of life. Hope and human achievement is balanced with scientific facts and figures.