" Rather than delivering the State of the Union address that evening as scheduled, President Ronald Reagan made a brief speech. "We"ll continue our quest in space," he promised traumatized Americans. "There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space." There would be no shuttle flights for nearly three years. There would be no teacher in space, and for those left on the ground, for the families of seven deceased astronauts, there would be years of bitterness, grief and anger, and pain before their lives could finally heal. What went wrong? What actually happened to cause a veteran space shuttle such as Challenger to malfunction on its tenth run? .
At 0.68 seconds after ignition, videotape showed black smoke coming from the bottom field joint of the right solid rocket booster (SRB). The SRB comes in four segments that are assembled. The bottom field joint is the lowest joint on the SRB. The black smoke suggested that grease, joint insulation, and rubber O-rings were being burned. The smoke continued to come from the bottom field joint facing the exterior tank in cycles of three puffs of smoke per second. The last puff of smoke was seen at 2.7 seconds. The black smoke was an indication that the bottom field joint was not sealing correctly. At 58.8 seconds into flight, on enhanced film, a flame was seen coming from the right SRB. The flame was coming from the underside of the bottom joint. It was burning gas that was escaping from the SRB. A fraction of a second later, at 59.3 seconds, the flame was well defined and could be seen without enhanced film. .
As the flame increased in size, it had begun to push against the external tank due to the rushing air around the orbiter. The SRB is attached to the external tank by a series of struts that run alongside the external tank. One of these struts is located at 310 degrees of the circumference of the SRB.