CHALLENGER

Adam Higginbotham's incredible, thrilling, and utterly engrossing history of the Space Shuttle Challenger, which exploded above the Atlantic Ocean 73 seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986.

The disaster was broadcast live around the world, and the images of that day are etched in the memories of those who witnessed it. The investigation that followed revealed insufficiently sealed "O rings" in the solid rocket boosters, but much of the truth of what actually went wrong--and why--was obscured by technical jargon, bureaucratic buck-passing, and closed-door sessions. But here for the first time is the complete history and science of the disaster and the space shuttle program, detailing the lives, hopes, fears, and unimaginable courage of the astronaut crews and test pilots as well as the engineers on the ground and behind the scenes, designing, building, rebuilding, and repairing the shuttle, mission after mission, until the tragic day when their worst fears were realized. A masterful blend of riveting human drama and fascinating and absorbing science, Challenger brings to life a turning point in historyand the result is even more complex and astonishing than we remember. Adam Higginbotham is the author of Midnight in Chernobyl (Simon & Schuster, 2019) which was a New York Times bestsller, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, a New York Times Best Book of the Year, a Time magazine Best Book of the Year, and a Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year.