Tag: nation

On this day in history, January 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger explodes, shocking the nation

On this day in history, Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger — scheduled for a routine launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida — exploded after just 73 seconds in flight, killing all seven Americans on board.

The disaster shocked the nation — and led to an immediate pause in the space shuttle program.

The cause of the disaster was found to be the failure of the primary and secondary redundant O-ring seals in a joint in the shuttle’s right solid rocket booster (SRB).

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While the mission on that fateful day in 1986 was supposed to be like any other routine mission, unusually cold temperatures caused the external tank to explode seconds into takeoff — causing the orbiter to disintegrate and the spacecraft to explode, according to NASA. 

In addition to highly experienced astronauts, the Challenger carried a special passenger on board: teacher Christa McAuliffe. 

She was a social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, chosen from among 10,000 others who applied to be the first private citizen in space, according to Britannica. 

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In her application, McAuliffe said she would keep a journal about her experience — and would include sections about her training, the flight experience and her feelings about returning to Earth.

One of the reasons McAuliffe was chosen, apparently, was her teaching experience — and the way she would be able to connect with children across the country. 

And that is why, on the day of the launch, scores of students in schools across the country watched as a teacher launched into space for the first time ever. 

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It was unfortunate timing for young children to watch this particular launch — something President Reagan was worried about when he was deciding how to address Americans later that evening.

Americans had been visiting space for decades before that — the first time in 1961, with U.S. Navy test pilot Alan Shepard. 

Shepard was the second man in space following the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin just a mere weeks before. 

By 1969, space travel had progressed to visiting the moon — something the U.S. successfully completed with Apollo 11 that year.

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However, with this success, Americans began to fear the government was spending too much on space, according to NASA. 

A reusable manned spacecraft then became a focus by the Nixon administration, and the space shuttle program was born.

The Challenger’s first mission was in April 1983 — and it quickly became one of the most popular spacecrafts to be used in the following three years, according to NASA.

The annual State of the Union address for early 1986 had been scheduled to take place on the evening of the Challenger’s launch — but given the tragedy, President Reagan chose to delay the address by a week. 

Instead, that night, Reagan did address the nation but from the familiar Oval Office instead. 

Reagan began by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the State of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans.”

He went on, “Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.”

In his speech, Reagan also expressed a willingness to remain steadfast in the pursuit of space flight — but also, he focused on the families of those who were aboard the Challenger and on the children who were watching the flight from their classrooms or homes.

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“I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen,” Reagan told the country that night.

“The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave,” Reagan also said.

“The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future — and we’ll continue to follow them.”

The next mission launch was over two-and-a half years later, in September 1988 — named the “Return to Flight” mission. 

The mission lasted for four days and included 64 orbits around the planet.

It ended with a successful landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California, according to NASA. 

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Brazil election: Lula da Silva wins presidency as nation swings left — will Bolsonaro accept the results?

Brazil’s left-wing former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, narrowly won a tightly contested presidential election tonight with a margin of just under 2%.

With 50% of precincts reporting, Bolsonaro clung to a narrow 0.5% lead, but the general trend over the course of the evening was a slow and steady upswing for Lula, as votes trickled in from the northeast. Just before 7pm, with 72% of precincts reporting, Lula took his first lead of the night, and continued to expand his lead.

It was also going to be difficult for Bolsonaro in the second round, as Lula won the first round by 5 points, 48% to 43%, nearly winning outright on October 2. Bolsonaro also faced an uhpill battle in the sense that both third place Simone Tebet and fourth place Ciro Gomes backed Lula in the second round.

Bolsonaro turned in a strong showing in the wealthier south of the country, winning Sao Paulo and his native Rio de Janeiro by margins of over 10%, but it was not enough to compensate for Lula’s massive turnout in the Northeast of Brazil, where the Workers Party has long enjoyed dominance. Indeed, Lula won numerous states by margins of 30%, 40% or even 50%, turning in particularly strong performances in the vote-rich states of Bahia, Ceara, and his native Pernambuco.

Bolsonaro flipped the pivotal swing state of Minas Gerais, winning by a narrow margin, and backed by the endorsement of Governor Romeu Zema, but it was not enough to reach 50%.

However, it was not all bad news for the Bolsonaro camp. In the second most important race in the country, for Sao Paulo’s governorship, Bolsonaro-backed candidate Tarcisio de Freitas handily defeated Workers Party candidate Fernando Haddad, who was the 2018 presidential candidate who lost to Bolsonaro.

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Bolsonaro aligned candidates will now control the three largest states in Brazil: Romeu Zema in Minas Gerais, Claudio Castro in Rio de Janeiro, and Tarcisio de Freitas in Sao Paulo. While he did not win, the Bolsonaro movement remains strong, and Brazil’s 156 million voters will remain deeply culturally and politically divided.

After voting in his native Sao Bernardo do Campo, in the south of Sao Paulo state, Lula headed to downtown Sao Paulo to give a press conference and walk the famous Avenida Paulista, often considered the “main drag” of Brazil. Lula proclaimed, “Today may be the most important day of my life…the people of Brazil are defining the model that they desire to have…the way of life they want.”

Bolsonaro voted in Vila Militar in his home state of Rio de Janeiro, saying he had “the expectation of victory, for the good of Brazil…if it is God’s will, we will be victorious tonight.”

Critics have charged that Bolsonaro would not accept the electoral results in case of a loss, but on Friday he sang a different tune: “Whoever has the most votes takes it. This is democracy.”

In Vila Planalto, Brasilia, a largely pro-Bolsonaro middle class neighborhood near the Palacio da Alvorada, where Bolsonaro is known for taking walks, groups of family and friends had gathered to view election results, with the majority sporting Brazil’s yellow soccer jerseys. They nursed the disappointing news over large bottles of Brazilian beer, served in typical style in tiny glasses.

One voter said, “In my family we are divided. My daughter called me to say that I should vote for Lula, but I said in Brazil we have a secret ballot.”

Across town at the iconic TV tower, Lula’s supporters, many clad in red, packed into a plaza to cheer the results. 

Most polls had showed Lula with a slight lead, but there appeared to be a tightening over the last week of the campaign. Furthermore, polls during the first round election on October 2 proved to be biased in favor of Lula, while significantly undercounting support for Bolsonaro.

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Lula will likely face a difficult term in office, with considerable Congressional opposition from the large block of Bolsonaro-aligned federal deputies and Senators.

His election tonight represents one of the greatest comeback stories in Latin American history. Lula was convicted and imprisoned on corruption and money laundering charges that were later overturned on a technicality by Brazil’s Supreme Court, clearing the way for him to run for an unprecedented third term.

Lula also is regarded to have made a shrewd move in selecting business-friendly centrist former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin as his vice presidential running mate. In 2018, Workers Party candidate Fernando Haddad selected Rio Grande do Sul federal deputy Manuela D’Avila, from the Brazilian Communist Party, who was widely viewed as too extreme.

Haddad ended up losing the 2018 election to Bolsonaro by 10%.