GoSpaceWatch Online Lecture: “Tales of the Challenger” by Ben Evans
Thursday 6 April at 20:00 hrs BST. Via Zoom
Free to attend after registration at https://challengertales.eventbrite.co.uk
The Lecture: When the Space Shuttle returned to Earth for the final time in July 2011, it wrapped up a 30-year voyage of exploration and discovery. But one member of the shuttle fleet lived to see barely a fraction of that career, yet scored some of the most remarkable successes in U.S. space history. Challenger, which should never have existed at all, entered and exited NASA’s shuttle fleet with far more than a whimper. But in her short career of less than three years and just ten missions, she achieved almost everything the reusable spacecraft could offer. Challenger saw the first U.S. woman astronaut go into space, along with the first African-American, the first Canadian and the first Dutchman. She saw the shuttle’s first tethered and untethered spacewalks, the first satellite salvage and repair and the only eight-member astronaut crew. Had her career not ended on 28 January 1986, she might have gone on to launch a space probe to explore the Sun and more besides. In “Tales of the Challenger”, Ben Evans will talk about this remarkable machine on her 40th anniversary and consider her realised and unrealised potential.
The Speaker: Ben Evans has been fascinated by astronomy and space exploration since childhood. He has written several books for the Springer-Praxis imprint and currently writes for AmericaSpace.com and GoSpaceWatch.earth
Free to attend after registration at https://challengertales.eventbrite.co.uk