Most people remember the Challenger disaster as a tragic accident.

This episode breaks down why it wasn’t.

In January 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven people aboard. But the failure didn’t start in the sky. It started in conference rooms, late-night calls, and a system that made it easier to say yes than to stop everything.

In this episode of Explained in Plain Sight, JC walks through what really happened. The pressure NASA was under, the engineers who raised concerns, the decisions made the night before launch, and the warning signs that were ignored.

We also spend time with the crew of Challenger as people, not symbols, and examine how the investigation exposed a culture where public reassurance mattered more than reality.

This isn’t a story about rockets.
 It’s a story about how disasters happen when no one wants to be the problem.