T -15 seconds.
This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantan.
T minus ten, nine.
On January 28, 1986, the Challenger spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
One.
And liftoff.
Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission.
And it has cleared the tower.
Seconds after liftoff into a clear blue sky, something went wrong.
Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation.
Obviously a major malfunction.
It was much more than a malfunction.
It was a disaster.
As millions of people watched in horror, trails of smoke and debris flew off in different directions.
We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded.
What appears to be a major catastrophe in America's space program.
Challenger, only seconds after leaving the launch pad, according to NASA, has exploded in midair.
After the explosion, NASA officials were hauled to Capitol Hill and put to questioning who finally made that decision to go, what was the chain?
How did that link?