Political Gabfest - Gabfest Reads | The Day the Challenger Fell From the Sky
Slate Books
Slate Podcasts
3.8 • 546 Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
David Plotz talks with author Adam Higginbotham about his new book, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space. They discuss the feats of engineering that took place, the political cynicism and cost-cutting that played a role in the tragedy, the heroism and tragic loss of the people on board the shuttle, and more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Gapfest Reeds from March 2025. I'm David Flotz, one of the hosts of Slates Political GabFest. |
| 0:14.6 | For anyone over the age of about 45, the Challenger disaster is a stop time moment. You know exactly where you were when |
| 0:23.9 | you heard about it. I was in 10th grade chemistry class. And you saw the world, maybe even the |
| 0:29.4 | whole universe differently afterwards than you did before the disaster. And everyone who is |
| 0:35.0 | listening to this podcast knows the outcome of the Challenger |
| 0:39.2 | Disaster. Everyone listening to this podcast knows the cause of the Challenger disaster. |
| 0:44.9 | I think you had probably never heard the term O-ring before 1986, but now it is, it's in the |
| 0:51.7 | nation's vocabulary because of that. You know the outcome and you know |
| 0:55.8 | the cause. So why would you want to read a book about it? And the answer is you absa fucking |
| 1:01.0 | lutely want to read a book about it because the book is Challenger, a true story of heroism |
| 1:06.0 | and disaster on the edge of space by Adam Higginbotham. And Adam, honestly, it is like I tore through this book. It's the most gripping, enthralling, unput-downable and thought-provoking book I have read in a long, long time. I just loved it, loved it, loved it. So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Just to quickly give a summary, this Challenger is the story of the Challenger of Disaster. It's also the story of the rise and building of the space program. It's an exploration of the culture of astronauts in the space program. It's a really interesting philosophical puzzle about complexity. It's also a murder mystery. It's also an elegy for the people who |
| 1:45.7 | lost their lives in this. And it grapples really profoundly with the question of what price we as a |
| 1:52.7 | individuals, as a nation, as a species should be willing to pay to attempt magnificent deeds. |
| 1:58.9 | And honestly, like, I'm sure that this conversation, which will be whatever, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, cannot possibly do justice to this book. |
| 2:05.7 | So just go read it. |
| 2:06.9 | But in the meantime, Adam, welcome. |
| 2:09.4 | Thank you for, thank you for this, really. |
| 2:11.7 | It's brought me so much pleasure. |
| 2:15.1 | Oh, well, thank you. |
| 2:15.8 | And thank you for having me. |
| 2:16.9 | So you also wrote a book, Midnight at Chernobyl, which I also loved, which is a stunning |
| 2:21.5 | account of the other shocking disaster of 1986, the Chernobyl reactor, just a few months |
... |
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