I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.

In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?

Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.

A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by

their own light and that light is to be recognized by others. The Long History of Heroism with me,

Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds. This episode contains scenes. Some listeners might find upsetting.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

Challenger, go at throttle up.

Trieder, go at throttle up.

I hear some crackle and I noticed that the data, but that's not unusual data drop out, you know, or something.

And, but Fred kind of hits me and says, look.

And I looked at that monitor over there and I did not know what I was looking at because by then it was just this fireball.

Where, just moments ago, there was Space Shuttle Challenger ascending into orbit.

Now all Capcom Dick Covey can see is a cloud of fire and vapor.

The two solid rocket motors emerged from the cloud and arc upwards,

leaving long trails of smoke behind them. They're out of control, no longer attached to the

rest of the shuttle. Fly controllers here looking very carefully at the situation.

Obviously a major malfunction.

I'm still processing a lot of some visual information, but I'm looking and I still have no data.

You know, I'm in full operational mode, which is, all right, what do we know? Is there anything I can tell the crew? Is there anything I should say? My primary thing is a capcom. I'm not going to say something to the crew unless I can help them. So I never made another transmission to the Challenger. That was it.

The launch just didn't look right. I know I was in shock and disbelief and probably not

understanding everything right away, but looking and thinking, you know, something,

...