Forty years after the Challenger disaster, NPR explores the engineers' last-minute efforts to stop the launch, their decades of guilt and the vital lessons that remain critical for NASA today.

The space shuttle's seven crew members died, including one civilian teacher. The tragedy changed the course of NASA's future. On the morning of January 28, 1986, seven crew members were killed when ...

Beneath NASA’s launch pads lies a forgotten emergency bunker designed for catastrophe. Astronauts and ground crews could ...