Forty years ago, we lost seven exceptional members of the scientific community. January 28th of 1986 had brought unusually cold weather to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where the Space Shuttle Challenger was scheduled to lift off for flight STS 51-L. The mission carried student experiments on crystal growth and chicken embryo development, a study on the motion of fluids in zero gravity, and the Spartan-Halley carrier spacecraft to observe and document the flyby of Halley’s Comet. STS 51-L would also initiate NASA’s... Continue Reading →