Challenger (1990)

There’s a weird bit about this TV movie about the events preceding the Challenger explosion that really stood out for me. There’s no real intro at the beginning of the film and no epilogue to what happened after the shuttle took off. It’s as if they had no expectation that someone in the future who was unfamiliar with the event may run across the film. Granted, I was one of the millions of American school children terrorized by watching the event live as it happened on a school television, but there’s now multiple generations who have come since. The movie is passable though lengthy. There is a lot of talk about O-Rings from the scientists and decision makers, which gives the strong impression of criminal negligence on the part of some of those who gave the go-ahead. There’s also some nice background on the lives of the various astronauts. It has a great cast including Joe Morton, Richard Jenkins, and Karen Allen giving a somewhat excessively smiley performance as Christa McAuliffe.