Forty years of what if
Throughline

Forty years of what if

B2Upper-intermediateSeptember 29, 202621 min

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. All seven astronauts onboard died. Brian Russell, an engineer who worked on the shuttle, had spent months warning NASA that freezing temperatures could cause a critical seal to fail. In this episode, Brian Russell takes us to the intense meeting where NASA had to decide whether to launch and the 40-year weight of a tragedy he tried to prevent. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. Se...

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Sloan and Faith Salley about the journalists who were banned this week from the White House.

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

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0:00

This week on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we talk with our panel, Josh Gombelman, Dulce Sloan and Faith Salley about the journalists who were banned this week from the White House. You think they were really sad or is it one of them days it was like a snow day as a kid? Yeah. They were probably just forgetting what stale Big Mac smells like.

0:17

Don't miss our full conversation and the rest of our games. Listen to the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. I thought to myself, would I be the only one in this room who would disagree with a launch decision?

0:33

I asked myself in my mind, do I have the courage to say that? I'm Randha Birfata, and on this episode of Through Line from NPR, something a little bit different. We're speaking with Brian Russell, an engineer who rang the alarm bells before the Challenger

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