Anyone who is familiar with NASA history knows that the end of January and the beginning of February have brought the agency’s darkest days. The Apollo 1 fire on the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center, which claimed the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee and threatened to derail the Apollo program before it got off the ground, took place on Jan. 27, 1967.
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The space shuttle Challenger exploded just over a minute after launch on Jan. 28, 1986, claiming the lives of all seven crew members on board. That mission commanded a lot of attention because it included the first “teacher in space,” Christa McAuliffe. Finally, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart on reentry on Feb. 1, 2003,
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