Thirty years ago, on the morning of January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched with a crew of seven people aboard, including the first civilian American teacher ever selected for a NASA spaceflight mission. They were supposed to spend a full week in orbit, but 73 seconds after launch, one of the solid rocket boosters propelling the shuttle into orbit failed, causing the shuttle to explode, killing all aboard. But the legacy of the shuttle, and that of the crewmembers, lives on today. At the time of the disaster, Popular Science was of course very interested in the U.S. space program and the launch. However, as a monthly print magazine unable to respond in real-time to breaking news events, the first mention of the disaster came in the April 1986 issue. And it was mentioned only briefly in the "What's News" section at the end of the magazine, in an update from then editor-in-chief C.P. Gilmore. acknowledging that the print publication cycle prevented the magazine from including more comprehensive coverage. As he wrote: