President Ronald Reagans The Challenger Address - Essay Example

Rhetorical analysis of President Ronald Reagan’s The Challenger Address President Reagan’s The Challenger Address was a speech delivered by the President on January 28, 1986 in the aftermath of the space shuttle Challenger’s disintegration after liftoff where seven astronauts aboard the shuttle perished (Watson, 2011). It was a speech given in the White House to console a grieving nation after the loss of the astronauts in front of the world. As expected, the speech was emotionally charged with the President seeming apologetic to the general public.

Of all the elements in rhetoric, pathos or emotional appeal were used heavily in the speech. The speech was literally peppered with words of consolation and gratitude in a hope to at least console a grieving nation. It was also a day consecrated for mourning as President Reagan uttered ”Today is a day for mourning and remembering. The second paragraph resembles a logos in rhetoric or reasoning that such accidents comes with the job by citing a similar incident in the ground where three astronauts also perished.

Perhaps this was an attempt to console the grieving families and the public in general that what happened was not entirely unnatural because similar accident also happened before thus making it more easier accept. This was craftily followed by the speech of remembrance that the nation was forever ingratitude with what they did beginning with citing each of the astronaut’s name and following with the emotionally charged statement such as Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace to impress to the audience that their death was not in vain.

The present day reader or audience may have difficulty in appreciating the gravity or seriousness of the incident because the incident seemed too distant to remember and that it is no longer a big deal for a shuttle to go to space. But we have to remember it was in the 80s where space program was central to government’s thrust that even President Reagan acknowledged that I’ve always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it (American History.org).  The space was then recently explored that NASA had been sending shuttles one after the other into space.

In fact, The Challenger mission was the 25th launched that space shuttle launch became routine for NASA that the sense of hurry-it-up had crept in. . The space agency wanted to pull off 15 missions in 1986. Repeated delays with Columbia on that year's first flight and then with Challenger were spoiling the effort (Dunn. 2011) which explains the laxity in safety procedures on the part of NASA that led to the terrible accident. Vaughan summed it up that in those times, the overzealousness to send shuttle into space made production took over safety (1997).

This was validated with the findings of Roger Commission, the body that was formed by President Ronald Reagan to investigate the explosion that in Challenger disaster, the engineers already knew that the O-rings used on the solid rocket boosters had shown a potential for failure in the shuttle. They have communicated their reservation about the O-ring’s potential for failure but as the disaster would tell, they were not able to send their message across effectively. The launch still commenced leading to the explosion of the Shuttle just seconds after the launch.

We also have to remember that in those times, space shuttle launch was a big deal that the launch was even shown in primetime TV that kids could watch. Thus, the President really has a lot of consoling to do because the disaster was aired in national and international TV for all to watch only to see an explosion in mid air. And to at least mitigate the trauma wrought by a televised disaster, the President has to use ethos, or ascendancy which in this case his office as the President of the country to tell everybody that terrible accidents come with the job of an astronaut and that accident already happened before to make the loss easier to accept and absorb.

Finally, contrary to the speech given by President Reagan that what happened today does nothing to diminish the space program, the contrary in fact happened. But this not an act of a politician betraying public trust but rather a prudent act to avoid similar incidents in the future by putting on hold or shelving further space explorations after the Roger Commission’s findings came out that reported lapses in NASA’s sense of safety. References Dunn, M. (2011, Jan 28). Challenger: 25 years later, a still painful wound.

 The Hutchinson News. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/847603333?accountid=35812 “Speech on the Challenger Disaster” (1986). Retrieved from http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/speech-on-the-challenger-disaster/ Vaughan, D. (1997). The trickle-down effect: Policy decisions, risky work, and the challenger tragedy. California Management Review, 39(2), 80-102. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/216128174?accountid=35812 Watson, Traci (2011). 25 years later: How the Challenger disaster brought NASA down to earth.

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