NASA whistleblower Richard Cook is the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age. After the much-ballyhooed “teacher-in-space” Challenger space shuttle blew up, killing all crew members, in January, 1986, Cook spearheaded the partial unraveling of the coverup by feeding inside information and documents to journalists. Giving the lie to NASA propaganda, Cook showed that the lethal problem with the O-rings was common knowledge at NASA, including at its highest echelons. The Challenger obviously never should have flown in such cold conditions, not only due to the O-ring problem but also because of potential damage from ice. But political pressure from the top of the Reagan Administration—and “customer” pressure from the Star-Wars-addled military—overrode common sense and standard operating procedure. The result was a shocking national tragedy, followed by a coverup featuring widespread perjury and obstruction of justice. The truth (“Reagan murdered those astronauts by insisting on an unsafe launch so he could talk to the ‘teacher-in-space’ during his State of the Union speech”) was so toxic that just about everyone eventually fell in line with the coverup.