From Challenger to Artemis: the memories of the live broadcast

There are images that have a symbolic weight that endures over time. It was inevitable to think about them during the launch of Artemis II, especially from the CNN broadcast. A little over forty years ago, in January 1986, the American news channel was only six years old and the 24-hour continuous information model still raised doubts. The explosion of the Challenger shuttle just 73 seconds after launch was explained live and overturned the journalistic narrative they had planned. The tragedy – with the death of the seven crew members – happened in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers, and with the bewilderment and doubts of the reporters themselves.

Four decades later, the Artemis II lunar mission was subliminally accompanied by the weight of that accident for several generations.

This time, the presenter hosting the broadcast was Boris Sanchez. He was accompanied by Cady Coleman, a retired NASA astronaut; Miles O'Brien, an aerospace analyst; and Pete Muntean, a CNN journalist specializing in aviation. The countdown remained on screen and they were attentive to any setbacks. The failed Challenger mission was never mentioned, but the context and suspense reminded us of it. “Confidence, but not too much confidence”, remarked the expert editor to explain the tense calm. “Confidence, but not too much confidence.” While the four commentators conversed, the split screen showed us images of Artemis and its crew inside. They connected with different points in the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, especially with the public viewing area that would follow the launch with the naked eye. The informative tone, despite the tension, was optimistic and rather epic. They included interviews with the great science communicators on American television. From astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the most emblematic voice of the cosmos, to Bill Nye, famous for his science education programs, to William Shatner, the actor who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek. The latter was the only one who used the term fear and spoke of the feeling of vulnerability in the face of that mission.

When only ten minutes remained, the broadcast focused on the voices from the control room and the crew. The launch director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, included words of a certain emotional weight in the operation's protocols. Indeed, she was the first woman in history to assume this responsibility.

At the moment of launch, with the enormous plume of smoke advancing across the sky, CNN opted for silence. Not a single word to comment on what we were seeing. Silence grants significance and is always a good precautionary strategy in case of disaster. Once the success of the launch was confirmed from control, the broadcast continued in a more relaxed and hopeful context. A few days of fascinating images await us that will, in the future, influence how we perceive Earth and space.