I remember one female reporter asked President Reagan at his news conference after the event, “Did you know it was going to blow up”?
Think about that question. Her hatred of Reagan and conservatives was so great that she basically accused him of having it blown up.
Yes, it was a foolish question, but it was prompted by the concern many people had about the safety of the O-rings on the SRB and the heat shield tiles on the Orbiter. I was especially upset when the news reported the cause being the O-ring. That was one of the items all the way back around 1979-1980 as being an area of concern for the safety of the Space Shuttle. I worried about it for years and had finally begun to not worry so much about it when the Challenger was destroyed and renewed the worries al over again.