My Amazon List of Challenger-related books.
http://www.fas.org/spp/51L.html
A quite comprehensive site about the disaster. Clicking on “Challenger Accident Memories” used to take you to 10,000 fascinating memories of where people were and what they were doing all over the world. Some of these memories inspired me to start my book. Now the link is broken, but the book lives on.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11031097/
Seven myths about the Challenger disaster. How many of them did you think were true?
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/table-of-contents.html
The Rogers Commission report. Little-known fact: because my mom worked for Commissioner Rogers’s law firm in the eighties, she had an original copy of the bound report to the president (which she generously gave me). If you need one, you can get it on eBay.
http://www.asktog.com/books/challengerExerpt.htm
Part of a paper hypothesizing the role of bad charts and graphs in causing the disaster. It’s pretty plausible, and this was before the destructive force of PowerPoint had even started to reveal itself.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20007619,00.htm
What was on the radio the day of the disaster? Won’t you be sorry you asked.
http://hurricanearchive.org
A Katrina memory bank— a working version of the Challenger memory bank (now-defunct) that was one of the first inspirations for my book.
http://www.9-11commission.gov
The 9/11 Commission Report.
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire
A great archive of information about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911.
http://www.fema.gov/kids/index.htm
FEMA for kids. Their mascot is Herman, a hermit crab. You know, because hermit crabs mobilize quickly to help people in trouble, right?
NASA
Of course. NASA’s website is massive and it has everything you want to see about any astronaut, mission, or vehicle. You just might have trouble finding it amongst everything else.
http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/
A handy shortcut within nasa.gov. GRIN stands for Great Images in NASA. Don’t forget that all images (like everything else NASA produces) are in the public domain.
SPACE.com
A comprehensive site about not only space travel, but general astronomy, space politics, and space-related science. Surprisingly strong journalism about current space issues, as well as fun stuff like video archives and quizzes.
Heavens Above
Tell them where you are, and they will tell you how to find the International Space Station, orbiting shuttles, and other space objects. Also shows good streaming video or launches.
Bad Astronomy
A blog whose main purpose is to reveal bad astronomy (mostly in movies and the news) but in a broader sense acts as a watchdog against anti-scientific thought in general.
http://www.ms-studio.com/typecasting.html
I think way too much about typefaces. But it’s comforting to know that I think about them a lot less than this guy does.
http://www.memepool.com/
Pretty much all the news you need.
http://www.pandora.com/
Enjoy the fruits of the music genome project.
http://www.826michigan.org/
A nonprofit tutoring and writing center where I volunteer. If you’re in Michigan, you should volunteer too; if you’re not in Michigan, you should give them money.
Mimi Smartypants
There are only so many personal blogs actually worth keeping up with. This is one of them.
http://ireadashortstorytoday.com/
He reads short stories and writes about them, God bless him.
http://damarisbsarria.blogspot.com/
An aspiring astronaut who works at the Cape, documenting her work with the space shuttle.
http://nytimesweddings.blogspot.com/
A claws-out commentary on the New York Times weddings announcements.
http://trent.blogspot.com/
Don’t pretend you don’t read it.
Dr. Hectic
The adventures of Dr. Hectic, who designed this website, keeps lots of cats, and drives lots of cars.
Susie Cupcakes
An archivist, self-appointed TV critic, and better knitter than me.