30th Anniversary of Challenger Explosion

[SMWS6TA]

30 yrs...

I think I was in 7th Grade watching it in a Science class when it happen.





NASA Holds 'Day of Remembrance' on 30th Anniversary of Challenger Explosion - ABC News

[67CamaroRSSS]

NASA = Need Another Seven Astronauts...

And as the company I worked for back then made parts for the Space Shuttle we had a TV set up in the company lounge so we could watch the launch. Imagine our horror as we watched it blow up. It really pissed me off when it was found out that an engineer told them that it was too cold to launch and that the gaskets might fail...

[KahanaReef]

That was a sad day. I remember it well.

[SMWS6TA]

[5.0THIS]

NASA = Need Another Seven Astronauts...

classy

Just this past Saturday I was at Kennedy Space Center. I'm not sure when it opened, but I walked through a new section of the Atlantis exhibit that had memorials to all of the Challenger and Columbia astronauts. Sad stuff.

[wileyCoyote]

I too remember watching it, ..was just little kid, the teacher had a tv and the class was watching live...

[0rion]

I mostly remember the jokes afterwards...there was some good ones.

[5.0THIS]

I mostly remember the jokes afterwards...there was some good ones.

National tragedy, people died. so much funny.

Here's some good reading for those who cant help but think about just how hilarious this NASA failure was:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_..._time_of_death

The crew cabin, made of reinforced aluminum, was a particularly robust section of the shuttle.[26] During vehicle breakup, it detached in one piece and slowly tumbled into a ballistic arc. NASA estimated the load factor at separation to be between 12 and 20 g; within two seconds it had already dropped to below 4 g and within 10 seconds the cabin was in free fall. The forces involved at this stage were likely insufficient to cause major injury.

At least some of the crew were likely alive and at least briefly conscious after the breakup, as the four recovered Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAPs) on the flight deck were found to have been activated.[27] Investigators found their remaining unused air supply consistent with the expected consumption during the 2 minute 45 second post-breakup trajectory.

While analyzing the wreckage, investigators discovered that several electrical system switches on Pilot Mike Smith's right-hand panel had been moved from their usual launch positions. Fellow astronaut Richard Mullane wrote, "These switches were protected with lever locks that required them to be pulled outward against a spring force before they could be moved to a new position." Later tests established that neither force of the explosion nor the impact with the ocean could have moved them, indicating that Smith made the switch changes, presumably in a futile attempt to restore electrical power to the cockpit after the crew cabin detached from the rest of the orbiter.[28]

Whether the crew members remained conscious long after the breakup is unknown, and largely depends on whether the detached crew cabin maintained pressure integrity. If it did not, the time of useful consciousness at that altitude is just a few seconds; the PEAPs supplied only unpressurized air, and hence would not have helped the crew to retain consciousness. If, on the other hand, the cabin was not depressurized or only slowly depressurizing, they may have been conscious for the entire fall until impact. Recovery of the cabin found that the middeck floor had not suffered buckling or tearing, as would result from a rapid decompression, thus providing some evidence that the depressurization may have not happened all at once.

NASA routinely trained shuttle crews for splashdown events, but the cabin hit the ocean surface at roughly 207 mph (333 km/h), with an estimated deceleration at impact of well over 200 g, far beyond the structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels, and far greater than almost any automobile, aircraft, or train accident.[23]

On July 28, 1986, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Flight, former astronaut Richard H. Truly, released a report on the deaths of the crew from the director of Space and Life Sciences at the Johnson Space Center, Joseph P. Kerwin. A medical doctor and former astronaut, Kerwin was a veteran of the 1973 Skylab 2 mission. According to the Kerwin Report:

The findings are inconclusive. The impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was so violent that evidence of damage occurring in the seconds which followed the disintegration was masked. Our final conclusions are:

•the cause of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined;
•the forces to which the crew were exposed during Orbiter breakup were probably not sufficient to cause death or serious injury; and
•the crew possibly, but not certainly, lost consciousness in the seconds following Orbiter breakup due to in-flight loss of crew module pressure.[23]


Some experts believe most if not all of the crew were alive and possibly conscious during the entire descent until impact with the ocean. Astronaut and NASA lead accident investigator Robert Overmyer said, "I not only flew with Dick Scobee, we owned a plane together, and I know Scob did everything he could to save his crew. Scob fought for any and every edge to survive. He flew that ship without wings all the way down... they were alive."[26]

and...

30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself : The Two-Way : NPR

30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself

Thirty years ago, as the nation mourned the loss of seven astronauts on the space shuttle Challenger, Bob Ebeling was steeped in his own deep grief.

The night before the launch, Ebeling and four other engineers at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol had tried to stop the launch. Their managers and NASA overruled them.

That night, he told his wife, Darlene, "It's going to blow up."

When Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, Ebeling and his colleagues sat stunned in a conference room at Thiokol's headquarters outside Brigham City, Utah. They watched the spacecraft explode on a giant television screen and they knew exactly what had happened.

Three weeks later, Ebeling and another engineer separately and anonymously detailed to NPR the first account of that contentious pre-launch meeting. Both were despondent and in tears as they described hours of data review and arguments. The data showed that the rubber seals on the shuttle's booster rockets wouldn't seal properly in cold temperatures and this would be the coldest launch ever.

Ebeling, now 89, decided to let NPR identify him this time, on the 30th anniversary of the Challenger explosion.

"I was one of the few that was really close to the situation," Ebeling recalls. "Had they listened to me and wait[ed] for a weather change, it might have been a completely different outcome."

We spoke in the same house, kitchen and living room that we spoke in 30 years ago, when Ebeling didn't want his name used or his voice recorded. He was afraid he would lose his job.

"I think the truth has to come out," he says about the decision to speak privately then.

"NASA ruled the launch," he explains. "They had their mind set on going up and proving to the world they were right and they knew what they were doing. But they didn't."

A presidential commission found flaws in the space agency's decision-making process. But it's still not clear why NASA was so anxious to launch without delay.

The space shuttle program had an ambitious launch schedule that year and NASA wanted to show it could launch regularly and reliably. President Ronald Reagan was also set to deliver the State of the Union address that evening and reportedly planned to tout the Challenger launch.

Whatever the reason, Ebeling says it didn't justify the risk.

"There was more than enough [NASA officials and Thiokol managers] there to say, 'Hey, let's give it another day or two,' " Ebeling recalls. "But no one did."

Ebeling retired soon after Challenger. He suffered deep depression and has never been able to lift the burden of guilt. In 1986, as he watched that haunting image again on a television screen, he said, "I could have done more. I should have done more."

He says the same thing today, sitting in a big easy chair in the same living room, his eyes watery and his face grave. The data he and his fellow engineers presented, and their persistent and sometimes angry arguments, weren't enough to sway Thiokol managers and NASA officials. Ebeling concludes he was inadequate. He didn't argue the data well enough.

A religious man, this is something he has prayed about for the past 30 years.

"I think that was one of the mistakes that God made," Ebeling says softly. "He shouldn't have picked me for the job. But next time I talk to him, I'm gonna ask him, 'Why me. You picked a loser.' "

I reminded him of something his late colleague and friend Roger Boisjoly once told me. Boisjoly was the other Thiokol engineer who spoke anonymously with NPR 30 years ago. He came to believe that he and Ebeling and their colleagues did all they could.

"We were talking to the right people," Boisjoly told me. "We were talking to the people who had the power to stop that launch."

"Maybe," Ebeling says with a weak wave as I leave. "Maybe Roger's right."

[0rion]

and football causes concussions.....you know who didn't die on a space shuttle that day? People that weren't on it. When you strap yourself to a rocket attached to a huge rocket fuel filled gas tank you have to know there's at least a chance your ass is gonna end up in pieces. I'm not glad anyone dies...ever....for whatever reason but it also doesn't mean some jokes aren't funny. I hope when I'm dead and gone that I go in a way that makes someone laugh but most likely zero fucks will be given. Don't take it so seriously.

[CJREX]

Those were good articles 5.0

Thanks.

[5.0THIS]

and football causes concussions.....you know who didn't die on a space shuttle that day? People that weren't on it. When you strap yourself to a rocket attached to a huge rocket fuel filled gas tank you have to know there's at least a chance your ass is gonna end up in pieces. I'm not glad anyone dies...ever....for whatever reason but it also doesn't mean some jokes aren't funny. I hope when I'm dead and gone that I go in a way that makes someone laugh but most likely zero fucks will be given. Don't take it so seriously.

Football concussions? That's one of the worst analogies I've ever heard. And if you think jokes about it are funny we're just not going to see this one the same way.

[67CamaroRSSS]

Do I consider it a sad occasion? Actually I considered it a national tragedy. At that point I was already 31 and had designed some of the electronic items used in the shuttle computers, so not some kid watching it on TV.

But, like Tim I subscribe to the theory of, "It's life. Nobody gets out alive..." The crew were doing what they wanted and were aware of the potential for disaster.

And there shouldn't be anything can't be made fun of. Witness dead baby jokes (and others)...

[0rion]

what that meant was, the same as football players, those people knew the risk going in and I guess we're not going to see it the same way because I see no problem with some jokes about it. I guess I would ask what's the difference between this and the thread you posted a while back with the guys catching the RPG in their lap and your "snack bar" title was basically making a joke about someone dying? I thought that was funny and have zero problems with that one either. Was this a tragedy? Of course it was but like I say.....they knew going in there were risks involved with riding a rocket into outter space so it's not like this is some out of the blue tragic event. That risk was there from the beginning.

[5.0THIS]

Again, horrible analogy to my other thread. I make light of terrorist assholes getting blown up. Those same assholes would kill you or anyone else that got in their way of their cause. The world is absolutely better off without them. Comparing them to a group of individuals that are risking their lives to further science and the advancement of the human race is ridiculous. And a straw man.

[35th-ANV-SS]

Well that escalated quickly.

[KahanaReef]

Sure did...

[wileyCoyote]

and football causes concussions.....you know who didn't die on a space shuttle that day? People that weren't on it. When you strap yourself to a rocket attached to a huge rocket fuel filled gas tank you have to know there's at least a chance your ass is gonna end up in pieces. I'm not glad anyone dies...ever....for whatever reason but it also doesn't mean some jokes aren't funny. I hope when I'm dead and gone that I go in a way that makes someone laugh but most likely zero fucks will be given. Don't take it so seriously.

...that's an awful callous and inconsiderate way of putting it... sure, there's "risks" in everything, and there ought to be an impetus to managed risk, ...which would've/should've been the job of NASA,

...it seems as if NASA decided to do the launch, given that the weather conditions were questionable, or worse, blatantly outside the periphery of some safety factor, they put that crew into a situation that was imminently much higher risk than they would've otherwise anticipated (given the legacy of shuttle missions, lessons learned from decades of rocketry, experimental aerospace, manned space flight, etc)... certainly the crew knew the job was risky by nature, ...but were they apprised of the acute dangers posed by the weather that day?

[5.0THIS]

certainly the crew knew the job was risky by nature, ...but were they apprised of the acute dangers posed by the weather that day?

Most likely no. If just one of the astronauts blew the whistle, the mission absolutely would have been scrubbed (they cant just come up with another mission-specific trained astronaut on the same day). And most likely if one astronaut expressed doubt about the launch, the others would have followed. I don't believe the astronauts understood the risks as they were explained to NASA execs by the engineers.

I cant imagine a well trained pilot (as were most astronauts) thinking it would be worth the risk just to launch on a specific day, when there was no blatant issue created by waiting a day or two

[67CamaroRSSS]

The crew had nothing to do with when and under what conditions they were to launch. That was the NASA official's call.

IIRC, the mission had been scrubbed twice already and NASA wanted to prove they could meet the schedule set out for them.

[wileyCoyote]

I can only wonder if, that day, did anyone in that crew, or the flight leader, have a "bad feeling", or did they "get wind" of the potential risks being talked about, and decide to remain silent, given the presumed "pressure" to go ahead?.. not sure what the command structure was like there, but could a crew member have veto authority to call it off?..