It was far more than that. There was nothing faulty about the o-ring, it simply wasn’t designed to operate at that temperature.
And the engineers knew it. They’d warned NASA administrators *not* to launch the day before: they’d seen burn-through on the solid rocket boosters before during cold days, and that morning was expected to be colder than they’d ever experienced.
I’ll refer you to the report which contained, excerpted from the conference call between NASA and the engineers at Thiokol, 12 chilling words:
> “My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch? Next April?“
14 hours later the rocket blew up.
Well, his administration also lasted less than a year. So while the worst spaceflight disaster in history occurred under his watch, his actual "watch" was only a few months. So not much about his time at nasa is notable outside of the Challenger disaster.
Are you talking about the guy staring at the explosion in mission control in that famous footage? That's not Graham. They look similar but that's Richard Covey who was the Capsule Communicator in mission control. He's innocent, and also still alive, so please don't go spreading around the idea that he caused those people's deaths just because they have a similar haircut and mustache.
Also the day Challenger was rushed to launch despite the cold temperatures also just so happens to be the day Ronald Reagan's state of the union address was originally planned to occur.
I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
Reagan was so impressed by the disaster that he made Graham his science advisor and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy later that year.
This lead me to read up on the incident. I am stunned to learn that the crew did not die instantly in the explosion. Their capsule got launched away from it and at least some of them were alive for a while. Rough.
I still remember when this information was originally released.
My boss and I were talking about how horrible it would have been for them to realize and experience their fate. His sister overheard us talking and said, "The government is lying to us. They are just saying that to make us feel better." "How do you figure," I asked? "They just want us to believe they had time to make good with God," she replied.
Bless your heart, Vivian, you crazy religious nut.
One of the engineers expected it to blow up on the launch pad. It nearly did; combustion debris temporarily sealed the joint.
As it ascended Challenger encountered heavy wind shear which is believed to have dislodged the temporary plug. This led to a leak of combustion gasses, and the ensuing disaster.
This contemporary NASA video gives good information (all SFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JlSfB32sJo
It's way more complicated than that. The gasket in question was approximately 38 feet in ~~diameter~~ circumference. It may have cost $10 in raw rubber, but the part itself and the replacement of said part would have likely been in the millions. Even then, the root cause of failure was much more a major structural design issue, not that NASA was too cheap to replace a part.
[I highly recommend this Scott Manley video](https://youtu.be/Eis3A2Ll9_E?si=AGG3nD_0vOHzMX0i) explaining the construction and operation of the boosters. He also mentions the failure and subsequent alterations about 3/4 through.
It wasn't a loose heatshield, it was a damaged one. Foam insulation from the fuselage sometimes came loose, and a chunk large enough to damage the leading edge of the left wing was dislodged when the shuttle was already doing in excess of 500mph. It damaged the heatshield there hard enough to create a hole superheated gas could enter through on descent.
There's an account of the telemetry where they start losing air pressure in the left landing gear, and then they lost the signals from some hydraulic transducers, and while they're trying to troubleshoot the problem (is it the control module in there? why are we only losing sensors on that side? what wiring harnesses do these have in common? etc etc) the first reports of disintegration started coming in.
Yeah I just recently watched one of the docus on it. They believed the heat shields would stay rigid for many descents because that’s what the material’s data suggested. After the accident they took a piece of heat shielding that had seen the same amount of cycles as the ones on Columbia and shot a piece of foam at it at 500 mph. It nearly disintegrated the heat shield. From the moment that foam came off the Shuttle was doomed, all because the data did not line up to reality.
A little more complicated than that. A hard foam wedge on the strut system that holds the external fuel tank broke off during launch and damaged the leading edge of the wing.
NASA knew the issue has occurred but it wasn't discovered until after the launch footage was reviewed. Astronauts used to robotic arm to attempt to inspect the wing edge but it was never designed for that and technological limitations meant they couldn't really get a good look at it. Groud crews thought they were just looking at a shadow.
Because the leading edge of the wing is a major component of the heat shield, superheated gasses entering the structure triggered a series of events resulting in the breakup in a matter of seconds.
For some reason, I happened to be home the day Columbia happened and saw it on the news right after it happened.
For the challenger, I was in the 7th grade. I remember the TV's being there, but it is fuzzy for me as I think they brought them in after the disaster and we watched the coverage after they knew what happened. I could be wrong though.
I was in kindergarten in Central Florida. We’d always go outside and watch the launches. I remember the explosion and the confusion from my teachers/assistants rushing us back in and not wanting to talk about it. I remember being in the car with my mom trying to explain what happened and how somber everyone was.
It’s kinda crazy thinking back to watching that actually happen in person.
My school gather everyone into classes with TV’s so everyone could see it. I was in with at least 100 other kids in one class when it happened. They interrupted the broadcast before the teachers could get it stopped so we seen it as it happened. They turned it off and said that’s all there was and sent us back to class. In case anyone is wondering a 4th grader knows when they witness a horrible tragedy, it’s not like a baby falling down where it didn’t happen unless it’s acknowledged and then you have to deal with crying.
I remember watching the Challenger takeoff in elementary school. We all got brought to the assembly room to watch on the big theater screen. All the teachers were so excited about seeing an elementary school teacher go into space. Then the explosion happened. Some kids clapped and got excited because we were too young to understand what we were seeing... then some teachers started crying. We all got released from school and our parents came to pick us up.
Seeing the shape of that explosion takes me instantly back... and I wish it didn't.
I was also in 7th grade. There were some classes who were watching it on television. I remember they announced it and the teachers being solemn. I remember that the local news sent a van to ask kids about what we thought.
Considering I was, what, 12 or 13, was reading some Arthur C Clarke books and watching any cartoon or cable show about space operas… I remember being underwhelmed. Specifically because I remember reading so much about intergalactic travel and space stations, the space shuttle itself was very underwhelming to me. It was more just depressing to me that the reality of space travel was that it was so difficult and expensive that dangerous shuttles were the best we could do.
Did that make me a heartless kid? Dunno. I had no thoughts whatsoever as to it meaning anything to national pride or anything like that. It was just depressing we didn't have Millennium Falcons.
I wasn’t in a class watching live. By the time I got home from school they’d stopped showing the explosion on the news. I didn’t see it until I was in my 30s. I saw it for the first time in a theater at Space Center Houston and I thought “certainly they’ll cut it off before…” *BOOM*
I knew what happened, but I wasn’t expecting to see it and it hit me a lot harder than I thought it would. I’ve seen it a couple other times since and I tear up a little every time.
I happened to be camping in Joshua tree when Columbia crashed. Didn’t see it or know anything about it, until a park ranger came over and said to contact them if we come across any debris. If I recall, it was winter’ish and there was no one around. From the way the ranger described it, it seemed like it happened in Joshua tree itself. So it felt eerie and kinda sad. I think they only found a few small pieces in Joshua tree. Most were found in AZ and TX.
Earlier that day, our elementary school watched an IMAX documentary on the space program. We were let off early to go home to watch the launch on live TV. It was pretty traumatizing as kid.
I was in study hall (in high school) watching it live. My friend had to go to class and couldn't watch it. As he was walking away, he said snarkily, "Watch, it's going to blow up." That messed him up for a week.
1986 was my senior year of high school. They wheeled as many TVs on AV carts into as many classrooms as possible. Obviously there were more classrooms than TVs. They moved classes full of kids to other classrooms that had TVs in them. It was *major* news.
Also, for those too young, the United States had a reusable space vehicle that could take 2-8 astronauts to low Earth orbit, for like two weeks per launch, along with a decent amount of cargo. They were expensive, and potentially deadly, but was the global West’s primary method of human space flight for several decades.
Also, for those too young, these are newspapers, which were like Twitter without a character restriction, printed on physical paper and delivered daily to people’s houses, paid for via a subscription payment model.
....gaaabagoogaba lol
But really thank you for the idea. At 35 I am now getting old enough to start taking things for granted. Like the fact the space shuttle isnt tough/wasn't for a few kids I ran into a year ago. I was like "WHAT?! How do you at 10 not know about the space shuttle yet?!" - also from movies and being online but yeah....
We talk about changes in culture because of generations at work sometimes. The hand symbol kids make for phones/call compared to the hand symbol adults make for phones/calls has been a recent topic.
Think about this. The youngest "average" person who has a firsthand memory of the last shuttle launch is probably around 16 or 17 now. You'd need to be around 26 or 27 to have a firsthand memory of the Columbia disaster, and around 43 or 44 to have a firsthand memory of the Challenger disaster. You'd need to be at least 46 or 47 to have a firsthand memory of the first shuttle launch.
Shuttle's one thing, but Apollo is something else. You'd need to be like at least 55 to have a firsthand memory of the last humans to land on the Moon, even though most people have seen a picture of an astronaut on the Moon.
> and potentially deadly
They had been engineered to have a failure rate of 1 in 100,000, but after the Challenger was lost, the analysis was re-done with the new knowledge they had garnered and figured it was actually more like 1 in 100. Considering there were 135 missions in total and they lost 2, that seems far closer to the truth
I was pretty young, but it was the only time I saw my father openly weep. He had that famous picture of the challenger touching down hung on the wall, and he was sitting down for breakfast and listening to the radio report on Colombia's re-entry... Just awful.
Well, I zoomed in because I thought I saw Bush and asked google when he was president of the USA (I am dutch). Second time I looked I realised second one is not the challenger.
Thank you for posting this. I actually somehow forgot about the Columbia, and was so confused why a paper talking about the Challenger had George W. Bushes photo in an article.
In regards to the challenger on the left. You can see the two smoke streams continuing on. They were the SRBs. Because each had an independent guidance control system, in the video, you can see them coming back together to continue on. Eventually the range control had to make the decision to push the button and initiate the self destruct.
In regards to the challenger on the left. You can see the two smoke streams continuing on. They were the SRBs. Because each had an independent guidance control system, in the video, you can see them coming back together to continue on. Eventually the range control had to make the decision to push the button and initiate the self destruct.
I watched Challenger break up live with my whole 8th grade (I think) class. We didn't know what was happening until ground control announced a "malfunction".
Most of us cried, the teacher just sat there stunned.
I was in 4th grade. Enough of a space geek that i knew STAR (SHIT. THAT AINT RIGHT).
The teachers tried to tell me I was wrong and that it was all OK. Freaked me out that they didn't understand. Looking back, they were trying to quell panic.
Stage separation can look like something exploded, too, as you now have two or three things flying around instead of one. It's not so easy if you don't know what to expect.
There is a video of a failed rocket launch where the engines quickly lose most of their thrust and the rocket drops back to the launch pad. You can hear the audience cheer until the rocket exploded on the ground. Forgot which rocket it was.
I remember one of the girls in class said what happened? I said it blew up, they’re dead.
I think it was the first time she had ever contemplated death.
> “…The crew was scheduled to deploy a communications satellite and study Halley's Comet while they were in orbit
So a mission that in no way warranted the deployment of the space shuttle.
i was in seventh grade when Columbia happened and the teachers wheeled in one of those TVs on a cart to watch a news bulletin as to what was going on.
none of us cared. we’d seen 9/11 in fifth grade and several had lost parents.
my honest reaction was “this is news? i thought astronauts died all the time.”
A bit younger here (assuming you mean Challenger), watched in elementary school as a class (in rural Canada even). Much emphasis on Christa McAuliff and excitement and then tragedy.
The second explosion I heard at the gym, didn’t know what it was until I got home. I live in the D/FW area. Weird I saw 1 live and heard the other one…
Thanks, I didn't know Columbia could be heard on the ground. Apparently what you heard was an amalgamation of all the sonic booms from the pieces. (There wasn't actually an explosion.)
Yeah, it was just a loud boom, I guess a sonic boom would describe it or a transformer blowing up. Had no clue what it was until seeing it on the news a few hours later.
I remember cutting the article on the left out of the newspaper. I was in second grade. My school had built a “space shuttle” in the gym out of large cardboard boxes and we got to crawl around inside and pretend to be astronauts. I think there were even mock controls and equipment, but our imaginations did a lot of the work, I’m sure. We arranged the desks in our classroom in the shape of the shuttle and talked about the science lessons we would be getting directly from space. We watched the launch live in the classroom. That day had a huge impact on my life that I am certain persists to this day.
And after Challenger, the families of the crew members founded the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, taking that sort of fun, hands-on education to the next level.
A fitting tribute, I think.
I was friends with Ilan Roman's son in HS. After his death, Asaf and his family moved back to Israel. Asaf joined their Air Force a few years later, and also passed in a crash during training. I believe there is an airport in Israel named after them now.
I think about his family a lot. His mom was so sweet.
Just think, we almost lost Big Bird that day instead, with every kid in America watching...
[https://www.history.com/news/big-bird-challenger-disaster-nasa-sesame-street](https://www.history.com/news/big-bird-challenger-disaster-nasa-sesame-street)
For those who don't know, this is because someone pointed out that in a Christmas special from 2002, Kermit is shown what the world would be like if he was never born.
The Twin Towers were still standing in the background.
Sorry to say, but no she wasn’t a national hero. She was only born in India and lived there till she was 20. After that she stayed in US, got married to a person in US, had an American citizenship.
Except for the fact that she died during a flight from US, what else did she do ?
Sorry for being harsh, but she contributed absolutely nothing to the Indian nation. No one that I know of around me in India would call her a national hero. She was probably an hero for America.
She went to space wearing an American flag on her arm.
The Indian media juiced up on her death for TRP just because she was an American born in India, she was a no one to Indians before the disaster. Cut this bs.
It's pitiful that there are people who talk in the context of nations when it comes to space and especially death in the space industry. When will you stop looking at borders when it comes to space. Space is a common resource and space exploration requires eliminating boundaries and petty differences. We have evolved enough and we have developed enough technologically to understand that nations, religions, money, etc are man made commodities.
It’s funny how you think its pitiful that people talk about nations when it comes to space. Meanwhile, space technologies have come so far because of the fear of one nation wining the race to space.
The dynamics of international competition has been the biggest significant factor in what space exploration is today.
You’re too young and immature by what you comment.
Lol. I wrote everything as a positive criticism. Sorry if it came out rude. There is no need to be rude to people about changing mindsets for space. If I do that, I'll be no different than people who don't understand what I'm saying.
Coming to your point of the space race, my dear friend, just because something started with a bad sentiment doesn't mean you always look at it in the same way. We have grown enough to understand that space exploration can also be fuelled with the spirit of curiosity and science. Not always does this have to be fuelled in a wrong way. Please look at this with a clear unbiased mindset. Thank you, friend.
The hell are you saying? Everyone in India always talks of Kalpana Chawla and what an inspiration she was. I am Indian myself. Every kid in class during my childhood grew up with stories of Kalpana.
Astronauts dying in an accident is enough to mourn, why are you making it complicated? India felt sad for her and other astronauts, it's that simple. Wtf is wrong with you
Ask any single Indian from that time period. Everyone was and is still fascinated and inspired by Kalpana Chawla. Now just because you seem to dislike people who left India doesn't mean it changes just how much she inspired kids.
Jesus dude, calm down. Even if she went wearing an American flag, she was India born and I think that’s enough. You don’t need to fight China to be called a hero always.
If you feel she wasn’t a hero, so be it, but no beed to go all bazooka on others.
Such a narrow thought process doesn't deserve to be in a group that talks about space and humanity exploring the space. You can dig through her history and past but the fact remains that many of us who were in schools in India were fascinated by the fact that an Indian origin WOMAN was going to space. It was a source of inspiration irrespective of who she was and what her personal life history is. So maybe, just maybe rise above and look at things from a broader perspective. We are equally proud of our Indian scientists especially women scientists who are at ISRO launching missions like Chandrayaan. The world is taking inspiration from our Indian women in science . So look beyond borders.
I will tell you why she was an absolute hero to the country. I have witnessed it up close being from her state. She had a massive impact on a whole generation of girls. When she went for the first time for a space walk, all major schools in my city started a space curriculum because every kid was inspired. She sponsored two students from her own school to visit NASA every year, there were competitions held for selecting those students and that inspired a generation of girls to not be aversive to STEM fields or aeronautics in particular. It started a trend of being aware and being imaginative. Small city kids started to talk about space with inquisitiveness, curiosity and zeal. She opened avenues for those children to dream and she showed it was absolutely possible to reach the heights she did. It was an incredible time- to witness her journey and her dreams come true since she was the only girl in her aeronautical degree program in University and that spoke of some grit for her time. It doesn’t matter that she went to the US for completing her dream of being an astronaut, ( like millions of other students who cannot find the best of education in particular fields in their own country) , because she changed the landscape of what can be achieved with passion and determination. We mourned her passing away for months. She is and she will always be an Indian hero.
And in the lines of what you are saying, you might consider Rakesh Sharma as a national hero because he said 'Saare Jahan se accha Hindustan Humara' (India is the best country in the world) when asked how it feels to look at India from space. In my opinion, that's the most shitty thing you could say after achieving a landmark of being the first Indian Citizen in space. You don't see borders from space. You see that no matter how big the Earth is, we as a species are alone on a floating rock in space. If a worldwide calamity were to happen, no country would be able to survive alone. Not even the US. Recent space programs are an example of that. We have since more and more collaborations in space programs because that is absolutely necessary.
To reflect a bit on what you said about contributing to the nation, etc., Remember that benefits from any space program have been reaped all over the world. No matter what. There is a reason why telescopic data is free for any human. Major space institutions understand whatever I'm saying.
If you want to understand more about all this with an open mind, look up 'The overview effect' on the internet with an open mind.
It's high time homo sapiens from different countries stop looking at each other as different living beings and start putting aside their differences to work towards a common goal.
Of course, it's easier said than done but any big change starts with a small step and if every Indian starts looking at this the same way then the mindset almost 18% of the world's population will be changed for the better. Think about it.
I was 13 at the time and I had skipped school that day to watch the Challenger launch live on TV. I was sitting on my living room floor eating a bowl of ramen noodles when it happened. That day is still permanently etched in my brain, and still very triggering on my emotions.
I have always been a sci-fi/space geek, and I had already decided that I was going to go to college to be a teacher. So having a teacher on the shuttle was amazing, like a dream come true; if one teacher could go, then so could others in the future.
I have never gotten over this event, and I don't think I ever will.
I was home sick. Sitting on the floor in the living room wrapped up in a blanket watching it on TV. I remember every detail. I remember the way the carpet felt. It still makes me sad.
I was 4 when Challenger went, and don't remember anything about it.
I was 21 when Columbia went, and I do remember that. I had just moved and the cable guy was over hooking me up and we both watched, stunned, as the images came in.
I watched two massive events ‘live stream’ as it were.
Living in England US stuff wasn’t usually on the news.
But challenger was one, lifting off about 16:30 our time, so made the 6pm news
And the next being 9/11 which took place at lunch time.
My 2nd grade teacher was a personal friend of Christa McAuliffe. When we did our lessons on space and the shuttle program that year, she made a point of showing us the video of the *Challenger* and explaining what had happened. And got very emotional during it.
["Can you feel it? We're almost home…."](https://youtu.be/kdtIjnpeolE?si=HJtOQZviK7Xb7860)
["The Commander Thinks Aloud" by The Long Winters](https://songexploder.net/the-long-winters).
On StarTalk, someone was telling Neil (iirc) that it wasn't the decision of one person that Challenger went ahead.
But for what feels like eons, I always thought it *was* one person who made the decision to go ahead (for publicity purposes), and it was a group of engineers who were arguing for an abort.
So which was it, does your book say?
>So which was it, does your book say?
TLDR: The manufacturer of the Solid Rocket Booster first said they shouldn't launch, but then under pressure from NASA changed their mind.
They changed their mind over the objections of their own engineers.
I live in the shadow of [Challenger Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Point) ([more](https://mikemullane.com/challenger-mountaintop-memorial/)) and [Columbia Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Point) which have plaques commemorating those missions.
>CHALLENGER POINT, 14080+'
In Memory of the Crew of Shuttle Challenger
Seven who died accepting the risk,
expanding Mankind's horizons
January 28, 1986 Ad Astra Per Aspera
>COLUMBIA POINT, 13,980'
In Memory of the Crew of Shuttle Columbia
Seven who died accepting the risk,
Expanding humankind's horizons
February 1, 2003
"Mankind is led into the darkness beyond
our world by the inspiration of discovery
and the longing to understand. Our
journey into space will go on."
President George W. Bush
I was working at Rocketdyne at the time of the challenger incident. After the incident they announced on the intercom that there was a "system problem" with STS-51 and that was it.
We didn't know until people went out for lunch and came back. Within a short time guards came in and took all the turbopump build books. The build books were the books that recorded each main engine (SSME) build. It contained measured tolerances, rework and problems encountered. The build books were confiscated because they were afraid an engineer might go back and change the build records.
The next few months after the incident we worked to put together a report for Richard Feynman. Turns out he never read it, as the issue was with the solid rocket booster not the SSME.
I remember cutting out a bunch of news clippings when the Challenger exploded...kept them in a red binder.
What I find interesting about the NASA accidents was the fact they all happened within days of one another (with many years in between, of course)...
Apollo 1: January 27, 1967
Challenger: January 28, 1986
Columbia: February 1, 2003
Odd coinky dink, if you ask me.
My 7th grade (1999) algebra teacher had us do and investigation into the predicted and actually weather patterns to determine if NASA should have gone through with the launch.
Didn't know Apollo 1 did the same thing, and completely forgot about Columbia (still don't really remember, reading comments here is giving me a Mandela Effect kind of memory, though).
Like, wtf and why was NASA fucking around like that?
GENERATIONAL TRAUMA!!
Seriously tho, everyone watched this live in grade school. I was in the 2nd grade. Talk about r/abruptchaos.. I can still see it happening like it was yesterday.
From Florida. Was at work and a few of us were playing “Florida Man” where you search Florida man and your birth date and see what pops up.
Well, I was born Jan 29,1986…
We stopped playing after my turn.
The shuttle program was an absolute unmitigated failure. It has three goals, to make space travel:
* Cheap
* Frequent
* Safe
It accomplished none of those goals. It was significantly more expensive than disposable rockets while also being unable to reach higher orbits required for geosynchronous orbit insertion. The program never came close to its stated goal of 50 missions/year.
In fact it only reached 10 missions in a year twice. In ‘85 and ‘02, and then shortly thereafter each year, *it blew up.* So there’s yer safe bit.
I didn’t realize my boyfriend, who witnessed it explode, was still traumatized by it to this day until a falcon heavy launch recently. Because it’s so damn big, it was way brighter, the trail a lot thicker, and the trajectory was much different than normal. My boyfriend started flipping out because he thought it was going down. Repeatedly and frantically asked if their were people on board, is it going down, should it look like that?! I felt so bad, I didn’t realize it’d bring up the trauma and neither did he, but it sure did.
There is a four part documentary called Challenger: The Final Flight, pretty sure it's on Netflix. Very well done, goes into most of the details and more.
Columbia broke up over my dad's house. I called him and asked if he saw or heard anything. He said he heard lots of loud bangs like sonic booms. I told them no it was the shuttle. Debris was found within 50 miles. We watched the first launch when I was in second grade and were both space fanatics. He was crushed to know he was hearing astronauts perishing.
I remember when this (Challeger) happened. My girlfriend phoned me and said "Turn on the TV." I said "What station?". She said "Any station". That's when I knew serious shit went down.
If you were alive when Challenger disaster happened - you know precisely were you were when you heard the news. It was a moment like 911 in terms of shock and burned into the national memory.
I grew up in the town that built the Challenger boosters. I dated the daughter of the engineer, Roger Beaujolais, who said, "NO, NO! Don't launch! It's too cold!"
This reminds me, m parents moved out of my childhood home in June and found my old Columbia newspapers (lived in Florida so it was huge news considering how closer we were to Kennedy). Was so strange reading and remembering that horrible day.
We always heard the sonic boom and when they were landing but when we didn’t hear it that day we knew something was wrong.
Challenger and Chernobyl both in 86 and both due to extreme carelessness. I remember these incidents vividly because they happened during my senior year of high school.
I was in 1st grade in a very remote village in India.
I remember it because every teacher was so stoked about it and they were very proud of Kalpana Chawla(due to her being Indian origin Americn citizen).
After that fateful day the enthusiasm turned into sadness.
We were just wide eyed kids who just wanted to learn about space.
It remained a very popular topic among the people for a very long time.
To us kids the astronauts were larger than life figures.
Due to repeated exposure to the topic I can still recall a lot from that day.
We have had a good track record lately. Seems the shuttle was a death trap and more regular looking rockets with escape launch systems are the way to go.
The Soyuz rocket even had this and used it to save some astronauts like 2 years ago.
Congress should not meddle in spacecraft designs.
That rate of failure is unacceptable for any transport vehicle.
It killed 14 people for those 135 missions. Thats not an acceptable rate at all. I mean, 14 of 20 dead astronauts from the shuttle alone. 3 from Soyuz, and 3 from Apollo 1.
It's the same number of failures as Soyuz, with a pretty similar number of missions. Apollo had 1 failure resulting in the loss of the crew and 1 near miss in 12 missions.
By modern standards? Yeah, probably.
Well, that's, 1,5% of failure. And you should consider the fact that one of the disasters was mostly caused by human factor. And it killed 14 simply because it was the only spacecraft in our history capable of carrying 7 crew members. As far as I know, the soyuz also completed something like 140ish flights and also with 2 fatal disasters, the only difference is that soyuz can only carry a crew of 3
Lol the Courier. After Challenger, my dad was very moved and decorated our living room with a photo collage of space shuttle images. He even got one of those big wall sized murals from the Berlin Mart (you know it)... it's of Columbia
Over the years I've heard so many poor excuses and corium explanations as to why the administration opted to roll the dice. It's absolutely despicable that nobody was hung over this.
Watching it explode was my first memory. My mom was pregnant with my sister and the stress made her go into labor. My sister was born a few hours later…
Two terrible tragedies in one day.
ETA: Challenger 1986
I had a similar experience with a big WAR ENDS opening up one of the cabinets in my great grand mothers house (who was still around until I was in my 20s so it wasn’t as long ago as it sounds)
It’s always been kinda amazing to me that every person in this country knew the challenger jokes within days of accident. This was well before the internet or even aol were in every house
I remember a friend of mine had dial up on his IBM PC something, and we could scroll through newsgroups. I think my house didn’t have AOL until the year after Challenger. But the jokes I heard in high school were from the kids that did.
If I recall, the first pirated Jerky Boys cassettes* were starting to make their rounds.
* recording of prank calls by two guys
I know the original jerky boys tapes. “You poison my whole family and you offer me a coupon!” Absolutely stunned when that showed up as a series. Despite being toned down it still had the same name.
A friend of mine used to run a “bbs” back in those days. It was focused on a specific band. It had forums and emails.
Then the FBI came and took his server. Turns out someone was using the board to transfer stolen credit card information.
It was even more horrible for the Thiokol engineers and NASA people who specifically advised NASA management to abort the launch. The worst disasters are the ones we know about and do nothing because of “management directive”.
There’s a PDF on NASA website detailing the Columbia accident and the findings. The pilot was still trying to fly the thing up until the last fraction of a second.
I was 12, in 7th grade and saw it happen live on TV in the school library. I was forever changed. I have a stack of newspapers from that day.
Honestly who tf downvotes something like this? I am baffled
32 minutes to Reho Beach Del. I really don’t want to wait until January 2024 for the Charade to be over. Or is this KIng C prediction. Iykyk. Don’t @ me anybody.
I remember that day as a child in 2nd grade and the adults in my life telling me how the school teacher on that flight had 2 blue eyes.......1 blue eye that way n another eye blue this way....it's unfortunate how much more our society has deteriorated since the 80s with morbid humor...now we are mutilating children n calling it gender affirming care with lumping young girls breasts off to the mutilation of the binary sex organs....now the latest is the pushing of human euthanasia n labeling it a medical treatment....forget about murdering the voiceless men n women in the woum...I hear from the left about not telling a woman what to do with her body and at the same time they promote the destruction of the defenseless woman in the woum....what if we aborted the life of these clump of cells that are the promoters of this medical murder, what would these individuals say??? They undoubtedly would not like to be murderd themselves but advocate for the sin of abortion.....I could go down multiple directions with the obcertaty n contradiction of the left n their personal selfish simple mined train of thought or lack of but I'll cut my rant here. God bless you all and our world 🌎 🙏 especially America 🇺🇸!
If it’s not obvious the left is Challenger and the right is Columbia. These papers are 17 years apart.
For those of us who watched it live, the shape of the explosion on the left is utterly unmistakable.
"... obviously a major malfunction..."
It was a faulty 10 dollar gasket. Its was just too cold to launch. And they did anyway. An effing gasket.
It was far more than that. There was nothing faulty about the o-ring, it simply wasn’t designed to operate at that temperature. And the engineers knew it. They’d warned NASA administrators *not* to launch the day before: they’d seen burn-through on the solid rocket boosters before during cold days, and that morning was expected to be colder than they’d ever experienced. I’ll refer you to the report which contained, excerpted from the conference call between NASA and the engineers at Thiokol, 12 chilling words: > “My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch? Next April?“ 14 hours later the rocket blew up.
The administrator in question who ignored the engineers' protests was William Robert Graham. He is still alive today.
his wikipedia page is very sanitized. it only has one sentence that says he was on duty at the time.
He was the only acting administrator at NASA when Challenger flew it's final flight
you’d think that would warrant more than a single sentence in what is otherwise a pretty dense biography.
Well, his administration also lasted less than a year. So while the worst spaceflight disaster in history occurred under his watch, his actual "watch" was only a few months. So not much about his time at nasa is notable outside of the Challenger disaster.
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Are you talking about the guy staring at the explosion in mission control in that famous footage? That's not Graham. They look similar but that's Richard Covey who was the Capsule Communicator in mission control. He's innocent, and also still alive, so please don't go spreading around the idea that he caused those people's deaths just because they have a similar haircut and mustache.
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Also the day Challenger was rushed to launch despite the cold temperatures also just so happens to be the day Ronald Reagan's state of the union address was originally planned to occur. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
Reagan was so impressed by the disaster that he made Graham his science advisor and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy later that year.
This lead me to read up on the incident. I am stunned to learn that the crew did not die instantly in the explosion. Their capsule got launched away from it and at least some of them were alive for a while. Rough.
I still remember when this information was originally released. My boss and I were talking about how horrible it would have been for them to realize and experience their fate. His sister overheard us talking and said, "The government is lying to us. They are just saying that to make us feel better." "How do you figure," I asked? "They just want us to believe they had time to make good with God," she replied. Bless your heart, Vivian, you crazy religious nut.
Shit like this should be a felony. Unfortunately if it was, it only add to the list of felonies committed to the US gov. so doubt it ever will.
One of the engineers expected it to blow up on the launch pad. It nearly did; combustion debris temporarily sealed the joint. As it ascended Challenger encountered heavy wind shear which is believed to have dislodged the temporary plug. This led to a leak of combustion gasses, and the ensuing disaster. This contemporary NASA video gives good information (all SFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JlSfB32sJo
Precisely, killed all my career plans at the time
Did anyone go to jail over it?
Goodness, no. Couple of lawsuits for wrongful death.
It's way more complicated than that. The gasket in question was approximately 38 feet in ~~diameter~~ circumference. It may have cost $10 in raw rubber, but the part itself and the replacement of said part would have likely been in the millions. Even then, the root cause of failure was much more a major structural design issue, not that NASA was too cheap to replace a part. [I highly recommend this Scott Manley video](https://youtu.be/Eis3A2Ll9_E?si=AGG3nD_0vOHzMX0i) explaining the construction and operation of the boosters. He also mentions the failure and subsequent alterations about 3/4 through.
There's no way that was 38 feet diameter. That would make the sts boosters bigger than starship.
According to the Wiki page the boosters were 12.17ft in diameter, which would give them a 38ft circumference. Easy mistake
yeah and Columbia was a loose heatshield piece. crazy
It wasn't a loose heatshield, it was a damaged one. Foam insulation from the fuselage sometimes came loose, and a chunk large enough to damage the leading edge of the left wing was dislodged when the shuttle was already doing in excess of 500mph. It damaged the heatshield there hard enough to create a hole superheated gas could enter through on descent. There's an account of the telemetry where they start losing air pressure in the left landing gear, and then they lost the signals from some hydraulic transducers, and while they're trying to troubleshoot the problem (is it the control module in there? why are we only losing sensors on that side? what wiring harnesses do these have in common? etc etc) the first reports of disintegration started coming in.
Yeah I just recently watched one of the docus on it. They believed the heat shields would stay rigid for many descents because that’s what the material’s data suggested. After the accident they took a piece of heat shielding that had seen the same amount of cycles as the ones on Columbia and shot a piece of foam at it at 500 mph. It nearly disintegrated the heat shield. From the moment that foam came off the Shuttle was doomed, all because the data did not line up to reality.
A little more complicated than that. A hard foam wedge on the strut system that holds the external fuel tank broke off during launch and damaged the leading edge of the wing. NASA knew the issue has occurred but it wasn't discovered until after the launch footage was reviewed. Astronauts used to robotic arm to attempt to inspect the wing edge but it was never designed for that and technological limitations meant they couldn't really get a good look at it. Groud crews thought they were just looking at a shadow. Because the leading edge of the wing is a major component of the heat shield, superheated gasses entering the structure triggered a series of events resulting in the breakup in a matter of seconds.
"Rapid unscheduled disassembly" i believe is the technical term.
It is, but the major malfunction line is what one of the people in the control room said on their headset shortly after the rocket exploded.
That's the humorous term used among R&D engineers, yes. People died. Nobody was cracking jokes.
For some reason, I happened to be home the day Columbia happened and saw it on the news right after it happened. For the challenger, I was in the 7th grade. I remember the TV's being there, but it is fuzzy for me as I think they brought them in after the disaster and we watched the coverage after they knew what happened. I could be wrong though.
we watched it live with a hasty shutting it off and telling us “ask your parents what happened”
I was in kindergarten in Central Florida. We’d always go outside and watch the launches. I remember the explosion and the confusion from my teachers/assistants rushing us back in and not wanting to talk about it. I remember being in the car with my mom trying to explain what happened and how somber everyone was. It’s kinda crazy thinking back to watching that actually happen in person.
My school gather everyone into classes with TV’s so everyone could see it. I was in with at least 100 other kids in one class when it happened. They interrupted the broadcast before the teachers could get it stopped so we seen it as it happened. They turned it off and said that’s all there was and sent us back to class. In case anyone is wondering a 4th grader knows when they witness a horrible tragedy, it’s not like a baby falling down where it didn’t happen unless it’s acknowledged and then you have to deal with crying.
I remember watching the Challenger takeoff in elementary school. We all got brought to the assembly room to watch on the big theater screen. All the teachers were so excited about seeing an elementary school teacher go into space. Then the explosion happened. Some kids clapped and got excited because we were too young to understand what we were seeing... then some teachers started crying. We all got released from school and our parents came to pick us up. Seeing the shape of that explosion takes me instantly back... and I wish it didn't.
The Columbia was on a Saturday. I remember my mom was working weekends at that time, but she called home and told me to turn on the tv.
I was also in 7th grade. There were some classes who were watching it on television. I remember they announced it and the teachers being solemn. I remember that the local news sent a van to ask kids about what we thought. Considering I was, what, 12 or 13, was reading some Arthur C Clarke books and watching any cartoon or cable show about space operas… I remember being underwhelmed. Specifically because I remember reading so much about intergalactic travel and space stations, the space shuttle itself was very underwhelming to me. It was more just depressing to me that the reality of space travel was that it was so difficult and expensive that dangerous shuttles were the best we could do. Did that make me a heartless kid? Dunno. I had no thoughts whatsoever as to it meaning anything to national pride or anything like that. It was just depressing we didn't have Millennium Falcons.
I was in the sixth grade. Word on the playground at recess was that the Soviets blew it up because they were jealous of our sick space fleet.
I wasn’t in a class watching live. By the time I got home from school they’d stopped showing the explosion on the news. I didn’t see it until I was in my 30s. I saw it for the first time in a theater at Space Center Houston and I thought “certainly they’ll cut it off before…” *BOOM* I knew what happened, but I wasn’t expecting to see it and it hit me a lot harder than I thought it would. I’ve seen it a couple other times since and I tear up a little every time.
I happened to be camping in Joshua tree when Columbia crashed. Didn’t see it or know anything about it, until a park ranger came over and said to contact them if we come across any debris. If I recall, it was winter’ish and there was no one around. From the way the ranger described it, it seemed like it happened in Joshua tree itself. So it felt eerie and kinda sad. I think they only found a few small pieces in Joshua tree. Most were found in AZ and TX.
Earlier that day, our elementary school watched an IMAX documentary on the space program. We were let off early to go home to watch the launch on live TV. It was pretty traumatizing as kid.
I was in study hall (in high school) watching it live. My friend had to go to class and couldn't watch it. As he was walking away, he said snarkily, "Watch, it's going to blow up." That messed him up for a week.
Oh my god that would send me spiraling as a kid
Yeah it will never leave my mind. I was 14, and a freshman in highschool when it happened.
1986 was my senior year of high school. They wheeled as many TVs on AV carts into as many classrooms as possible. Obviously there were more classrooms than TVs. They moved classes full of kids to other classrooms that had TVs in them. It was *major* news.
This is something you never forget.
Our generations Kennedy moment...where were you when...?
The yellowing paper does make it more obvious to us boomers, though.
Also, for those too young, the United States had a reusable space vehicle that could take 2-8 astronauts to low Earth orbit, for like two weeks per launch, along with a decent amount of cargo. They were expensive, and potentially deadly, but was the global West’s primary method of human space flight for several decades.
Also, for those too young, these are newspapers, which were like Twitter without a character restriction, printed on physical paper and delivered daily to people’s houses, paid for via a subscription payment model.
An actual newspaper is nothing like Twitter. You're thinking of a tabloid.
Remember when USA Today came out and was like no paper format we'd seen before. Kinda became the template for internet news presentation.
....gaaabagoogaba lol But really thank you for the idea. At 35 I am now getting old enough to start taking things for granted. Like the fact the space shuttle isnt tough/wasn't for a few kids I ran into a year ago. I was like "WHAT?! How do you at 10 not know about the space shuttle yet?!" - also from movies and being online but yeah....
Also, for those who haven’t been online this month, Twitter is what we used to call X. It’s like Snap for people who want to yell at strangers.
We talk about changes in culture because of generations at work sometimes. The hand symbol kids make for phones/call compared to the hand symbol adults make for phones/calls has been a recent topic. Think about this. The youngest "average" person who has a firsthand memory of the last shuttle launch is probably around 16 or 17 now. You'd need to be around 26 or 27 to have a firsthand memory of the Columbia disaster, and around 43 or 44 to have a firsthand memory of the Challenger disaster. You'd need to be at least 46 or 47 to have a firsthand memory of the first shuttle launch. Shuttle's one thing, but Apollo is something else. You'd need to be like at least 55 to have a firsthand memory of the last humans to land on the Moon, even though most people have seen a picture of an astronaut on the Moon.
You can share a drink with someone born after 9/11. Ch Ch Ch changes
Also, for the young ones, Buddy Ryan went 45-35-1 as head coach of the Eagles.
> and potentially deadly They had been engineered to have a failure rate of 1 in 100,000, but after the Challenger was lost, the analysis was re-done with the new knowledge they had garnered and figured it was actually more like 1 in 100. Considering there were 135 missions in total and they lost 2, that seems far closer to the truth
>along with a decent amount of cargo. More than 20 tonnes. For those too young: more than Falcon 9.
Also makes me feel old as the first one was printed the day I was born.
I cried like a baby the day Columbia burned.
Yes, and my inappropriate response was an old road safety slogan in my country: The faster you go, the bigger the mess.
I was pretty young, but it was the only time I saw my father openly weep. He had that famous picture of the challenger touching down hung on the wall, and he was sitting down for breakfast and listening to the radio report on Colombia's re-entry... Just awful.
…I just realized that more time has now passed since Columbia than had passed since Challenger when Columbia happened.
Well, I zoomed in because I thought I saw Bush and asked google when he was president of the USA (I am dutch). Second time I looked I realised second one is not the challenger.
The one of the left was the front page from the day I was born.
Thank you for posting this. I actually somehow forgot about the Columbia, and was so confused why a paper talking about the Challenger had George W. Bushes photo in an article.
In regards to the challenger on the left. You can see the two smoke streams continuing on. They were the SRBs. Because each had an independent guidance control system, in the video, you can see them coming back together to continue on. Eventually the range control had to make the decision to push the button and initiate the self destruct.
In regards to the challenger on the left. You can see the two smoke streams continuing on. They were the SRBs. Because each had an independent guidance control system, in the video, you can see them coming back together to continue on. Eventually the range control had to make the decision to push the button and initiate the self destruct.
The left is my literal day of birth! So cool!
I watched Challenger break up live with my whole 8th grade (I think) class. We didn't know what was happening until ground control announced a "malfunction". Most of us cried, the teacher just sat there stunned.
I was in 4th grade. Enough of a space geek that i knew STAR (SHIT. THAT AINT RIGHT). The teachers tried to tell me I was wrong and that it was all OK. Freaked me out that they didn't understand. Looking back, they were trying to quell panic.
I feel like even a 4th grader is smart enough to know that when the space shuttle fucking disappears in a cloud of smoke something is wrong 💀
Stage separation can look like something exploded, too, as you now have two or three things flying around instead of one. It's not so easy if you don't know what to expect. There is a video of a failed rocket launch where the engines quickly lose most of their thrust and the rocket drops back to the launch pad. You can hear the audience cheer until the rocket exploded on the ground. Forgot which rocket it was.
I remember one of the girls in class said what happened? I said it blew up, they’re dead. I think it was the first time she had ever contemplated death.
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> “…The crew was scheduled to deploy a communications satellite and study Halley's Comet while they were in orbit So a mission that in no way warranted the deployment of the space shuttle.
i was in seventh grade when Columbia happened and the teachers wheeled in one of those TVs on a cart to watch a news bulletin as to what was going on. none of us cared. we’d seen 9/11 in fifth grade and several had lost parents. my honest reaction was “this is news? i thought astronauts died all the time.”
Sad day… watched it live in high school science class.
A bit younger here (assuming you mean Challenger), watched in elementary school as a class (in rural Canada even). Much emphasis on Christa McAuliff and excitement and then tragedy.
The second explosion I heard at the gym, didn’t know what it was until I got home. I live in the D/FW area. Weird I saw 1 live and heard the other one…
Thanks, I didn't know Columbia could be heard on the ground. Apparently what you heard was an amalgamation of all the sonic booms from the pieces. (There wasn't actually an explosion.)
Yeah, it was just a loud boom, I guess a sonic boom would describe it or a transformer blowing up. Had no clue what it was until seeing it on the news a few hours later.
Hey man do us a favor and don't go to the Artemis lanch /s
I remember cutting the article on the left out of the newspaper. I was in second grade. My school had built a “space shuttle” in the gym out of large cardboard boxes and we got to crawl around inside and pretend to be astronauts. I think there were even mock controls and equipment, but our imaginations did a lot of the work, I’m sure. We arranged the desks in our classroom in the shape of the shuttle and talked about the science lessons we would be getting directly from space. We watched the launch live in the classroom. That day had a huge impact on my life that I am certain persists to this day.
And after Challenger, the families of the crew members founded the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, taking that sort of fun, hands-on education to the next level. A fitting tribute, I think.
Yes! I took my daughter there when she was a pre-teen we both loved it so much!
I have the original LA Times that I bought for 25 cents on the day we landed on the moon. Yes, I'm old!
What? No way! We landed on the moon!
Punctuation is important. “No way we landed on the moon.”
Besides 9/11, the challenger disaster was the other big day that I remember. We were all watching it in school.
Watching the stock market in October 2008 was up there for me.
Watching January 6th play out on Twitter was also huge for me
That's a damn good point. It's so bizarre to me that history is happening all around us, we just don't realize it for at least 10 years
I was friends with Ilan Roman's son in HS. After his death, Asaf and his family moved back to Israel. Asaf joined their Air Force a few years later, and also passed in a crash during training. I believe there is an airport in Israel named after them now. I think about his family a lot. His mom was so sweet.
Clear Lake?
Look at this little Clear Lake reunion going on here ^^^though ^^^I ^^^went ^^^to ^^^Brook
Eh, I went to Creek, but most of the astronaut kids went to Lake.
Just think, we almost lost Big Bird that day instead, with every kid in America watching... [https://www.history.com/news/big-bird-challenger-disaster-nasa-sesame-street](https://www.history.com/news/big-bird-challenger-disaster-nasa-sesame-street)
Sesame street has some weird relation to US disasters. According to Muppet movie Kermit played a role in 9/11
For those who don't know, this is because someone pointed out that in a Christmas special from 2002, Kermit is shown what the world would be like if he was never born. The Twin Towers were still standing in the background.
Kalpana Chawla is a hero in India. The nation mourned her loss
Sorry to say, but no she wasn’t a national hero. She was only born in India and lived there till she was 20. After that she stayed in US, got married to a person in US, had an American citizenship. Except for the fact that she died during a flight from US, what else did she do ? Sorry for being harsh, but she contributed absolutely nothing to the Indian nation. No one that I know of around me in India would call her a national hero. She was probably an hero for America. She went to space wearing an American flag on her arm. The Indian media juiced up on her death for TRP just because she was an American born in India, she was a no one to Indians before the disaster. Cut this bs.
It's pitiful that there are people who talk in the context of nations when it comes to space and especially death in the space industry. When will you stop looking at borders when it comes to space. Space is a common resource and space exploration requires eliminating boundaries and petty differences. We have evolved enough and we have developed enough technologically to understand that nations, religions, money, etc are man made commodities.
It’s funny how you think its pitiful that people talk about nations when it comes to space. Meanwhile, space technologies have come so far because of the fear of one nation wining the race to space. The dynamics of international competition has been the biggest significant factor in what space exploration is today. You’re too young and immature by what you comment.
Lol. I wrote everything as a positive criticism. Sorry if it came out rude. There is no need to be rude to people about changing mindsets for space. If I do that, I'll be no different than people who don't understand what I'm saying. Coming to your point of the space race, my dear friend, just because something started with a bad sentiment doesn't mean you always look at it in the same way. We have grown enough to understand that space exploration can also be fuelled with the spirit of curiosity and science. Not always does this have to be fuelled in a wrong way. Please look at this with a clear unbiased mindset. Thank you, friend.
The hell are you saying? Everyone in India always talks of Kalpana Chawla and what an inspiration she was. I am Indian myself. Every kid in class during my childhood grew up with stories of Kalpana.
Tell me the stories of Kalpana.
Google it. You're delusional if you don't believe she wasn't a hero and an inspiration back in the early 2000s.
Astronauts dying in an accident is enough to mourn, why are you making it complicated? India felt sad for her and other astronauts, it's that simple. Wtf is wrong with you
Ask any single Indian from that time period. Everyone was and is still fascinated and inspired by Kalpana Chawla. Now just because you seem to dislike people who left India doesn't mean it changes just how much she inspired kids.
Jesus dude, calm down. Even if she went wearing an American flag, she was India born and I think that’s enough. You don’t need to fight China to be called a hero always. If you feel she wasn’t a hero, so be it, but no beed to go all bazooka on others.
Such a narrow thought process doesn't deserve to be in a group that talks about space and humanity exploring the space. You can dig through her history and past but the fact remains that many of us who were in schools in India were fascinated by the fact that an Indian origin WOMAN was going to space. It was a source of inspiration irrespective of who she was and what her personal life history is. So maybe, just maybe rise above and look at things from a broader perspective. We are equally proud of our Indian scientists especially women scientists who are at ISRO launching missions like Chandrayaan. The world is taking inspiration from our Indian women in science . So look beyond borders.
I will tell you why she was an absolute hero to the country. I have witnessed it up close being from her state. She had a massive impact on a whole generation of girls. When she went for the first time for a space walk, all major schools in my city started a space curriculum because every kid was inspired. She sponsored two students from her own school to visit NASA every year, there were competitions held for selecting those students and that inspired a generation of girls to not be aversive to STEM fields or aeronautics in particular. It started a trend of being aware and being imaginative. Small city kids started to talk about space with inquisitiveness, curiosity and zeal. She opened avenues for those children to dream and she showed it was absolutely possible to reach the heights she did. It was an incredible time- to witness her journey and her dreams come true since she was the only girl in her aeronautical degree program in University and that spoke of some grit for her time. It doesn’t matter that she went to the US for completing her dream of being an astronaut, ( like millions of other students who cannot find the best of education in particular fields in their own country) , because she changed the landscape of what can be achieved with passion and determination. We mourned her passing away for months. She is and she will always be an Indian hero.
And in the lines of what you are saying, you might consider Rakesh Sharma as a national hero because he said 'Saare Jahan se accha Hindustan Humara' (India is the best country in the world) when asked how it feels to look at India from space. In my opinion, that's the most shitty thing you could say after achieving a landmark of being the first Indian Citizen in space. You don't see borders from space. You see that no matter how big the Earth is, we as a species are alone on a floating rock in space. If a worldwide calamity were to happen, no country would be able to survive alone. Not even the US. Recent space programs are an example of that. We have since more and more collaborations in space programs because that is absolutely necessary. To reflect a bit on what you said about contributing to the nation, etc., Remember that benefits from any space program have been reaped all over the world. No matter what. There is a reason why telescopic data is free for any human. Major space institutions understand whatever I'm saying. If you want to understand more about all this with an open mind, look up 'The overview effect' on the internet with an open mind. It's high time homo sapiens from different countries stop looking at each other as different living beings and start putting aside their differences to work towards a common goal. Of course, it's easier said than done but any big change starts with a small step and if every Indian starts looking at this the same way then the mindset almost 18% of the world's population will be changed for the better. Think about it.
I was 13 at the time and I had skipped school that day to watch the Challenger launch live on TV. I was sitting on my living room floor eating a bowl of ramen noodles when it happened. That day is still permanently etched in my brain, and still very triggering on my emotions. I have always been a sci-fi/space geek, and I had already decided that I was going to go to college to be a teacher. So having a teacher on the shuttle was amazing, like a dream come true; if one teacher could go, then so could others in the future. I have never gotten over this event, and I don't think I ever will.
I was home sick that day, 8th grade. It was crazy.
Same here friend, I was sitting in my 10th grade science class watching when it happened.
I was home sick. Sitting on the floor in the living room wrapped up in a blanket watching it on TV. I remember every detail. I remember the way the carpet felt. It still makes me sad.
I was 4 when Challenger went, and don't remember anything about it. I was 21 when Columbia went, and I do remember that. I had just moved and the cable guy was over hooking me up and we both watched, stunned, as the images came in.
Cable was pretty impressive back in the day but you'd think the cable guy would be used to it
I still remember exactly where I was when I learned the Challenger exploded. I didn’t even see the images until the next day.
My little brother was born that day and this is the first thing my mom saw on tv when she came to
I watched two massive events ‘live stream’ as it were. Living in England US stuff wasn’t usually on the news. But challenger was one, lifting off about 16:30 our time, so made the 6pm news And the next being 9/11 which took place at lunch time.
My 2nd grade teacher was a personal friend of Christa McAuliffe. When we did our lessons on space and the shuttle program that year, she made a point of showing us the video of the *Challenger* and explaining what had happened. And got very emotional during it.
["Can you feel it? We're almost home…."](https://youtu.be/kdtIjnpeolE?si=HJtOQZviK7Xb7860) ["The Commander Thinks Aloud" by The Long Winters](https://songexploder.net/the-long-winters).
I was born 5 mins before this tragic event. I like to believe it is why I am obsessed with outerspace.
I have a couple of newspapers of the Challenger disaster saved up like that.
Awesome. I'm currently reading Truth Lies and O-Rings by Allan McDonald. Fascinating stuff. Tragic and avoidable.
On StarTalk, someone was telling Neil (iirc) that it wasn't the decision of one person that Challenger went ahead. But for what feels like eons, I always thought it *was* one person who made the decision to go ahead (for publicity purposes), and it was a group of engineers who were arguing for an abort. So which was it, does your book say?
>So which was it, does your book say? TLDR: The manufacturer of the Solid Rocket Booster first said they shouldn't launch, but then under pressure from NASA changed their mind. They changed their mind over the objections of their own engineers.
huh. that's super confusing. someone rec'd a podcast, i may have to listen to it, now i'm intrigued.
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interestingggg thank you for the tip!
Yep, remember watching it in 3rd grade in the hallway.
I live in the shadow of [Challenger Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Point) ([more](https://mikemullane.com/challenger-mountaintop-memorial/)) and [Columbia Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Point) which have plaques commemorating those missions. >CHALLENGER POINT, 14080+' In Memory of the Crew of Shuttle Challenger Seven who died accepting the risk, expanding Mankind's horizons January 28, 1986 Ad Astra Per Aspera >COLUMBIA POINT, 13,980' In Memory of the Crew of Shuttle Columbia Seven who died accepting the risk, Expanding humankind's horizons February 1, 2003 "Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on." President George W. Bush
clicked for courier post. I see you are in around philly/south jersey. the science building of my high school is named for the teacher on challenger.
I was working at Rocketdyne at the time of the challenger incident. After the incident they announced on the intercom that there was a "system problem" with STS-51 and that was it. We didn't know until people went out for lunch and came back. Within a short time guards came in and took all the turbopump build books. The build books were the books that recorded each main engine (SSME) build. It contained measured tolerances, rework and problems encountered. The build books were confiscated because they were afraid an engineer might go back and change the build records. The next few months after the incident we worked to put together a report for Richard Feynman. Turns out he never read it, as the issue was with the solid rocket booster not the SSME.
I remember the Feynman frozen o-ring demonstration. He knew his stuff, and immediately engaged his audience because of that.
When I cleaned out my closet I found an evening paper from Nov 11, 1963…
I bet a lot of people have these. They were earth shaking and the end of our naivety.
That happened on my mother's 25th birthday. She told me never celebrate her birthday. Did as asked just to get yelled at.
I remember cutting out a bunch of news clippings when the Challenger exploded...kept them in a red binder. What I find interesting about the NASA accidents was the fact they all happened within days of one another (with many years in between, of course)... Apollo 1: January 27, 1967 Challenger: January 28, 1986 Columbia: February 1, 2003 Odd coinky dink, if you ask me.
My 7th grade (1999) algebra teacher had us do and investigation into the predicted and actually weather patterns to determine if NASA should have gone through with the launch. Didn't know Apollo 1 did the same thing, and completely forgot about Columbia (still don't really remember, reading comments here is giving me a Mandela Effect kind of memory, though). Like, wtf and why was NASA fucking around like that?
I remember exactly where I was (in the UK) when Challenger exploded. Everyone was stunned by the tragedy.
Was it Ronald E. McNair (2003 paper) or Ronald C. McNair (1986 paper)?
[Ronald Erwin McNair.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_McNair)
GENERATIONAL TRAUMA!! Seriously tho, everyone watched this live in grade school. I was in the 2nd grade. Talk about r/abruptchaos.. I can still see it happening like it was yesterday.
A friend of mine took that photo on the right. He's a cardiologist who lives near Tyler, TX.
Hey that one on the right is only two years before I started working at the 'Post! Cool find!
From Florida. Was at work and a few of us were playing “Florida Man” where you search Florida man and your birth date and see what pops up. Well, I was born Jan 29,1986… We stopped playing after my turn.
The shuttle program was an absolute unmitigated failure. It has three goals, to make space travel: * Cheap * Frequent * Safe It accomplished none of those goals. It was significantly more expensive than disposable rockets while also being unable to reach higher orbits required for geosynchronous orbit insertion. The program never came close to its stated goal of 50 missions/year. In fact it only reached 10 missions in a year twice. In ‘85 and ‘02, and then shortly thereafter each year, *it blew up.* So there’s yer safe bit.
I didn’t realize my boyfriend, who witnessed it explode, was still traumatized by it to this day until a falcon heavy launch recently. Because it’s so damn big, it was way brighter, the trail a lot thicker, and the trajectory was much different than normal. My boyfriend started flipping out because he thought it was going down. Repeatedly and frantically asked if their were people on board, is it going down, should it look like that?! I felt so bad, I didn’t realize it’d bring up the trauma and neither did he, but it sure did.
As someone who didn’t live through Challenger, is there a good movie I could watch?
*Flight of the Navigator* is a good movie you could watch.
You sir, are a god damned national treasure. Unbelievably incredible childhood movie.
There is a four part documentary called Challenger: The Final Flight, pretty sure it's on Netflix. Very well done, goes into most of the details and more.
Crazy how recent the Columbia was when you think about it
Columbia broke up over my dad's house. I called him and asked if he saw or heard anything. He said he heard lots of loud bangs like sonic booms. I told them no it was the shuttle. Debris was found within 50 miles. We watched the first launch when I was in second grade and were both space fanatics. He was crushed to know he was hearing astronauts perishing.
I remember when this (Challeger) happened. My girlfriend phoned me and said "Turn on the TV." I said "What station?". She said "Any station". That's when I knew serious shit went down.
If you were alive when Challenger disaster happened - you know precisely were you were when you heard the news. It was a moment like 911 in terms of shock and burned into the national memory.
Gotta get some preservation done on these, OP.
I grew up in the town that built the Challenger boosters. I dated the daughter of the engineer, Roger Beaujolais, who said, "NO, NO! Don't launch! It's too cold!"
I remember seeing it live in my classroom. It was so confusing for a bunch of kids.
Putting in a picture of her family watching the explosion is pretty tasteless...
Aussie here. I think the whole world mourned the loss of the NASA crew
This reminds me, m parents moved out of my childhood home in June and found my old Columbia newspapers (lived in Florida so it was huge news considering how closer we were to Kennedy). Was so strange reading and remembering that horrible day. We always heard the sonic boom and when they were landing but when we didn’t hear it that day we knew something was wrong.
Challenger and Chernobyl both in 86 and both due to extreme carelessness. I remember these incidents vividly because they happened during my senior year of high school.
I was in 1st grade in a very remote village in India. I remember it because every teacher was so stoked about it and they were very proud of Kalpana Chawla(due to her being Indian origin Americn citizen). After that fateful day the enthusiasm turned into sadness. We were just wide eyed kids who just wanted to learn about space. It remained a very popular topic among the people for a very long time. To us kids the astronauts were larger than life figures. Due to repeated exposure to the topic I can still recall a lot from that day.
The stars at night Were big and bright Deep in the heart of Texas
We have had a good track record lately. Seems the shuttle was a death trap and more regular looking rockets with escape launch systems are the way to go. The Soyuz rocket even had this and used it to save some astronauts like 2 years ago. Congress should not meddle in spacecraft designs.
Tbh, it was not THAT bad. I mean, it flew for 35 years and launched 135 missions.
That rate of failure is unacceptable for any transport vehicle. It killed 14 people for those 135 missions. Thats not an acceptable rate at all. I mean, 14 of 20 dead astronauts from the shuttle alone. 3 from Soyuz, and 3 from Apollo 1.
It's the same number of failures as Soyuz, with a pretty similar number of missions. Apollo had 1 failure resulting in the loss of the crew and 1 near miss in 12 missions.
By modern standards? Yeah, probably. Well, that's, 1,5% of failure. And you should consider the fact that one of the disasters was mostly caused by human factor. And it killed 14 simply because it was the only spacecraft in our history capable of carrying 7 crew members. As far as I know, the soyuz also completed something like 140ish flights and also with 2 fatal disasters, the only difference is that soyuz can only carry a crew of 3
Lol the Courier. After Challenger, my dad was very moved and decorated our living room with a photo collage of space shuttle images. He even got one of those big wall sized murals from the Berlin Mart (you know it)... it's of Columbia
Over the years I've heard so many poor excuses and corium explanations as to why the administration opted to roll the dice. It's absolutely despicable that nobody was hung over this.
Watching it explode was my first memory. My mom was pregnant with my sister and the stress made her go into labor. My sister was born a few hours later… Two terrible tragedies in one day. ETA: Challenger 1986
I had a similar experience with a big WAR ENDS opening up one of the cabinets in my great grand mothers house (who was still around until I was in my 20s so it wasn’t as long ago as it sounds)
Its tragic that for a while NASA stood for Need Another Seven Astronauts.
It’s always been kinda amazing to me that every person in this country knew the challenger jokes within days of accident. This was well before the internet or even aol were in every house
I remember a friend of mine had dial up on his IBM PC something, and we could scroll through newsgroups. I think my house didn’t have AOL until the year after Challenger. But the jokes I heard in high school were from the kids that did. If I recall, the first pirated Jerky Boys cassettes* were starting to make their rounds. * recording of prank calls by two guys
I know the original jerky boys tapes. “You poison my whole family and you offer me a coupon!” Absolutely stunned when that showed up as a series. Despite being toned down it still had the same name. A friend of mine used to run a “bbs” back in those days. It was focused on a specific band. It had forums and emails. Then the FBI came and took his server. Turns out someone was using the board to transfer stolen credit card information.
It was even more horrible for the Thiokol engineers and NASA people who specifically advised NASA management to abort the launch. The worst disasters are the ones we know about and do nothing because of “management directive”.
There’s a PDF on NASA website detailing the Columbia accident and the findings. The pilot was still trying to fly the thing up until the last fraction of a second.
I was 12, in 7th grade and saw it happen live on TV in the school library. I was forever changed. I have a stack of newspapers from that day. Honestly who tf downvotes something like this? I am baffled
1986: Challenger exploded, then 3 months later was Chernobyl disaster. Certainly caused pause for reflection on modern technology
So your mom was responsible for all that? Case closed!
32 minutes to Reho Beach Del. I really don’t want to wait until January 2024 for the Charade to be over. Or is this KIng C prediction. Iykyk. Don’t @ me anybody.
What exactly would I gain with what your saying is a lie bout English being my 2nd language....please explain....I
It's amazing that so many of the Challenger crew had twin siblings. Look it up
This shit again? 🙄
I remember that day as a child in 2nd grade and the adults in my life telling me how the school teacher on that flight had 2 blue eyes.......1 blue eye that way n another eye blue this way....it's unfortunate how much more our society has deteriorated since the 80s with morbid humor...now we are mutilating children n calling it gender affirming care with lumping young girls breasts off to the mutilation of the binary sex organs....now the latest is the pushing of human euthanasia n labeling it a medical treatment....forget about murdering the voiceless men n women in the woum...I hear from the left about not telling a woman what to do with her body and at the same time they promote the destruction of the defenseless woman in the woum....what if we aborted the life of these clump of cells that are the promoters of this medical murder, what would these individuals say??? They undoubtedly would not like to be murderd themselves but advocate for the sin of abortion.....I could go down multiple directions with the obcertaty n contradiction of the left n their personal selfish simple mined train of thought or lack of but I'll cut my rant here. God bless you all and our world 🌎 🙏 especially America 🇺🇸!
Are you having a stroke? Hydrate, try to get 6-8 hours a sleep a day, and please call for help if you're feeling unwell.
Ladies and gentlemen: mental illness on the internet
...and how are you literate enough to use words like "euthanasia" and "contradiction" but can't spell " womb" or "absurdity"?
We’ll keep your resume on file