Posted on 01/28/2016 4:12:31 AM PST by WhiskeyX
Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion (GRAPHIC)
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Apollo 1 AS-204 - January 27, 1967; 23:31:19 UTC 49 years ago
Challenger OV-099 - STS-51-L January 28, 1986 11:39:13 EST (16:39:13 UTC) 30 years ago
Columbia OV-102 - February 1, 2003 08:59 EST (13:59 UTC) almost 13 years ago
I remember this well....
......it was the only time I didn’t stand in the back yard to watch the lift off.....because it was TOO COLD!
I had my TV on......and when it happened, I then went outside & could see the contrails.
This devastated the people of Brevard County and the nation.....( I’m about 30 minutes from the Cape)
Our county is big on aerospace technology.....many companies here.....our schools with children of aerospace engineers ...( my two included)
It was the beginning of the end for the little city of Titusville.....and Cocoa Beach for a while, but it bounced back
A dark and sad sad time.
My 11th grade history teacher came flying in the classroom, wheeling one of those big carts with a TV and a VCR that you use to watch videos in class.
She didn’t say a word the whole class, just stared at the TV.
We were 17 so we thought, “hey, free class, no work”.
Come to find out she knew the teacher that was on the shuttle.
I was a member of a group that testified before a Congressional committee in 1971 to get the appropriations necessary to build and operate the Shuttle Transport System. Years later we were in the California manufacturing plant and the engine test stands to make a motion picture film related to the space program. I became concerned when a client and lead facilities engineer working on the Space Shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg AFB expressed his concerns in 1979-1980 due the problems the other engineers, NASA and contractors, were commenting about as problems with the Space Shuttle design and construction. This was very much on my mind as I watched the Challenger disintegrate while watching the television in the lunchroom at work. NASA has proved to be a disappointment in the way it and the U.S. Government have mishandled the space program for most of a lifetime after our early efforts.
I don't think anyone us thought they would launch that morning because it was so cold. I remember seeing icicles on the pad from the CCTV feeds.
I remember the media frenzy and speculation as they waited for the searchers to find the bodies and bring them back to Cape Canaveral. But the bodies weren’t there. Searchers had secretly found them and brought them to my father, a USAF doctor who was commanding a nearby base hospital that night. So sad.
All due respect, but my husband ( now retired) was one of the engineers in charge of the TDRS Satellite that Challenger hoped to deploy
The trajectory was to the southeast because it was headed for a geosynchronous orbit.
And yes, it was one of Florida’s coldest days......
I’m surprised you can relate this....
....is it open knowledge now?
I remember one female reporter asked President Reagan at his news conference after the event, "Did you know it was going to blow up"? Think about that question. Her hatred of Reagan and conservatives was so great that she basically accused him of having it blown up.
[ I remember one female reporter asked President Reagan at his news conference after the event, “Did you know it was going to blow up”? Think about that question. Her hatred of Reagan and conservatives was so great that she basically accused him of having it blown up. ]
The real culprits of Challenger and Colombia in my opinion were the knuckleheads in the early 70’s in congress (mostly liberals) but also some security wonks in congress that kept gutting the budget for NASA for more welfare and gibs me dats program funding while asking NASA to redesign the shuttle for more and more differing uses (one of those being launching large SPY satellites) since they scrapped the reliable Saturn V and IIb launch vehicle(s).
The shuttle was originally supposed to be a lot smaller and a re-usable vehicle setting ATOP a stack of boosters to get it into space not ASIDE the boosters (this design flaw is what caused both Challenger and Colombia disasters). The only way side by side stacking works is if you are doing both horizontal takeoff and landing from a runway, not takeoff from a launch pad.
The smaller shuttle would have relied on separate launches of Saturn Rockets to do the heavy lifting for building the space shuttle.
BTTT
Thanks for the correction. My first thought was that the IUS had exploded. Never thought there would be a problem with the launch vehicle. But there’s no such thing as a ‘routine’ rocket launch. Each one is unique. Sad day today. It hurts thinking about it.
I was working at ATT in White Plains and my peer came running through the office yelling the Challenger blew up...it took a few seconds for it to register what she was saying....never forgot this sad anniversary.
Yep, the Left is doing the same thing to Trump and Cruz now - amazing their hatred.
I will never forget the image of being in the massive Gift Shop, or whatever they called it then, and seeing all of the TV's running the VCR tape of 20+ minutes of debris falling from the sky following the explosion. That tape was for sale at the time and I did not have the presence of mind to buy it right then and there. I returned a few months later and was told that the tape was no longer for sale.
Astronauts Likely Survived Challenger Explosion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqcd_3daPQ8
I read the report. The parts where your father’s report would have appeared were largely redacted for respect.
Bfl
You’re correct. Most of the Democrats were dead set to redirect the funds to welfare programs and were very afraid President Nixon would get credit for a space program larger than the one started by President Kennedy. We even had heavy opposition from the Republicans as well. In after hours meeting with the NASA, Nixon Administration officials, Senators, and Congressmen they agreed they were convinced there was a need for the program to be funded. Unfortunately, their colleagues in Congress refused to fund more than the bare minimum designs. At the time we testified at the Congressional committee to secure appropriations, NASA had settled on three proposed designs. The most expensive had a winged booster with a flight crew to pilot the expended booster back to Patrick AFB or other airfield for refurbishment and reuse. The least expensive design is the one they built.
My daughter co-wrote a play about the Challenger disaster when she was in college (theater major and space geek). A small theater (Pocket Theater) in Seattle is putting on the play in April with her as producer. Not bad for a 22-year old! Her day job is at the Museum of Flight.
Ironically, the actual destruction of Challenger was just sheer bad luck.
The burn-thru at the SRB joint was completely random and only by bad luck occurred in the roughly 90 degree arc facing the External Tank (ET).
If it had been somewhere along the other 270 degrees, the slight loss of thrust could have been offset by a small gimbaling of the Main Engines (ME) and the Shuttle could have made orbit with little or no change. In fact at the time of the explosion, the ME’s were already moving to offset the loss of thrust.
Instead the flame from the joint cut into the ET and severed one of the lower struts mounting the SRB, resulting in explosion that destroyed the Shuttle.
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