7 Myths About The Challenger Shuttle Disaster

NBC via MSNBC ^ | January 27, 2006 | James Oberg

[John W]

HOUSTON - Twenty years ago, millions of television viewers were horrified to witness the live broadcast of the space shuttle Challenger exploding 73 seconds into flight, ending the lives of the seven astronauts on board. And they were equally horrified to learn in the aftermath of the disaster that the faulty design had been chosen by NASA to satisfy powerful politicians who had demanded the mission be launched, even under unsafe conditions. Meanwhile, a major factor in the disaster was that NASA had been ordered to use a weaker sealant for environmental reasons. Finally, NASA consoled itself and the nation with the realization that all frontiers are dangerous and to a certain extent, such a disaster should be accepted as inevitable.

At least, that seems to be how many people remember it, in whole or in part. That’s how the story of the Challenger is often retold, in oral tradition and broadcast news, in public speeches and in private conversations and all around the Internet. But spaceflight historians believe that each element of the opening paragraph is factually untrue or at best extremely dubious. They are myths, undeserving of popular belief and unworthy of being repeated at every anniversary of the disaster.

[cva66snipe]

This same thing happens to pilots who fly in marginal weather. They rationalize that if they got away with it this time, they are OK and it is alright to go through worse weather next time. Eventually they go to far and they have given away all their margins of safety. They then crash and the crash is blamed on a small plane being caught by bad weather. The implication being that small planes are dangerous. It doesn't matter what you are doing, if you give away your safety margins, you are asking for trouble. I would bet that they didn't advise the pilot that they were giving away his safety margins, but it is OK because we gave some away before.

If not for ones everyday pushing themselves and machine to the very limits of their capabilities we may not enjoy the freedoms we do. I am not saying these deaths were any less tragic than others. But on the other hand a navy pilot can crash at sea and it gets a paragraph mention.

Several things happened at NASA. The first b=ing the reorganization of what constitutes a flight crew. The Apollo Missions were manned by veteran military aviators. A certain amount of military discipline therefore was demanded of NASA not perfection but discipline & accountability.

Then it starting getting political. PC and the demands for being the first whoever to go into space likely had something to do with it all as well. I think the crews need to go back to military manning. For the time being until the bugs or new generation shuttle can be built a return to the Apollo Saturn system may be beneficial also and get us more missions into space.

[JimmyMc]

"ONLY people watching live"

My coworkers and I were in our lunch room watching it live. Beware of making such unfounded sweeping statements.

[Dan(9698)]

I think the crews need to go back to military manning.

I am a pilot, and so I am aware of some of the things that happen.

The flight regulations evolved to try to save other pilots from the mistakes of those who crashed.

I know that it is not "fair" that a small mistake carries a death sentence, but that is the way it is.

A pilot can make the "smallest mistake" and he is dead.

It is invariably something that he new better though.

My Father was a pilot too, and he told me that while he was taking flying lessons, he flew with 6 instructors.

Over the years 5 of the 6 killed themselves in airplane crashes when they were doing things they told him not to do.

Most of the time, the pilot knew better, but went ahead and did it anyway.

NASA needs to do the things they know are safe. You don't advance aviation by doing things you know aren't safe. There is already enough risk without adding to it by giving away the safety margins.

[Junior]

Few people saw the tragedy unfold?

Where did you get that from? The opening sentence reads:

"Twenty years ago, millions of television viewers were horrified to witness the live broadcast of the space shuttle Challenger exploding 73 seconds into fligt..."

[jwpjr]

The thing that stuck in my mind about the aftermath was how the NASA supplied sound continued to announce the shuttle was at such and such and altitude and such and such a speed, even after it was apparent it was no long in ascent. Seems like that went on for a couple of minutes at least.

We are on the coast opposite the Cape and if the weather is clear, it was CAVU that morning, we get a good look at a launch. It becomes visible to us here about 40 seconds after launch and can be seen until the boosters drop off. We listened on the radio until we knew the launch had taken place and then hopped in the car to drive a few blocks to a point where we would have a really good view. When we got to the point that we would expect to see the flames from the engines and the vapor trail all we saw was the now famous Y shaped vapor trails. It took several minutes for us to realize what we were seeing.

I have several photographs of launches as seen from here. One was at sunset with a full moon, another was in the early morning light. I was still working for the newspaper when the last one burned up on re-entry and had pulled over to the side of the road to snap a couple of pictures of its launch.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Challenger was an epiphany for me, and one that's stuck with me to this day:  why feel bad about someone who dies doing what they love?

I can honestly say that thought has stuck with me to this day.  I mean, I'm probably going to die of a heart attack walking down the street or rot to death in a hospital bed from cancer.

So when I see stories about people like Dale Earnhardt dying during a race or the astronauts who died in Columbia I just kind of think, "Good for you" and I don't feel bad for them at all.

The number of us who get to achieve our dreams in life is so small, I refuse to feel bad for people who die in the attainment of theirs.

[Betis70]

>>Where did you get that from? The opening sentence reads:

Keep reading.

"Myth #1: A nation watched as tragedy unfolded
Few people actually saw what happened live on television."

[Junior]

I know I didn't find out about it till I woke up that afternoon (I worked nights at that time).

[pepperdog]

Ditto, I don't remember any environ implication and I think I would as I tend to be super sensitive to these things because I think the environs are more dangerous than terrorists!

[MikeD]

Good article. Oberg is one of the best space writers around. He's the guy that broke the story about the Cosmonaut who died in a fire in '61.

[tang-soo]

I worked for Martin-Marietta in Orlando at the time (now Lockheed-Martin). MM built the external fuel tank - though a different division. Our facility was on th SW side of Orlando, approximately 50 miles away. I had just finished lunch and was walking through the courtyard between the main building and the classified building M I worked in when I overheard two guys talking. One fella pointed to the sky and while pointing to some odd looking "clouds" said, "yeah, that's what's left of it."

The "it" I thought he was talking about was another wayward cloud. The day before, the launch had been delayed because of a very localized storm cloud (in addition to low temp) and I thought the same thing had happened this day.

Two minutes later I carded into my office area and I heard people crying and I suddenly learned the truth.

For a few weeks the assumption was that the external fuel tank was responsible so many in our office area were upset. It turns out that one of the engineers on my project was a nationally recognized expert on nondestructive testing. Chris served on three investigations over the next several months. There were three significant failures withn a short period of time. The Challenger, a Titan (I think launched from Vanderberg) and an Atlas Centaur (I think also from Van). Chris had developed a method of infrared scanning from super-cooled test samples: used for looking for laminate voids. Anyway, off topic, I do remember that for a few months there was a serious investigation of all three episodes being from sabotage (retaliation from Reagan hitting Libya being the reason) because there was a missing scientist/engineer that had access to critical systems of all three vehicles. Negver heard the final outcome of that.

That's my memory from a day I will never forget.

Oh, one more thought. I did drive out with my family to see the launch prior to Challenger. I think it was over Thanksgiving weekend and there was a senator from Utah aboard (don't remember his name). It was a night launch and I remember seeing the flare for a few minutes and it suddenly disappeared. We were astonished when the guy over the PA said that it was off the west coast of Spain at the time. Incredible!

[fieldmarshaldj]

I was out sick that day, too. I was in the 6th grade at the time. I do remember watching it live on tv (I think switching between CNN and NBC), as I used to enjoy watching all the live launches. After it exploded, there was still some momentary hope that they survived it -- but there was no earthly way they could survive the ocean impact. From that standpoint, it would've been a better blessing that they all perished with the explosion instantly than an unimaginable hellish aftermath between that moment and the ocean impact. :-(

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

The thing that stuck in my mind about the aftermath was how the NASA supplied sound continued to announce the shuttle was at such and such and altitude and such and such a speed, even after it was apparent it was no long in ascent. Seems like that went on for a couple of minutes at least.

There was only ONE announcement of altitude and distance downrange a few seconds after the explosion. Then "looking very carefully at the situation... obviously a major malfunction", a delay of some seconds of silence, then "It has been relayed through flight control, the vehicle has exploded." Funny how the mind works in remembering such events... people see fire and missiles when there was none before plane crashes etc.

[jwpjr]

Wow! How right you are. I heard a replay of the first five minutes after countdown and there was, indeed, only a single announcement as you say.

Thank you for the brain flush!

[StACase]

Hmmm, nobody in 114 posts commented on this lie from our wonderful Main Stream Media:

The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word. There was no shock wave, no detonation, no "bang"...(Some television documentaries later added the sound of an explosion to these images.)

Now adding the sound of an explosion may not be the sort of lie that hits my hot button, because it's not designed to color the news from a particular point of view, but it's a lie just as much as Dan Rather's lie and all the other lies I'm sure they're telling on a daily basis. Way to many people just lap this stuff up.

[SamAdams76]

The author is probably right in that many people didn't see it "live" but that is just parsing words. Within an hour or two of the tragedy, nearly every American saw the disaster as it was replayed on TV endlessly all that day on all the channels.

I was in training at the time at corporate headquarters and they herded us into the cafeteria to see the news coverage. It was similar to what happened in my workplace on 9/11. While few of us saw that second plane hitting the WTC live, within a few minutes of that, every TV in the office was on and all work had stopped.

[WillT]

I agree; Overall, this is a pretty good article from someone who knows a thing or two about NASA. The more I read about this disaster the more angry I get. It sounds as if this could have been avoided. The same type of incompetence prevailed three years ago with the Columbia. Sad.

[Bean Counter]

That was what fired me up so badly about the loss of Columbia, because it was absolutely preventable, and a lot of the same arrogance that cost NASA the Challenger remained to cost us Columbia as well.

In any case, it's long past time to move past the shuttle program and git goin' on something worthwhile. Manufacturing on the moon lets say, or at one of the LaGrange points. Anything but ISS and the shuttle.

[Doohickey]

I remember where I was that day. We came up to PD to get a fix and clear the broadcast before commencing field day.

The only message we got was the one ordering us to immediately surface and await instructions. Later, we were given a chunk of water to search and recover debris.

All of that message traffic was unclassified, and I'd stored it onboard because it had significant historical value.

Unfortunately, a few years later it was all lost to hurricane Hugo when the crew barge sank while the boat was being refuled at Charleston Naval Shipyard.

I actually never saw the footage until the first anniversary of Challenger's loss. God rest their souls.

[Dashing Dasher]

While reading this article, I kept thinking... what is his point!? What does he gain from this?

What a horrible article.

Ripping open an old scar... for no good reason.