Remembering the Challenger 20 years later: Beautiful tribute by the Washington Post

The Washington Post ^ | January 28, 2006

[nwrep]

"...The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them nor the last time we saw them -- this morning -- as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God." -- President Reagan Addresses the Nation, January 28, 1986

[zeugma]

Thanks for posting Reagan's speech.

Our astronauts are some of our best folk.

The best memorial we can make to our fallen explorers is to continue the exploration.

[nina0113]

I was at work in Minneapolis. The woman who sat behind me was on the phone with her mother, who was watching the launch on TV. Connie stood up in her cube and screamed. I'll never forget that moment.

[HolgerDansk]

That was my senior year in my undergrad in Engineering. I was working my way through school, had a job in a hospital research lab repairing big computers. I was working underneath the Unibus cabinet when one of the reseachers came into the computer room and said "the space shuttle just exploded". Wiggled my way out from under the cabinet, then said to him "You mean they've lost an engine -- so they're doing an abort to Spain or Morocco?" and he said "No, it blew up", and went away. I walked down to the hospital lobby where I knew there was a TV set, and there it was, the "double headed snake", playing over and over again.

The College of Engineering (Marquette) cancelled classes the next day. The following day classes resumed, but all the professors wanted to talk about was the accident. It reminded them of the shock of Sputnik.

Two years later, I was off in grad school finishing my Masters, when the shuttle Discovery was launched. We had a nice satellite dish at the Ham Radio station, so I put out word via Usenet that anyone was welcome to watch the launch. The first person to show (at 0600) was an undergrad who was interested in space, and who is now my wife!

[RadioAstronomer]

:-(

We were in shock, we kept playing the computer tapes over and over till they told us to lock them down.

[veronica]

Nobody could give a speech like that like Reagan could. And you could tell he and Nancy were shattered, as we all were.

[ken5050]

What I remember most about that day is how blase we had become about the shuttle missions until that day. I was in my car that afternoon, heading back tot he office..and the all-news station switched to a live feed from the launch about 30 seconds before,and cut away from it about 30 seconds after the launch..they went to a commercial....you'd think it was like a plane taking off from JFK..then they cut in to a SPECIAL report...

[ken5050]

IIRC..Peggy Noonan wrote it...

[Dog]

What I remember about that day was the cold....it was an incredibly cold day here in Jersey that day. Funny how memories stick you..

[marblehead17]

ping

[ohioWfan]

Funny how memories stick you..

My now Iraqi War Veteran son was 2 years old when it happened.

He looked at the cover of TIME Magazine and the explosion and said, "People died."

I'll never forget that.

Question..........did anyone in the media blame Ronald Reagan for the tragedy? I don't remember that they did. The left has gotten far more vicious since then.....

[veronica]

I know. But Reagan imbued words with a specal power. He was after all a superb speaker. I wish Bush had a little more of that.

[lawnguy]

I remember it as if it were yesterday. The teacher on board was from my area, and I drive by a school named after her quite often.

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Dateline: Monday, March 10, 1986-
Washington Post

The impact of the explosion may have been sufficient to kill the astronauts...

What?

Am I reading this wrong, or does this implicitly suggest that the Challenger crew might have survived the initial explosion?

[mitchbert]

Correct.

[dayglored]

> Am I reading this wrong, or does this implicitly suggest that the Challenger crew might have survived the initial explosion?

Yep. Sorry to report it, but NASA reported that they were alive for three minutes after the explosion.

The big explosion was NOT the shuttle, it was the fuel tank. The shuttle was damaged, but it did NOT explode. It was further damaged as it turned sideways to the direction of travel -- it was going at Mach2, remember. But when they recovered the wreckage, there was evidence of the crew being alive until the impact with the water -- three minutes later. This included the fact that the crew had gotten out oxygen kits and other emergency gear. These facts are in the NASA reports on the accident, but are not widely reported in the MSM.

It is incredibly sad, but the crew knew they were in an accident, and they knew they were doomed. Try to sit still for three minutes by the clock, and think about nothing except that you are falling 40,000 feet into the ocean.

No wonder it's not widely reported. The MSM says "the shuttle exploded" but it didn't. The tank did, and it threw the shuttle free. Sad, but true. Read the NASA reports for detail; they make me too sad to transcribe here.

[ariamne]

I was thinking the same thing yesterday, the actual date of the Apollo 1 tragedy. These great men must never be forgetten, they were true pioneers - Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White. May they rest in blessed peace.

[Pyro7480]

Am I reading this wrong, or does this implicitly suggest that the Challenger crew might have survived the initial explosion?

From Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

Technically, the Shuttle and External Tank were not shattered by "an explosion", rather, they disintegrated in a fraction of a second under the tremendous aerodynamic forces that are experienced during the "Max-Q" phase of flight. This explains why the crew compartment (also called the forward fuselage) and astronauts survived the initial event. While the detached forward fuselage continued along its free-fall trajectory, the external tank, orbiter reaction system (the rear part of the Shuttle), and their contents combusted during the next several seconds in a massive fireball. Had there been a true explosion, the entire Shuttle would have been destroyed in matter of a fraction of second and the crew would have been killed at that moment.

At least some of the astronauts were alive and conscious after the "explosion" because three of the four personal egress air packs (PEAPs) of the flight deck crew had been activated. There was no evidence to indicate that the activation of the PEAPs was a consequence of the ocean surface impact.

[Pyro7480]

[dayglored]

>> Am I reading this wrong, or does this implicitly suggest that the Challenger crew might have survived the initial explosion?

> Yep. Sorry to report it, but NASA reported that they were alive for three minutes after the explosion....

Here's one of the rare MSM articles that covers it -- it's a collection of myths (and corrections) about the disaster, including the myth that they died instantly. Saves having to look up the details in the NASA reports.

MSNBC article

[Junior]

"High Flight"

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.