re: The Challenger exploded on this day 38 years ago...January 28, 1986.

quote:

---

This shite had been going on since the git go and presumed to be an acceptable risk.

---

A disaster almost happened in 1984 with STS-41-D (Discovery's maiden voyage), Mike Mullane (one of the crewmembers) notes it in his book Riding Rockets:

quote:

---

But even as we scorched the prayer line with our pleas for flawless SSME function, both SRBs were betraying us. A primary O-ring at different joints in each tube had failed to seal as the motors had ignited. Tentacles of flame from the combustion area had wiggled between the segment facings. Like something alive and trapped, the gas had been wild to escape. It had reached the leak points and started to consume the O-ring rubber. The leak on the left-side SRB was bad enough for hot gas to actually get past the primary O-ring. Though we wouldn’t know it until after the Challenger disaster, we had just experienced the first case of what the Thiokol engineers would later define as “blow-by.” Hot gas had penetrated into the space between the primary and backup O-rings. Had our leak continued moments longer, the primary and backup O-rings would have been consumed and history would have recorded the Discovery disaster instead of Challenger. It would have been Zoo Crew’s names etched in an Arlington Cemetery monument. But the leak hadn’t continued. Inexplicably the primary O-rings had resealed.

---

NASA was lucky as hell it didn't happen earlier (and 41-D wasn't the last mission a blow-by occured).

quote:

---

Watched on monitors with the rest of our team at Michoud. Having watched every launch, everyone knew instantly it was bad.

---

Y’all actually monitors that showed every launch. Did you work on the shuttle? That is cool!

I was watching it in my middle school library with a bunch of other kids.

quote:

---

dukke v

---

quote:

---

I was in my living room and watching it live. I fell to the floor.

---

And right before liftoff you said “this will be the most successful launch in the history of NASA”

quote:

---

Why did it have to come from Utah?

---

The NASA needed to get as many states as possible involved in the Shuttle program. I believe they said that 49 of the 50 states were suppliers for this program.

Such a bureaucratic failure. It seems so obvious. Maybe we shouldn't launch the space shuttle under a hard freeze... Can't listen to the engineers who know what they're talking about.

Another NASA scam

As mentioned by everyone in there where were yous, what made it so much more infamous was every school in the country was watching it since the first teacher was going into space.

The original idea was to send Big Bird into space before they realized that was pretty unattainable because there was no way to deal with those suit logistics. Sometimes I wonder what they would have done if they went through with the Big Bird idea and Big Bird "died" on Challenger.

quote:

---

The original idea was to send Big Bird into space before they realized that was pretty unattainable because there was no way to deal with those suit logistics. Sometimes I wonder what they would have done if they went through with the Big Bird idea and Big Bird "died" on Challenger.

---

I honestly don't think that was ever seriously considered. What was considered if this flight had been successful was the "Journalist In Space" program, and they had started initial selections before the disaster happened.

quote:

---

Consensus is, unfortunately, that they survived until impact with the water. The vehicle compartment that they were in separated from the exploded portions. They emergency oxygen was activated by several of the astronauts and they were all found still strapped in when the vehicle compartment was found at the bottom of the ocean, dead from mostly blunt force trauma of impact. It was a long fall unfortunately. Was a defining event in my and millions of other’s young childhood.

---

They weren’t conscious though.