re: The Challenger disaster viewed by the backup teacher

Her happily yelling and waving "Bye Christa! Bye crew!" as they took off made me so sad.

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If they were alive, they weren't conscious.

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A few of them were long enough to turn on the emergency PAP things... They were alive long enough to know "Oh shite"
2 minutes is a LONG descent to the ocean. Nasa didn't want that part coming out bc sas bad as it is it is much easier to believe they all went poof in the explosion, when in fact the crew cabin was found pretty much in tact with the bodies still in it, as opposed to the columbia disaster where a torso was found in one state, an arm in another, and a helmet in another

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If they were alive, they weren't conscious.

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I watched a video with one of NASA's doctors, and he said that rapid decompression would cause them to lose consciousness, but its not instantaneous

My own guess is the G forces, coupled with decompression, caused them to lose consciousness between the explosion and hitting the water

But I'm no rocket scientist, or doctor

So she worked for NASA for 22 year which puts her teaching for probably less that 20 for sure....she made a great financial decision right there I'd imagine.

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Basically, it's been a while since I read the report, but from what I remember there was very little chance of them being conscious during the full descent to impact, just a few moments after the initial explosion.

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Yeah, it's almost certain that the pressure bulkheads ruptured when the crew cabin separated and vented their air to the upper atmosphere. If that happened in their adrenaline soaked state, it would be seconds before they passed out. Not tens of seconds: seconds. They were definitely awake for some time after the breakup as some of the emergency oxygen supplies were turned on. This wouldn't help, though, because they were for escaping the shuttle on the ground in noxious environments and weren't pressurized to keep them aware in the upper atmosphere. Also, the pilot and commander had flipped switches (that were guarded, notched, and springloaded) from their flight positions. These couldn't have been flipped from the event itself, so the guys driving were trying to fly the thing even after it broke up. So, some of them were definitely awake at some point after the breakup. Now, even if they passed out from lack of oxygen, it wouldn't have killed them. It was only 2 minutes and 45 seconds from the vehicle breakup until it hit the ocean. They'd have fallen back into air with sufficient oxygen before they suffered permanent effects from hypoxia. Even as they plummeted down into denser air, though, there probably wouldn't have been enough time in oxygen rich air for their blood oxygen levels to rise enough for them to really fully wake back up, if at all.

However, if that pressure bulkhead was intact enough after the vehicle broke up to keep the pressure in the cabin high enough to maintain consciousness until the cabin fell back into thicker air...



There's just no way to know when the pressure vessel was breached since there's no recording from the crew cabin after it separated and lost power and the impact broke the cabin so badly that they can't tell what was broken before the impact with the ocean and what was broken by the impact with the ocean.

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Could have been Big Bird blowing up in there.

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That brings up an interesting thought of what would they have done if Big Bird died in the Challenger disaster? Would they say it was the guy in the suit.. not really Big Bird. Or would they have acted like Big Bird was a real living being and retired him from Sesame Street and had a funeral?

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just watched a video with copy of the transcript overlaid on the footage, and the last words from one of the guys was "uh-oh". A little creepy.

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Yea, i saw that one too... that was a bit creepy

uh-oh then

That's fricking incredible

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That brings up an interesting thought of what would they have done if Big Bird died in the Challenger disaster? Would they say it was the guy in the suit.. not really Big Bird. Or would they have acted like Big Bird was a real living being and retired him from Sesame Street and had a funeral?

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Sesame Street would've probably hired a new actor and treated Big Bird as the lone survivor, for the sake of kids.

Then they could've had episodes about losing loved ones and why Big Bird drinks so much.

There was a good looking single blonde teacher here in Lake Charles, who tried out but was cut. haven't seen her is years, but she must be very thankful, that she was cut from the program.

NASA, had problems, but pressure from the MSM , egged them on to a bad decision.