re: The Challenger disaster was 30 years ago today

Buckskin Bill Black broke the news to us in class at LSU...

I was in my last year of active duty with the Air Force in Space Command. I was at the Cape the day of the launch. I still remember it as if it was yesterday.

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Revelations about the bureaucracy between Morton Thiokol and NASA's failed leadership in the wake of the disaster were shocking. This never should have happened, and it's a miracle we hadn't already lost one.

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Same thing with Columbia. The engineers wanted to schedule a spacewalk to inspect the damaged wing and the bureaucrats said no. They might have prevented the disaster by tilting the shuttle during re-entry.

We had a real president then too

LINK

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He closed with this: “The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us for 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.”

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He closed with this: “The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us for 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.”

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Last line was taken from the poem "High Flight" by John Magee for any that are interested.

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.

My last duty station while in the Air Force was Edwards AFB in 1984 & 1985. I was lucky enough to watch 2 of the Challenger landings there and to briefly meet a couple of the crew afterwards. What's sickening about this is that it could have easily been avoided. It turns out that Challenger had some issues in the missions before this ill fated one. Pay particular attention to this excerpt from wiki's STS 51-B page..."you came within three-tenths of one second of dying." While participating in the investigation into the destruction of Challenger during STS-51-L in 1986, Overmyer discovered that a problem with the shuttle's O-rings, similar to that which led to the disaster, had emerged during the launch of STS-51-B. Morton Thiokol engineers told Lind after the mission that "you came within three-tenths of one second of dying."[5] It was the problem with the O-rings on the left solid rocket motor on this launch (SRM 16A) that prompted Roger Boisjoly to write his famous memo to Bob Lund about the potential for the O-rings to cause catastrophic failure

ETA: This was my first duty station in the Air Force. At the time, it was known as Sunnyvale AFS. It was renamed Onizuka AFS in honor of Ellison Onizuka, the Mission Specialist for Challenger that day. LINK

Was a freshman at Tech. Missed class that morning because I was trying to pass my first and only (so far) kidney stone. Finally passed it, trudged back to my room, flipped on CNN, flopped in bed just in time to see the launch. We had just gotten cable in our room the day before.

RIP Challenger crew, McCauliffe family, President Reagan, & so many others thrust into the spotlight that day that showed true heroism.

FYI - lived in Pitkin during Columbia breakup and saw debris streaking across the sky. Guy in our church was fishing on Anacoco Lake at the time when part of one of the engines fell in the lake. Scared him half to death. He said he thought it was the Second Coming...

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ETA: This was my first duty station in the Air Force. At the time, it was known as Sunnyvale AFS. It was renamed Onizuka AFS in honor of Ellison Onizuka, the Mission Specialist for Challenger that day.

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Prior to retiring in Sep 2014, I spent the last 17 years of my career working the AFSCN contract. Visited Onizuka AFS many times.

Does anyone remember the space shuttle jokes?