Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger knows it was a national tragedy. But dig a little deeper, and it's even more heartbreaking.
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00:00Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger
00:06knows it was a national tragedy. But dig a little deeper, and it's even more heartbreaking.
00:13The 1986 explosion of the Challenger marked a tragic moment not only for the friends and
00:17loved ones of the seven astronauts aboard the doomed shuttle, but for the nation as
00:21a whole. Let's explore how and where the Challenger's crew members were put to rest.
00:27The 1980s was something of a wide-eyed, optimistic period for NASA and spaceflight. Humans had
00:32landed on the moon in 1969, only 11 years prior at that point, and visions of the future
00:37were bold and bright. 1973 saw the European Space Research Organization and NASA agree
00:42to develop an orbital space laboratory. 1981 saw the first orbital spaceflight of a reusable
00:47space shuttle, and the public fully expected to go to Mars and beyond.
00:51Then the Challenger disaster happened on January 28, 1986.
00:55Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the
01:01tragedy of the shuttle Challenger.
01:03While some children tuned in live from school to watch in terror as the Challenger shuttle
01:06exploded 73 seconds after launch, most people watched the taped recording after the fact.
01:12The shuttle had set out on a somewhat unglamorous but important mission to set up a tracking
01:16and data relay satellite in orbit and launch a separate satellite to observe Halley's comet
01:21as it swept through our system. Instead, all seven crew members on board died after
01:25the shuttle ignited during launch due to faulty rocket design. Never again would NASA hurry
01:30a launch, and never again would excitement trump caution.
01:34Crew members Francis R. Dick Scobie, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnick, Ronald E. McNair,
01:40Ellison S. Onizuka, Gregory B. Jarvis, and Krista McAuliffe all lost their lives on that
01:45day.
01:46On March 9, NASA announced that divers had found their cabin in the Atlantic Ocean, and
01:51it took until April 20 to recover it. Those remains were eventually cremated and commingled
01:55at Arlington National Cemetery, where they rest to this day.
01:59The Challenger crew were all smiles before the mission, and happy to the point of jovial
02:03as each member spoke a couple of words of thanks to everyone present at the launch.
02:07In addition to mission specialists, of special note was Krista McAuliffe, the first teacher
02:11in space, chosen out of 11,000 applicants.
02:15Has it all hit you yet?
02:16No, no, I don't think so. I still can't believe that I'm going to actually be going into that
02:21shuttle.
02:22She and the rest of the crew probably lost consciousness due to a change in cabin pressure
02:26and died from lack of oxygen before their shuttle hit the water. That being said, it's
02:30possible that someone could have woken up during the two minute and 45 seconds that
02:34it took to descend to the ocean.
02:36Out of respect, officials didn't elaborate on the state of the crew members' bodies when
02:40they were recovered. Their cabin was reportedly largely intact, some personal effects floated
02:45to the surface of the water, and other research materials were present inside the cabin.
02:49Beyond that, a report from NASA states,
02:51"...local security measures are being taken to assure that the recovery operations can
02:55take place in a safe and orderly manner. We really don't want to say anything else in
02:59deference to the families."
03:01However, it is known that the crew's remains were crushed and, quote, "...could not be
03:05recognized as human," as The New York Times wrote at the time.
03:09Early identification was conducted at Patrick Air Force Base Hospital, 25 miles from Cape
03:14Canaveral, by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
03:18As mentioned, the cremated remains of the Challenger crew were interred at Arlington
03:21National Cemetery in Virginia. All seven of their remains were mixed and placed together
03:26at a memorial in Section 46, Grave 1129, while two of the crew members, Francis R. Dick Scobie
03:31and Michael J. Smith, also have graves of their own in the cemetery.
03:36The memorial features a fitting poem called High Flight, written by Royal Canadian Air
03:40Force pilot John Gillespie McGee, Jr. in 1941. In part, the poem reads,
03:45"...sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth, of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred
03:50things you have not dreamed of."
03:52Numerous tributes have been written to the Challenger crew over the decades since their
03:56death, and there are additional monuments besides a memorial in Arlington National Cemetery
04:00that holds the crew's remains, along with a small monument in Montpelier, Vermont.
04:05Meanwhile, the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is a grand
04:09but simply designed mirrored surface of polished black granite that reflects the sky. It's
04:14currently inscribed with the names of 24 deceased astronauts, including those of the Challenger
04:18crew.
04:21From faulty O-rings to deadly weather and foreboding warnings, the engineers closest
04:25to the Challenger space shuttle knew what was wrong. So why didn't NASA step in?
04:31The Challenger was destroyed due to a faulty O-ring seal in one of its booster rockets,
04:35allowing burning gas to escape. The rubber O-rings weren't supposed to be burned by the
04:39gases resulting from liftoff, but that's exactly what happened during the testing phase.
04:44Shockingly, according to the Rogers Commission reports, when it was found that the O-rings
04:48could be damaged, engineers at both NASA and Morton Thiokol, the company contracted to
04:53design and build the rockets, decided that the situation was undesirable but acceptable.
04:58A test in 1977 revealed another ominous problem. The rocket ignition could cause parts of the
05:04rocket's steel casing to bend outward, reducing the pressure on the O-rings. Keep in mind,
05:08the opposite was supposed to happen, with parts bending inward and helping the O-rings
05:12to seal properly. At this point, engineers began to sound the alarm. One characterized
05:17the current design as unacceptable in October 1977, and another stated in January 1978 that
05:23redesign was necessary to, quote, "...prevent hot gas leaks and resulting catastrophic failure."
05:28Despite this, nothing was changed. NASA had more than theory to go on after its second
05:33shuttle mission, when the Space Shuttle Columbia flew in November 1981. When they recovered
05:38and examined the shuttle's right rocket booster, one of its primary O-rings had been eroded
05:43badly.
05:44The news was ultimately met with no action. Multiple subsequent shuttle missions during
05:48the 1980s showed O-ring damage, yet still, the design wasn't changed.
05:52We learned that little things that seem harmless can become catastrophic events.
06:00By 1985, engineers at Morton Thiokol had another concern about the O-rings. Their concern was
06:05based around how the cold weather could loosen the O-rings' elasticity. Given that NASA's
06:10bevy of planned shuttle missions included winter launches, this was a problem.
06:14As told by NASA Spaceflight, one of the engineers, Bob Ebeling, wrote a memo in October 1985
06:20entitled Help, in the hope of finally drawing attention to the issue. No help came.
06:25On January 27, 1986, NASA called Morton Thiokol and asked how they felt about a launch in
06:3018-degree weather, because the O-ring's lower threshold of safety was 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
06:35The engineers, when hearing this, were aghast. Ebeling called his team together, and they
06:39all agreed that a launch in such a temperature would be the death of the shuttle crew. In
06:43a teleconference with NASA, the engineers laid out why Challenger should not be launched
06:47the next morning, and recommended that it not lift off in any temperature lower than
06:5153 degrees Fahrenheit.
06:53As engineer Roger Beaujolais later recounted to NPR, a NASA official was appalled at the
06:58thought of waiting so long to launch. The clear, cold weather that night led to ice
07:02forming all over the launch pad, but NASA still decided to proceed. The crew were told
07:07about the ice when they were briefed on the weather that morning, but they weren't told
07:10about any concerns regarding the temperature's effects on the O-rings. To that effect, the
07:15mission was a go.
07:18As detailed by the Rogers Commission reports, Challenger's launch was scrubbed repeatedly
07:21for one reason or another. Had even one of those delays not occurred, the shuttle might
07:25have lifted off in safer temperatures.
07:27First, it was moved from January 22 to January 23 due to schedule ripples caused by the prior
07:33delay of another mission, SDS-61C, and then the Program Requirements Changeboard moved
07:38liftoff to January 25. After that, the after-effects of SDS-61C's delay bumped Challenger again
07:45to January 26. The evening before the new launch date, the mission was pushed off yet
07:49again due to a forecast of wind and rain, which turned out to be entirely wrong.
07:54As Gene Thomas, launch director for the Challenger mission, recalled,
07:57"...we decided we would not launch on Sunday, and Sunday was a beautiful day. We missed
08:02an opportunity to launch."
08:04Challenger's crew were strapped in and ready to go on the morning of January 27, when another
08:08problem reared its head. A screw wouldn't release from the shuttle's crew hatch. A drill
08:12was brought in, but its battery was dead. According to NASA Spaceflight, nine more
08:17batteries were brought to the launch pad, and for reasons unknown, every single one
08:21went dead. Liftoff was finally pushed back one more time to January 28.
08:25"...what should have been a day heralded for education turned to tragedy in a split second."
08:31At 11.38 a.m. on January 28, Challenger launched from Kennedy Space Center. Footage later showed
08:38that dark smoke began to jet from one of the right-side solid rocket booster's O-rings
08:42less than a second after liftoff began. The shuttle broke the sound barrier 40 seconds
08:47up, and at around 59 seconds, a plume of flame began to emit from the right-hand SRB. The
08:52crew wouldn't have known about this, as further evidenced by their yells of,
08:56"...woo-hoo!" at 60 seconds, a mere quarter-second before the flame began to contact the orbiter's
09:01massive external fuel tank.
09:03Per Spaceflight Now, even if the crew had known what was happening, there was nothing
09:07they could have done. Immediately afterward, the shuttle was torn apart as the external
09:11fuel tank erupted into a massive fireball. A few seconds later, an object was seen descending
09:16slowly by parachute. Several TV stations began to focus on footage of the object and the
09:21shocking confusion that followed. However, it was only the nosecap of one of the SRVs.
09:27Anyone in the know wouldn't have focused on the parachuting nosecap for long, because
09:31there was no way for the Challenger crew to have escaped from the shuttle. The Rogers
09:34Commission report noted that Columbia had ejection seats similar to those of an SR-71
09:39Blackbird for its four test flights early on, but that was when only two people were
09:43flying.
09:44The seats were never meant to be in place for the actual shuttle missions when it was
09:47assumed that all risks would have been accounted for and resolved. NASA had, in fact, considered
09:52full crew ejection options back in 1971 when the shuttle was being designed. They examined
09:57the feasibility of conventional ejection seats, encapsulated seats, and a whole detachable
10:02crew compartment. The problem was the cost of integrating any of these options into the
10:06design.
10:07Ejection seats would have cost $10 million, encapsulated seats would have cost $7 million,
10:12and the crew compartment option would have added a whopping $292 million to the build.
10:18After the Challenger disaster, the idea of an astronaut escape system was examined once
10:22again. A number of designs were considered, but as before, all of them were ultimately
10:26rejected due to the difficulty of their implementation.
10:29Per the Rogers Commission reports, recovery efforts began within an hour of Challenger's
10:33breakup, but the crew wouldn't be found until March 1986. Off the Florida coast, two divers
10:39came across the crew cabin on the seabed approximately 100 feet below the surface. It was a wreck
10:44of twisted metal and wires, and the divers didn't know what they'd found until they saw
10:48a space suit bobbing in the water. Low on air, the two men marked the location and swam
10:52for the surface. The next day, the USS Preserver came to recover the lost astronauts. As detailed
10:58by NBC News, that was easier said than done.
11:02During the crash and the time spent underwater, their remains weren't in good shape, having
11:06at times to be removed in parts. First, Judy Resnick was recovered, followed by Krista
11:11McAuliffe. After this, it was determined that the jagged, jumbled cabin would have to be
11:15raised from the ocean in order to continue.
11:18As the crane pulled the cabin to the ship, a splash of blue appeared on the surface.
11:22It was the jump-suited body of Gregory Jarvis, which had become free as the cabin was raised.
11:27As the crew of the Preserver watched in dismay, it sank below the waves again. A search for
11:32Jarvis immediately ensued, during which astronaut Robert Crippen even hired his own boat to
11:36help. Jarvis wouldn't be found again for another five weeks, 200 yards from where he'd been
11:40lost.
11:42After failing to convince NASA to stop Challenger's January 28th launch, Morton Thiokol engineer
11:46Roger Beaujolais was sent home. As detailed by NASA Spaceflight, Beaujolais, fearing the
11:51worst, had no intention of watching the launch. But fellow engineer Bob Ebeling convinced
11:56him to do so.
11:57When the shuttle seemed to lift off just fine, a wave of relief washed over the engineers
12:02until they saw the fireball. Everyone present knew just what had happened.
12:06Despite his efforts, Beaujolais felt responsible for the seven astronauts' deaths, as did Ebeling.
12:11Over the following months, the once-bulky Beaujolais lost quite a bit of weight and
12:15became plagued by headaches, insomnia, and depression. He testified to the Rogers Commission
12:20and also sued both NASA and Morton Thiokol. However, his lawsuits weren't successful,
12:25and Beaujolais' actions led to his shunning by some of his colleagues, worsening his
12:29despair. As told by his wife to NPR, Beaujolais did eventually find peace, however, through
12:34speaking to engineering schools about the disaster, which he continued to do until his
12:37death in January 2012.
12:40According to a report by NASA scientist Joseph P. Kerwin, when the Challenger broke apart,
12:45its crew protected by the cabin wouldn't have been killed or even seriously injured. But
12:50were they still conscious as they fell toward the sea? The answer is unclear.
12:54After the orbiter was torn apart, the sturdy crew cabin began to freefall. The central
12:58question is how quickly the cabin depressurized. On the ocean floor, the cabin was a mangled
13:03mess, but that was due to its impact. Given the damage, it couldn't be determined whether
13:08there'd been any breach in the cabin before the crash. There is one chilling indicator
13:12of the crew's fate.
13:13Challenge is fast. Launch is fast. It's banged, and then it's a two-minute ride down. And
13:21you're conscious, we know that.
13:22Of the four personal egress air packs, or PEAPs, that were recovered, three had been
13:27activated before the impact. However, Kerwin noted that the PEAPs may have been activated
13:32instinctively due to depressurization right at breakup, in which case they wouldn't have
13:36kept the astronauts awake, as they only provided regular air.
13:40For what it's worth, per NBC News, three-time shuttle commander Robert Overmyer, who participated
13:45in the cabin's recovery, is certain that the Challenger's astronauts were conscious. Tragically,
13:50there was no chance of survival when the cabin struck the ocean at 207 miles per hour.
13:55On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger took to the skies for a brief 73 seconds before
14:01a fiery demise. Here's what happened, minute by minute.
14:05Leading up to the Challenger disaster, most people thought it perfectly reasonable to
14:08think of the space shuttle like an airplane — reusable, reliable, comfortable, and
14:12safe.
14:13I think it's going to be very exciting for kids to be able to turn on the TV and see
14:16the spaces for everybody.
14:17But there was a massive problem with risk analysis. A three-volume study, first published
14:21in 1979, estimated that the chances of a shuttle breaking up on launch — exactly like Challenger
14:27did — were between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000. The weakest point? Solid-fuel rocket boosters.
14:33Fast forward to 1983, and another study suggested the risk of a shuttle breakup was closer to
14:371 in 100.
14:38After the Challenger disaster, physicist Richard P. Feynman explained,
14:42The higher figures, 1 in 100, come from working engineers, and the very low figures, 1 in
14:46100,000, from management.
14:48The Challenger accident resulted in the establishment of a program that would collect data, including
14:53flight and test data, for risk assessment, which was something new. Before the tragedy,
14:57NASA didn't think it was necessary. And that kind of explains how certain egregious oversights
15:02occurred.
15:03Work for Challenger's launch was a months-long process that began in 1984 and included 37
15:08weeks of crew training. In fact, the date of the disaster wasn't the original launch
15:12date. After a flight readiness review on January 15th, launch times and dates were changed
15:16multiple times to account for the possibilities of aborted landings and the best time to view
15:20Halley's Comet, which, along with deploying the Spartan satellites, was a big part of
15:25Challenger's mission.
15:26The mission date was pushed back several times, and NASA eventually landed on a launch date
15:30of January 22, 1986. The story gets more complicated as delays plagued the mission
15:35in the days leading up to its eventual launch. That particular January was exceptionally cold,
15:40and with temperatures dropping well below freezing, it was clear that Challenger would
15:43be launching in temperatures that no shuttle had ever launched in before.
15:46Even though we understood that we could have a catastrophic failure, NASA wanted to have
15:51increased number of launches.
15:54Launch was pushed back from the 26th to the 27th because of weather concerns, and on the
15:5927th, Challenger got very close to leaving the launch pad.
16:02The Challenger crew was ready on the morning of January 27, and according to NASA records,
16:07everything was going according to plan. Shuttle preparations began at 12.30 a.m., and after
16:11waking up at 5.07 a.m., the crew was strapped into their assigned positions in the shuttle
16:16at 7.56 a.m.
16:18About an hour later, Challenger's crew alerted control to a door-jar signal. The problem
16:22was with an exterior hatch. After the ground crew secured the door, they couldn't remove
16:26the exterior handle. The screws that held it in place were frozen.
16:30Over the course of two hours, ground crews struggled to remove the hatch handle with
16:33screwdrivers, a drill, and a hacksaw. And by the time they finally managed to get it
16:38off, the crew had been sitting in place for five hours, and the launch window had passed.
16:41I thought, gee, this is more like watching a rerun of The Three Stooges than launching
16:46a space shuttle.
16:48Kennedy Shuttle Chief Bob Seig issued a statement, saying,
16:50It was just not our day. Our plan is to recycle and go for Tuesday morning.
16:55The Challenger disaster came very close to not happening, and if it had been up to engineers
16:59from Morton-Thiokol, it wouldn't have. Morton-Thiokol is the company that made the O-rings that
17:03were ultimately blamed for the accident.
17:05On January 27, at around 1 p.m., NASA reached out to Thiokol to ask whether the cold could
17:10cause problems. Management spoke among themselves, convened with engineers by 2.30 p.m., and
17:16at 5.45, they conferenced with NASA to recommend scrubbing the launch.
17:19After more discussion, another conference was called for 8.45 p.m.
17:23Engineer Roger Bougelet argued that the O-rings weren't designed to function in the kind of
17:27freezing weather Florida had been experiencing.
17:29There was not one positive statement for a launch ever made in that room.
17:33Simply put, the O-ring is a rubber gasket that seals in hot gases produced during solid-fuel
17:38launches. When the rubber gets too cold, it's not flexible enough to seal completely, and
17:42launching with improperly set O-rings could mean leakage and ultimately disaster.
17:47On the basis of engineer recommendations, Thiokol had stated that no launch should
17:50be undertaken in temperatures below previously tested conditions at 53 degrees Fahrenheit.
17:55That was their stance, until 10.30 p.m.
17:59Arguments over the safety concerns created by the temperature were going nowhere when
18:02contractor Morton-Thiokol and NASA ended their conference to discuss matters further and
18:07reconvene. When they did, it was to make recommendations that would doom the Challenger and crew.
18:11The teleconference picked up again at 11 p.m.
18:14Bougelet would later explain,
18:16It is hard to understand how those at NASA and Marshall could have thought the Challenger
18:19flight ready unless they presumed that unless the engineers could show that the flight would
18:22fail, then it would succeed. In other words, Thiokol engineers couldn't show concrete proof
18:27that the O-rings were going to fail, so it was decided that they would be fine.
18:31If you don't keep your schedule, you don't keep your budget. So I put the pressure on
18:36myself just as a matter of pride.
18:40Executives at Thiokol faxed over their signed affidavit that the Challenger was all right
18:44to launch at 11.45 p.m., even as some at NASA continued to argue that the launch wasn't
18:48a good idea.
18:50January 28th, launch day. Overnight temperatures had once again been well below freezing, and
18:55at 1.35 a.m., crews were dispatched to the launch site to decide whether or not ice was
18:59going to be a problem. At the same time, hardware issues with the ground-liquid hydrogen storage
19:04tank were discovered, which set fueling time back. At 3 a.m., inspection teams submitted
19:09their report for consideration, and the countdown continued. That delay, however, pushed things
19:13back a bit.
19:14The crew was scheduled for a wake-up at 6.18, but they were all reportedly awake as debate
19:18over the mission continued. As early as 5 a.m., there was another discussion about O-rings,
19:23but it wasn't even mentioned at the 9 a.m. meeting to discuss the findings of a second
19:27inspection of the launch site. When that had started at 7 a.m., ice and cold temperatures
19:31were still a major concern, but the launch remained on track.
19:34A lot of people had this gut feeling that this just doesn't feel right.
19:40The Challenger's launch delay meant that the crew had extra time to prepare. According
19:44to NASA reports, they took their time over breakfast. And while they were briefed on
19:48things like weather conditions and temperature, there's a horrible little footnote buried
19:52in the official logs, reading,
19:53"...neither then nor in earlier weather discussions was the crew told of any concern about the
19:57effects of low temperature on the shuttle system."
19:59How could they live with themselves for making a decision like that?
20:06The media was there, including CBS Radio News reporter Frank Motek. A year after the disaster,
20:11he recalled watching the crew get ready, saying,
20:13"...we watched the crew members gather together for breakfast, take their trip to the launch
20:17pad, put on their spacesuits and board their spaceship. We saw Krista McAuliffe smile as
20:21the technician gave her an apple."
20:23The crew arrived at the launch pad at 8.03. Thirty-three minutes later, they were strapped
20:27in and ready to go. Eight minutes later, another ice inspection resulted in another delay,
20:32with yet another ice inspection wrapping up at 11.15. Then it was go-time.
20:37Launch began at 11.38 a.m. At minus 6.6 seconds, the engines ignited, and the solid rocket
20:42boosters ignited as the countdown hit zero. Seven seconds later, roll program was heard
20:47from the Challenger flight deck. Houston replied,
20:49Roger, roll, Challenger.
20:51At 65 seconds, Houston gave another instruction to the shuttle crew.
20:54Challenger, go at throttle up.
20:56Challenger, go at throttle up.
20:58Then, 73 seconds after the countdown had reached zero, signal was lost. NASA maintains that
21:03everything was normal. Processes and procedures were going as planned, there were no alarms
21:08or warnings, and then suddenly there was nothing. On the ground were about 500 people, including
21:13neighbors of shuttle pilot Michael J. Smith and friends of Krista McAuliffe. From their
21:17point of view, things happened almost instantaneously. By the time the sound of liftoff reached them,
21:21they saw the flash burn in the fiery clouds.
21:24Eerily, NASA has stated that the first indication they had that things were terribly wrong was
21:28the same moment etched into the memories of countless students watching the launch in
21:31their schools via satellite link, the moment the shuttle began to break apart.
21:35Flight, you say we've had negative contact. We lost the link.
21:39Challenger launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, under the watchful eye of Houston's Mission
21:43Control. While it took just 73 seconds for the Challenger mission to go terribly wrong,
21:47The New York Times reported that in the minutes following the disaster, Mission Control continued
21:51to report that everything was fine. In fact, 105 seconds after launch, Public Affairs Officer
21:56Stephen A. Nesbitt was still tracking Challenger on radar. Only, he wasn't.
22:00Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously, a major malfunction.
22:05At July, it was widely reported that NASA had released evidence that suggested the crew
22:09was at least briefly aware of things going wrong.
22:13NASA was never the same after the Challenger disaster. Almost immediately, experts were
22:16sent scrambling to figure out what happened and why it was someone else's fault. One of
22:20the experts they called in, who only reluctantly agreed to be part of the investigation, was
22:24physicist Richard Feynman, who had previously worked on the Manhattan Project, diagrammed
22:28the interaction between light and matter, and won a Nobel Prize.
22:31I personally doubt that they're touching the face of God, so I prefer to show my respect
22:35by finding the cause of their appalling deaths and not stand around looking sad.
22:40Feynman was promised NASA's full cooperation, but he would later write that the whole process
22:44was, quote,
22:45"...in reality, sitting around doing nothing most of the time."
22:47So he took matters into his own hands, headed to NASA headquarters, and instead of chatting
22:51with NASA management, he spoke with engineers before he was barred from the building. He'd
22:55already caught wind of the dispute over the O-rings, and then he took part in the Rogers
22:59Commission hearings.
23:00There were two important moments. One was Feynman's demonstration, with the help of
23:04pliers, a clamp, an O-ring, and some ice water, of how rigid, inflexible, and ready-to-leak
23:09O-rings became when subjected to cold temperatures.
23:11There's no resilience in this particular material when it's at a temperature of 32 degrees.
23:17The other was seven words from Morton Thiokol rocket booster director Alan McDonald, who,
23:22after NASA denied they were aware of problems, stood up to say,
23:25"...Mr. Chairman, we recommended not to launch."
23:27In April 1986, NASA announced that recovery operations were finished, most of the shuttle
23:32had been recovered, and the remains of all seven astronauts had been retrieved. Operations
23:36had focused on an area 17 miles off the coast of Florida. They added,
23:41"...final forensic work and future planning in accordance with family desires will be
23:44completed within the next several days, and will be announced when appropriate."
23:48"...it was in fairly shallow water. The crew members are there, inside this intact compartment."
23:55Descriptions of the scene were pretty awful, with the wreckage described as
23:59"...little more than a pile of rubble on the ocean floor, 8 feet high and 50 feet across.
24:04The astronauts' remains were crushed inside the debris and could not be recognized as
24:08human."
24:09Not all pieces of the Challenger had been recovered, though. In 1996, two pieces, parts
24:13of the left inboard wing flap, washed ashore at Florida's Cocoa Beach. They weren't small
24:17pieces, either. One 8-by-14-foot piece required heavy machinery to move it.
24:22Then, fast forward to 2022, divers looking for a World War II-era rescue plane and filming
24:28for a History Channel special about the Bermuda Triangle found a 20-foot-long piece of Challenger.
24:32They turned their findings over to NASA, who issued a statement that read, in part,
24:36"...this discovery gives us an opportunity to pause once again, to uplift the legacies
24:40of the seven pioneers we lost, and to reflect on how this tragedy changed us."
24:45I think my philosophy of living is to get as much out of life as possible.
24:49We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded.
24:53The 1986 Challenger disaster was one of the worst space-related catastrophes in history.
25:02The crew members on board didn't even make it to space before their shuttle tore apart
25:06and its components exploded, one by one.
25:08Oh, that's just incredible. It's just devastating.
25:12All seven either died on the way down to the Atlantic Ocean, or when the broken remnants
25:16of their craft struck the surface of the water.
25:19Pieces falling out of the sky in the Florida morning. It's about 20 till noon in Florida.
25:25Some schoolchildren saw the disaster unfold live on television from their classrooms,
25:30while millions of others watched the footage on the news throughout the day.
25:33As the full NASA transcript reads, the crew members did their jobs in their final five
25:36minutes of life, joked around a bit, seemed in good spirits, and commented on some irregularities
25:41in the instrument readings.
25:43Four of the Challenger's seven crew members have a voice in their mission's first and
25:46final five minutes. Commander Francis R. Scobie, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialist
25:51Ellison S. Onizuka, and Mission Specialist Judith A. Resnick. The Challenger crew was
25:56unique because it also included Krista McAuliffe, a teacher and the first civilian in space
26:00selected for the mission out of 11,000 applicants.
26:02In a dream come true, but not really. Space flight today really seems safe.
26:10The transcript starts a bit over three minutes before liftoff, and mostly consists of small
26:13phrases and confirmations between crew members. NASA also chimed in with statements and reminders
26:18here and there.
26:19The crew members joked around, and the mood reads as light but professional. When NASA
26:23asked about the Shuttle Oxygen Vent Cap, for instance, Onizuka joked,
26:26Doesn't it go the other way? And the whole crew laughed.
26:29There are a lot of outcomes from these projects which will affect both our society and the
26:36rest of the world.
26:37When NASA told the Shuttle to start rolling 11 seconds into launch, Pilot Michael J. Smith,
26:41a Vietnam veteran, said,
26:43Go, you mother.
26:44The helium in the right engine was lower than ideal, but otherwise, everything seemed fine.
26:48At 1 minute, 10 seconds, Scobie told Smith to throttle up. Three seconds later, Smith
26:52said,
26:53Uh oh.
26:55The communications cut out that very second.
26:56The transcript in question comes from Operational Recorder No. 2, a piece of equipment on the
27:01space shuttles that usually gets reviewed after missions to help compose a full portrait
27:04of how things went. As UPI reported at the time, investigators fished Ops Recorder No.
27:092 out of the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 100 feet, 18 miles offshore. The tape was
27:14cleaned and analyzed, and that's how we know what the crew of the Challenger said in their
27:17final minutes of life.
27:18Besides helping us memorialize the Challenger's crew, the tape helped investigators identify
27:22exactly what caused the shuttle's destruction. If Pilot Michael J. Smith said,
27:26Uh oh, before the Challenger broke apart, the reasoning went, then he must have had
27:30some clue that something was wrong, even only for an instant.
27:34Explorers off the Florida coast are almost certain to forever be reminded of one of the
27:37greatest tragedies in space travel history. They've been finding pieces of the Challenger
27:42space shuttle for nearly 40 years.
27:44One of the most heartbreaking disasters in NASA's history was the explosion of the Challenger
27:48space shuttle on January 28, 1986, just 73 seconds after liftoff. All seven astronauts
27:55on board were killed. After a lengthy investigation, experts determined that cold overnight temperatures
28:00caused the O-ring seals in the booster rockets to fail. The tragedy resulted in NASA halting
28:05shuttle missions for two years as it worked on improving shuttle features.
28:08NASA has appointed a committee of top engineers and scientists to investigate the catastrophe.
28:13Orders have been issued to impound all records concerning the flight.
28:16Almost 40 years later, parts of the shuttle were accidentally discovered on the ocean
28:20floor by a television documentary crew. They were looking for World War II aircraft wreckage
28:24for history production. NASA confirmed in November 2022 that the discovery was indeed
28:30fragments from the Challenger. In a NASA article about the debris, the agency confirmed,
28:34Divers noticed a large human-made object covered partially by sand on the seafloor. The proximity
28:40to the Florida space coast, along with the item's modern construction and presence of
28:44eight-inch square tiles, led the documentary team to contact NASA.
28:48Some of the shuttle, hundreds of pounds of metal, was recovered from the ocean within
28:5124 hours of the horrific accident. The remains of the crew were found inside the cabin in
28:56March 1986. NASA found enough of the shuttle to conclude its investigation, but most of
29:01Challenger remains in the ocean. The Associated Press reports that around 118 tons of Challenger
29:07debris have been recovered in the years since the crash, about 47 percent of the shuttle.
29:11That means more than half of the craft is still unaccounted for. The New York Times
29:15reports that half of the orbiter and boosters, two-thirds of the external fuel tank, and
29:20one-fourth of the satellite payload have yet to be recovered.
29:23Some of the pieces recovered are on display in a NASA exhibit called Forever Remembered
29:27at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The exhibit includes wreckage and astronaut artifacts
29:31not only from the Challenger shuttle, but also the Columbia shuttle, which exploded
29:35on re-entry in 2003. One piece of the Challenger wreckage is part of the fuselage that bears
29:40an American flag.
29:41The hard sacrifice that was made by the crews of Spatial Challenger and Columbia will now
29:47be shared with people in the future.
29:51The 2022 debris recovery wasn't the first time that pieces of the Challenger shuttle
29:55were inadvertently discovered. The New York Times reports that in 1991, fishermen found
30:00a small tank and a metal fragment a few feet off Cape Canaveral. The fragments were also
30:05allegedly from the left wing of the craft.
30:07In December 1996, two sections of the shuttle washed ashore at Cocoa Beach, 20 miles south
30:12of Kennedy Space Center. The Tampa Bay Times reported that beachgoers found two sections
30:17of the Challenger's left inboard wing flap covered in barnacles in the early morning
30:21hours. One piece measured about 8 by 14 feet, and the other was about 5 feet long and one
30:27foot wide. NASA reportedly put the wreckage, with the other 5,000 recovered pieces of the
30:31shuttle, in two silos.
30:34The deadly, failed launch of the Challenger space shuttle was one of the most shocking
30:37disasters in American history, but it didn't come out of nowhere. From faulty equipment
30:41to the fates of the astronauts, keep an eye out for these misleading myths.
30:46Many accounts of the Challenger disaster make it seem as if nearly everyone in the United
30:49States was watching the launch live. But the reality is that relatively few people actually
30:54tuned in as it was happening. Because the Challenger launched shortly before noon Eastern
30:58time, most people were at work or school and thus couldn't sit in front of a TV. Few networks
31:02were broadcasting the launch anyway.
31:04That doesn't mean that there weren't some live viewers. At the time, CNN was one of
31:08the only channels that bothered to set up a live feed. A few others were able to take
31:11advantage of satellite broadcasts to see the launch, but the technology was new and not
31:15widely available. However, NASA had arranged for some schools to show their students a
31:19live broadcast. Thus, a significant portion of those who witnessed the disaster in real
31:23time were shocked schoolchildren. They included some of the New Hampshire-based students of
31:27Krista McAuliffe, a high school social studies teacher who was among the seven astronauts
31:31on the shuttle.
31:32How many times have I told you about Krista McAuliffe and the teacher in space? I wanted
31:37to be the teacher in space, you know, and she beat me out.
31:41When viewing the footage of the Challenger disaster, it's easy to conclude that the shuttle
31:45exploded. There's a large fireball, quickly followed by the disintegration of the rocket
31:49and shuttle. But a closer look shows that the breakup technically wasn't an explosion
31:52at all.
31:53Essentially, the root cause of the disaster was a fuel leak in the shuttle's right solid-fuel
31:57rocket booster. During the launch, the escaping fuel caught fire, weakening connections between
32:02the booster and the large liquid-fuel rocket. Eventually, the booster broke loose, swung
32:06around and pierced the liquid-fuel tank, releasing liquid oxygen. The liquid-hydrogen fuel tank
32:11had also already been compromised by the fire and had begun to leak as well. When the two
32:15fuels mixed, they ignited and created the large fireball.
32:18However, the boosters actually survived this catastrophic failure and continued flying
32:23on their own until NASA officials remotely detonated them over the Atlantic. The shuttle
32:27also survived the fireball, at least for a short while. It continued flying for a moment,
32:32but soon after breaking away from the fuel tanks, the aerodynamic forces acting upon
32:35it tore the craft apart. Ultimately, while the fireball was quite dramatic, it had few
32:40of the auditory or physical effects of an explosion, such as a shockwave or loud noise.
32:45Some examinations of the Challenger disaster point not just to faulty O-rings, but also
32:49issues with the putty used to help seal those joints. Moreover, some have gone so far as
32:53to blame an environmental push for the disaster, saying that a move away from heat-resistant
32:58asbestos putty was a contributing factor to the failure. But while the putty sealant had
33:01been replaced, that was done before any such regulatory change came into effect. In fact,
33:05the replacement putty also included asbestos.
33:08Some sources claim that the new sealant's asbestos came in the form of longer, thicker
33:11fibers that may have weakened the sealing properties of the putty. However, it's not
33:15clear that this was a major factor in the joint failure. What may have been a more serious
33:19issue were the tests that NASA conducted on those joints. According to the Rogers Commission
33:23report, engineers had suggested the joint leaked checks forced air through the putty
33:27and O-rings, creating blowholes in the putty that may have weakened the joint. Ultimately,
33:31however, whether or not the putty contained the right kind of asbestos likely didn't matter,
33:35as investigators concluded that the source of the disaster wasn't in the putty at all,
33:39but rather the O-ring seal.
33:41First-hand accounts of the Challenger disaster make it clear that NASA officials were anxious
33:44to move the launch forward. Some sources have claimed that President Reagan wanted it to
33:48happen before the upcoming State of the Union so that he could have a call with the astronauts
33:52during his speech. But this was reportedly just a rumor, and indeed, Reagan delayed the
33:56State of the Union by one week.
33:58This is truly a national loss.
34:01If the pressure wasn't coming from the president, then where did it originate? It may well have
34:05been from inside NASA itself. The agency had been combating flagging interest in the space
34:10program, poor internal and external communication practices, and general frustration stemming
34:14from previous launch delays.
34:16It would be easy to think that something went wrong with the Challenger shuttle itself.
34:20After all, like all the other space shuttles, it had main engines on the craft in addition
34:24to the rocket boosters meant to get it into orbit. Those engines used liquid oxygen and
34:28liquid hydrogen, which were mixed to combust and provide power. However, the truth is that
34:32the Challenger worked fairly well. For a brief moment or two after the fuel rockets failed,
34:36it continued flying on its own, though the intense physics of its high-speed, uncontrolled
34:40flight through the atmosphere soon caused it to break apart. If not attached to the
34:44rocket, the shuttle could have theoretically been able to return to Earth as a glider under
34:47minimal power.
34:49Ultimately, the Rogers Commission found that the shuttle's main engines had nothing to
34:52do with the accident. NASA continued using the engines for later launches and remained
34:57so confident in the main engine design that it's even using it as part of the next phase
35:00of its rocket missions.
35:03It's fair to say that once a Challenger launched, there was little chance of escape. According
35:07to the Rogers report, early on in the shuttle program, a thrust termination procedure was
35:11considered. This would have allowed for the rocket boosters to stop firing mid-flight,
35:15allowing crew members to evacuate the vehicle. However, this proved to be tricky in practice.
35:20The aerodynamic forces that bore down on a shuttle mid-launch were quite significant,
35:24and NASA engineers concluded that reinforcing the shuttle for a mid-launch abort procedure
35:27would have added more than 19,000 pounds to the vehicle. The idea was largely out of consideration
35:32by 1973 and certainly wasn't part of the plan in 1986. In the aftermath of the disaster,
35:38this notion was revisited, but it was quickly disregarded in favor of a mid-flight escape
35:43maneuver that would have astronauts bailing out of a side hatch and then parachuting off
35:46a telescoping pole. Ejection seats were impractical in the shuttle's two-floor crew cabin, while
35:51similar rocket-powered techniques sometimes tore test dummies to pieces. While the bailout
35:55plan was tested by Navy personnel and astronauts were trained to complete it, the maneuver
35:59was never needed and certainly wouldn't have helped the Challenger astronauts.
36:03Nobody planned for anything like this.
36:05Cold weather was rightfully considered a major factor in the Challenger disaster. However,
36:09putting all the blame on low temperatures doesn't offer the fullest picture of what
36:13happened. Issues with the O-rings had already been known to officials and were observed
36:16after launches on higher-temperature days. Furthermore, investigators suggested that
36:20the rocket section joints had further issues. These included a sealant putty that may have
36:25contained enough air holes that could have directed heat and fuel towards the O-rings,
36:29damaging them further.
36:30But perhaps the biggest problem of all wasn't the result of the damaged O-rings or faulty
36:33putty, but an inflexible decision-making process. NASA officials were clearly anxious to go
36:38forward with the launch. They were pushed along by the desire to deploy scientific equipment
36:43at the right time, avoid expensive delays, and recapture flagging public interest in
36:47the nation's space program. Some have also suggested that Christa McCall of Schedule
36:51played a role. She was set to teach on the fourth day of the mission, meaning a delay
36:54would have had her teaching on the weekend with no children in school.
36:59Perhaps the most ridiculous myth surrounding the Challenger disaster is the idea that at
37:02least some of the seven astronauts managed to survive, or rather that they never got
37:06on the shuttle in the first place, knowing that they were taking part in a murky conspiracy
37:10meant to control the public via a media-ready catastrophe. According to this theory, the
37:14disaster was orchestrated to traumatize young people and make them more compliant. But evidence
37:19for this notion is pretty shaky, as it's based on claims that living professionals and academics
37:23are the surviving astronauts. If so, they're not exactly doing a good job at laying low.
37:28For instance, why would astronaut Judith Resnick fake her death and take on a new life as a
37:32high-profile Yale academic with the same name?
37:34Similarly, the theory that Ellison Onizuka took on the identity of his brother Claude
37:39generates a new mystery regarding the whereabouts of the original Claude. At any rate, a careful
37:43look at the details associated with the genuine astronauts and their supposed doubles shows
37:47multiple discrepancies in basics like graduation dates and physical appearances. Unfortunately,
37:53it's far more plausible that all of the Challenger's astronauts really did die as their bodies
37:57were recovered from the Atlantic Ocean.
37:59No matter how much you grieve, it won't do any good. It won't bring them back. So I just have to accept it.