Challenger Disaster Remembered: NatGeo Premiers "Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes" Jan 25th

a reply to: Zaphod58

I was at home I had little kids back then.....reading this thread and I got really emotional (wasn't expecting that) and started to cry.....things from long ago can have such an effect so many years later....

originally posted by: Irishhaf
a reply to: Bigburgh

I was on the flight line at Barksdale when that accident occurred, didnt see the trail first hand but was on hand when the remains were brought to the base, was a pretty somber day.

Barksdale AFB/Bomber base in Louisiana? Yes that's somber indeed. Must have been quite surreal. But I give thanks to you.😌👍.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Irishhaf

When I first learned about that I was stunned that they could be so stupid. Then I saw it happen more and more in other areas and I was stunned it didn't end in disaster more often.

Saw it live in physics class at high-school. We had a TV set up in our lab. That stunned silence when there an explosion and the two booster rockets went either way. They said that the seven astronauts were still alive when the cabin fell to the ground. They could have survived if the cabin was designed as a survival capsule with a parachute.

NASA needed the publicity from the televised launches and missions in order to keep up public interest and funding.

a reply to: _BoneZ_

I don't like to remember. I can only imagine that it's still so painful for the families. My 6th grade science class watched it live... we'd been studying the Solar System and NASA for a month and we all wanted to be Astronauts, our teacher had really pulled us into Science that year, we were all so excited.

a reply to: _BoneZ_
I was in the 5th or 6th grade when this happened. I guess they were watching the launch in another class room next door to mine and there was a scream and then crying coming from the room. Pretty soon a voice came over the intercom telling everyone to go to the gym for assembly. A lot of teachers and some students were crying in the halls. I didn't really know what was going on and was confused. Then they showed the broadcast where they showed it blowing up again. It was shocking.

a reply to: Skid Mark

Then the continuous media replays. You're right. It was confusing to grasp. I being in 6th grade, I knew people were killed. I felt emotional. But at the same time I was OCD about it. I was why why why. To me at the time, the only O Ring was what was placed on an Oxygen tank. So I could not fathom a set of O Rings on a space shuttle rocket.

Then they started showing video of the crew on fire flying out of the shuttle...

The images are still fresh in my mind. Scarred. This was before the internet. Now, it's everywhere. And the clips of the families that were there. Somber is a good word for it. Heart ache is also acceptable. 😟

a reply to: Bigburgh
Somber is an excellent word for it. The media ate it up though. Too bad for the families having to watch and relive it.

a reply to: Skid Mark

Very true. 😓🙏

IrishHalf deserves credit for the word "Somber".👍

Stark events that will remain in our memory forever.

I've created a couple of threads about the Challenger disaster, please have a read:

Challenger disaster: "obviously a major malfunction" and "the vehicle has exploded" - explained

The coverup regarding the fate of Challenger astronauts

I got chills just reading this thread's headline.

My dad was an engineer at NASA when Challenger was lost. From what I understand there is a lot of evidence that suggests the crew was still alive until the crew compartment impacted the ocean.

originally posted by: wildespace
Stark events that will remain in our memory forever.

I've created a couple of threads about the Challenger disaster, please have a read:

Challenger disaster: "obviously a major malfunction" and "the vehicle has exploded" - explained

The coverup regarding the fate of Challenger astronauts

Thanks for the links, i had never seen the coverup article before, i was 30 when it happened and at work. Interesting to say the least

I remember I had the day off and was visiting with my Grandmother when the program on television was interrupted with the news.

Quick heads up for everyone who remembers watching it unfold live, memories are a funny thing...

Myth #1: A nation watched as tragedy unfolded
Few people actually saw what happened live on television. The flight occurred during the early years of cable news, and although CNN was indeed carrying the launch when the shuttle was destroyed, all major broadcast stations had cut away — only to quickly return with taped relays. With Christa McAuliffe set to be the first teacher in space, NASA had arranged a satellite broadcast of the full mission into television sets in many schools, but the general public did not have access to this unless they were one of the then-few people with satellite dishes. What most people recall as a "live broadcast" was actually the taped replay broadcast soon after the event.

& myths about the Challenger Shuttle disaster

originally posted by: AK907ICECOLD
a reply to: _BoneZ_

Isn't there a conspiracy that 5 of them have twins and that one is still a professor? There still alive if I recall, nobody was on that shuttle hence adding to the "we never went to the moon"?

i remember that being thrown around

www.cluesforum.info...

fellowshipoftheminds.com...

I was at Kennedy Space Center that morning, so I saw the whole thing play out in the skies above me. Later, I was at Cape Canaveral when the wreckage was buried in the old missile silos. These memories remain vivid to this day.

Sadly, a similar kind of "normalization of deviance" (letting a dangerous situation continue simply because it had yet to result in catastrophe) contributed to the loss of Columbia nearly two decades later. Hopefully, the lessons of these mishaps will not be forgotten as we move forward into a new era of human spaceflight.