Challenger 25 yr Anv. RIP

Sad day 25 yrs a go. They're not forgotten!
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I have a wall picture of the Challenger during lift off. So I still see it in it`s Glory every day.

I will never forget the day that happened.

I was in 2nd grade in the Library. It was the first teacher in space so all the teachers had it on. It was a very strange day to be in school.

I was actually working that mission. The loss is unconscionable since the Morton Thiocol engineers initially called a "No Go" due to weather and the record of the O ring burn throughs at much higher temperatures. Two engineers resigned in protest when Thiocol switched to a "Go" call, because of the pressure brought to bear against them! One of the engineers even left a letter on his desk predicting an O ring burn through!

Originally posted by Truth1000
I was actually working that mission. The loss is unconscionable since the Morton Thiocol engineers initially called a "No Go" due to weather and the record of the O ring burn throughs at much higher temperatures. Two engineers resigned in protest when Thiocol switched to a "Go" call, because of the pressure brought to bear against them! One of the engineers even left a letter on his desk predicting an O ring burn through!

Do you work in NOla?

Edit: thats a pretty crazy dam story!

It is pretty well known throughout Kennedy Space Center, because that was where it happened!

I even met two guys in Thiocol who were there that morning, and they confirmed it. Dr. James Bagian was a flight surgeon/astronaut on the post-mishap evaluation board, and he was one of the guys who taught me what I needed to know to perform my duties at the Cape and KSC. He knew the whole story with Morton Thiocol, and it went all the way back to Utah, where the decision for the "Go" was made, instead of by the engineers at KSC. There were a lot of supporting documents the board found during the investigation.

THAT CREW SHOULD HAVE NEVER LAUNCHED THAT MORNING!!!

reply to post by mtnshredder


I remember that day. I remember tears. Thinking about the schoolteacher and her family.

I remember a picture of her with standing next to a stack of files 8+ feet high.

This was her homework for the mission. She was smiling.

I remember the crazy genius Richard Feynman trying to figure out what went wrong.

They died reaching for the stars, and the advancement of humanity.

So should we all. S&F

Originally posted by Truth1000
I was actually working that mission. The loss is unconscionable since the Morton Thiocol engineers initially called a "No Go" due to weather and the record of the O ring burn throughs at much higher temperatures. Two engineers resigned in protest when Thiocol switched to a "Go" call, because of the pressure brought to bear against them! One of the engineers even left a letter on his desk predicting an O ring burn through!

RIP Challenger crew!

The space shuttle is (was?) one of the most, if not THE most complicated pieces of machinery ever made, with over a million parts. So I always expected that some unforeseen accidents would occur because of all the complicated risks involved.

But this was more a failure of management than it was of machinery. Any engineer who works with rubber seals can tell you what happens when they get cold, they get stiff and don't work as well. Feynman said that management tried to convince themselves they had a safety factor of 3 when in fact they had no safety factor at all but rather evidence of a previous failure to perform as expected:

science.ksc.nasa.gov...

The origin and consequences of the erosion and blow-by were not
understood. They did not occur equally on all flights and all joints;
sometimes more, and sometimes less. Why not sometime, when whatever
conditions determined it were right, still more leading to
catastrophe?

In spite of these variations from case to case, officials behaved as
if they understood it, giving apparently logical arguments to each
other often depending on the "success" of previous flights. For
example. in determining if flight 51-L was safe to fly in the face of
ring erosion in flight 51-C, it was noted that the erosion depth was
only one-third of the radius. It had been noted in an experiment
cutting the ring that cutting it as deep as one radius was necessary
before the ring failed. Instead of being very concerned that
variations of poorly understood conditions might reasonably create a
deeper erosion this time, it was asserted, there was "a safety factor
of three." This is a strange use of the engineer's term ,"safety
factor."...

There was no way, without full understanding, that one could have
confidence that conditions the next time might not produce erosion
three times more severe than the time before. Nevertheless, officials
fooled themselves into thinking they had such understanding and
confidence, in spite of the peculiar variations from case to case.

It should be no surprise that some rocket propulsion missions will fail from unforeseen circumstances due to the high risk nature of the event, however, it's really sad to see failure from known and foreseen circumstances, such as misinterpretation of the previous flight's O-ring burn through as a safety factor when it was instead an indication of impending disaster.

Originally posted by Truth1000
I was actually working that mission. The loss is unconscionable since the Morton Thiocol engineers initially called a "No Go" due to weather and the record of the O ring burn throughs at much higher temperatures. Two engineers resigned in protest when Thiocol switched to a "Go" call, because of the pressure brought to bear against them! One of the engineers even left a letter on his desk predicting an O ring burn through!

The "conspiracy" to launch is evident, then and now. What will remain unrecognized and unknown--perhaps forever if TPTB have their way--is that the whole shuttle program is a debacle of major proportions. That realization may become apparent when the triangles are revealed. And it looks like that is coming soon. Of course, some version of ET contact is destined to follow as probing questions are raised so that aspect is part of the problem for TPTB.

That said, regardless of what the ISS needs to keep it manned, the three up-coming shuttle flights need to be cancelled. The ISS can easily be serviced by current triangles that of course have space capabilities.

The need for cancelling the remaining shuttle flights is plain. It is simple math, statistics actuallly, with a major, major cost that is uncalculable. There has been two total failures of shuttle missions within the first 113 missions. That averages out as a loss of a ship and crew at about every 56 missions. Currently, mission 133 is on the pad. The odds are increasing with these old birds that another total faillure will eventually happen. (How many of us would get into a car or aircraft if the odds of not returinng from that trip was one in 56 and increasing?)

America does not need a very public failure of any kind in today's world. We are suffering enough prestigue damage as it is. Another shuttle blowing up and strewing debris and crew across a wide swath is not what we need...again.

We have the triangles. They are not pipe dreams. They are seen constantly. There can be no doubt but what they have been built in secret while the shuttle program has been allowed to waddle along its incredibly torturous path as a cover or at the least, as a bad idea.

There is, of course, a whole industry that supports the shuttle program, but the handwritting is clear on those remaining contracts. the game is changing with some bad effects for rocket technologies, but it is inevitable. We ourselves have build the replacement, outmoding our own primative technology. It is time to reveal that switch and take the credit and the lumps it will bring.

Of course, the triangles are a masterful, new weapon of war. That is why they are still somewhat of a secret. But every country knows they exist, but the average American citizen is blindsided, paying to keep the shuttle program going beyond the expected end and at the same time, paying trillions of dollars into the black programs that have developed the triangles. This is the dark side of the military-industrial complex that controls our lives and dollars.

We need a national call to get the triangles recognized as the greatest development since the invention of the wheel. They will be a tremendeous boon to the US economy and may yet save the world from itself as commercial vehicle rather than being held in reserve as a weapon of war.

I remember it very well, I was in my car driving out of my subdivision, when I heard it on the radio it shook me up so badly that I pulled over and just sat there for a long time shaking.

A few years later while living in Berkeley, Ca. I met an Aerospace Engineer who was there that day, He gave me copies of 12 snapshots that were taken that day of the Challenger crew while they were walking to and getting into the spacecraft, these were private photos taken by him and have never been released to the public. He also gave me a small replica of Challenger that was given to people involved and also not released to the public. Wish I knew off hand where I have them stored so I could scan some of the pictures and post them here. I haven't looked at them in years, it would make me sad to see them again.

He also gave me a box trading cards from NASA, what is unique about them is they were the first release to insiders with a special stamp and date on them, I have never opened the box or broken the seal, one day I plan to give them to my young grandson who is eight.

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