I was in 8th grade and saw the televised launch at school......science class was pretty quiet and sad that day. RIP.....
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Remembering Challenger
- Thread starter SteveCS
- Start date
Unheeded warnings that lead to tragedy remain haunting for a long time.
It's hard to watch docos on Boisjoly and others who tried to stop the launch.
As a former Floridian, I called people in various locations when I heard the news.
Friends in Tampa could see the aftermath of the Challenger explosion with the naked eye all the way across the state while I was on the phone with them.
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I flew on Delta Express a few times back when they were in operation and connecting various airports in the Southeast.
We were in the air heading south from Jacksonville to West Palm on a planned shuttle launch date about 10 years or so after Challenger.
I wasn't sure of the launch time, but I grabbed a seat on the port side of the plane anyway just in case. We were due to fly an overland route.
I asked the air crew about the launch; they asked the cockpit. No one knew anything about it.
After a while, we veered sharply west and the captain announced that we had to move out of protected airspace and to look out the left side of the plane.
There was fairly low partial cloud cover below with clear skies above. The sight of the just launched rocket and shuttle climbing through the clouds, getting level with our altitude, and continuing on upward was one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen.
Even though we had cleared their airspace, I was amazed at how close by the shuttle seemed as it passed by.
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I had experience as a schoolboy in 1961 that was the opposite of the Challenger disaster.
Alan Shepard was about to make the first manned US space flight - no orbits, just ascent and re-entry.
My classroom fed off of our teacher's deep fear that something terrible was going to happen that she didn't want us to experience.
Actually, most of the adults in my world were worried about it to some degree.
When Shepard successfully lifted off, splashed down and was recovered, our relief was immeasurable.
It's hard to watch docos on Boisjoly and others who tried to stop the launch.
As a former Floridian, I called people in various locations when I heard the news.
Friends in Tampa could see the aftermath of the Challenger explosion with the naked eye all the way across the state while I was on the phone with them.
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I flew on Delta Express a few times back when they were in operation and connecting various airports in the Southeast.
We were in the air heading south from Jacksonville to West Palm on a planned shuttle launch date about 10 years or so after Challenger.
I wasn't sure of the launch time, but I grabbed a seat on the port side of the plane anyway just in case. We were due to fly an overland route.
I asked the air crew about the launch; they asked the cockpit. No one knew anything about it.
After a while, we veered sharply west and the captain announced that we had to move out of protected airspace and to look out the left side of the plane.
There was fairly low partial cloud cover below with clear skies above. The sight of the just launched rocket and shuttle climbing through the clouds, getting level with our altitude, and continuing on upward was one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen.
Even though we had cleared their airspace, I was amazed at how close by the shuttle seemed as it passed by.
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I had experience as a schoolboy in 1961 that was the opposite of the Challenger disaster.
Alan Shepard was about to make the first manned US space flight - no orbits, just ascent and re-entry.
My classroom fed off of our teacher's deep fear that something terrible was going to happen that she didn't want us to experience.
Actually, most of the adults in my world were worried about it to some degree.
When Shepard successfully lifted off, splashed down and was recovered, our relief was immeasurable.
I remember it well, the world just sort of stopped, like it did on 9/11. Not sure that's what would happen now, unfortunately. An entirely preventable accident, as was the second shuttle disaster.
JazznFunk
Supporting Member
Correct. And the known issues with the Artemis/Orion capsule launching soon are being dismissed. The excuses being given for not waiting despite the warnings are cost overruns and no more time to redesign/reinforce the shield. I'd rather wait another 5 years to try and go to the moon vs risking lives for a known issue.... again.
"NASA has spent years since its successful uncrewed Artemis 1 mission studying how the extreme temperatures during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere affect Orion’s heat shield.
The Orion capsule sustained major damage after making its return in 2022. It cracked and chipped as a result of the extreme conditions during reentry.
Over two years after the mission concluded, NASA said it had identified the root cause, with engineers determining that the “gases generated inside the heat shield’s ablative outer material called Avcoat were not able to vent and dissipate as expected.”
“This allowed pressure to build up and cracking to occur, causing some charred material to break off in several locations,” the agency wrote in a December 2024 statement.
Yet instead of making major material changes to the heat shield itself after the fact — the Artemis 2 heat shield was assembled and installed even before the Artemis 1 mission — NASA opted to adjust the Artemis 2 mission’s flight path instead, to ensure a gentler reentry.
“Based on the data, we have decided — NASA unanimously and our decision-makers — to move forward with the current Artemis II Orion capsule and heat shield, with a modified entry trajectory,” former NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced at the time.
But not everybody is convinced that the space agency has sufficiently addressed the issue ahead of its first crewed Moon mission.
“What they’re talking about doing is crazy,” former NASA astronaut and heat shield expert Charlie Camarda told CNN."
Experts Warn That There’s Something Wrong With the Moon Rocket NASA Is About to Launch With Astronauts Aboard
There have been several books that go into detail about the engineering and decision-making process, and I've read two of them. I recommend "Riding Rockets" by astronaut Mike Mullane, one of the original Shuttle astronauts and a good friend with most of Challenger's final crew. He has a great sense of humor about life in general.
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JazznFunk
Supporting Member
I got to meet Mike Mullane at the Space & Rocket Center once, in Huntsville, AL in the early 90s. He was there doing a signing and a lecture when we visited one day. Just happened to be there at the right time! I have a photo, patch, and mission pin that he signed. Am sure it's at my parents' house somewhere!
I was at a business meeting in St Louis when it happened. The folks that made up the meeting were in a company cafeteria at the time, and we all saw the launch and the following disaster. Terrible thing to witness even on TV.
OTOH, the day before, at the same business meeting, I had just met the wonderful woman I would marry 9 months later and we have been married for 40 years (this December). So while Challenger was a tragedy, I am always reminded on this week that I met the love of my life at that time as well. Reading the paper this morning we both talked about the disaster as well as the amazing life we've had together since that day.
OTOH, the day before, at the same business meeting, I had just met the wonderful woman I would marry 9 months later and we have been married for 40 years (this December). So while Challenger was a tragedy, I am always reminded on this week that I met the love of my life at that time as well. Reading the paper this morning we both talked about the disaster as well as the amazing life we've had together since that day.
At the time, I was in a library kinda near the space center. You could see launches from there (not the firey lift offs, but you could see the smoke columns of the rockets climbing out and away to the east. Certainly not as good a view as right from the coast a few miles away, but you could still see the higher parts of the launches). When I came out of the library, everyone was looking up in the sky. I’d known the launch was happening, but was busy with other things and hadn’t watched it (though it had been on my mind that day; I’d just got wrapped up in stuff and forgot. Anyway, I’d seen plenty of launches, though they’re always cool). So, I got out and people are standing around quiet, looking up in the sky. I asked someone what was up and they said "The Space Shuttle. Something’s gone wrong". I’m like, "What’s wrong?" They pointed and said the smoke column stopped early and looked wrong. I looked and saw vapor trails/smoke columns. I dunno, it looked pretty normal, maybe a bit messed up at the top, but hard to tell from there. However, people were quiet and sure something had gone wrong. I had my doubts, but soon the news came on the radio.
I remember walking over to a payphone and calling my mom. I said, "The space program’s gonna be down for a long time." Her initial reaction was that it would just be a bump in the road and they’d be back at it in a few months, but she wasn’t seeing the zombie-like reactions of the people walking around me.
They didn’t fly again for close to three years
I remember walking over to a payphone and calling my mom. I said, "The space program’s gonna be down for a long time." Her initial reaction was that it would just be a bump in the road and they’d be back at it in a few months, but she wasn’t seeing the zombie-like reactions of the people walking around me.
They didn’t fly again for close to three years
back in grad school a statistics professor of mine recalled for us his involvement in the launch.
he described how beside himself he was at the explosion but the older guys were stoic about it, the way he told it was at that point he realized the disaster was statistically inevitable
I was at work when my wife called me and told me that Challenger had exploded after launching. I happened to have a very small portable TV in my office and I turned it on and the entire office staff of a dozen or so employees gathered around and watched the news coverage in silence.
Fast forward to 9/11. I was driving to work when I heard the radio reports of the attack. When I got to work we turned on the projection TV in the auditorium and watched in horror as the second tower fell. Again, somber, horrified, co-workers watching in silence, trying to process the events that would change our lives forever.
Fast forward to 9/11. I was driving to work when I heard the radio reports of the attack. When I got to work we turned on the projection TV in the auditorium and watched in horror as the second tower fell. Again, somber, horrified, co-workers watching in silence, trying to process the events that would change our lives forever.
I saw it on TV. By the time, I was living in South America cause my father was working to the european rocket launching base in french Guyana, and the spatial buisness was a smaller world. I was13, naive, and it has been a schock for me to discover that something could go wrong with the shuttle and kill people. 2 years before i have had the chance to visit Cap Kennedy space center; a magic moment that has fed my dreams for years.
By the time i was fan of french musician Jean Michel Jarre, which was a kind of pioneer in electronic music. He was prepairing a big show in Houston for NASA 25 years birthday, and a new album named "Rendez-vous". Initial plan was that Ron Mc Nair plays and records a sax part for the album from Challenger, on this below tune. But it sadly never happened.
Thanks for the memory Steve.
Edit: and here's what Jean-michel Jarre told from this tune also named "Ron's piece":
"This tune was specially composed for Ron and was dedicated to be played by him in the shuttle, becoming the first music played and recorded in Space. Ron was loving this tune and rehearsed it with enthusiasm until last moment. May the memory of my friend astronaut and artist Ron Mc Nair living through this music."
By the time i was fan of french musician Jean Michel Jarre, which was a kind of pioneer in electronic music. He was prepairing a big show in Houston for NASA 25 years birthday, and a new album named "Rendez-vous". Initial plan was that Ron Mc Nair plays and records a sax part for the album from Challenger, on this below tune. But it sadly never happened.
Thanks for the memory Steve.
Edit: and here's what Jean-michel Jarre told from this tune also named "Ron's piece":
"This tune was specially composed for Ron and was dedicated to be played by him in the shuttle, becoming the first music played and recorded in Space. Ron was loving this tune and rehearsed it with enthusiasm until last moment. May the memory of my friend astronaut and artist Ron Mc Nair living through this music."
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McNair took and played a (borrowed and highly prized) saxophone on STS-41-B. This is from Adam Higginbotham's book 'Challenger':
According to the same book, McNair was untimately denied permission to take the saxophone aboard STS-51-L, citing Scobee as saying "I decided Ron could bring his sax if Judy could bring her piano".
Not actually inevitable. Read Edward Tufte's article about Challenger to understand the role that "PowerPoint engineering" played in obscuring the relationship between ambient temp and O-ring damage. The data were there, and if they had been presented properly, it would have been clear that O- ring damage was a function of decreasing temp, and that the temp at launch was OUTSIDE the range of any previous data. If you see the actual presentations made at the time, this simple relationship is so obscured that it made proper decision making nearly impossible.
Michael J. Smith's (pilot) widow later remarried and lives (lived?) here in our VB community. I had a gaggle of students at the hospital (Grove City PA) when my wife called saying "...turn on the TV in the waiting room". My son, Dehn, was a month old...he's now 40.
Riis
Riis
It was my junior year of college, and I was walking through the student union in between classes. They had the TVs tuned to the launch, so I stopped to watch. Everyone was in shock when it happened. It is a vivid memory to be sure.
@Polfuste thanks for posting that about Jean-Michel Jarre's Rendezvous album. I bought that on CD many years ago and remember reading about "Ron's Piece" in the liner notes. Very sad.
@Polfuste thanks for posting that about Jean-Michel Jarre's Rendezvous album. I bought that on CD many years ago and remember reading about "Ron's Piece" in the liner notes. Very sad.
I read a copy of the final accident report on that particular failure. Much like the finding of the investigation, IMO it was a failure of NASA culture due to several things, not the least of which was an attitude that the Shuttle program had rarely (if ever) flown a single craft that did not have some last minute glitches resulting in non working sensors, or other minor problems deemed not critical to mission success, and they decided that even though the cold was a consideration, they were more driven by on time delivery and past successes and so made a decision to put fire to the most powerful controlled explosion in the history or space flight against some strenuous objection from certain parties. It was not quite as colorful as the report on the other shuttle loss, but it's hard to take flinging frozen chickens from a compressed air cannon at wing sections seriously, no matter how scientifically sound the logic followed to arrive at that testing method.
