I was a newlywed, age 30, home sick with fever and sinus infection. Turned on the TV and saw the news at 9:30 am California time. I couldn’t rest all day in disbelief and stayed glued to the coverage. I called my husband who was at his job at an aerospace/defense company that worked on the Hubble telescope. It was surreal and then to see the parents’ section react to what they witnessed - a very sad shock!
"Let me tell you something. I sure hope nothing happens tomorrow, but if it does, I am not going to be the person to stand in front of a board of inquiry and explain why I gave you permission to fly my rocket boosters in an environment I knew they would never qualify to fly in" - Allan MacDonald (to Lawrence Mulloy on Thiokol's recommendation to launch)
What the f..k was that part that was parachuted and WHY the Hell wasn't the CREW CABIN parachuted rather than have their astronauts ride the lightning down to the surf like so many meteors with their asses on fire and wondering what that final SLAM will be like, with their families and friends watching the show courtesy of NASA.
My father was a aeronautical space engineer Johnson Space Center NASA Clear Lake Texas one of my dad's last projects that he was involved with was creating the cooling system for the space shuttles and we loved watching the launches together and when it exploded I turned around and my dad had tears running down his face the only time I really remember my father crying he knew exactly what had happened.
I was in the 6th grade. So excited, waited weeks to see the lesson from space. Watching this takes me back to the utter devastation of that terrible day. I don't know that I ever fully got over it.
Me too!!!! I was in catholic school, Holy Trinity, and our principal, Sister Emmeline came in and told our teacher, Mrs. Tierney, to lead us all in prayer. We had a mass that day for them. That was the first tragedy I remember as a child while in school that we prayed and filed into the church for a special mass for the people involved. I will always remember it so clearly. 🙏😔
I was fifteen when this happened. I was so excited, because I was going to attend my very first rock concert with my aunt and my best friend the following night. Tragedies like this really put life into perspective! Such a terribly sad day! May those brave astronauts Rest In Peace. They will forever be heroes.
I was 14. I remember all the kids in the USA talking about a teacher going to space. We had teachers who said they would like to go and others who were scared of the thought. All the excitement that built up and then the unthinkable.
I was 14 when NASA lost Challenger, and I was 31 when NASA lost Columbia. To see two of the worst accidents in my lifetime is surreal. • Rest In Peace to the Challenger crew. • Rest In Peace to the Columbia crew.
They weren't "accidents".... An "accident" is slopping your trousers, these incidents, were avoidable, whereas an unexpected, bowel expulsion is much less of an ordeal... How dare you compare the two?!
In both cases it turned out to be negligence. The Challenger blew up due to a o-ring fault that didn't seal properly and the director knew of the temperature limitations of it prior to giving the go for launch. It was found he should have aborted prior to the launch knowing the previous nights temperature and was even informed again of the o-ring limitation. The Columbia disaster was the result of a somewhat uncontrollable factor. When it launched, the director was informed that a debris hit the heatshield and it appeared to have been knocked off. I don't recall if he informed the crew or if they did an inspection, but he knew there was a chance of a breakup during reentry but unfortunately even if they found a fault in flight there was no way to perform a repair so it was somewhat understandable disaster that could not be controlled.
Just a year older at 15 years old for this watching live in Italy as the time on a school trip then 20 years again I was 32....both NASA feckin up both of these were and NASA 's impatience. That is number one everyone.....moneycutting costs.
@@Dan-di9jdIIRC, with Columbia they could've been saved. Apparently a backup plan was considered to extend the mission until the Atlantis could rescue them.
I was 5 years old when this happened. My mother and her cousin picked me up from pre-K and we went home quickly because it was very cold in the single digits that day but sunny I remember, and we saw this replayed over and over on TV. I remember me and my mom's cousin were sitting on the floor in front of the TV and her mouth was open in shock while I wasn't sure why or what I was watching because I was so young. One of my first vivid memories and one I will never forget.
I was in science class in high school and our teacher rolled the TV in the room so we could watch the launch. When it exploded everyone was in shock. The teachers were crying. They let us out early from school that day. It was one of the saddest moments I’ve ever experienced…I’ll never forget it.
I watched this in class. My teacher Mrs Sutton was in the competition to be the first teacher in space and she was in the top 20 finalists. I just remember her turning white and her tears making her mascara run.
@@andrewcutler1380 I don't really blame him that much He may not know that shuttles didn't have parachutes, and for people who didn't know or were grasping at straws for everything to be ok, seeing a parachute and assuming it's the crew is a perfectly logical thought process.
Gotta be a strange feeling for the teachers that weren't selected. First sad they missed out, then horrified about watching 7 people die in front of their eyes then , the understandable huge relief thinking thank god it wasn't me followed by the immense guilt for thinking that.
No one felt this exact sequence of emotions more heavily than the reserve teacher called up and trained to take Christa's place if she was made unavailable. There's video of her watching the launch
Worst than that, they knew there was a particular problem with the O rings. In the below zero conditions, they didn't function correctly. Many of the engineers strongly advise for the launch to be cancelled. The Rogers reports commissioned after the event was heavily critical of Nasa.
Look how mature, calm and respectable the people read the news back in the day. No crying or yelling out "oh my god." Back when adults were in charge of telling us the news in this country.
@@darkprose They mean that the delivery of the news stories were done more professionally and stoically back then. And I agree---the newscasters today are crap. Too loud and emotional. (Jan Griffiths).
I think people tend to exaggerate this. There are those who say the same thing when they look back at coverage of the JFK assassination. Of course, this all occurred before the launch of Fox News, which changed the way news was covered, in that we saw cable news prime time evolve into “op-ed” programming, where opinion, especially political opinion predominates, rather than “hard news” - which was just straight reporting. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it should be clearly labeled as “opinion”, just as the editorial pages of a newspaper are clearly labeled as such. The idea of partisan news didn’t originate with television. In the 19th Century, newspapers were openly affiliated with political parties, or factions (especially sectional factionalism, in the antebellum period), and were identified as such. But readers were aware of this, so they read it knowing that the newspaper was closely affiliated with a political party, and they didn’t claim to be “objective”. Finally, regarding the demeanor of reporters and anchors, go back and listen to the melodramatic style of the narrators of newsreels, when visual news was primarily distributed through cinemas. You will find this overly dramatic style (to our ears, anyway) on early radio newscasts. Of course, newsreels couldn’t deliver “breaking news”, in the way that television can, and unlike this video, you don’t see the news gathering process in a newsreel, just the finished product. Early television news depended heavily on filming of events. TV cameras were huge, and not very portable. Often early television news consisted of an announcer reading headlines and stories straight from teletypes from wire services, like AP, UPI, Reuters, etc. That was how newspapers gathered news from outside their local area. And in the newspaper business before radio and television, you had both sensationalist tabloids, and more serious and staid broadsheets. So the change isn’t as great as many might think. In the early days of the space age, you can compare the sharply contrasting styles between ABC’s somewhat melodramatic Jules Bergman and the much more avuncular style of CBS’s Walter Cronkite. Perhaps the biggest change is that early television news reporters had a background in newspapers or the news services, which emphasized reporting and WRITING. They didn’t come from a broadcasting background. Today’s television news anchors and reporters are required to have a good appearance on a television; their journalistic skills are of secondary importance. But you can go back to the late 1950s, and hear warnings about television and journalism from Ed Morrow.
I can't even imagine the shock for people who saw this live when it happened. I was five at the time and didn't know about it for a year later. I also missed 911 live as well so I just can't even imagine what that's like seeing something like this happen live without knowing ahead of time it was going to happen.
I was 6. We had a little black n white tv at work in the rec room during 9/11 so I went there to see it happening. I honestly can't remember where I was during challenger though, prob out playing.
There's a video on here some where of Stoney Musgrave, a former astronaut. He says in it that he thinks they survived the explosion. They died when the shuttle hit the water. It didn't have any wings left, but shuttle commander Scobey tried to fly it until the very end. R.I.P.
Yep. A couple of the PEAPs had been activated prior to impact with the water, Scobees included. Consumption of the packs was consistent with the calculated free fall time.
My sister was in 1st grade. She kept on telling my mom about how excited she was to see a teacher go into space. She cried when she learned it exploded about 2 years later
In hindsight, of course, it would've made total sense to make the entire crew cockpit into an escape capsule equipped with a series of parachutes to allow humans to escape and survive such an occurrence. There later developed evidence that the crew may very well NOT have died instantly as was first thought, but lived up until the cockpit cabin hit the water at hundreds of miles per hour: This seemingly was deduced once NASA found the cockpit cabin more or less in one piece several weeks later, lying at the bottom of the ocean, the bodies in their suits and still strapped in. If a large parachute had been attached to the capsule it is not totally unreasonable to think that hey could've survived.
If they had been aware of what was about to happen they could have separated the orbiter from the tanks before all went out of control but they weren’t. It all happened so fast that there hadn’t been the slightest chance to get away - no matter what kind of safety system anybody can think of. Even if they'd have had the chance of separation it’s not a 100 % guarantee to survive because they would have been forced to make a water landing (which is difficult enough with an airplane - not to speak of a block of concrete without engines). Unfortunately nothing could’ve been done to save their lives once the shuttle had taken off. About the parachute see Trevor’s explanation above.
@@faktisletztenendes The shuttle could not have survived anything other than the straight, aerodynamic trajectory it was in when the tank exploded. If they had time to identify an issue and took action to abort by separating from the ET before the explosion, the vehicle would have been torn to shreds by the forces it would have been subjected to at that speed and in the thick atmosphere at that altitude. Lots of people think the RTLS abort scenario was realistically possible but the shuttle was only in a configuration to abort and return to KFC for a few seconds. The maneuver required ejection of the partially filled ET, doing an avoidance maneuver, rotating around and reorienting for re-entry and a landing. Most of the astronaut pilot group thought the RTLS abort mode to be nearly impossible.
@@MrCrystalcranium NASA thought about making STS-1 a suborbital RTLS profile mission: mission commander (and Gemini and Apollo veteran) John Young refused to fly that profile, stating that it was like "playing Russian Roulette." The only safe abort profiles is the "Abort To Orbit" (done on STS-51-F, which was the 8th flight of Space Shuttle Challenger) and the "Abort Once Around" in which the Shuttle completes a circuit around the Earth, landing either at Edwards AFB, White Sands, or Kennedy Space Center in less than 90 minutes after launch.
I was in class in college the morning it happened. I heard about it from a classmate at lunch. So sad. “Obviously a major malfunction” was the understatement of the decade.
And that was broadcasted over the loud speaker where the families were watching. I can’t imagine having those emotions and hearing someone say that. IDK I guess some people don’t have a filter when tragedy happens, I guess I can understand that. It was just a real bad choice of words. 😔
@@kimmieh8419 He didn't have video of the launch in front of him. He had a screen with telemetry from the orbiter. He was literally just watching the numbers of all the shuttle's systems and making sure they were nominal. He made the comment 43 seconds after breakup while he was trying to figure out why he lost telemetry, because that was his job. Loss of the orbiter wasn't obvious to him yet.
@@kimmieh8419 even more concerning the after report suggests that the crew may have been aware and were trying to recover not knowing that the entire back section was missing. At least one crew member engaged his suit and was able to reach over and engage a crew member's suit. Another crew member was attempting to gain control of the craft where switches were flipped that could only have been done by a person since it was covered and you had to disengage the cover before it could flip. So what went through the minds of the crew as they could see the ocean would have been pretty terrifying.
Ronald McNair was a huge deal to kids like me, from South Carolina just like me. I didn't get to watch it at school with all my friends, I was sick with a stomach bug, and saw it on the couch. They canceled school and my friends that lived near me all ran to my house to tell me all the teachers, students were distraught over Krista, and Ronald McNair. Thought that explosion couldn't be real
Ronald McNair was quite the accomplished guy: PhD in Physics, Karate Black Belt, played the saxophone, AND rocked muttonchops. Is there anything Ron didn't do??
@@Defender78 it was the martial arts part that hooked my brother we were already really into it by that time but to see a brotha not far from where we are from do all that, and coming from humble beginnings just like us Ronald McNair meant alot. We took it real bad when this happened, also Christa because our teachers were really excited and about her being on the mission
I'm from SC as well. In fact, I was a student at USC in Columbia, and on that particular day I didn't have classes and was at home at my parents' house when the accident occurred.
I was watching an episode of ST:TNG, 'The Ensigns of Command' which I've watched countless times. Only this time I noticed the shuttlecraft Commander Data flew. It was called Onizuka...
Happened on my 10th birthday. Such an empty feeling. All we heard leading up to this every day for months was Krista's name. Every school every tv station. Then it came to a sudden halt. I live in Pa. It was a clear day. I kept looking at the sky wondering where they were. Thought about Kristas family a lot. I know there were others but she was the entire focus as far as the public. I feel so very bad for her children even today. Her poor daughter just wanted her home.
@@desertrose1226 oh absolutely. The extreme negligence to ignore the concerns of professionals that knowingly took a major risk is crazy. They were incredibly aware from the start that the real risk was watered down for profit and sensationalism. It’s just absolutely heart breaking and I absolutely understand some of the teachers family members not going to the memorials put on by nasa. Like seriously screw off with that invite.
Worst part about this was that most of the crew survived the explosion, but didn’t survive the impact of the crew section of the shuttle impacting the ocean
The challenger happened 14 years before I was even born but it makes me so sad but so proud of all of the crew. They died but experienced the peak of the human experience heading towards space, and all came so far and did so much in their lives right up until the shuttle blew up. They'll be remembered as courageous and amazing human beings who died so we can learn and grow for thousands of years
@@garysullivan3144 "Murdered" is such a strong word but more like extreme negligence where the director probably should have been charged criminally. He was informed of the o-ring limitations due to the extreme temperature fluctuations during the previous nights. He was told that he should abort until some other day to give it time. Instead he gave the go for launch despite knowing this information and this resulted.
Yea I was 14 nearly 15 watching on italian tv away on a skiing trip. Watching live. Then 20 years ago columbia watched that live to it was in the afternoon here in Scotland. As 911 as we are behind you. It was around 3pm when I was watching you news my i turned on just as my mum phoned to make dire my TV was turned off for when my 4 year old son my daughter was only 2. I saw the 2nd plane went in. But turned off. Not something a 4 year old too see. As for NASA seemed more interested about money etc.
I never saw the footage from 9/11 until high school history class. I was 7 at the time and my parents likewise didn't put the news on while I was in the room. I totally understand that.@@LGBTQ71
CNN didn’t know what the parachute was at 14 minutes. That was the top of one of the SRBs. Even someone at NASA made a ridiculous statement that “Paramedics were parachuting into the area.” If you listen closely when they first show it, you can hear someone on the CNN set begin to clap. That person was scolded by the director saying “don’t clap-we are on the air!”
@@Hazza4257 That's not the period in the flight when or where the SRBs were normally recovered and the GC team weren't directly involved with it. They were also under the impression that the SRBs had been destroyed by the reported activation of the flight termination system by range safety officers. They were engaged in getting the recovery forces into the area at the time to see if anyone had survived. Various military forces had been engaged and they weren't in direct communication with ground ground loops until later. It's an understandable thing to think in that context.
Few reporters were well-informed about the Shuttle systems. Only reporters specializing in science would take the time to learn the details of its systems.
Ill never forget that day. I was in fifth grade, and it seemed impossible that the most publicized launch since Columbia's first in 1981, could end in such a way. As tragic as it was, it was and will always be one of those memories that ill never forget where I was when I found out about it. The story was so innocent at first, yet years later we found out that there were people with concerns about the temperature that day, and that government red tape and poor judgement, led to the unneccesary deaths of seven amazing people. Some of the best people that we can produce in this country. Its so crazy to know how long ago this happened. God, it seems like yesterday lol. Those many years passed, doesnt change the admiration I have for the crew of Challenger. God bless all of you.
I remember this horrible tragedy. I was a sophomore in high school and I was home because it was exam week at Henninger and I had no exams that day. My mom was at work at Holy Trinity School-the parochial school I graduated from. She informed me that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded.
Surely they should’ve known that the parachute at 13:38 was attached to one of the boosters. No other components of the shuttle have any parachutes or anything attached to them.
Yes but the destruction of the SRBs did not destroy the parachute that was in the SRBs nose cone. In fact, the destruction of the SRB caused the nose cone to be separated from the rest of the booster allowing the chute to deploy. @@tracymiller1149
@@jukodebu The solid rocket boosters had this known flaw (o-rings) and NASA engineers had been screaming about it for 7 years, but executives wanted to stick to the promised launch schedule.
any more delays and the teacher would not have been able to give her first lesson as planned on day 4 of the mission has that may have fallen onto a weekend when the students would not be at school it makes you think would they have paid more notice to the warnings about launching if they were not in a rush to get a teacher into space?
@@paulhynes170 Doesn't sound important (teacher's lesson schedule). They were in a rush for all missions, sticking to the launch schedule they promised.
I was living in ft Lauderdale when this happened. For 3 days after in respect for the astronauts cars drove with their lights on in the day time which was not common back then.
I was in 2nd grade when this happened. Our class didn't watch it but one of our classmates who had gone to the dentist and heard about it on the radio and told us when she got back. My Mom and Dad saw it live because they were both sick at home that day. The next and only other time they were home sick together was the very next time the very next shuttle was launched after the Challenger disaster.
They were murdered by NASA and no one responsible for it was even fired for this....They should have gone to prison. Hurts more being from Christa's hometown of Framingham MA.
It’s kind of crazy that after a whole generation of kids watched this explosion happen live at school like myself, they traumatized another generation of kids years later with a live viewing of Columbia. Maybe they should just record these events and show them with a delay for the next generation.
This just goes to show that there’s no margin for error when it comes to human lives. I lost a lot of respect for NASA for caring more about bad publicity than the lives of 7 people and NASA’s entire reputation
2:18:47 Dick Scobee 1939-1986 2:19:16 Judy Resnik 1949-1986 2:19:46 Christa McAuliffe 1948-1986 2:20:02 Ellison Onizuka 1946-1986 2:20:20 Gregory Jarvis 1944-1986 2:20:34 Ronald McNair 1950-1986 2:20:51 Michael Smith 1945-1986 2:21:05 RIP to all seven crew members of Space Shuttle Challenger
The most awful part is the crowd. They cheered, thinking it was part of what was supposed to happen. Then they realize it was not. The parents watched their children die. I mean...that has to be the most horrific nightmare possible.
3rd grade here, I remember this vividly. This incident put the program back over a decade when it came to not only NASAs mission, but science as a whole. If they would've engaged in safety protocols, we would've already been back on the moon and planning for mars..
I was in high school and I was standing in a lunch line when someone told me. We had English class immediately after lunch and the teacher confirmed. It was ... genuinely unbelievable. I just couldn't get my head around the idea of a fatal accident involving NASA, who had always seemed to me so exasperatingly over-cautious. (I was too young for Apollo 1.) Another thing: I worked a little in broadcasting when I was younger and it's just this side of impossible to narrate an unanticipated event in real time. You have to say things, and the things you say have to add to the visuals, but you mustn't get out in front of whatever the facts are, and you have to be aware that people who care about the victims are listening carefully to your choice of words. Kudos to CNN for hitting that window as well as could be expected.
I was in high school, in drafting class. We watched the launch in the classroom and I remember some people crying after we finally realized it exploded. Then some in the class started cheering when they saw the parachute drifting down, assuming that it was the astronauts floating back to Earth. By that time we all assumed the space shuttle launches were as safe as a 747 flying from LA to NY. - Then I remember being in the locker room after baseball practice that I learned it wasn't the astronauts at all, and that they all died.
13:36 you see the chute, then someone begins clapping, and a voice follows "Don't start clapping. You're on the air." The Shuttle had no ejection or egress system in place, but you can see how a journalist or newsroom person may have seen it as a good sign.
its amazing i was only 3 and remember watching this happen on the tv with my family my dad launched unmanned rockets for the Air Force so we always watch the shuttle launches
i was in the 10th grade. i didn't know about it until i saw a big cloud and contrail on the tv at the bowling alley. my p.e. class was turning in their bowling shoes. i was in the auditorium taking an sat test.
You ought to read Dr Richard Feynmans report on this as produced as a seperate file to the Rogers Report on the disaster. He was scathing of NASA & their practices.
It's part of a fascinating documentary about Feynman, ostensibly about his life-long fascination with visiting an ancient kingdom located inside modern-day Russia (at the time of filming, the Soviet Union).
Six days earlier I had begun going to Aqueduct racetrack every day, a month after dropping out of college, and they were dark on Tuesday, so I slept in. Woke up at 11:45 a.m. to this coverage and didn't believe it. Any other day I wouldn't have been home.
This was such a preventable tragedy NASA was told that the o-rings in the solid rocket boosters wouldn't seal properly but NASA launched the shuttle anyway and 7 people died that day
1:40:50 One of the Recovery Ship appears on the Left as Tom Mintier questioning John Zarrella about the Possibility that Space Shuttle Challenger could Veering Off Course before or after the Explosion Unfortunately, There is no Indication that Challenger could have veered Off Course because at that Time, The Solid Rocket Booster fly Uncontrollably just seconds after the Explosion
I don't like how they showed that parachute but then didn't show it landing. Did they decide that was recovery personnel? That seems unlikely, as it looked to be coming from a very high altitude, which would be unlikely from rescue personnel.
@@TommyBBQBessinger As far as I'm aware, all they know about how long anyone survived is that the emergency oxygen was turned on, which implies someone survived the initial explosion. Please enlighten me what proof there is that anyone survived up to the point of impact with the water.
@@Dancindazed I'm going by what was said here at 4 minutes and 3 seconds, mentioning he flew the shuttle without wings all the ways down. .th-cam.com/video/uqcd_3daPQ8/w-d-xo.html
@@yesitssarahbby17 Incorrect. Oxygen was used and at least a few crew members were confirmed trying to survive before they hit the water. All is shown in the accident report.
Saw it in person, iwith my co- workers , and two engineers from Martin Marietta. Our company had built hardware for another shuttle. Major trauma for many of us . To watch that compartment descending fast, knowing that seven souls are inside, just so sad.
I was a senior in high school at that time. We didn’t have cell phones back then, so I didn’t find out about it until I had gotten home from school. So sad rewatching it now knowing what is going to happen.😢
The irony in the commentary saying NASA has had more delays. They cared account, and within five seconds the shuttle explodes. If the shuttle didn’t launch on Tuesday, Christie McAuliffe would not have been able to teach her a lesson during the week. Everyone knew the shuttles should not have launched.
Some of these journalists were idiots in their questioning. What does being a regular civilian have to do with an explosion and a launch that should not have happened?
Sorry for your loss. This tragedy affected us all in 1986. It took me half of February 1986 to get over this . I was in 9th grade aged 14. Hard to believe it was Challenger, this was the Miracle Shuttle, First woman, first night launch, first black astronaut, the first tetherless walk in space in 1984.
I'm not blaming mcauliffe directly but some of why this happened was because they pushed this teacher is space program and it kept being delayed that they went on with the launch despite the many warnings big mistake sending a civilian up there
It was not the teacher's fault, ....it was Reagan's fault. This teacher in space program was his pet project; he used it for his own political propaganda purposes. He wanted that shuttle launched with the teacher onboard that day because he wanted to brag about it in his SotU address that night. NASA felt that pressure from him and they didn't want to disappoint the president who in all practicality, indirectly holds the purse strings of NASA and career advancements for the NASA management people.
I was in 5th grade, but at home on a snow day in Western PA. It was a huge snow storm the days before. My parents had a guy downstairs going some home remodeling work. I watched this live in the living room. It exploded, and I just sat there stunned with my mom. My mom hoped they could find them in the ocean, but I was a big space geek kid and knew they could not survive it. Sad day.
Big big mistake.. They should not have launched the shuttle that day... I Did not know that the crew survived the explosion and died like 3 minutes later.. RIP those souls😪
NASA should have listened to ma man Allan McDonald (whom I respect till death) a man full of knowledge and integrity, but they were listening to the politicians. Politics can never substitute knowledge which proves at the 73rd second. 🤨
@@Alloneword-cp2xw no I don’t think so. I saw the movie and then his interview, didn’t find him saying that the takeoff is good to go. Double check anyway. Thanks
I was 9 years old when this happened I don’t remember to much what happened but I remember hearing about it I always wanted to know who was the voice behind the person that said The vehicle has exploded I can’t imagine how hard that was for him to report to the world
Tom Minter was terrific in the moment of the disaster. Very reserved and not wildly speculative. It’s amazing some of the anchors both here and especially Steve Bell on ABC spoke of an Escape Capsule under the chute. The female anchor here asking Minter “what kind of parachutes do they have, how many and how much can they hold?” Remarkable how uninformed they were. NASA knew from the beginning of designing the system there would be zero abort options should anything happen while the solids were attached. Even the loss of a single engine on the shuttle would mean loss of crew and vehicle during that time period. I don’t think a launch vehicle with that caveat should have ever been deemed “operational”.and flown with civilians onboard. Launches and as we later learned reentry were always high risk
I’ve read that some of the crews emergency oxygen tanks were activated, suggesting that at least one of them survived the explosion and was alert enough to start their loss of cabin pressure emergency checklist. Of course they would have figured out pretty quickly that they were in trouble. I can only hope that report was wrong, or that the G forces from tumbling quickly knocked any survivors unconscious so they didn’t have to think about their fate as they fell back to the ocean.
There is a fair amount of such evidence to the effect that at least some of the crew members were alive. How aware they were/how conscious they were of what was going on no one will ever know for sure.
I was a newlywed, age 30, home sick with fever and sinus infection. Turned on the TV and saw the news at 9:30 am California time. I couldn’t rest all day in disbelief and stayed glued to the coverage. I called my husband who was at his job at an aerospace/defense company that worked on the Hubble telescope. It was surreal and then to see the parents’ section react to what they witnessed - a very sad shock!
Rest In Peace challenger crew. I think about you a lot. I Will never forget that day.
haha theyre all dead
@@michaelmagic988 you have no father
@@bapewizard sorry that was rude
th-cam.com/video/V0nFZLm6Hnw/w-d-xo.html
whatch the video of Challenger crew being alive and well many years after the crash. NASA is full of lies
It's remarkable how "Non" Hysterical this coverage was back then. Imagine what this would be like today.
Good point. Now even mundane stories are treated with hysterics. One of the reasons I’ve stopped watching the TV news.
It would be trumps fault of course
The way the press secretary handled it was as professional as it gets. Jen Psaki would’ve been furious and trying to grill the reporters.
Jen Psaki is awesome. :)
@@pinedelgado4743 - 299 guys before you agree. :)
"Let me tell you something. I sure hope nothing happens tomorrow, but if it does, I am not going to be the person to stand in front of a board of inquiry and explain why I gave you permission to fly my rocket boosters in an environment I knew they would never qualify to fly in"
- Allan MacDonald (to Lawrence Mulloy on Thiokol's recommendation to launch)
But they proceeded with the ill-fated launch. :'(
He died March 6th 2021, a few weeks ago.
they had to get the teacher up
This has corrupt written all over it. God damn the bloody authorities! This should never have happened!!
What the f..k was that part that was parachuted and WHY the Hell wasn't the CREW CABIN parachuted rather than have their astronauts ride the lightning down to the surf like so many meteors with their asses on fire and wondering what that final SLAM will be like, with their families and friends watching the show courtesy of NASA.
The fact that this begins with the crew clearing icicles off the pad just spells disaster
My father was a aeronautical space engineer Johnson Space Center NASA Clear Lake Texas one of my dad's last projects that he was involved with was creating the cooling system for the space shuttles and we loved watching the launches together and when it exploded I turned around and my dad had tears running down his face the only time I really remember my father crying he knew exactly what had happened.
I was in the 6th grade. So excited, waited weeks to see the lesson from space. Watching this takes me back to the utter devastation of that terrible day. I don't know that I ever fully got over it.
Me too!!!! I was in catholic school, Holy Trinity, and our principal, Sister Emmeline came in and told our teacher, Mrs. Tierney, to lead us all in prayer. We had a mass that day for them. That was the first tragedy I remember as a child while in school that we prayed and filed into the church for a special mass for the people involved. I will always remember it so clearly. 🙏😔
I was fifteen when this happened. I was so excited, because I was going to attend my very first rock concert with my aunt and my best friend the following night. Tragedies like this really put life into perspective! Such a terribly sad day! May those brave astronauts Rest In Peace. They will forever be heroes.
I was 14. I remember all the kids in the USA talking about a teacher going to space. We had teachers who said they would like to go and others who were scared of the thought. All the excitement that built up and then the unthinkable.
Which concert?
Was the concert still on or did they have to postpone it ? I was about 4 months old when this happened.
I was 14 when NASA lost Challenger, and I was 31 when NASA lost Columbia. To see two of the worst accidents in my lifetime is surreal.
• Rest In Peace to the Challenger crew.
• Rest In Peace to the Columbia crew.
They weren't "accidents"....
An "accident" is slopping your trousers, these incidents, were avoidable, whereas an unexpected, bowel expulsion is much less of an ordeal...
How dare you compare the two?!
In both cases it turned out to be negligence. The Challenger blew up due to a o-ring fault that didn't seal properly and the director knew of the temperature limitations of it prior to giving the go for launch. It was found he should have aborted prior to the launch knowing the previous nights temperature and was even informed again of the o-ring limitation. The Columbia disaster was the result of a somewhat uncontrollable factor. When it launched, the director was informed that a debris hit the heatshield and it appeared to have been knocked off. I don't recall if he informed the crew or if they did an inspection, but he knew there was a chance of a breakup during reentry but unfortunately even if they found a fault in flight there was no way to perform a repair so it was somewhat understandable disaster that could not be controlled.
Just a year older at 15 years old for this watching live in Italy as the time on a school trip then 20 years again I was 32....both NASA feckin up both of these were and NASA 's impatience. That is number one everyone.....moneycutting costs.
@@Dan-di9jdIIRC, with Columbia they could've been saved. Apparently a backup plan was considered to extend the mission until the Atlantis could rescue them.
😢
I was 5 years old when this happened. My mother and her cousin picked me up from pre-K and we went home quickly because it was very cold in the single digits that day but sunny I remember, and we saw this replayed over and over on TV. I remember me and my mom's cousin were sitting on the floor in front of the TV and her mouth was open in shock while I wasn't sure why or what I was watching because I was so young. One of my first vivid memories and one I will never forget.
I was in science class in high school and our teacher rolled the TV in the room so we could watch the launch. When it exploded everyone was in shock. The teachers were crying. They let us out early from school that day. It was one of the saddest moments I’ve ever experienced…I’ll never forget it.
Vero I admire you and your culture
I was in 7th grade it was a bitter cold day in Philadelphia and our school was in the auditorium watching
I watched this in class. My teacher Mrs Sutton was in the competition to be the first teacher in space and she was in the top 20 finalists. I just remember her turning white and her tears making her mascara run.
Really? Wow, what a crazy thing to happen really.
@@iain8837
Yeah. It’s one of those childhood memories that you never forget.
I literally can’t remember much else about her.
Wow, that’s crazy. All things considered she handled it well. I think I would’ve vomited
Never should had let this shuttle launch ..RIP shuttle crew 😢❤💛🙏
13:35 - "Don't start clapping, you're on the air"
Never noticed that. Thank you for pointing it out
What a doofus (the clapping guy)
@@andrewcutler1380 I don't really blame him that much He may not know that shuttles didn't have parachutes, and for people who didn't know or were grasping at straws for everything to be ok, seeing a parachute and assuming it's the crew is a perfectly logical thought process.
what the hell deserved a parachute other than the crew cabin? geeze.
They had hope that the crew was ok. Sad.
Gotta be a strange feeling for the teachers that weren't selected. First sad they missed out, then horrified about watching 7 people die in front of their eyes then , the understandable huge relief thinking thank god it wasn't me followed by the immense guilt for thinking that.
absolutely
Seth McFarlane admitted to the same after avoiding 9/11. Survivors guilt is hardcore
No one felt this exact sequence of emotions more heavily than the reserve teacher called up and trained to take Christa's place if she was made unavailable. There's video of her watching the launch
Let’s launch a space shuttle in the coldest conditions ever tested. Great idea guys!!
Worst than that, they knew there was a particular problem with the O rings.
In the below zero conditions, they didn't function correctly.
Many of the engineers strongly advise for the launch to be cancelled.
The Rogers reports commissioned after the event was heavily critical of Nasa.
It was colder than what they’ve ever tested…
Look how mature, calm and respectable the people read the news back in the day. No crying or yelling out "oh my god." Back when adults were in charge of telling us the news in this country.
Arana, what the _hell_ are you talking about?
@@darkprose They mean that the delivery of the news stories were done more professionally and stoically back then. And I agree---the newscasters today are crap. Too loud and emotional. (Jan Griffiths).
@@darkprose read your comment to yourself. That is exactly what he is refering to.
I think people tend to exaggerate this. There are those who say the same thing when they look back at coverage of the JFK assassination. Of course, this all occurred before the launch of Fox News, which changed the way news was covered, in that we saw cable news prime time evolve into “op-ed” programming, where opinion, especially political opinion predominates, rather than “hard news” - which was just straight reporting.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it should be clearly labeled as “opinion”, just as the editorial pages of a newspaper are clearly labeled as such.
The idea of partisan news didn’t originate with television. In the 19th Century, newspapers were openly affiliated with political parties, or factions (especially sectional factionalism, in the antebellum period), and were identified as such. But readers were aware of this, so they read it knowing that the newspaper was closely affiliated with a political party, and they didn’t claim to be “objective”.
Finally, regarding the demeanor of reporters and anchors, go back and listen to the melodramatic style of the narrators of newsreels, when visual news was primarily distributed through cinemas. You will find this overly dramatic style (to our ears, anyway) on early radio newscasts. Of course, newsreels couldn’t deliver “breaking news”, in the way that television can, and unlike this video, you don’t see the news gathering process in a newsreel, just the finished product.
Early television news depended heavily on filming of events. TV cameras were huge, and not very portable. Often early television news consisted of an announcer reading headlines and stories straight from teletypes from wire services, like AP, UPI, Reuters, etc. That was how newspapers gathered news from outside their local area.
And in the newspaper business before radio and television, you had both sensationalist tabloids, and more serious and staid broadsheets. So the change isn’t as great as many might think. In the early days of the space age, you can compare the sharply contrasting styles between ABC’s somewhat melodramatic Jules Bergman and the much more avuncular style of CBS’s Walter Cronkite.
Perhaps the biggest change is that early television news reporters had a background in newspapers or the news services, which emphasized reporting and WRITING. They didn’t come from a broadcasting background. Today’s television news anchors and reporters are required to have a good appearance on a television; their journalistic skills are of secondary importance.
But you can go back to the late 1950s, and hear warnings about television and journalism from Ed Morrow.
Before it became the Clinton News Network
I remember this day quite well i stood in my backyard in orlando and watched it explode in real time
Wow.
Must have been absolutely horrifying!!
Wow.
How horrifying that must have been for you!
@@amiematthews6469 that was just horriable
I can't even imagine the shock for people who saw this live when it happened. I was five at the time and didn't know about it for a year later. I also missed 911 live as well so I just can't even imagine what that's like seeing something like this happen live without knowing ahead of time it was going to happen.
I was 6. We had a little black n white tv at work in the rec room during 9/11 so I went there to see it happening. I honestly can't remember where I was during challenger though, prob out playing.
That's basically the story of Gen X. Challenger, Columbia, Desert Storm, 9/11...
The reactions of the families breaks my heart. fuck
There's a video on here some where of Stoney Musgrave, a former astronaut. He says in it that he thinks they survived the explosion. They died when the shuttle hit the water. It didn't have any wings left, but shuttle commander Scobey tried to fly it until the very end. R.I.P.
Yep. A couple of the PEAPs had been activated prior to impact with the water, Scobees included. Consumption of the packs was consistent with the calculated free fall time.
Yes. I just read a book about it. What we saw on TV was the hydrogen tank exploding. The cabin survived the explosion.
My sister was in 1st grade. She kept on telling my mom about how excited she was to see a teacher go into space. She cried when she learned it exploded about 2 years later
I was in the 1st grade and we watched it on TV in the classroom
In hindsight, of course, it would've made total sense to make the entire crew cockpit into an escape capsule equipped with a series of parachutes to allow humans to escape and survive such an occurrence. There later developed evidence that the crew may very well NOT have died instantly as was first thought, but lived up until the cockpit cabin hit the water at hundreds of miles per hour: This seemingly was deduced once NASA found the cockpit cabin more or less in one piece several weeks later, lying at the bottom of the ocean, the bodies in their suits and still strapped in. If a large parachute had been attached to the capsule it is not totally unreasonable to think that hey could've survived.
It was considered during the early design but not done due to complexity and the enormous weight penalty.
If they had been aware of what was about to happen they could have separated the orbiter from the tanks before all went out of control but they weren’t. It all happened so fast that there hadn’t been the slightest chance to get away - no matter what kind of safety system anybody can think of. Even if they'd have had the chance of separation it’s not a 100 % guarantee to survive because they would have been forced to make a water landing (which is difficult enough with an airplane - not to speak of a block of concrete without engines). Unfortunately nothing could’ve been done to save their lives once the shuttle had taken off.
About the parachute see Trevor’s explanation above.
@@faktisletztenendes The shuttle could not have survived anything other than the straight, aerodynamic trajectory it was in when the tank exploded. If they had time to identify an issue and took action to abort by separating from the ET before the explosion, the vehicle would have been torn to shreds by the forces it would have been subjected to at that speed and in the thick atmosphere at that altitude. Lots of people think the RTLS abort scenario was realistically possible but the shuttle was only in a configuration to abort and return to KFC for a few seconds. The maneuver required ejection of the partially filled ET, doing an avoidance maneuver, rotating around and reorienting for re-entry and a landing. Most of the astronaut pilot group thought the RTLS abort mode to be nearly impossible.
@@MrCrystalcranium THX for this explanation!
@@MrCrystalcranium NASA thought about making STS-1 a suborbital RTLS profile mission: mission commander (and Gemini and Apollo veteran) John Young refused to fly that profile, stating that it was like "playing Russian Roulette." The only safe abort profiles is the "Abort To Orbit" (done on STS-51-F, which was the 8th flight of Space Shuttle Challenger) and the "Abort Once Around" in which the Shuttle completes a circuit around the Earth, landing either at Edwards AFB, White Sands, or Kennedy Space Center in less than 90 minutes after launch.
This accident gets into your heart especially when you there watching the whole thing.
I was in class in college the morning it happened. I heard about it from a classmate at lunch. So sad. “Obviously a major malfunction” was the understatement of the decade.
“Obviously a major malfunction” was the understatement of the 20th Century.
And that was broadcasted over the loud speaker where the families were watching. I can’t imagine having those emotions and hearing someone say that. IDK I guess some people don’t have a filter when tragedy happens, I guess I can understand that. It was just a real bad choice of words. 😔
@@kimmieh8419 He didn't have video of the launch in front of him. He had a screen with telemetry from the orbiter. He was literally just watching the numbers of all the shuttle's systems and making sure they were nominal. He made the comment 43 seconds after breakup while he was trying to figure out why he lost telemetry, because that was his job. Loss of the orbiter wasn't obvious to him yet.
@@maryhlad7501 - You are overlooking the concession speech of Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
@@kimmieh8419 even more concerning the after report suggests that the crew may have been aware and were trying to recover not knowing that the entire back section was missing. At least one crew member engaged his suit and was able to reach over and engage a crew member's suit. Another crew member was attempting to gain control of the craft where switches were flipped that could only have been done by a person since it was covered and you had to disengage the cover before it could flip. So what went through the minds of the crew as they could see the ocean would have been pretty terrifying.
Ronald McNair was a huge deal to kids like me, from South Carolina just like me. I didn't get to watch it at school with all my friends, I was sick with a stomach bug, and saw it on the couch. They canceled school and my friends that lived near me all ran to my house to tell me all the teachers, students were distraught over Krista, and Ronald McNair. Thought that explosion couldn't be real
Ronald McNair was quite the accomplished guy: PhD in Physics, Karate Black Belt, played the saxophone, AND rocked muttonchops. Is there anything Ron didn't do??
@@Defender78 it was the martial arts part that hooked my brother we were already really into it by that time but to see a brotha not far from where we are from do all that, and coming from humble beginnings just like us Ronald McNair meant alot. We took it real bad when this happened, also Christa because our teachers were really excited and about her being on the mission
I'm from SC as well. In fact, I was a student at USC in Columbia, and on that particular day I didn't have classes and was at home at my parents' house when the accident occurred.
I was watching an episode of ST:TNG, 'The Ensigns of Command' which I've watched countless times. Only this time I noticed the shuttlecraft Commander Data flew. It was called Onizuka...
Happened on my 10th birthday. Such an empty feeling. All we heard leading up to this every day for months was Krista's name. Every school every tv station. Then it came to a sudden halt. I live in Pa. It was a clear day. I kept looking at the sky wondering where they were. Thought about Kristas family a lot. I know there were others but she was the entire focus as far as the public. I feel so very bad for her children even today. Her poor daughter just wanted her home.
*Christa
I hate watching them get in the shuttle. Always makes my stomach drop.
Same.. but honestly they must’ve been mad to do this. I never would no matter how much anyone paid me.
@@desertrose1226 oh absolutely. The extreme negligence to ignore the concerns of professionals that knowingly took a major risk is crazy. They were incredibly aware from the start that the real risk was watered down for profit and sensationalism. It’s just absolutely heart breaking and I absolutely understand some of the teachers family members not going to the memorials put on by nasa. Like seriously screw off with that invite.
They always look so overly happy. It makes me wonder if management says smile or else.
Worst part about this was that most of the crew survived the explosion, but didn’t survive the impact of the crew section of the shuttle impacting the ocean
God I couldn't imagine being in that compartment. No control, no information, no comms. Just falling and then nothing.
@@AlphaHumphrey it was to fast they .didn't know what what hiT them
@@torimig2151 it took 2 minutes to fall back to earth so they suffered 😢
The challenger happened 14 years before I was even born but it makes me so sad but so proud of all of the crew. They died but experienced the peak of the human experience heading towards space, and all came so far and did so much in their lives right up until the shuttle blew up. They'll be remembered as courageous and amazing human beings who died so we can learn and grow for thousands of years
They were murdered by NASA and some should have gone to jail. Hurts more being from Christa's hometown of Framingham MA.
@@garysullivan3144 "Murdered" is such a strong word but more like extreme negligence where the director probably should have been charged criminally. He was informed of the o-ring limitations due to the extreme temperature fluctuations during the previous nights. He was told that he should abort until some other day to give it time. Instead he gave the go for launch despite knowing this information and this resulted.
Yea I was 14 nearly 15 watching on italian tv away on a skiing trip. Watching live. Then 20 years ago columbia watched that live to it was in the afternoon here in Scotland. As 911 as we are behind you. It was around 3pm when I was watching you news my i turned on just as my mum phoned to make dire my TV was turned off for when my 4 year old son my daughter was only 2. I saw the 2nd plane went in. But turned off. Not something a 4 year old too see.
As for NASA seemed more interested about money etc.
I never saw the footage from 9/11 until high school history class. I was 7 at the time and my parents likewise didn't put the news on while I was in the room. I totally understand that.@@LGBTQ71
CNN didn’t know what the parachute was at 14 minutes. That was the top of one of the SRBs. Even someone at NASA made a ridiculous statement that “Paramedics were parachuting into the area.” If you listen closely when they first show it, you can hear someone on the CNN set begin to clap. That person was scolded by the director saying “don’t clap-we are on the air!”
Right. How was it not obvious that it was one of the boosters?
@@Hazza4257 That's not the period in the flight when or where the SRBs were normally recovered and the GC team weren't directly involved with it. They were also under the impression that the SRBs had been destroyed by the reported activation of the flight termination system by range safety officers. They were engaged in getting the recovery forces into the area at the time to see if anyone had survived. Various military forces had been engaged and they weren't in direct communication with ground ground loops until later. It's an understandable thing to think in that context.
Few reporters were well-informed about the Shuttle systems. Only reporters specializing in science would take the time to learn the details of its systems.
@@GH-oi2jf "Few reporters were well-informed" holds true to this very day, on just about every news network.
Ill never forget that day. I was in fifth grade, and it seemed impossible that the most publicized launch since Columbia's first in 1981, could end in such a way.
As tragic as it was, it was and will always be one of those memories that ill never forget where I was when I found out about it. The story was so innocent at first, yet years later we found out that there were people with concerns about the temperature that day, and that government red tape and poor judgement, led to the unneccesary deaths of seven amazing people. Some of the best people that we can produce in this country.
Its so crazy to know how long ago this happened. God, it seems like yesterday lol. Those many years passed, doesnt change the admiration I have for the crew of Challenger.
God bless all of you.
I remember this horrible tragedy. I was a sophomore in high school and I was home because it was exam week at Henninger and I had no exams that day. My mom was at work at Holy Trinity School-the parochial school I graduated from. She informed me that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded.
Surely they should’ve known that the parachute at 13:38 was attached to one of the boosters. No other components of the shuttle have any parachutes or anything attached to them.
Weren't the Solid Rocket Boosters destroyed remotely by the Range Safety Officer?
Yes but the destruction of the SRBs did not destroy the parachute that was in the SRBs nose cone. In fact, the destruction of the SRB caused the nose cone to be separated from the rest of the booster allowing the chute to deploy. @@tracymiller1149
@@tracymiller1149Only the one that went off course after the explosion
@@scottmurphy4278 oh, the other booster was going in the correct direction?
Wish you could just yell stop don’t go!
Definitely shouldn't have launched that day
well why not
@@jukodebu The solid rocket boosters had this known flaw (o-rings) and NASA engineers had been screaming about it for 7 years, but executives wanted to stick to the promised launch schedule.
any more delays and the teacher would not have been able to give her first lesson as planned on day 4 of the mission has that may have fallen onto a weekend when the students would not be at school it makes you think would they have paid more notice to the warnings about launching if they were not in a rush to get a teacher into space?
@@paulhynes170 Doesn't sound important (teacher's lesson schedule).
They were in a rush for all missions, sticking to the launch schedule they promised.
they had to get the teacher up
The team clearing the icicles were using broom sticks. The O-rings were defective in low temperatures, and they knew it. RIP brave crew.
I was living in ft Lauderdale when this happened. For 3 days after in respect for the astronauts cars drove with their lights on in the day time which was not common back then.
I was in 2nd grade when this happened. Our class didn't watch it but one of our classmates who had gone to the dentist and heard about it on the radio and told us when she got back. My Mom and Dad saw it live because they were both sick at home that day. The next and only other time they were home sick together was the very next time the very next shuttle was launched after the Challenger disaster.
To think they were alive all the way down to the ground is just so awful. Must've felt like an eternity
13:39 - "dont start clapping youre on the air"
I will always be amazed knowing but not til many years later that the crew survived the explosion
They were murdered by NASA and no one responsible for it was even fired for this....They should have gone to prison. Hurts more being from Christa's hometown of Framingham MA.
It’s kind of crazy that after a whole generation of kids watched this explosion happen live at school like myself, they traumatized another generation of kids years later with a live viewing of Columbia. Maybe they should just record these events and show them with a delay for the next generation.
This just goes to show that there’s no margin for error when it comes to human lives. I lost a lot of respect for NASA for caring more about bad publicity than the lives of 7 people and NASA’s entire reputation
Your don't try to rush something like this, it has to be perfect. I feel so bad for Krista, she must have been so excited.
2:18:47
Dick Scobee
1939-1986
2:19:16
Judy Resnik
1949-1986
2:19:46
Christa McAuliffe
1948-1986
2:20:02
Ellison Onizuka
1946-1986
2:20:20
Gregory Jarvis
1944-1986
2:20:34
Ronald McNair
1950-1986
2:20:51
Michael Smith
1945-1986
2:21:05
RIP to all seven crew members of Space Shuttle Challenger
Father look so emotionally confused. I feel very sorry to see this
The most awful part is the crowd. They cheered, thinking it was part of what was supposed to happen. Then they realize it was not. The parents watched their children die. I mean...that has to be the most horrific nightmare possible.
They didn't watch their children die. That happened a few moments later when the crew hit the ocean.
3rd grade here, I remember this vividly. This incident put the program back over a decade when it came to not only NASAs mission, but science as a whole. If they would've engaged in safety protocols, we would've already been back on the moon and planning for mars..
Do you consider its a fake show?
Unbelievable how dumb some of the questions were during the press conference that soon afterwards.
I was in high school and I was standing in a lunch line when someone told me. We had English class immediately after lunch and the teacher confirmed. It was ... genuinely unbelievable. I just couldn't get my head around the idea of a fatal accident involving NASA, who had always seemed to me so exasperatingly over-cautious. (I was too young for Apollo 1.)
Another thing: I worked a little in broadcasting when I was younger and it's just this side of impossible to narrate an unanticipated event in real time. You have to say things, and the things you say have to add to the visuals, but you mustn't get out in front of whatever the facts are, and you have to be aware that people who care about the victims are listening carefully to your choice of words. Kudos to CNN for hitting that window as well as could be expected.
I was in high school, in drafting class. We watched the launch in the classroom and I remember some people crying after we finally realized it exploded. Then some in the class started cheering when they saw the parachute drifting down, assuming that it was the astronauts floating back to Earth. By that time we all assumed the space shuttle launches were as safe as a 747 flying from LA to NY. - Then I remember being in the locker room after baseball practice that I learned it wasn't the astronauts at all, and that they all died.
13:36 you see the chute, then someone begins clapping, and a voice follows "Don't start clapping. You're on the air." The Shuttle had no ejection or egress system in place, but you can see how a journalist or newsroom person may have seen it as a good sign.
This was shown live on a children’s programme on the BBC, as there was a 5 hour time difference.
Really? What happened? Is it posted on TH-cam?
its amazing i was only 3 and remember watching this happen on the tv with my family my dad launched unmanned rockets for the Air Force so we always watch the shuttle launches
Me too!
Was in 1st grade. Can still remember everything.
Everything?
i was in the 10th grade. i didn't know about it until i saw a big cloud and contrail on the tv at the bowling alley. my p.e. class was turning in their bowling shoes. i was in the auditorium taking an sat test.
So sad, their poor families. Rip
You ought to read Dr Richard Feynmans report on this as produced as a seperate file to the Rogers Report on the disaster. He was scathing of NASA & their practices.
It's part of a fascinating documentary about Feynman, ostensibly about his life-long fascination with visiting an ancient kingdom located inside modern-day Russia (at the time of filming, the Soviet Union).
Six days earlier I had begun going to Aqueduct racetrack every day, a month after dropping out of college, and they were dark on Tuesday, so I slept in. Woke up at 11:45 a.m. to this coverage and didn't believe it. Any other day I wouldn't have been home.
It's weird to think these guys would be in their 80's now.
They all wouldn't have been in their 80s. 60s and 70s Christa was 35 so she would be 70 by now
@@karter95 Correct. The only one who would be in their 80s is Commander Dick Scobee.
@@danielhudson5186Also Jarvis, as of now.
Incredible no criminal was thrown in prison for the murder of the 7 astronauts.
well look at Columbia. No one was held accountable there either.
Quite a different response between The Hindenburg and The Challenger.
This was such a preventable tragedy NASA was told that the o-rings in the solid rocket boosters wouldn't seal properly but NASA launched the shuttle anyway and 7 people died that day
But the srbs didn't fail
1:40:50 One of the Recovery Ship appears on the Left as Tom Mintier questioning John Zarrella about the Possibility that Space Shuttle Challenger could Veering Off Course before or after the Explosion
Unfortunately, There is no Indication that Challenger could have veered Off Course because at that Time, The Solid Rocket Booster fly Uncontrollably just seconds after the Explosion
Needless death because the bosses didn't listen to engineers. They had delayed it several days and didn't want to wait anymore. Criminal.
I was on console. I watched it live, and over and over.
What did you do? What did you see on your console when it broke up? I have always been curious about that.
@@djbeezy he doesn't know himself xD
So many things we aren't seeing till years later, never saw anything about them knocking off ice cycles.
I still remember watching this with my grandma I'm still in shock sad 😭
I don't like how they showed that parachute but then didn't show it landing. Did they decide that was recovery personnel? That seems unlikely, as it looked to be coming from a very high altitude, which would be unlikely from rescue personnel.
Very good point.
It's so sad that we now know the crew at least some of the crew was still alive when they hit the water.
No. We know that at least someone in the crew was alive moments after explosion. We don't know that anyone survived the descent into the water.
@@Dancindazed Actually there is proof that some were alive when they hit the water. Do your homework.
@@TommyBBQBessinger As far as I'm aware, all they know about how long anyone survived is that the emergency oxygen was turned on, which implies someone survived the initial explosion. Please enlighten me what proof there is that anyone survived up to the point of impact with the water.
@@Dancindazed I'm going by what was said here at 4 minutes and 3 seconds, mentioning he flew the shuttle without wings all the ways down. .th-cam.com/video/uqcd_3daPQ8/w-d-xo.html
@@TommyBBQBessinger yes that's his opinion. And I happen to share his opinion, but opion a form of proof does not make
the weather was way too Cold for the space shuttle to take off that time .
Even more disturbing experts say they were likely alive on the way down and some of the oxygen masks were activated 😢💔
Yeah the cabin was intact after the break up but the crew most likely passed out before impact so at least they didn't feel anything.
@@yesitssarahbby17 Incorrect. Oxygen was used and at least a few crew members were confirmed trying to survive before they hit the water.
All is shown in the accident report.
Saw it in person, iwith my co- workers , and two engineers from Martin Marietta.
Our company had built hardware for another shuttle.
Major trauma for many of us . To watch that compartment descending fast, knowing that seven souls are inside, just so sad.
I was a senior in high school at that time. We didn’t have cell phones back then, so I didn’t find out about it until I had gotten home from school. So sad rewatching it now knowing what is going to happen.😢
1:05:00 That emotion. Right there.
That killed me. Those poor families.
Wish they had of stopped talking during that
The irony in the commentary saying NASA has had more delays. They cared account, and within five seconds the shuttle explodes. If the shuttle didn’t launch on Tuesday, Christie McAuliffe would not have been able to teach her a lesson during the week. Everyone knew the shuttles should not have launched.
Sure would like to able to better hear those voices in the background of the callout from 6:11 to 7:03 🤔
Apollo 1 is being reference for the fire on the launch pad 19 years prior to challenger
January 27th 1967. Apollo 1 fire. January 28th 1986, Challenger Accident.
Some of these journalists were idiots in their questioning. What does being a regular civilian have to do with an explosion and a launch that should not have happened?
P.R. campaign.
Excellent inclusion of the icicle clearing. That was the clue that they shouldn't have launched. Allan MacDonald thought it would be cancelled.
"The computers have taken control now" 3:11
the computers worked fine. It was the humans who failed them.
@@Ben-bb7mi It is alway's human error. You can't blame the computers. Even computers are made by those greedy humans.
My cousin took his life 2 weeks after this event he couldn't take it
Sorry for your loss. This tragedy affected us all in 1986. It took me half of February 1986 to get over this . I was in 9th grade aged 14. Hard to believe it was Challenger, this was the Miracle Shuttle, First woman, first night launch, first black astronaut, the first tetherless walk in space in 1984.
@Andrew Salter he was really into space and this devastated him he was there spectating when the shuttle launched
No offense but your cousin is a p.o.s. if he did the most selfish of acts because of this.
Rest in peace challenger crew space the final frontier
I'm not blaming mcauliffe directly but some of why this happened was because they pushed this teacher is space program and it kept being delayed that they went on with the launch despite the many warnings big mistake sending a civilian up there
It was not the teacher's fault, ....it was Reagan's fault. This teacher in space program was his pet project; he used it for his own political propaganda purposes. He wanted that shuttle launched with the teacher onboard that day because he wanted to brag about it in his SotU address that night. NASA felt that pressure from him and they didn't want to disappoint the president who in all practicality, indirectly holds the purse strings of NASA and career advancements for the NASA management people.
Yes, P.R. drove the schedule.
I was 8 years old (born in November 77) and watching this in my grade 3 class when it happened
The woman at 1:05:56 looking chillingly like Christy.
That’s her sister
I was in 5th grade, but at home on a snow day in Western PA. It was a huge snow storm the days before. My parents had a guy downstairs going some home remodeling work. I watched this live in the living room. It exploded, and I just sat there stunned with my mom. My mom hoped they could find them in the ocean, but I was a big space geek kid and knew they could not survive it. Sad day.
So upsetting, in large part because it was preventable and shouldn't have happened
Why mention the cost. 1 2 billion dollars. That's nothing, not even a speck of dust in respect to loss of innocent precious lives
NASA felt differently.
They thrive on money. Sad bastards
And still nothing achieved in all those years.
I am Hungarian on the other side of the world we just saw it in the evening news but I still remember.
Big big mistake.. They should not have launched the shuttle that day... I Did not know that the crew survived the explosion and died like 3 minutes later.. RIP those souls😪
NASA should have listened to ma man Allan McDonald (whom I respect till death) a man full of knowledge and integrity, but they were listening to the politicians. Politics can never substitute knowledge which proves at the 73rd second. 🤨
but didn't Allan give the go ahead to launch, even though he knew it was a bad idea?
@@Alloneword-cp2xw no I don’t think so. I saw the movie and then his interview, didn’t find him saying that the takeoff is good to go. Double check anyway. Thanks
@@SyedAli-qz1cp No, you are right. He refused to sign the launch recommendation the day before over safety fears.
I was 9 years old when this happened I don’t remember to much what happened but I remember hearing about it I always wanted to know who was the voice behind the person that said The vehicle has exploded I can’t imagine how hard that was for him to report to the world
Roger Boisjoly thought it would blow up on the pad....but nobody seemed to give a fuck at NASA
Tom Minter was terrific in the moment of the disaster. Very reserved and not wildly speculative. It’s amazing some of the anchors both here and especially Steve Bell on ABC spoke of an Escape Capsule under the chute. The female anchor here asking Minter “what kind of parachutes do they have, how many and how much can they hold?” Remarkable how uninformed they were. NASA knew from the beginning of designing the system there would be zero abort options should anything happen while the solids were attached. Even the loss of a single engine on the shuttle would mean loss of crew and vehicle during that time period. I don’t think a launch vehicle with that caveat should have ever been deemed “operational”.and flown with civilians onboard. Launches and as we later learned reentry were always high risk
Everytime I watch a video about this “the challenger go to full throttle up” gives me the creeps for some reason
Same. It’s very creepy to me. Makes my stomach churn over and I feel scared.
Really? Why? Seeing as how nobody ever says "go to full throttle up" I have no idea what would give you the creeps.
@@djbeezy ur ruthless.
I’ve read that some of the crews emergency oxygen tanks were activated, suggesting that at least one of them survived the explosion and was alert enough to start their loss of cabin pressure emergency checklist. Of course they would have figured out pretty quickly that they were in trouble. I can only hope that report was wrong, or that the G forces from tumbling quickly knocked any survivors unconscious so they didn’t have to think about their fate as they fell back to the ocean.
There were multiple clues found that at least some of the crew remained conscious and aware.
There is a fair amount of such evidence to the effect that at least some of the crew members were alive. How aware they were/how conscious they were of what was going on no one will ever know for sure.
They have audio
@Stevens Family Homestead Not after vehicle breakup. No power to run any recorders.
@@da40flyer 🤔🤔🤷🏾♂️
Never saw the parachute scene before. Preposterous
I like how Tom said "killed" not died.