chefsos
01-28-2006, 05:10 AM
The space shuttle Challenger went down 20 years ago today. It was an event, for those of us old enough to remember, that freezes time in a way.
To me, remembering what I was doing and where I was brings back memories eerily similar to 9/11. It was a brilliantly sunny Tuesday morning, I was on the road working, and I found out about the extent of the tragedy in piecemeal manner, via car radio and information from customers as I somewhat numbly went through the day. If there is anyone with a recollection of that day and how it felt, feel free to respond.
This is the reprint of the Dallas Morning News story from January 29, 1986.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/012806dnnatexplodesarchive.445907fb.html
CHALLENGER EXPLODES: Teacher among 7 shuttle astronauts killed
12:25 PM CST on Friday, January 27, 2006
BY BRUCE NICHOLS AND BRUCE TOMASO / The Dallas Morning News
Editor's note: This story was published in The Dallas Morning News on Jan. 29, 1986.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The Challenger space shuttle disintegrated in a catastrophic explosion Tuesday, killing all seven crew members, including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
Tragedy came 74 seconds into what had appeared to be a flawless launch.
The unexplained blast, which split the sky with white plumes of smoke from the orbiter's two solid-fuel booster rockets, occurred about 10 miles high and about eight miles downrange from the shuttle's Kennedy Space Center launch pad at 10:39 a.m. Dallas time. The launch had been delayed five times, including a 24-hour hold Monday because of a faulty hatch bolt and fierce crosswinds, and a two-hour delay Tuesday because of frosty weather.
It was the first time in 56 manned space missions that American lives were lost during flight. Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White II and Roger B. Chaffee died on the ground in a flash fire aboard the Apollo I during a Jan. 27, 1967, training exercise.
The Challenger's explosion sent shock waves through a nation that had come to accept shuttle launches as commonplace. Although none of the major networks were providing live coverage of the launch, a videotape replay of the last seconds of the orbiter prompted individual moments of horrified silence, and later, an outpouring of national grief and eloquence.
President Reagan, likening the seven crew members to explorer Sir Francis Drake, who died aboard his ship 390 years ago Tuesday, said: "We will never forget them nor the last time we saw them as they prepared for their journey, waved goodbye and slipped the ... bonds of Earth to touch the face of God."
An immediate check of National Aeronautics and Space Administration flight controllers after the fireball-like explosion revealed no obvious problems with the shuttle or launch, said Jesse W. Moore, NASA's associate director for spaceflight.
Moore, in the first official statement by the space agency after the explosion, said the debris from the doomed orbiter, booster rockets, computer data and controllers' notes would be "immediately impounded" for study by an interim investigating board of senior space program officials. A formal board will be named by NASA's interim director within the next few days, he said.
He could not estimate when information from the investigation might be available.
Moore said some debris from the disintegrated spacecraft had been recovered, but the bodies of crew members had not been located.
The $1.2 billion Challenger was racing toward orbit at 1,977 mph when the tragedy occurred. The flight had been delayed for two hours Tuesday before the launch to analyze the possible effects of the unseasonable 25-degree Florida weather, which left icicles hanging from the spacecraft.
Killed in the accident were Mrs. McAuliffe, 37, to have been the first civilian in space, and six other astronauts: commander Francis R. Scobee, 46; pilot Michael J. Smith, 40; Judith Resnick, 36; Ronald E. McNair, 35; Ellison S. Onizuka, 39; and Gregory B. Jarvis, 41.
Arriving at the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday afternoon to offer condolences to grieving family members, Vice President George Bush, said, "We must never, as people in our daily lives, or as a nation, stop exploring, stop hoping, stop discovering. We must press on."
Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, the third American in space, said, "It's been nearly a quarter of a century that we thought this might happen sometime. We've delayed that day until today. We hoped that this day would never come."
Moore, asked about the TV video that appeared to indicate a burst of fire near the orbiter's external tank of liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer, said, "We will not speculate as to the specific cause of the explosion based on that footage.
"All I can say is it appeared from those photos that there was an explosion. That's about all I can say at this point in time."
Moore said that he hoped a careful review of data and debris from the spacecraft might provide clues to the cause of the explosion.
A search team of 13 aircraft, including helicopters and fixed-wing planes, nine ships, and an undetermined number of Coast Guard divers scanned a 5,000-square-mile area in the Atlantic Ocean 130 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral.
The sonar-equipped ships recovered pieces of the spacecraft, which will be stored at Patrick Air Force Base near Cocoa Beach, Fla. The search for debris, in waters as deep as 120 feet, continued through the night.
Recovery efforts were delayed for an hour and 40 minutes because of the possible hazards posed by chemicals and fiery debris, which continued to rain from the sky for as long as an hour following the explosion.
The Challenger flight was the second of 15 shuttle launches scheduled for 1986, and Moore said future missions have been put on hold until the cause of Tuesday's disaster is determined.
The NASA official said he could not estimate how long the shuttle program might be delayed. "It's going to be a function of what the board finds and what corrective actions have to be taken before we feel safe to fly again," he said.
Moore repeatedly said that, from all early indications, there were no problems with the launch, weather or the shuttle. "We thought everything was in good shape for launch this morning," he said.
"We always strive in every flight we perform to be as reliable and safe as we can. Flight safety is our No. 1 priority in the space shuttle program."
Following the inquiry, he said, "We will then assess the impacts and determine where we go in future."
Moore appointed five members to the interim investigating team: Richard G. Smith, of the Kennedy Space Center; Arnold Aldridge, manager of National Space Transportation Systems at the Johnson Space Center near Houston; William Lucas, director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.; Walt Williams, a NASA consultant; and James C. Harrington, director of the Spacelab program.
As part of routine procedure, the FBI sent a team of agents to Cape Canaveral. "This is a standard procedure," an FBI spokesman said. "We have no indication there was a bomb aboard or that there was sabotage."
The launch-turned-disaster was viewed by thousands in Florida, and hundreds of thousands more through coverage from public television stations and Cable News Network.
Among those who witnessed the explosion from bleachers at the launch site were Mrs. McAuliffe's parents, Ed and Grace Corrigan of Framingham, Mass. They stood arm-in-arm during the liftoff and watched as the spacecraft disappeared into a fireball, and they appeared not to immediately understand what had happened.
A NASA official climbed the rows of benches to them and said: "The vehicle has exploded."
Mrs. Corrigan stared back. "The vehicle has exploded?" she asked. He nodded and quickly led the Corrigans away.
Also watching were Mrs. McAuliffe's husband, Steve, and the couple's two children, Scott, 9, and Caroline, 6, from Concord, N.H. Scott's third-grade class was on hand, displaying a large banner that read: "Go Christa."
Several children cried after the explosion, friends hugged one another and parents quickly escorted the children to waiting buses.
Mrs. McAuliffe had been selected from 11,146 applicants to be the first teacher to fly in NASA's citizen-in-space program.
The families of the other six crew members also were in the bleachers to witness the launch.
Three shuttles remain in NASA's fleet. Moore said that parts will continue to be manufactured by Rockwell International and that, depending on the findings of the inquiry, a new craft could be built.
The Challenger's main mission was to release and retrieve one satellite to view Halley's comet and to launch another as part of the space-based shuttle communications network.
Tuesday's flight would have been Challenger's 10th, and the 25th flight of the shuttle program since it began April 12, 1981, with the first shuttle, Columbia.
Challenger was first sent into space April 4, 1983. Its maiden liftoff initially had been scheduled for Jan. 20, 1983, but was postponed after a hydrogen leak was detected in one of the craft's main engines. The leak later was repaired.
The five delays of Tuesday's Challenger mission almost matched the record seven postponements logged by Columbia earlier this month.
Moore acknowledged that NASA officials had learned during the weekend that a derrick arm had struck the fuel tank, but he said that the mishap was not believed to be related to the explosion. He said the derrick arm scraped a small piece of heating equipment on the outside of the external tank, leaving a quarter-inch dent in the five inches of insulation surrounding the gear.
"It was a very minor scrape," Moore said. "It was repaired. All the experts took a look at it."
Moore also emphatically denied that NASA officials had rushed Challenger's launching Tuesday morning after the series of delays.
"There was absolutely no pressure to get this particular launch off," he said. "All of the people involved with this program, to my knowledge, felt that Challenger was ready to go. I made the decision, along with the recommendation from the team supporting me, that we launch."
John Lawrence, a Johnson Space Center spokesman for several missions, said he has never witnessed a reluctance to stop launches. "My impression has been that fear of having a fault traced to you if something does go wrong is probably overriding," he said.
"Nobody's going to say things are OK when they're not."
Staff writer Steve Levin in Cape Canaveral contributed to this report.
To me, remembering what I was doing and where I was brings back memories eerily similar to 9/11. It was a brilliantly sunny Tuesday morning, I was on the road working, and I found out about the extent of the tragedy in piecemeal manner, via car radio and information from customers as I somewhat numbly went through the day. If there is anyone with a recollection of that day and how it felt, feel free to respond.
This is the reprint of the Dallas Morning News story from January 29, 1986.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/012806dnnatexplodesarchive.445907fb.html
CHALLENGER EXPLODES: Teacher among 7 shuttle astronauts killed
12:25 PM CST on Friday, January 27, 2006
BY BRUCE NICHOLS AND BRUCE TOMASO / The Dallas Morning News
Editor's note: This story was published in The Dallas Morning News on Jan. 29, 1986.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The Challenger space shuttle disintegrated in a catastrophic explosion Tuesday, killing all seven crew members, including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
Tragedy came 74 seconds into what had appeared to be a flawless launch.
The unexplained blast, which split the sky with white plumes of smoke from the orbiter's two solid-fuel booster rockets, occurred about 10 miles high and about eight miles downrange from the shuttle's Kennedy Space Center launch pad at 10:39 a.m. Dallas time. The launch had been delayed five times, including a 24-hour hold Monday because of a faulty hatch bolt and fierce crosswinds, and a two-hour delay Tuesday because of frosty weather.
It was the first time in 56 manned space missions that American lives were lost during flight. Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White II and Roger B. Chaffee died on the ground in a flash fire aboard the Apollo I during a Jan. 27, 1967, training exercise.
The Challenger's explosion sent shock waves through a nation that had come to accept shuttle launches as commonplace. Although none of the major networks were providing live coverage of the launch, a videotape replay of the last seconds of the orbiter prompted individual moments of horrified silence, and later, an outpouring of national grief and eloquence.
President Reagan, likening the seven crew members to explorer Sir Francis Drake, who died aboard his ship 390 years ago Tuesday, said: "We will never forget them nor the last time we saw them as they prepared for their journey, waved goodbye and slipped the ... bonds of Earth to touch the face of God."
An immediate check of National Aeronautics and Space Administration flight controllers after the fireball-like explosion revealed no obvious problems with the shuttle or launch, said Jesse W. Moore, NASA's associate director for spaceflight.
Moore, in the first official statement by the space agency after the explosion, said the debris from the doomed orbiter, booster rockets, computer data and controllers' notes would be "immediately impounded" for study by an interim investigating board of senior space program officials. A formal board will be named by NASA's interim director within the next few days, he said.
He could not estimate when information from the investigation might be available.
Moore said some debris from the disintegrated spacecraft had been recovered, but the bodies of crew members had not been located.
The $1.2 billion Challenger was racing toward orbit at 1,977 mph when the tragedy occurred. The flight had been delayed for two hours Tuesday before the launch to analyze the possible effects of the unseasonable 25-degree Florida weather, which left icicles hanging from the spacecraft.
Killed in the accident were Mrs. McAuliffe, 37, to have been the first civilian in space, and six other astronauts: commander Francis R. Scobee, 46; pilot Michael J. Smith, 40; Judith Resnick, 36; Ronald E. McNair, 35; Ellison S. Onizuka, 39; and Gregory B. Jarvis, 41.
Arriving at the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday afternoon to offer condolences to grieving family members, Vice President George Bush, said, "We must never, as people in our daily lives, or as a nation, stop exploring, stop hoping, stop discovering. We must press on."
Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, the third American in space, said, "It's been nearly a quarter of a century that we thought this might happen sometime. We've delayed that day until today. We hoped that this day would never come."
Moore, asked about the TV video that appeared to indicate a burst of fire near the orbiter's external tank of liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer, said, "We will not speculate as to the specific cause of the explosion based on that footage.
"All I can say is it appeared from those photos that there was an explosion. That's about all I can say at this point in time."
Moore said that he hoped a careful review of data and debris from the spacecraft might provide clues to the cause of the explosion.
A search team of 13 aircraft, including helicopters and fixed-wing planes, nine ships, and an undetermined number of Coast Guard divers scanned a 5,000-square-mile area in the Atlantic Ocean 130 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral.
The sonar-equipped ships recovered pieces of the spacecraft, which will be stored at Patrick Air Force Base near Cocoa Beach, Fla. The search for debris, in waters as deep as 120 feet, continued through the night.
Recovery efforts were delayed for an hour and 40 minutes because of the possible hazards posed by chemicals and fiery debris, which continued to rain from the sky for as long as an hour following the explosion.
The Challenger flight was the second of 15 shuttle launches scheduled for 1986, and Moore said future missions have been put on hold until the cause of Tuesday's disaster is determined.
The NASA official said he could not estimate how long the shuttle program might be delayed. "It's going to be a function of what the board finds and what corrective actions have to be taken before we feel safe to fly again," he said.
Moore repeatedly said that, from all early indications, there were no problems with the launch, weather or the shuttle. "We thought everything was in good shape for launch this morning," he said.
"We always strive in every flight we perform to be as reliable and safe as we can. Flight safety is our No. 1 priority in the space shuttle program."
Following the inquiry, he said, "We will then assess the impacts and determine where we go in future."
Moore appointed five members to the interim investigating team: Richard G. Smith, of the Kennedy Space Center; Arnold Aldridge, manager of National Space Transportation Systems at the Johnson Space Center near Houston; William Lucas, director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.; Walt Williams, a NASA consultant; and James C. Harrington, director of the Spacelab program.
As part of routine procedure, the FBI sent a team of agents to Cape Canaveral. "This is a standard procedure," an FBI spokesman said. "We have no indication there was a bomb aboard or that there was sabotage."
The launch-turned-disaster was viewed by thousands in Florida, and hundreds of thousands more through coverage from public television stations and Cable News Network.
Among those who witnessed the explosion from bleachers at the launch site were Mrs. McAuliffe's parents, Ed and Grace Corrigan of Framingham, Mass. They stood arm-in-arm during the liftoff and watched as the spacecraft disappeared into a fireball, and they appeared not to immediately understand what had happened.
A NASA official climbed the rows of benches to them and said: "The vehicle has exploded."
Mrs. Corrigan stared back. "The vehicle has exploded?" she asked. He nodded and quickly led the Corrigans away.
Also watching were Mrs. McAuliffe's husband, Steve, and the couple's two children, Scott, 9, and Caroline, 6, from Concord, N.H. Scott's third-grade class was on hand, displaying a large banner that read: "Go Christa."
Several children cried after the explosion, friends hugged one another and parents quickly escorted the children to waiting buses.
Mrs. McAuliffe had been selected from 11,146 applicants to be the first teacher to fly in NASA's citizen-in-space program.
The families of the other six crew members also were in the bleachers to witness the launch.
Three shuttles remain in NASA's fleet. Moore said that parts will continue to be manufactured by Rockwell International and that, depending on the findings of the inquiry, a new craft could be built.
The Challenger's main mission was to release and retrieve one satellite to view Halley's comet and to launch another as part of the space-based shuttle communications network.
Tuesday's flight would have been Challenger's 10th, and the 25th flight of the shuttle program since it began April 12, 1981, with the first shuttle, Columbia.
Challenger was first sent into space April 4, 1983. Its maiden liftoff initially had been scheduled for Jan. 20, 1983, but was postponed after a hydrogen leak was detected in one of the craft's main engines. The leak later was repaired.
The five delays of Tuesday's Challenger mission almost matched the record seven postponements logged by Columbia earlier this month.
Moore acknowledged that NASA officials had learned during the weekend that a derrick arm had struck the fuel tank, but he said that the mishap was not believed to be related to the explosion. He said the derrick arm scraped a small piece of heating equipment on the outside of the external tank, leaving a quarter-inch dent in the five inches of insulation surrounding the gear.
"It was a very minor scrape," Moore said. "It was repaired. All the experts took a look at it."
Moore also emphatically denied that NASA officials had rushed Challenger's launching Tuesday morning after the series of delays.
"There was absolutely no pressure to get this particular launch off," he said. "All of the people involved with this program, to my knowledge, felt that Challenger was ready to go. I made the decision, along with the recommendation from the team supporting me, that we launch."
John Lawrence, a Johnson Space Center spokesman for several missions, said he has never witnessed a reluctance to stop launches. "My impression has been that fear of having a fault traced to you if something does go wrong is probably overriding," he said.
"Nobody's going to say things are OK when they're not."
Staff writer Steve Levin in Cape Canaveral contributed to this report.