35th anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger
 

It was 35 years ago today that the Shuttle Challenger was lost along with it's talented 7 crew members. Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Gregory jarvis and teacher Christa McAuliff were killed when joints in a solid rocket booster failed causing a catastrophic explosion that destroyed Challenger and killed her crew.

Lack of oversight resulted in Morton Thiokol engineers, manufacturers of the solid rocket boosters, being ignored in their recommendations not to launch due to freezing conditions the night before the launch of the Challenger. The engineers believed the cold, icy conditions compromised the integrity of the solid fuel rocket boosters. The Rubber O rings sealing the booster segments were never designed for extreme cold weather.

It was the same lack of oversight that would doom the Space Shuttle Columbia On Feb. 1, 2003.


https://www.floridatoday.com/story/t...ny/4294111001/



Rest in peace, brave crew.

Last Rendez-Vous (Ron's Piece)

From the 1986 album Rendez-Vous by French electronic composer Jean Michel Jarre. From Wikipedia:

"The last track on the album was originally scheduled to include a saxophone part recorded by astronaut Ron McNair on the Space Shuttle Challenger, which would have made it the first piece of music to be recorded in space. However, on January 28, 1986, 73 seconds after lift-off, the shuttle disintegrated and the entire Challenger crew were killed. The track was dedicated to McNair and the other astronauts on board Challenger".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6gLDuFRVjA

Damn that makes me feel old. Watched it live.

I was working the swing shift at Offutt AFB, Nebraska when we got the news. After getting home after midnight, I spent the next six hours glued to the TV set watching this terrible accident over and over again.



For me, it is one of those "I won't forget where I was when I learned about it". I can still remember exactly where I was and who was in the room when we first got the word.

Heck, i was 18 then, turning 19, just having finsihed school since a couple of days. I still remember it. The Orbiter was an icon of my youth. The proud name woke associations that turned the orbiter into somethign that was almost invincible. The harder the wakeup call was then. Lesson learned.

Just a couple of weeks later the LaBelle in Berlin would go up right in my back after we just had passed its entry.

That were intense months.

Me too but with one subtle difference...I am old.

^ It only get's worse BBY...and it ain't subtle! :wah:https://i.dawn.com/primary/2014/08/5...pg?r=481460297

I was 20 years old I remember they(Swedish tv) showed the launch live.

I remember that I didn't react when it exploded. Like I couldn't comprehend what just had unfold right in front of my eyes.

Markus

i was in the 7th grade since there was a teacher onboard they let my class watch it on tv i don't remember any of us kids having a reaction

I remember this day like yesterday. I had just left a class at the University of MD College Park and headed in to the Student Union building. As I was walking the halls I notice a lot of the girls crying and looking at the TV that hung around the hallways. It was here I realized what had occurred. Sad day indeed.

Final thoughts.


I'm very sorry that many of you are still troubled by the Challenger disaster. It seems much like the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy, People remember exactly where they were upon hearing of Challenger. What's worse is that the loss of the Challenger crew was preventable. The crew was sacrificed in the name of expediency, for nothing more than to maintain an ambitious schedule.

Admittedly, I have only been able to briefly read the biographical information before having to look away because of the incredible degree of loss associated with their deaths.

Judith Reznik was an Electrical, software and Biomedical Engineer. Judith was a pilot and of course, an Astronaut. Recognized while still a child for her brilliance, Judith was accepted at Carnegie Mellon University after being one of only 16 women in the history of the U.S to attain a perfect score on her Sat's at that time.

Ellison Onizuka graduated with a Bachelors and Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Un iversity of Colorado, in Boulder. Lt. Col Onizuka was a test pilot at the Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force base in California.

The rest of the biographical information is available on the crew so I'll go no further. The rest of the Bio's are just as impressive. This crew and others in the military and space program at NASA were and are the absolute cream of the crop. This crew may well have been the best of the best which makes their deaths all the more painful. Because of the absolute brilliance and caliber of individuals such as this, Space flight and Shuttle launches were routine, their successes a foregone conclusion.

We forgot it took the courage, daring and skill of people like General Chuck Yeager,whom we just recently lost, and others just like him, to make this all possible and forge new frontiers and make the leap into the unknown. Hopefully, we have learned the lessons and costs associated with arrogance.


May their sacrifices and accomplishments never be forgotten.

Everything is preventable in hindsight. We were riding a wave.

I hope that we learned that there is no such thing as a routine space launch.

Yes. And of all environments man can go into, space is the most hostile and lethal and unforgivable one. Everything there is tries to kill you quickly or in a longer run.

I was 28 at the time.
I lived and worked near West Palm Beach, Florida.
That's around 150 miles south of the launch site.

I was with a group of people outside of the cafeteria at a training center
near Delray Beach. We were watching the launch as we could see the smoke as the Shuttles went up.

So We saw the tragedy with our own eyes.
Not something I'll ever forget witnessing.

:nope:

The one thing that still sticks in my mind is the picture of school teacher/astronaut Christa McCauliff's https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...002-000149.jpg mom, Grace, looking up in stunned bewilderment at the launch. It gave me chills 35 years ago and still does to this day: the more so as I have a vivacious motivated only daughter and cannot even fathom such a loss.https://www.concordmonitor.com/getat...cm-111418-ph03 Grace passed away in 2018 at age 95 https://www.concordmonitor.com/getat...cm-111418-ph01 https://www.tampabay.com/resizer//Oy...IBWI6S7HAY.jpg

While I agree with you, there are other places just as unforgiving. Our own oceans and seas can be a dangerous place for those unprepared. Even the great lakes of the U.S can be a dangerous and treacherous place, even for those " well seasoned. "

The crew of the iron ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald found this out the hard way when it sank in bad weather on November 10, 1975 on Lake Superior. The Fitzgerald encountered hurricane force winds and 27 foot seas.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald

I fully understand what you aim at, and I agree, but nothing is as lethal as spoacew, me thinks. In water, cold or stormy, you still float and can swim, if only for a minute or two. I also think of the deep sea, the pressure. I experienced the "deep desert". But space? The cold, the radiation, the mere light from the sun, vacuum, absence of anything life-supporting, micro meteorites, and whatever else. Nothing is as unforgiving, as space.

71% of Earth is water.
5% of that has been explored.
Falling in the water is like brushing the edge of Space. One can survive given the high altitude jumps done.
Going deep in the oceans offer a different death, but still deadly!