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7 Myths About The Challenger Disaster
Lester67 writes "James Oberg at MSNBC has put together an excellent recap of the 7 myths surrounding the Challenger shuttle disaster. I remember that day clearly, but as the author points out, I didn't see it live, nor did a large chunk of the people said they did (Myth #1). Although there are no surprises on the list, regression may have caused you to forget a few of them (#3)."
I remember clearly watching the events unfold in my second grade classroom (must have been the satelite feed mentioned). I think it was the most traumatic event up to that point in my life.
As to whether it was "live" when I watched it - I have never claimed this - but I was a young schoolkid at the time, so I wouldn't have really been aware if it was or not. I also don't know of people going around claiming they saw it live as some sort of badge of honour. As for "exploded" - that's fairly semantic. For example, you have "exploded" views in technical illustration - that doesn't mean that the object was actually detonated to make the drawing. "Explosion" often refers to any rapid break-up, whether a "traditional explosion" or not.
... and then they built the supercollider.
"did anyone here see it live on TV at school?"
Not precisely. I was home sick that day. I was watching Battlestar Galactica on TV when they broke with urgent news. I was 6 at the time. That was the first time I had ever seen 'breaking news' and I remember being stunned by it. I remember seeing pictures of a parachute or something falling down from the sky. Even two days later I thought the astronauts might still be alive underwater or something. A couple years later, I had to build one of those shoe-box scenes of the ocean floor for an elementary school class. I found the remains of an old toy shuttle I had, so I put it in there thinking it'd be an interesting detail. I didn't understand until much later why my teacher thought I was sick-minded.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The librarian had rolled out one of the ubiquitous "TV + giant VCR" stands and parked it in the middle of the reading area. For a librarian that typically insisted on a completely quiet room, this was unusual. I suppose the novelty of the teacher going into space prompted her decision.
Anyway, that unusual situation was enough for me to watch the launch, motivated by the taboo feeling of watching TV in the otherwise serenely quiet library and being a bit of a space nut. Despite that and to corroborate the claim in the article, I was probably one of only a few people actually paying attention to it, as most other students were taking the situation as a license to talk to eachother.
I clearly remember watching it desintergate, fanning out into a cloud -- and my mind not being able to fully comprehend what was happening. I might have even vocalized, but I can only remember the visuals. It seemed to take forever for other people to catch on to what had happened.
I admit I wasn't watching (I was off at school), but my mom was watching the Today show (Pacific Timezone) when it happened, and that's not consistent with how she told it. She said that it was a reasonably routine "let's cut away to Florida, where the first teacher in space is about to launch". She saw the "explosion" (or whatever actually happened), totally sans commentary. Then things went black, and eventually, some stunned newscasters came on.
Now, it may be that other timezones weren't running news shows, and so they didn't break coverage, but at least on the PST feed of Today, they showed it live.
The "few people" statement seems like an awfully off-the-cuff remark with no facts to back it up. As he says, "CNN was indeed carrying the launch when the shuttle was destroyed...." CNN wasn't some local Wayne's World cable access channel. It started in 1980 and by 1985 was a major player in the news world. Most schools had it and were probably watching it due to the "first teacher in space" angle.
It should be noted that this past Thursday was NASA's Day of Remembrance. This is in honor of the astronauts who died in all three of America's space accidents -- Apollo I, Challenger, and Columbia -- which all occurred around the last week of January (January 27 - February 1). There's a commemorative page on NASA's site.
That said, I look forward to the day when a spacecraft accident is no more notable than an automobile or airplane accident. The best way to honor our lost astronauts is to make space travel more routine, allowing it to get safer and more accessible through experience.
However, in this era, we cannot fathom things not being perfect. For some reason, someone is always to blame. We cannot accept the fact that space travel has lost a large amount of funding and even though ~40 years has passed since humans first landed on the moon, the technology hasn't advanced that much. As a people, we have to understand that space travel is still young and not perfected and losses will come.
Instead of trying to find blame and cutting funding for the space program. Let us continue to press on, innovate and find new methods, and most importantly, honour the people who are willing to take these risks to pave the road so that one day, we can all enjoy space travel just like how cruises across the ocean usually quite safe, and like how flight is quite safe as well.
It's happened again! Look at the Wikipedia article on the subject.
For example, in the second paragraph we find the ENTIRE first myth copied verbatim into the news article with no credit or references given whatsoever!
The rest seems to be original wording though, but I encourage you to dig more into this.
I've read this twice today since it was on Fark about 8 hours ago and I have a problem with Mister Oberg's story.
/ docs/rogers-commission/Chapter-3.txt
From Encyclopedia Astronautica - http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts51l.htm
"At this point in its trajectory, while traveling at a Mach number of 1.92 at an altitude of 46,000 feet, the Challenger was totally enveloped in the explosive burn. The Challenger's reaction control system ruptured and a hypergolic burn of its propellants occurred as it exited the oxygen-hydrogen flames. The reddish brown colors of the hypergolic fuel burn are visible on the edge of the main fireball. The Orbiter, under severe aerodynamic loads, broke into several large sections which emerged from the fireball. Separate sections that can be identified on film include the main engine/tail section with the engines still burning, one wing of the Orbiter, and the forward fuselage trailing a mass of umbilical lines pulled loose from the payload bay.
The Explosion 73 seconds after liftoff claimed crew and vehicle. Cause of explosion was determined to be an O-ring failure in right SRB. Cold weather was a contributing factor. Launch Weight: 268,829 lbs. "
From the Commission's Report
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l
"At 73.124 seconds,. a circumferential white vapor pattern was observed blooming from the side of the External Tank bottom dome. This was the beginning of the structural failure of hydrogen tank that culminated in the entire aft dome dropping away. This released massive amounts of liquid hydrogen from the tank and created a sudden forward thrust of about 2.8 million pounds, pushing the hydrogen tank upward into the intertank structure. At about the same time, the rotating right Solid Rocket Booster impacted the intertank structure and the lower part of the liquid oxygen tank. These structures failed at 73.137 seconds as evidenced by the white vapors appearing in the intertank region.
Within milliseconds there was massive, almost explosive, burning of the hydrogen streaming from the failed tank bottom and liquid oxygen breach in the area of the intertank.
At this point in its trajectory, while traveling at a Mach number of 1.92 at an altitude of 46,000 feet, the Challenger was totally enveloped in the explosive burn. The Challenger's reaction control system ruptured and a hypergolic burn of its propellants occurred as it exited the oxygen-hydrogen flames. The reddish brown colors of the hypergolic fuel burn are visible on the edge of the main fireball. The Orbiter, under severe aerodynamic loads, broke into several large sections which emerged from the fireball. Separate sections that can be identified on film include the main engine/tail section with the engines still burning, one wing of the Orbiter, and the forward fuselage trailing a mass of umbilical lines pulled loose from the payload bay."
From Mister Oberg's story
"The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word. There was no shock wave, no detonation, no "bang" -- viewers on the ground just heard the roar of the engines stop as the shuttle's fuel tank tore apart, spilling liquid oxygen and hydrogen which formed a huge fireball at an altitude of 46,000 ft. (Some television documentaries later added the sound of an explosion to these images.) But both solid-fuel strap-on boosters climbed up out of the cloud, still firing and unharmed by any explosion. Challenger itself was torn apart as it was flung free of the other rocket components and turned broadside into the Mach 2 airstream. Individual propellant tanks were seen exploding -- but by then, the spacecraft was already in pieces."
The Shuttle at that time was made up of the Orbiter, a Fuel Tank and two Solid Rocket Boosters, there was an explosion, so I think Mister Oberg is wrong for saying it did not "explode in the common definition of that word". It blew up.
2) The fireball had minimal pressure and a low enough temperature that it did not significantly damage either the already broken up pieces of the orbiter (no burn damage or crush damage from the fireball) or the solid rocket boosters.
If someone waved an industrial sized propane torch at you for one second, the kind they use to dry paint rapidly, you'd get mildly burned but it wouldn't kill you. If you were sitting inside your car when it was waved at you from outside, you wouldn't notice, unless it bubbled the paint a bit.
Not everything that looks big and bright and explosion-like kills and destroys everything inside it. I personally survived a small gas vapor fire where my body was essentially entirely inside the fireball, with only a few burnt hairs and what was functionally no worse than a bad sunburn on the parts of my skin not covered by clothing, and the clothes didn't catch on fire. I really don't recommend you try it yourself, but it won't kill you.
Agreed, in this day and age of revisionist historians employed by our governments around the globe, who's sole job it is to re-write history in the favour of the encumbant politicions, it is VERY important that what actually happened during a pivotal event is recorded and re-told correctly. If we brush over the facts, how will we know how to stop it happening again ?
One of the positive things about the Internet, is it's ability to give everyone a voice. I still have enough faith in the world, that those who what to do the right thing easily outnumber those that dont. Concepts like Wikipedia help to preserve the real facts of events because so many people have a vested interest in keeping the articles they contribute to error-free. Information is power, and the governments of the world don't understand that they no longer control the information flow.
When something tragic happens the independent blogporters outnumber the employed reporters 10 to 1, agreggating those blogports will yield a more accurate and complete dissection of the event than any commercial newsfeeds can or want to provide.
Reading through the Myths in the article I was astounded under Myth #2 to discover that TV companies dubbed in an explosion sound! We can no longer trust what the news shows us.
Paranoid, me? Never.
-Jar.
Together, We Can Make Slashdot Better. I Do NOT Mod ACs. - Check Me Out
What I really noticed about this article was the claim that some TV-companies added an explosion sound to the footage. Doctoring footage and images: I've seen so many examples of newspaper images that were so similar, I've often wondered if news agencies don't pull up photoshop to make the image a little more illustrative.
There always seems to be a russian woman walking past a huge poster of Putin, an iraqi woman walking past a huge poster of Saddam, a venezuelan woman walking past a huge picture of Chavez. And a picture of a white dove with a palestinian demonstration in the background. They are both in focus... how did the photographer get them to stand still? And I don't think you can trust that demonstrators really held up the posters they did. Far too often, it seems that the most prominent poster is held by someone who is not in the image. Remember the affair when a parody image of "Evil Ernie" appeared in an image of bin Laden? It was claimed that the demonstrator had done an image search on the net and accidentaly downloaded the parody image, but if he made that sign, wouldn't he have noticed that bizarre puppet in the backgound?! I think it more likely that someone at reuters or AP decided that the image wasn't illustrative enough, and did the negligent image search
So now I see a major news outlet claiming that such "illustrative" manipulation occurs, perhaps I'm not paranoid, after all.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
James Oberg is a regular participant in several space related newsgroups and news sites that I read. (I note sci.space.station)
Accordingly, I have watched his coverage of several newsworthy space events and know, from my watching of coverage and analysis, that James Obserg is credible and often "ahead of the game" in calling what really happened.
I congratulate James Oberg on this account, and analysis, and ask readers to take his work as 'credible'.
Unfortunately, I have seen numerous analysis pieces that add evidence and weight to Myth #3: The crew died instantly. It seems they died on impact with the water, minutres afterward, as evidence from the video suggests that the capsule remained substantially intact. I recall the analysis that the investigators could not construct a scenario that showed 'the crew died instantly and did not know they were going to die'.
Myth #4: Dangerous booster flaws result of meddling is also flawed! It seems that the rockets were fired (the Shuttle launched) outside the demonstrated 'safe' parameters of the launch vehicle. For example, if your car is driven across a slickly wet road then full steering lock is applied in an instant then most cars will just be in a skid, as the design parameters have just been exceeded. Get it?
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
I know the oxygen tank itself didn't kill them, I said it was dangerous to strap yourself to one. And my reference to lighing the tank was a bit of hyperbolie. However the tanks purpose is to fuel the craft, and being around fuel is inherently dangerous.
Political pressure comes in many forms, and doesn't have to start at the top.
My response is to rubbish the assertions made by a whining ex-employee of NASA who feels compelled to justify how NASA dropped the ball and essentially sent the Astronauts to their death on live international television. His purpose seems to be to inflate his own ego, and deflect as much criticism from his ex-employer as possible.
Photographers get fired and blacklisted for manipulating their pictures. Have a look here for an example.
As for focussing on both a poster and a person walking past it, you measure the distance from you to the poster. Then you measure the distance between you and where the nearest person you want to focus on will be. You focus between them and use the hyperfocal marks on the lens to choose the aperture you need to use. Then you meter to find the shutter speed you need. If it's too slow, then you have to focus on someone closer to the poster, or use a faster film. Then you stand and wait for someone to get in the right place. It's a trivial process.
I was going to Elementary school in San Jose, CA, and our whole class watched it live on TV. I will never forget watching it 1) explode, and 2) the shock on my teacher's face. This guy is totally false on #1 and #2. I watched it on TV. Technically it may not have exploded, but have you seen the feed? It didn't exactly go into space. We all saw it straight through, sure they cut away but after it exploded, genius.
stuff |
The challenger disaster was just the result of constant budget cuts resulting in a space craft that did not have proper safety equipment being used in roles it had never been designed for and forced to operate in circumstances that were not safe.
It is not an accident, it was mis-management and Nasa learned nothing from it.
On the other hand, the NASA the US gets is the NASA it is prepared to pay for. Same with ESA really, luckily for the europeans we do not do passenger launches so when the europeans screw up it is "harmless".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I remember when I was very young and at a school fair. While walking past the 'tombola' stand a photographer grabbed me and thrust a bottle of apple juice into my hands and took my photo. He took my name and put the bottle back on the stand and walked off. In the local paper that week was a picture of me 'winning on the tombola'. As a young boy it was my first lesson that the media will architect anything to create the news story they want (although trivial in this case). Hence I'm the cynic I am today, and can't stand the modern press either (but that's another story...)
So? What difference does a minute or three make?
2. The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word.
No, it *did* explode in the common definition, as in boom, major disassembly. It did not explode in one specific, technical way. There was no bag of TNT on board. There was the equivalent of many tons of TNT just a few feet away. Big diff? I don't think so.
3. The flight, and the astronauts' lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch.
Well, effectively, they did. There was nothing that could be done at that point to save them. Also IIRC the only clue that a few were concious was that two of the emergency airpacks were found turned on. Not exactly uncontrovertible evidence.
4. The design of the booster, while possessing flaws subject to improvement, was neither especially dangerous if operated properly, nor the result of political interference.
Totally wrong. There were several previous documented cases of the O-rings burning part way through. Feynman's report clarifies the severe nature of this problem. If you manage to walk across the freeway blindfolded 66 times, does that certify the action as safe? Nope. The political angle is not documentable either way. But one might guess if the president is scheduled to talk to the astronauts during the state of the union address, there's some pressure there to launch.
5. Replacement of the original asbestos-bearing putty in the booster seals was unrelated to the failure.
Well, true in the sense that the whole basic design was foobar. But "unrelated" is a value judgement, one unlikely to be categorically false.
6. There were pressures on the flight schedule, but none of any recognizable political origin.
Yep, we went over that already. You expect to find a written memo on this?
7. Claims that the disaster was the unavoidable price to be paid for pioneering a new frontier were self-serving rationalizations on the part of those responsible for incompetent engineering management -- the disaster should have been avoidable.
Wishful thinking, and doesnt correspond with history. There's no way any engineer could get the shuttle grounded and a major subsystem completely redesigned just on a hunch. In the real world flaws often go unresolved until somebody dies. See: Pinto gas tank, Ford ABS switch, Dodge ball joints, Vioxx, thalidomide, radium drinks, smoking, children's air bags, and probably many more.
I was working in Sunrise, FL. at the time. My office was on the second story and we had
a window facing north. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know something bad had
happened. And network tv was live covering it. We had a portable tv in the office area
providing the sound to our live view out the window.
I remember coming into work the day of the launch mad at myself for forgetting to bring
my binoculars from home.
I grew up in south Florida, and saw it happen live. I was in 8th grade. It was at the start of our 4th period, which for me was band. I remember it being a freezing cold day, especially for Florida. We all went outside to watch, as was a fairly common thing to do at that point (remember, the shuttle program was only 5 years old at the time, and to middle-school kids was still really neat).
At the point at which the single contrail split into two (the explosion), we all just stared. There was no Aha! or Oh my God! moment. We all just stared, confused. After a few seconds, someone in the group asked the band teacher if something was wrong. I don't think he knew one way or the other, but he must have been wondering the same thing. He ushered us all back into the classroom, and went to his office.
About a minute later, he returned from his office and said that the shuttle blew up.
In the town I grew up in, Pratt and Whitney was the dominant employer. Following the accident, Pratt got the job or reengineering the now infamous O-rings, and a family friend of ours, who had retired a few years earlier, was asked to un-retire and lead the effort.
In tabulario donationem feci.
Hell, I took the day off from school to a) work on my car and b) watch the launch. I sat for a good sixty minutes watching the screen in total disbelief as did 5 of my friends. I'd like to know how this guy arrived at that statement. If he didn't do any major grunt work in tracking down who did and did not see it and is just "guessing" based on the coverage of CNN at the time then the guys a tard.
Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
My father worked for Rockwell at the time; he was with the shuttle program from its inception. My mother had lived in Titusville, FL (where I was born) for several years, at least since the Moon program, so she'd grown up around the space program.
Even though I was so young, I can remember how proud my dad was to work on the shuttle and how proud I was of him.I remember we could watch the launches from our house. I don't remember the entire time, but I remember the explosion...
We had the TV on and were going back and forth between them. When it happened, I remember looking at it and not comprehending what was going on. The TV channel, I think, was following a booster; to me, since I didn't understatnd what was happening, I somehow still thought it was the shuttle. The sky was getting darker, and I kept asking "Daddy, is it in space yet?".My father was panicking, saying "No! It's shouldn't be doing that!". I don't remember my mother's reaction...
My mother did tell me that afterwards, the town was in shock. She said that the people looked dead... She said all she could think of was how she hoped my sister wouldn't be born that day; that she didn't want to happen to the child.And it didn't. My little sister was born two days later. About a year later, we left Titusville since my father lost his job in the aftermath.
Those are my memories.What I really noticed about this article was the claim that some TV-companies added an explosion sound to the footage.
On the DVD Trinity and Beyond , one of the special features is raw footage of a nuclear test.
One thing noticable was a delay between the explosion and the sound, which makes sense. Given that the camera is usually a few miles away from ground zero, the sound would take several seconds to reach the microphone (approx. 5 seconds per mile).
Most films (both fiction and documentary) with explosions show the explosion and sound at the same time.
The only movie I can think of that had a sound-delay after an explosion was Red Dawn (the first gas station scene, when the protagonists gathering supplies). And maybe The Beast , which was directed by Kevin Reynolds, who wrote Red Dawn.
20 years ago? Yikes!
I remember that morning. As a space nut I was watching the launch preparations (and delays) on TV as I got ready for work. They hadn't launched by the time I left.
Later that morning one of our part-time students came in and asked if everybody had heard that Challenger had blown up. I felt myself go grey, went home sick, and spent the afternoon glued to the TV.
So, no, I didn't see it live. Probably just as well.
Apollo 1 was a little before my time - I was only 5 in 1966. I distinctly remember a couple of years later, though, thinking how badly it would suck to be away from home for Christmas while watching coverage of Apollo 8.
...laura
True. Memories can also be completely fabricated.
I saw a documentary (probably on BBC2) a few years ago, where people were shown (faked) old photographs of them in a hot air balloon. Most of the subjects said that they couldn't remember the occasion.
However, seven days later, when the same subjects were shown the photographs again, almost every one of them said that they could remember it a bit better. They could even say who was with them on the day, and so on.
The brain is a funny thing. Very clever, but a little too clever sometimes...
Michael Nelson
Somehow it always reassures me when one of these 'big myths' stories comes out, and I'm not wrong on any of them. Are these really widespread?
1. Few people actually saw the Challenger tragedy unfold live on television.
Well I did. I was one of the school children in that program.
2. The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word.
Well duhh, read the details. I'm sure to most of us 'challenger' meant the whole package, and there was a rather large fireball involved, which in the common definition of the word would qualify as an explosion
3. The flight, and the astronauts' lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch.
The facts are just unclear.
4. The design of the booster, while possessing flaws subject to improvement, was neither especially dangerous if operated properly, nor the result of political interference.
Though the flaws subject to improvement would likely have been fixed if not for political interference (or beurocracy as you prefer).
5. Replacement of the original asbestos-bearing putty in the booster seals was unrelated to the failure.
Who thought this?
6. There were pressures on the flight schedule, but none of any recognizable political origin.
Except of course for the whole 'teacher in space' deal.
7. Claims that the disaster was the unavoidable price to be paid for pioneering a new frontier were self-serving rationalizations on the part of those responsible for incompetent engineering management -- the disaster should have been avoidable.
Which of course runs counter to his previous claim that political interference had no impact.
All in all, what a crap article.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Pontiac Fieros have the gas tank between the 2 only passenger seats. Furthermore a Fiero has a rear engine and small trunk that is perfectly sized for the width of a tire.
So...in the event of a rear end crash that crushes more then 2 feet of frame you have an engine in the passenger compartment with the gas tank.
"Reaganomics: Help the poor by giving to the rich!" rather than helping the poor directly."
I think you need to attend a more centrist univerisity. Reagan definitely had his good and bad imprints on US history. His economic decisions fueled our economy, promoted the technology boom and pulled us out of Carter's recession. Unfortunately he did not get to see his impact based on his illness. Bush Sr. and Clinton rode out his legacy for free (until the market collapsed).
That of course came at a price, and that was he was not very sympathetic to the real poor - people that cannot help themselves. And that is a shame. His overspending cut many programs and made many peoples lives harder. But even more benefitted. College enrollment exploded in the 80s fueling our technology/engineering foundation today. Children who otherwise had no change to get into (pay) for college could. I am not sure how any competent "economist" (and I used that term loosely) could possibly say reagonomics were summarily "bad".
I am a staunch liberal and even I can see his place in american history even though I disagreed strongly with many of his views and policies. I still can recognize his economic legacy that we enjoy today. The 80s could have turned out very differently if a different president just sat on the pot (like Bush Sr, Clinton, possibly Bush Jr). I look forward to the next time we elect a truely "Great" president and not just a sleezy politician.
Are you intolerant of intolerant people?