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Dying Man Shares Unseen Challenger Video

Posted by Soulskill on from the new-perspective-on-an-old-tragedy dept.

longacre writes "An amateur video of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion has been made public for the first time. The Florida man who filmed it from his front yard on his new Betamax camcorder turned the tape over to an educational organization a week before he died this past December. The Space Exploration Archive has since published the video into the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the catastrophe. Despite being shot from about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle and the explosion can be seen quite clearly. It is unclear why he never shared the footage with NASA or the media. NASA officials say they were not aware of the video, but are interested in examining it now that it has been made available."

11 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Speculation... by quangdog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why would someone keep this private and/or secret for so long?

    1. Re:Speculation... by christurkel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My father covered the launch for AP and he never said a word about it after he wrote the article about it.

      --

      CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
    2. Re:Speculation... by element-o.p. · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Still remember exactly where I was standing.

      I do, too. I was sitting in my high school history class, and the teacher rolled in a TV so we could watch the broadcast. Come to think of it, this was probably one of the most important lessons I learned in school: our technology is impressive, but not infallible.

      --
      MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
    3. Re:Speculation... by Tekfactory · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I worked with an Indian guy that had to give the eulogy when his father passed away.

      He talked about his father's life, and his father's position on Ghandi's staff when he was a younger man.

      After the funeral the guy's kids asked him why he never told them Grandpa worked with Ghandi, when they still could have asked their Grandpa questions about it.

      It just never came up.

  2. memories... by gandhi_2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    they herded us into the library of my elementary school to watch the launch. I must have been in 3rd grade or so.

    The teachers hurriedly ushered us back into class when the "space ship" was "done". Most of us came away thinking a shuttle launch was supposed to look like that.

    --
    THL phish sticks
  3. Elementary School in the 80s by geoffrobinson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It was weird that there were so many tasteless Challenger jokes. Anyone know if this was common all over the country or was it only my neck of the woods?

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  4. Re:70 miles away on Betamax? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Some very crappy images from a surveillance camera were quite useful when the crash of AA 587 was investigated. If you don't have the material, you don't know how much can be extracted by enhancing it and then combining it with sources - one tape might allow investigators to identify what pieces some grainy dots actually are on the tape that shows the timing when they fall off.

  5. local eye doctor by kenosaga · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dr. Jack Moss' son is my eye doctor. From what I understand, Dr. Moss thought that his recording of the catastrophe was only of any value to himself and possibly his family, as testimony that they had witness the event first hand. He believed, especially with all the media coverage, that he had nothing of scientific value to offer NASA. Like a lot of things, with time we often forget we have them ;)

  6. Re:I'm sure NASA would have been dying to get it by Kagura · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Somehow the last four minutes of the recordings were incinerated, but all the other footage is intact.

  7. Mawkishness... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    You Americans are rather melodramatic about this entire event...have you every tried to consider why?

    I mean, 7 people died after taking a risk in which they knew death was a possibility. 7. Only 7.

    And yet somehow this excites the same type of feverish outpouring of grief that is reserved for religious martyrs.

    And why are you so ready to label anyone who dies in the course of their normal daily work as 'heroes'?

    What did they accomplish that was so heroic?

    Not trolling BTW, just genuinely interested in your national mindset.

  8. Where were you by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was working at Rocketdyne on the Shuttle Main Engines at the time.

    When the Challenger exploded we were told over the intercom that a "System Malfunction" happened on flight 51 and the phones went down. It was not until people went out for lunch that they found out really what happened. In the mean time guards came in and confiscated all the engine build log books to prevent someone from going in and "fixing" some data with the sudden realization of a serious error.

    Spent the next year helping to prepare a giant report at the request of Richard Feynman.