Challenger - sad anniversary today (1/28)

[RT Atlanta]

24 years ago this morning, on January 28, 1986, the orbiter Challenger broke up a little more than 1 minute into flight. We lost the entire crew of STS-51L with the vehicle's explosion:

Commander - Francis "Dick" Scobee
Pilot - Michael J. Smith
Mission Specialist 1 - Ellison Onizuka
Mission Specialist 2 - Judith Resnik
Mission Specialist 3 - Ronald McNair
Payload Specialist 1 - Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Teacher in Space
Payload Specialist 2 - Gregory Jarvis





Due to the frigid termparatures the night before, there was a hard freeze that caused the seals on the SRB "o-rings" to crack and become susceptible to burn through. The image below shows a puff of smoke from the o-ring that ultimately led to the burn-through, which ignited the external tank and caused the explosion.











This morning, I salute each of the astronauts for their noble explorer's sacrifice in the pursuit of knowledge. :patriot:

[hlthe2b]

1. Sadly, we also just noted the 43 yr. anniversary of the Apollo 1 catastrophe

I'll add their sacrifice to our commemoration today:



Crew:

Virgil "Gus" Ivan Grissom, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF
Edward Higgins White, II, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF
Roger Bruce Chaffee, Lieutenant Commander, USN




While we are all concerned about many other things, the future is in space exploration. These folks gave their lives to it. I encourage all to follow the decisions being made to downsize or even eliminate certain space missions and to privatize others. Our input is needed.

[RT Atlanta]

7. Agreed!

We had a nice remembrance thread yesterday about Apollo 1

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x62175

[rocktivity]

2. I was going to watch the launch and get to work a little late that morning

But the minute I heard that the temp was only 23 degrees, I went straight to the office, not thinking for a second they'd attempt to launch in such weather. When I got there, everyone was piled in the conference waiting for the countdown on TV. "They're going ahead with it?" I gasped. "They're nuts--it's 23 degrees down there!" Someone corrected me, "Twenty-nine." Big difference. I said, "Still, they've never launched in that kind of weather before!" Confident that the launch would be still called off, I went to my desk and turned on my radio as usual. That's how I got the news.

:(
rocktivity

[LynneSin]

3. I remember watching that live while in college

that and the Budd Dwyer Suicide. That happened around the same time the next year. Both were aired live because nobody thought anything horrible was going to happen during the live broadcast. Both had very profound impact from those broadcasts

[FirstLight]

4. I just watched a chilling movie yesterday...(In Psych class)

It was an older 80's style movie, like a training video... called "Groupthink" and they used the Challenger disaster as the example. I was shocked to know this was a tru story...

apparently the engineers who designed the O rings told Nasa that they should postpone the launch because the O-Rings couldn;t be relied upon to function at that temperature... and the pressure from nasa and the govt because they had already postponed several launches, was so great that the engineers were esentially silenced...

so sad :cry:

here's the link to the first 3 min...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYpbStMyz_I

[noamnety]

6. That's true - the engineers warned NASA they should cancel it.

Every launch below 65 degrees had some level of damage, and as temps decreased to 55 degrees, the damage became more severe. The o-rings can't flex properly if they are brittle from cold. This chart (a classic from information design guru Tufte) shows the history of launches and damage from 55 degrees and up, and the forecasted temp (below freezing) for that launch.

[LeftinOH]

5. I recall vividly Reagan's speech to the nation that evening:

Which -at the time- I thought was brilliant. What I didn't know is that it was written entirely by Peggy Noonan, who in turn cribbed the best bits from the following poem by John G Magee Jr, an poet & aviator killed in WWII at the age of 19.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee,_Jr.

[TZ]

8. I was in 11th grade at the time

I remember being in English class and someone mentioning "an explosion on the shuttle" or at least that was how I heard it. I didn't realize till later that they actually said "the shuttle exploded". I remember coming home and seeing the film clips and crying my eyes out. Today there is a Christa McAuliffe Elementary School just about five miles from my house..

[pokerfan]

9. Richard Feynman talks about the O ring

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qAi_9quzUY

Feynman was requested to serve on the Presidential Rogers Commission which investigated the Challenger disaster of 1986, where he played an important role. Feynman devoted the latter half of his book What Do You Care What Other People Think? to his experience on the Rogers Commission, straying from his usual convention of brief, light-hearted anecdotes to deliver an extended and sober narrative. Feynman's account reveals a disconnect between NASA's engineers and executives that was far more striking than he expected. His interviews of NASA's high-ranking managers revealed startling misunderstandings of elementary concepts. He concluded that the NASA management's space shuttle reliability estimate was fantastically unrealistic. He warned in his appendix to the commission's report, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."<39>

M8 Entertainment Inc. announced in May 2006 that a movie would be made about the disaster. Challenger (2010) is to be directed by Philip Kaufman—whose 1983 film The Right Stuff chronicled the early history of the space program—and would focus on the role of Feynman in the ensuing investigation. David Strathairn will play Feynman.<40>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#Challenger_disaster

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

10. Probably apocryphal, but

I seem to remember a story about Feynmann on a panel full of people arguing about the Challenger's demise and its causes. As these supposedly reasonable men and women were basically trying to yell louder than the next guy, Feynmann pulled one of the O-rings from his glass of ice water and snapped it in two.

[pokerfan]

11. it's in his book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Do_You_Care_What_Other_People_Think%3F

Just looked it up. Pages 148-153.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

12. Thanks

Thanks Pokerfan, and glad that the story isn't apocryphal--it suits Feynmann's character so well. Off to Powell's to pick up a copy!

[pokerfan]

13. I love Powells

but I haven't been to Portland in a few years.