Divers find Challenger space shuttle wreckage off Florida coast Really surprised this wasn't found before but it is what it is. Don't know if this will yield anything new to what caused the explosion.
Seems like they knew what caused the explosion before it even blew up. 5 of their rocket engineers begged them not to launch that day due to the sub freezing weather and a known defect in the o-ring stiffening in cold weather...
This. I remember that day so well. I watched it from my 7th grade school soccer field on the west coast. Even from there, you knew something was wrong from the rocket trail. It was a memorably cold day. 20's as we headed to school I believe.
Up all night firing smudge pots in the groves. Went to school dead tired no sleep. In Gerloski’s 2nd period 10th grade anatomy class and we walked out to watch. Horrible memory. Cool they found more wreckage.
I too remember exactly where I was when I heard. There is an economic theory based on the mistake. I recall when the seminal paper was published. O-ring theory of economic development - Wikipedia
Was a student at UF at the time. I rode my bike home from an early class knowing there was a shuttle launch that day. I turned on the tv when I got home and saw that weird y shaped cloud and kept expecting the shuttle to emerge from it, which obviously it didn't.
Was a sophomore in high school in Melbourne. Saw it happen going between classes. Was a cold day and they later concluded that temperatures led to the o-ring failure. The part I don’t understand is that the shuttle program used hydrogen as a fuel and it has to be stored at super cold temperatures. I’m no rocket scientist (though my daughter is at UF) and have difficulty understanding how a cold day could make a difference, but I guess it did. On a side note - night time shuttle launches were spectacular! Artemis I mission: Hard to manage hydrogen is NASA's fuel of choice
Was at UF and due to poor course planning (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) had one class left to graduate. It was an afternoon class so I was home watching MTV and switched over to watch the launch. My bedroom was upstairs and faced east. TV was downstairs and when she lifted off and went into that stupid and always scary (to me) roll, I headed upstairs to watch her rise above the pine trees and roof across the pool like I had done before. When I got up there there were two funky smoke trails with the solid booster flames visible. I thought to myself that NASA had some new and undisclosed launch method, but when the boosters started to gyrate around I recognized something was not right. Rushed back downstairs to see parts of her falling from the sky and the faces of Christa’s parents on the tube. It was traumatic and heart breaking for this engineer-in-the-making. Will never forget it. Amazing such a big piece of her was just found.
First night launch I saw was when I lived in Brooksville. Was driving home from work late eastbound on SR50 and it looked like the sun was rising all the way across the state from Canaveral. Got to see a night launch up close several years later. My brother is an engineering tech for a consultant at Canaveral. They have a rotational system to give passes for employees to take guests onto the cape for launches. Bro invited us for a night launch. President Obama was there that night and up in a building that theoretically was supposed to be the closest location for outside observers. I know someone that drove past that building and was even closer, but I can’t say any more, other than a night launch up close is blinding and loud and the pure unmitigated power of that machine is felt all the way into your pancreas.
A little talked about fact. Shuttles launched from pads 31A (mostly) and 31B (less frequently) due to B being used for other things. 31B was not retrofitted for shuttle use until 86. The Challenger disaster was the 25th mission, but the first to use pad 31B.
