The Pilot and Co-Pilots PEAPS had to be turned on by a back seater… they were alive after the explosion and cabin seperation and following their emergency proceedures.

Quoted: I was in Mrs. Baucum's 6th grade math class, I bet you I could walk to the exact spot in the room where I was sitting even 20 years later.

I was home for lunch, watching it on TV.  No one believed me when I got back to school and told them what I saw.

It wasn't until the older kids (I was in 4th grade) who had been watching the launch started talking about it that people realized why I was so shaken up.

I also remember the exact place I was sitting in the Music/Art room in 6th grade when Discovery returned to space.  We watched it live, and I remember the tremendous weight I felt lift off when she made orbit.  I knew how important our return to space really was.

I was in the Navy at the time the Shuttle started flying. I can remember them rolling the TV out of the duty office in the hangar and standing around with the other guys in the squadron to watch the Enterprise flights. The day of the Challenger accident I was in hangar one at Moffett going to a maintenance control class. We'd taken a break, along with just about every other classe, to watch the  liftoff. It was a very big deal to us. We all knew we'd be working on space planes in a few more years.

I knew instantly what had happened as I had watched many failed launches as a kid in the early 60's.  I had my application in to be a mission specialist at the time. I knew right then it was not to be. I watched every Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flight and grew up thinking I'd be living and working at the lunar colony by the time I was the age I am now.

When the Apollo missions quit being prime time TV events I knew it was all over. The public just didn't get it. Congress still doesn't. Its really a pity they don't understand that every dollar spent in space has a thousand times return. I'm amazed that people can be so fired up about a few robots roaming around on Mars and digging up some soil but could care less about actually leaving the planet and moving out into the rest of the solar system. I think we owe Grissom, White and Chaffee, along with crews of Challenger and Columbia so much more then we've given them. I'm sure Gus would be appalled at the way we've backed off from Space.

Quoted: The Pilot and Co-Pilots PEAPS had to be turned on by a back seater… they were alive after the explosion and cabin seperation and following their emergency proceedures.

Professionals to the end, doing what they trained to do.

i went to space camp when i was in middle school...

we had some NASA folks giving a talk and when they opened up the floor to questions people asked about the challenger explosion...

all of the NASA folks there were in agreement that a number of the crew survived the explosion and it was possible that they may have even survived the impact... they wouldn't go into much more detail...

i'm sure in a few years with the Freedom of Information Act, we'll find out the real answer...

I once served with a brother officer who had been assigned to the Navy's number one salvage ship, Preserver when Challenger was destroyed.  He told me the Challenger crew had been alive when they hit the sea.  I was stunned.

 I was in the 9th grade (sociology class), in Round Rock, TX, when it happened. My teacher got into a shoving match with the football coach who was going room to room shutting off the TV's..... he won, and our TV stayed on. There was a guy who was a distant relative of Sharon McAuliffe that was real broken up about it, of course.
 I remember reading somewhere that a friend of the marine pilot Richard "Dick" Scobee was interviewed and he had said his friend had "... looked and strove for any and all edges he could get during the cockpit descent. He flew that crew compartment all the way down, even though it had no wings or engines, I know he was flying it all the way down."

OO-RAH, Marine!

I believe dying doing something you love may be the best way to go out of this life.

ex_mil

p.s.-Marines, pardon my oo-rah if it's incorrect.

Quoted: i went to space camp when i was in middle school... we had some NASA folks giving a talk and when they opened up the floor to questions people asked about the challenger explosion... all of the NASA folks there were in agreement that a number of the crew survived the explosion and it was possible that they may have even survived the impact... they wouldn't go into much more detail... i'm sure in a few years with the Freedom of Information Act, we'll find out the real answer...

The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual. Nor were they sustained enough to cause loss of consciousness from bloodflow. They were doubtlessly alive after that.

Shortly after decompression is when they probably lost consciousness... Cabin containment was almost doubtlessly compromised. The suits they had on weren't full pressure suits. The odds of any of them not losing consciousness at that point are tiny. It wouldn't have killed them, though, they weren't at those low pressures long enough for that.

They might have regained consciousness on descent... Their fall was actually pretty slow... Terminal velocity isn't extremely high on something like that. They might have come back up to pressure long enough to regain consciousness.

Impact? I actually think a significant number of them survived. There have been people who survived impacts (impacts, not just decelerations) near the 200g mark, granted with injuries (broken bones typically), but generally with full mental faculties afterwards. The Challenger impact was probably considerably more violent for a few different reasons... I think the impact caused their deaths. However, I doubt all (or any) of the deaths were instant, more likely they lingered for quite a while.

I have conflicting reports of the likely condition of the crew compartment after impact. If it flooded quickly, there's actually a good chance they drowned... Quite possibly conscious while it was happening, plausibly immobilized by injury.

We do a disservice by attempting to downplay what these men and women went through.

Quoted: Quoted: The Pilot and Co-Pilots PEAPS had to be turned on by a back seater… they were alive after the explosion and cabin seperation and following their emergency proceedures. Professionals to the end, doing what they trained to do.

Yep.

Quoted: If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. Gus Grissom after the Gemini 3 mission, March 1965

Spoken like a true Test Pilot.

Quoted: Quoted: Remember all the NASA jokes? No, I don't.  But I do remember watching Challenger blow up on live TV, in my morning History class (7th grade).  Fuck anyone that made jokes about that crew.

I remember watching live at school, too...  

The space shuttle was originally designed with ejection seats. The Columbia had them on the first flight then they were taken out on account of weight. The Saturn 5 rockets that flew to the moon had a excape system. Ever notice on top of the Saturn 5 rocket above the capsule that landed on the moon was a extra rocket? Its job was to get the crew to a safe distance if the main rocket blew up on launch. Remeber that fire with on the one Saturn 5 that killed everyone on board. Must of been plenty that knew that a pure oxygen enviroment was a huge fire risk, they just weren't the ones making the decisions. What ever happenned the day the Challenger blew up, its not the fault of all of Nasa. Plenty of hard working bright people there. Still when it blew up there should have been some effort to see if anyone survived. Of course the odds were long, thats not the point. If there was a chance, there should have been some effort. Instead its a case of when those who were making the decisions were plain to busy thinking of ways to save their careers to have one ounce of thought about the life and death situation at hand.

Quoted: The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual.

just so i'm clear, you'e stating that hitting water at 200+ MPH isn't nearly enough to cause BFT death?

i think perhaps you should reconsider this statement, since hitting water at 110mph will kill you virtually every time.  in the annals of skydiving, there are only a few examples of survival from a terminal velocity impact, and those involved highly-yielding surfaces like a 20' snowbank (siberia), and viscous mud flats (florida).  at high speed, hitting water is very similar to hitting dirt.

I worked at the Cape from '95 to 2000 and I was told by several people that the remains were recovered in really bad shape. So much so that there was no way they could have survived impact.

Quoted: Quoted: The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual. just so i'm clear, you'e stating that hitting water at 200+ MPH isn't nearly enough to cause BFT death? i think perhaps you should reconsider this statement, since hitting water at 110mph will kill you virtually every time.  in the annals of skydiving, there are only a few examples of survival from a terminal velocity impact, and those involved highly-yielding surfaces like a 20' snowbank (siberia), and viscous mud flats (florida).  at high speed, hitting water is very similar to hitting dirt.

I think he meant the g-forces from the initial disintegration of the orbiter.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual. just so i'm clear, you'e stating that hitting water at 200+ MPH isn't nearly enough to cause BFT death? i think perhaps you should reconsider this statement, since hitting water at 110mph will kill you virtually every time.  in the annals of skydiving, there are only a few examples of survival from a terminal velocity impact, and those involved highly-yielding surfaces like a 20' snowbank (siberia), and viscous mud flats (florida).  at high speed, hitting water is very similar to hitting dirt. I think he meant the g-forces from the initial disintegration of the orbiter.

I think the force of the air blast traveling at over 3000mph tore them to shreads when the cabin first seperated.

Quoted: Quoted: I still remember crying when I watched it.... sally's parent's are watching... you hear their audio... everyone applauds the explosion- because they think it's a stage seperation that we've all seen before.... Yep, I was watching as it happened.  It was the worst feeling.  Also, I heard the sonic boom from Columbia in 2003.  I was reading my newspaper when my brother called and said to turn on the TV.  Just a minute or two earlier, I had heard the sonic boom and then on the TV were all those comet-like pieces of Columbia. I only hope that none of Challenger knew what happened, but Columbia, those folks had a pretty good idea what was going on.

I remember Columbia. I remember waking up to multiple sonic booms and the lights on my ceiling fan rattling.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual. just so i'm clear, you'e stating that hitting water at 200+ MPH isn't nearly enough to cause BFT death? i think perhaps you should reconsider this statement, since hitting water at 110mph will kill you virtually every time.  in the annals of skydiving, there are only a few examples of survival from a terminal velocity impact, and those involved highly-yielding surfaces like a 20' snowbank (siberia), and viscous mud flats (florida).  at high speed, hitting water is very similar to hitting dirt. I think he meant the g-forces from the initial disintegration of the orbiter. I think the force of the air blast traveling at over 3000mph tore them to shreads when the cabin first seperated.

you are assuming the cabin broke up....the folks that think they survived the explosion and were alive for the descent are assuming it didn't

Quoted: Quoted: The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual. just so i'm clear, you'e stating that hitting water at 200+ MPH isn't nearly enough to cause BFT death? i think perhaps you should reconsider this statement, since hitting water at 110mph will kill you virtually every time.  in the annals of skydiving, there are only a few examples of survival from a terminal velocity impact, and those involved highly-yielding surfaces like a 20' snowbank (siberia), and viscous mud flats (florida).  at high speed, hitting water is very similar to hitting dirt.

+1 the surface tension of water is higher than the surface tension of steel IIRC

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual. just so i'm clear, you'e stating that hitting water at 200+ MPH isn't nearly enough to cause BFT death? i think perhaps you should reconsider this statement, since hitting water at 110mph will kill you virtually every time.  in the annals of skydiving, there are only a few examples of survival from a terminal velocity impact, and those involved highly-yielding surfaces like a 20' snowbank (siberia), and viscous mud flats (florida).  at high speed, hitting water is very similar to hitting dirt. I think he meant the g-forces from the initial disintegration of the orbiter. I think the force of the air blast traveling at over 3000mph tore them to shreads when the cabin first seperated.

If that was the case none of the emergency air packs would've been activated.  

I don't believe they were in the shuttle.  I think it was a cover-up; they knew it would blow because Haliburton contracted the SRB's seals to a 3rd-world post-op transvestite minority business, so they faked the boarding.

Fucking useless speculation and rumor. The official report concluded that some of the crew were alive after the shuttle broke up. What more do you need to know?  Sucks to be them, bu I would happily trade places with any of them for a chance to do what they do.

Quoted: I was in Mrs. Baucum's 6th grade math class, I bet you I could walk to the exact spot in the room where I was sitting even 20 years later.

7th grade history, first row, 3rd seat back.

I live about 20 miles or so south of the Cape on the East Coast of FL.  I have watched every shuttle launch that ever happened.  I remember vividly the announcement coming over the intercom that the shuttle was lifting off in 3 minutes.  So as always we made our way out to the back or front of the gym, depending on where we were in the school.  

I was in 7th grade earth science class taking a test.  I was wearing my trendy Miami Vice tshirt and black converse high tops.  I was on the 3rd question of the test when the announcement came.  We followed Mr. Longmuir out to the field and watched the whole thing.  When it blew up Mr. Longmuir said "oh shit, that wasn't supposed to happen".  I knew right then it was not good.  

It was an awful awful day and I remember watching the footage over and over again.  Even as a 7th grader it was hard to watch.  The media coverage was intense for a long time after that.  The dozens of memorial services that followed were equally moving.

All the beaches were patrolled by armed serviceman as the debris washed ashore.  I saw dozens of pieces of it.  But they never let you get close.  Some people stole pieces of it and they were promptly arrested.

I attended a candle light service on the beach.  It was terrible.

They were heroes, every single one of them.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual. just so i'm clear, you'e stating that hitting water at 200+ MPH isn't nearly enough to cause BFT death? i think perhaps you should reconsider this statement, since hitting water at 110mph will kill you virtually every time.  in the annals of skydiving, there are only a few examples of survival from a terminal velocity impact, and those involved highly-yielding surfaces like a 20' snowbank (siberia), and viscous mud flats (florida).  at high speed, hitting water is very similar to hitting dirt. I think he meant the g-forces from the initial disintegration of the orbiter. I think the force of the air blast traveling at over 3000mph tore them to shreads when the cabin first seperated.

The G-forces involved in the orbiter breakup were in all likelihood not enough to kill the astronauts.  NASA estimated somewhere between 12 and 20 g's were involved during the breakup.  That level is survivable, and in fact isn't even likely to cause major injury.  The crew cabin was built more strongly than most of the rest of the orbiter, and wasn't ripped apart by aerodynamic forces the way the rest of the shuttle was.

The crew cabin survived the breakup intact, and can be seen exiting the debris cloud.  There's very little doubt that at least some of the astronauts survived the initial breakup.  What's doubtful is if the were conscious upon impact with the ocean (200 or so g's, which isn't survivable).  They would have blacked out shortly after breakup, as the emergency airpacks weren't designed to supply oxygen at altitude, but rather they were for on-the-pad-emergencies.  Whether or not they regained consciousness after the cabin fell to lower altitudes isn't known.  Another possibility is that the cabin retained pressure after breakup, but given the amount of connections, plumbing, structural damage, etc involved in the crew cabin separating from the rest of the vehicle, it's not too likely that the cabin remained airtight.

Quoted: Quoted: Remember all the NASA jokes? No, I don't.  But I do remember watching Challenger blow up on live TV, in my morning History class (7th grade).  Fuck anyone that made jokes about that crew.

I remember that day as well.

Quoted: I remember watching it live.

So do I.

Quoted: Quoted: NASA failed to build a recovery system for the crew compartment thinking it wouldn't matter anyway if it blew. Now they realize it would matter and don't want us to know how miserably they failed those poor people. Guilty conscience, basically. Any escape system that would have saved the Challenger crew would have been too heavy to launch into space. The escape systems that emerged from the Challenger breakup were stopgap feelgood bullshit that catered to the inexplicable American need to believe that putting people on the end of a giant missile and shooting them at the stars is a safe and routine practice. Much like strapping a man to a nitromethane burning hemi V8 and sending him down a track at 300+mph.. Someone sometime is going to buy the farm doing that shit.

You sir have pretty much summed up all that needs to be said about this.

The Challenger disaster is one of my earliest memories. My dad was involved with making Vandenburg AFB ready as the second shuttle launch site at the time.


I also remember dad taking me to see Enterprise and getting to sit in it... or a simulator... I had a picture much like this hanging in my room growing up.

I remember watching Challenger on TV. I remember dad being very upset when he came home. It literally changed the course of my life since we had to move as a result of the disaster.



I remember how upset my Grandfather was. He told them not to launch. He was on the congressional Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.

In my teens, I volunteered at one of the Challenger Learning Centers



I remember when I heard about Columbia and I ran out of the store I was in charge of... didn't even lock up... into the building next door where I knew there was a bigscreen TV. I saw the images on the screen and fell to my knees.

For those wondering about abort profiles:



I remember reading the orbiter operation manual abort procedures. They were quite thought out whether or not they would be successful. My dad still has these.

Quoted: Quoted: Remember all the NASA jokes? No, I don't.  But I do remember watching Challenger blow up on live TV, in my morning History class (7th grade).  Fuck anyone that made jokes about that crew.

My sentiments as well. I dont see whats funny about it.

That was a good read, well written.

I was in 9th grade at the time and a library assistant. We had it playing on the TV at the time. I had been a NASA & space exploration enthusiast since about the 3rd grade and had wanted to do something space related when I grew up. It was a terrible, shocking day.

Quoted: I can remember this like it was yesterday and you'll have to forgive me for posting at length about it, but I'm trying to pass a kidney stone and it's killing me so I'm a little emotional. I was in the seventh grade with kids who were a year older because I skipped fifth grade. I was that geeky little girl with the stack of books in her arms at all times. My best friends were the teachers because I was *that* girl that *everyone* aims spitballs at. I was the nerd, the geek, the chubby bookworm who sat in the back of the glass and chewed on her hair. At any rate, the prospect of a teacher (and I loved all mine) going into space and a WOMAN teacher at that made me think that I could do ANYTHING. Christa was *real*. She wasn't a movie star, she was an ordinary girl just like me. I remember our Science class followed all the news footage and were assigned projects based on the entire mission for our grade for that cycle. The shuttle launched and we all leaned toward the television like we expected to be sucked in and up with them. It was breathtaking. No one made a sound. You could have heard a pin drop. And I can remember tears streaming down my face before it ever exploded because Christa McAuliffe was carrying MY DREAMS into space with her. And I was flying right there with her. It was such a big deal for school kids to know that one of OUR mentors had become an 'astronaut' so she could teach us all something from outer space. Learning was suddenly so cool. It made teachers something MORE than just flesh and bone for a second ... it made them larger than life. If THAT teacher could go into space, what could MY teacher do? It was headline news and in every paper. Christa McAuliffe was as recognizable as President Reagan. People talked about an average, ordinary woman going into Space like it was the most unbelievable thing in the world and it was. This was your sister, your wife, your mother, your neighbor ... doing something grand and it gave you hope. When the explosion happened ... desks scraped the floor as people pushed away from the television. It was absolutely terrifying. Even before they announced that something had gone wrong ... we knew. Our hearts skipped beats, our mouths fell open, and our brains began to process that we couldn't see the shuttle anymore. The teacher's aide rushed to the front of the room to turn the broadcast off, but our Science teacher overruled her and let us keep watching. I remember that he cried into a handkerchief that had been monogrammed with initials that weren't his and I had never heard a man cry that way in my life. I think he taught all the boys in class that day how to be men. My project for Science class was going to be a solar system rooted in an apple ... because for me ... I believed that the universe would cease to exist without knowledge. My project was already finished and ready to go. What my project became, however, was a headstone that I made out of wood and used my brother's woodburning kit to complete. It simply said 'Dreamers, Believers, and Stars' and listed all the astronauts alphabetically with the exception of McAuliffe and she was at the very top. My Science teacher asked me what my 'theme' was and I said 'remembering'. My niece recently had that same Science teacher and believe it or not, that headstone is in a glass case in his classroom to this day. Even though he only gave me a B for it. To this day, I will stop what I'm doing on January 28th and glance toward Space and remember that the risks we take are usually worth it, even if it doesn't turn out the way you planned. Christa died a dreamer, but she became a star. Sorry for taking up so much bandwidth.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Remember all the NASA jokes? No, I don't.  But I do remember watching Challenger blow up on live TV, in my morning History class (7th grade).  Fuck anyone that made jokes about that crew. My sentiments as well. I dont see whats funny about it.

Wow - I googled space shuttle jokes and up pops this:
www.duckshit.com/space-shuttle-jokes/space-shuttle-jokes.html

On a lighter note - I remember this one from years ago when we were still competing with the USSR:

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 C.

The Russians used a pencil.

Ive been to the Cape a few years ago and stood at the memorial to the fallen astronauts, it is a very powerful piece of earth, not a word was spoken by anyone standing next to me.



Godspeed

Quoted: For those wondering about abort profiles: www.gcs.k12.in.us/bholt/shuttle%20abort%20modes.jpg I remember reading the orbiter operation manual abort procedures. They were quite thought out whether or not they would be successful. My dad still has these.

thank you for posting that.



so



were these suits for use in case of depressurization or were they just for show?

the accident did spawn a redesign of the suits. but did they not test their equipment or what?

Quoted: That sudden stop is a mutha

C'mon, CoC and all.

Quoted: so www.thechallengercenter.com/images/challenger_crew_2.jpg were these suits for use in case of depressurization or were they just for show? the accident did spawn a redesign of the suits. but did they not test their equipment or what?

Those are essentially jump suits, with a partial pressure helmet.  They did not function as pressure suits.

Quoted: Quoted: so www.thechallengercenter.com/images/challenger_crew_2.jpg were these suits for use in case of depressurization or were they just for show? the accident did spawn a redesign of the suits. but did they not test their equipment or what? Those are essentially jump suits, with a partial pressure helmet.  They did not function as pressure suits.

so what exactly were they supposed to accomplish?

Quoted: I can remember this like it was yesterday and you'll have to forgive me for posting at length about it, but I'm trying to pass a kidney stone and it's killing me so I'm a little emotional. I was in the seventh grade with kids who were a year older because I skipped fifth grade. I was that geeky little girl with the stack of books in her arms at all times. My best friends were the teachers because I was *that* girl that *everyone* aims spitballs at. I was the nerd, the geek, the chubby bookworm who sat in the back of the glass and chewed on her hair. At any rate, the prospect of a teacher (and I loved all mine) going into space and a WOMAN teacher at that made me think that I could do ANYTHING. Christa was *real*. She wasn't a movie star, she was an ordinary girl just like me. I remember our Science class followed all the news footage and were assigned projects based on the entire mission for our grade for that cycle. The shuttle launched and we all leaned toward the television like we expected to be sucked in and up with them. It was breathtaking. No one made a sound. You could have heard a pin drop. And I can remember tears streaming down my face before it ever exploded because Christa McAuliffe was carrying MY DREAMS into space with her. And I was flying right there with her. It was such a big deal for school kids to know that one of OUR mentors had become an 'astronaut' so she could teach us all something from outer space. Learning was suddenly so cool. It made teachers something MORE than just flesh and bone for a second ... it made them larger than life. If THAT teacher could go into space, what could MY teacher do? It was headline news and in every paper. Christa McAuliffe was as recognizable as President Reagan. People talked about an average, ordinary woman going into Space like it was the most unbelievable thing in the world and it was. This was your sister, your wife, your mother, your neighbor ... doing something grand and it gave you hope. When the explosion happened ... desks scraped the floor as people pushed away from the television. It was absolutely terrifying. Even before they announced that something had gone wrong ... we knew. Our hearts skipped beats, our mouths fell open, and our brains began to process that we couldn't see the shuttle anymore. The teacher's aide rushed to the front of the room to turn the broadcast off, but our Science teacher overruled her and let us keep watching. I remember that he cried into a handkerchief that had been monogrammed with initials that weren't his and I had never heard a man cry that way in my life. I think he taught all the boys in class that day how to be men. My project for Science class was going to be a solar system rooted in an apple ... because for me ... I believed that the universe would cease to exist without knowledge. My project was already finished and ready to go. What my project became, however, was a headstone that I made out of wood and used my brother's woodburning kit to complete. It simply said 'Dreamers, Believers, and Stars' and listed all the astronauts alphabetically with the exception of McAuliffe and she was at the very top. My Science teacher asked me what my 'theme' was and I said 'remembering'. My niece recently had that same Science teacher and believe it or not, that headstone is in a glass case in his classroom to this day. Even though he only gave me a B for it. To this day, I will stop what I'm doing on January 28th and glance toward Space and remember that the risks we take are usually worth it, even if it doesn't turn out the way you planned. Christa died a dreamer, but she became a star. Sorry for taking up so much bandwidth.

Chelle, that was an eloquently written, moving, heartfelt reply.

I was in 3rd grade when that happened, though I was not at school that day. I was home recovering from a case of pneumonia (which I had almost whipped by then). January 28, 1986 also happened to be my 9th birthday. That only served to make the disaster stand out even more in my mind.

To this day, I can close my eyes and see the astronauts walking out in file, preparing for the mission. I can see the shuttle exploding and the pieces of debris trailing smoke falling earthward. I also vividly remember Reagan's address to the nation. He really helped pull the country together after that very emotionally traumatic disaster.

One of the female astronauts also activated the cabin emergency air... the knobs could onlyhave been manually activated and they were in the "on" position.

Also... several first aid kits had been opened.

I just got home from kindergarten. I can still remember it being a sunny day and running into my house. My mom had the tv on and was recording it with our new VCR. She was worried I wouldn't be home in time to watch it. I saw it.


I think she still has the tape somewhere...

Quoted: One of the female astronauts also activated the cabin emergency air... the knobs could onlyhave been manually activated and they were in the "on" position. Also... several first aid kits had been opened.

I've never heard anything about that...do you have a source?

Quoted: On a related note, there is actually a sci-fi(ish), horror(ish), short story that references the accident, the crew's probable survival (in whatever state) of the fall to the ocean, and the effects on those who played a part in the whole affair. Written by Dan Simmons (of Dhimmitude fame), it is titled, simply: "Two Minutes Fourty Five Seconds" and it was originally published in Omni magazine. I know I'm dating myself when I say I miss Omni! It should still be available in Simmons's short story compendium, "Prayers to Broken Stones". Well worth checking out, as is all of Simmons's work. FluxPrism

LOL, me too!

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The G-forces from the impact weren't nearly enough to kill a healthy individual. just so i'm clear, you'e stating that hitting water at 200+ MPH isn't nearly enough to cause BFT death? i think perhaps you should reconsider this statement, since hitting water at 110mph will kill you virtually every time.  in the annals of skydiving, there are only a few examples of survival from a terminal velocity impact, and those involved highly-yielding surfaces like a 20' snowbank (siberia), and viscous mud flats (florida).  at high speed, hitting water is very similar to hitting dirt. I think he meant the g-forces from the initial disintegration of the orbiter.

Correct, the first part of my post refers to the impact of the pressure wave from the explosion. G-forces inside the cabin are estimated to have peaked at around 12-20g for a very brief instant, then maintained between 3-6g for a few seconds until the orbiter finished disintegrating from aerodynamic effects and the cabin stabilized.

That isn't anywhere near close enough to kill a healthy individual. Probably wouldn't even render any of them unconscious.

Quoted: I think the force of the air blast traveling at over 3000mph tore them to shreads when the cabin first seperated.

Wrong. The cabin was virtually intact. It doubtlessly lost pressure but there's no way anyone was "torn to shreds". Also, the Orbiter itself suffered surprisingly little damage from the explosion itself, it was aerodynamics after the explosion that made it disintegrate. However, when I say "disintegrate" I really mean "come apart like a lego airplane into several large chucks" not "torn to tiny bits". The crew cabin was one of those chunks and was almost intact.

The crew doubtlessly survived the explosion impact and breakup.

Quoted: +1 the surface tension of water is higher than the surface tension of steel IIRC

So? The crew were contained in a high strength cabin that absorbed much of the actual impact force. If you throw someone into a concrete wall at crash test speed they're probably going to be dead right there... Now send them into the concrete wall in a car and watch them get away with minor injuries. These aren't skydivers, they were in a protected crew compartment.

The best estimate for the forces exerted on the crew members inside the cabin is 200g. 200g is not outside the survivability envelope, although not without significant injury. As I said, some, or all of them, probably survived a considerable time after impact. Death was either from internal bleeding, ruptured organs, broken necks (that would be the lucky outcome) or drowning. I think it's safe to estimate the cause of death for the crew was split between all of those.

The real question is if they were conscious or not due to the pressure issue... Debatable either way for the reasons I outlined.

Quoted: The G-forces involved in the orbiter breakup were in all likelihood not enough to kill the astronauts.  NASA estimated somewhere between 12 and 20 g's were involved during the breakup.  That level is survivable, and in fact isn't even likely to cause major injury.  The crew cabin was built more strongly than most of the rest of the orbiter, and wasn't ripped apart by aerodynamic forces the way the rest of the shuttle was. The crew cabin survived the breakup intact, and can be seen exiting the debris cloud.  There's very little doubt that at least some of the astronauts survived the initial breakup.  What's doubtful is if the were conscious upon impact with the ocean (200 or so g's, which isn't survivable).  They would have blacked out shortly after breakup, as the emergency airpacks weren't designed to supply oxygen at altitude, but rather they were for on-the-pad-emergencies.  Whether or not they regained consciousness after the cabin fell to lower altitudes isn't known.  Another possibility is that the cabin retained pressure after breakup, but given the amount of connections, plumbing, structural damage, etc involved in the crew cabin separating from the rest of the vehicle, it's not too likely that the cabin remained airtight.

Very good post and accurate, except you're incorrect about 200g not being survivable... People have survived near that mark and, with medical aid and after the broken bones are healed, returned to normal life. I think it can be assumed most, if not all of them survived the impact and died a few minutes later, from the causes outlined above.

Quoted: They were heroes, every single one of them.

Absolutely.

Is this a photoshop?  I have never seen a picture of a shuttle on the pad at Vandenburg

It really didn't matter if they survived the explosion, since they didn't surrvive the landing....

Just like climbing Everest, it don't count as success if you only make it to the summit... You have to make it back down alive.

just like they used to say...... "if your main chute should fail to open you will have your entire remaining skydiving career to depoy your reserve chute."

Quoted: Is this a photoshop?  I have never seen a picture of a shuttle on the pad at Vandenburg www.murdoconline.net/pics/slc6a-thumb.jpg

No, it's real. That is the Enterprise. I saw it with my own young eyes.

space flight is a risk, a risk that may kill you.  Anyone going to space has to know they may not make it back alive.  It's not a drive down to the neighborhood 7-11 for a six pack.  There is no way NASA could ever afford to make space fligh completely 100% safe.  

200G is survivable…

Kenny Brack did it at 214G…  Impact forces in Formula 1 and NASCAR crashes are typically in the 175-200G range

www.kennybrack.com/pages/personal-info/2003.html