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“Obviously a major malfunction”
On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded and disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean killing seven crew members. More on the Challenger disaster here. 15 comments to “Obviously a major malfunction” |
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Those words were spoken twenty-three years ago today by Mission Control right after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral before they knew the full extent of the disaster. I don’t know why I remember those words, but I do to this day.
The day NASA lost it’s innocence. It was a day when the perfect storm of cold weather and many layers of bad choices came together.
NASA had been noting little failures in the rubber o-rings on the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB). The “solution” was to test the o-rings with more pressure. This was to make the problem worse. Plus the design of the joint at the moment of ignition, the sudden pressurization of the SRBs made the o-ring seal worse.
Now add to that the cold weather that morning made the o-rings even stiffer in the joints.
The maker of the Orbiter wanted the launch scrubbed for fear that the ice that covered the launch pad would be sucked into the Orbiter and damage the tiles on the bottom of the Orbiter.
Two at the maker of the SRBs wanted the launch scrubbed because of a fear that the o-rings wouldn’t seal due to the cold.
Senior NASA managers managed to get both “NO GOES” turned into GOES.
Challenger launched as scheduled.
A little leak on one SRB was seen just after launch. It quickly re-sealed.
Then as Challenger hit the point of maximum dynamic pressure, it went through a hard wind shear. The leak started again and quickly got worse and worse. The leak just happened to be at just the right angle to hit a strut holding the SRB to the External Tank (ET) and the bottom of the ET. At almost any other angle, this wouldn’t happen.
At 73 seconds a double failure. The strut holding the SRB failed. The SRB swung ripping a wing off of the orbiter and the nose punched a hole in the O2 tank at the top of the tank. At the same time the bottom of the H2 tank failed dumping it’s contents. That started the huge fire ball we remember.
The orbiter plunged into this fireball. The front windows blew in. It wasn’t until fully into the fireball that the orbiter failed and broke up.
Tragically, the crew section stayed intact. Two and maybe five of the seven crew members responded to the sudden decompression of the crew section by switching to their emergency O2.
For almost three minutes this section tumbled slowly as it fell back to the ocean. It hit the ocean at between 200 to 300 MPH. This and not the fireball is what killed the Astronauts.
The crew couldn’t bail out as the didn’t have any parachutes or even a way to stabilize the crew section.
Today, this would still be a fatal accident. Why? Yes, the crew now wears parachutes at launch. The crew section will still tumble. It would be all but impossible to get to the hatch, open it, and bail our while it is tumbling.
NASA still needs to install a modest drogue parachute at the rear of the crew section in the payload bay. In a breakup of the orbiter like this at launch, the drogue would automatically deploy after a 15 to 30 second delay. With a stable crew section, the crew would now have a chance to open the hatch and bail out.
Guard SGT (ret)
I didn’t even read the rest of the article to type this. I have done much reading.
I remember when I found out. I knew someone who was taking a class at VSU and their teacher was one of the finalist to be chosen to go.
We had one of her fellow professors go into her class and take her outside to tell her.
I’ve never seen anyone react that way to avoiding being in the middle of a disaster, but in a very odd way, how she reacted is how everyone else felt.
Years later, I talked to her about it and dammit.
Just dammit.
Thank You for that Guard SGT, was anyone held responsible for the lack of judgement?
I was just a wee kid in elementary school, but home sick that day. I remember watching TV live and witnessing that. It was strange.
Somewhat related, the latest accident, I was on my way to work listening to public radio which carried the landing feed live. I listened as communication all the sudden ceased and all that was heard were the eery beeps.
Those were the only two launches/landings I ever saw or listened to live. Needless to say, I won’t be watching or listening to any more in the future.
KLAW, in the tone I think you are asking, the answer is no. No one was legally tried for any criminal wrong doing.
There was a fairly good sized shake up in the management at NASA. And many policies were changed, for a while.
The Columbia disaster caused more changes. And lessons to be relearned.
But I don’t know if NASA has changed enough to have gotten the message.
Manned spaceflight is dangerous. But so is flying and driving. And we continue to do both. The needs of man out way the risks.
Manned space flight will go on even with the loss of another manned mission. And someday it will happen again.
Guard SGT (ret)
Those words are burned into memory for me as well.
I was home sick from school that day. I watched it on TV, but I only vaguely remember it. I wasn’t aware of much going on around me, actually.
I was standing in line at a bank watching on a TV on the wall. Everything stopped for seemed like 10 minutes with all of us watching in horror.
I was on a jobsite in Naples, Florida. We stopped work to watch the launch. After it blew up we walked back into a building in total shock. We told some of the people in the building what happened. One of the guys there said, “who gives a f*ck!” Well I did and I ended up getting arrested that day after f*cking that guy up pretty bad. He really pissed me off.
Did some community service on that one. Judge said I had to learn not to be a bull in a china shop.
That’s how I remember that sad day. It was worth geting arrested for though.
I was in Jr high school about 40 minutes away from the cape, and we went outside to watch it, I will never forget looking up and seeing it explode.
When I as a kid I used t get up early to watch Columbia take off (we had recently moved to the city and had gotten cable). I was up early before school that morning. A friend’s mom was picking us up for school that morning, so I was already dressed and eating breakfast when I saw the explosion. It didn’t quite sink in at first – I was in 5th grade. When I got into the van I told everyone that the space shuttle had exploded. I was chastised and told to stop lying or my mom would be informed. I insisted, but was yelled into silence. I can’t say that I was glad to be right, but the van got really quiet when the report came over the radio.
Like some of the others here, I too was watching live from my classroom. I remember watching every prior shuttle launch just like this. Everyone made it a special occasion and the country came to a halt for a few minutes before and after launch.
My most vivid memory of that day is the sudden hush that fell across the room as we stared at the screen. It wasn’t until a couple of minutes after the explosion that realization began to dawn on us and we spent the next few days in utter disbelief. All four of my schools science teachers had applied to be in the shuttle that day. I remember their disappointment when they told us none of them had been selected. That day I could see the mix of thankfulness and guilt on their faces. I’m convinced that many of the teachers who applied to go on that mission have at least a twinge of survivor’s guilt. Though, I never really understood why.
I remember, though not as vividly as Challenger, the morning Columbia broke up over Texas. My wife and I were still asleep. My dogs went absolutely nuts and woke us up. We walked outside and watched events unfold from there. Again, realization took a while to set in. I still hear the roar of the wreckage it streaked across the Texas sky. It’s haunting.
The Challenger never exploded. The boosters disintegrated due to structural failure and the shuttle crashed to Earth.
Jimbo:
I must correct you. The SRBs never disintegrated as you claim. They were destroyed by the launch safety officer at T+110.25 seconds after launch. That is almost 37 seconds after the “explosion.” This was done by detonating the SRB self destruct charges.
The shuttle Challenger fell into the Atlantic Ocean in a great many pieces. It broke up in the fireball that resulted from the structural failure of the External Tank.
Technically there wasn’t an explosion. The fireball that resulted resulted from the release of both liquid hydrogen and oxygen. It was most correctly described as extremely rapid burning of these two fuels. Now I will admit that this is a bit of hair splitting.
Challenger did contain a large amount of fuel for the OMS and thrusters. Many of these tanks ruptured and the fuels were part of the fireball.
I hope this helps to clear things up for you!
Guard SGT (ret)
Thanks for the elaboration. I was just paraphrasing since there was indeed no actual “explosion” in the traditional sense, and no explosion to the shuttle itself.
I meant to say the cockpit crashed to Earth, not an intact shuttle, and either the G-forces, lack of oxygen, or ground impact killed the crew.
I remember this primarily from an Engineering class in college. This was one of the more memorable test cases we discussed, along with the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse.