
Space Shuttle Mission Archives – Challenger, January 28, 1986 - DiabloD3
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-51L.html
======
brianstorms
What a day. I vividly remember it. I was at work. It was morning. Suddenly I
remembered that day was a shuttle launch, and in those days there was a 900
number (yes, 900) you could call called "Dial-a-Shuttle" and so I dialed it.
From my desk at work. All it did was connect you to the official audio feed of
NASA. Which on launch days meant you heard the same audio that you'd hear if
you were watching NASA-TV.

I dial. It rings. It connects. There's staticky air, like a radio signal that
is quiet, nobody talking on it, but the mic is hot. Suddenly a voice says,
"Roger, go at throttle up." Then there is a click, a strange click sound,
which to this day I shudder to recall. A loud clicking sound like someone
turned off a switch. A very long pause, and then the voice of NASA saying
something like "well obviously we've had a malfunction"... and over the next
minute or three it becomes clear that the shuttle exploded within 5 seconds of
my dialing Dial-A-Shuttle. I heard the "Roger, go at throttle-up" and ... the
click.

I've never forgotten the moment.

~~~
tragomaskhalos
I have a (rather morbid) book containing cockpit voice recording transcripts
from plane crashes, and it includes the Challenger transcript. Directly after
that "roger go at throttle up", pilot Michael Smith says "Uh Oh", the final
thing it captures. There is nothing else to indicate they were aware of any
problem, which is some consolation I suppose.

~~~
Asparagirl
"The separation of the crew compartment deprived the crew of Orbiter-supplied
oxygen, except for a few seconds supply in the lines. Each crew member's
helmet was also connected to a personal egress air pack (PEAP) containing an
emergency supply of breathing air (not oxygen) for ground egress emergencies,
which must be manually activated to be available. Four PEAP's were recovered,
and there is evidence that three had been activated."

In other words, at least some of the astronauts may have survived the initial
explosion, although they likely lost consciousness in the two minutes and
forty-five seconds before the crew compartment hit the water.

Source:
[http://www.spaceacts.com/howdied.htm](http://www.spaceacts.com/howdied.htm)

------
xhcx9
The investigation into the accident can be read here
[http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/genindex.htm](http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/genindex.htm)

It's very much worth reading, although some of the dialog can be a little dry.

Appendix F (
[http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm](http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm)
) was authored by Richard Feynman and provides a flavour for the rest of the
report, if you don't have time to read it all.

~~~
kej
There's a great chapter about Feynman's role in the investigation in _Surely
You 're Joking, Mr. Feynman_. It gives some insight into the process of
investigating something like this that isn't always apparent in the reports
themselves.

~~~
jackcarter
It's actually in _What Do You Care What Other People Think_. About half the
book is dedicated to it, and it's an incredible read.

------
jcadam
I was in first or second grade (can't recall which). This was back in the old
days when teachers would roll out the A/V cart and put space launches on the
TV for the class to watch (because it was science-y and half of the kids
wanted to be astronauts).

I remember seeing the explosion, and the TV being turned off rather quickly.

~~~
th0ma5
Yes this is my recollection as well, on an A/V cart. I was supposed to be at
recess, but my teacher said I could stay in the classroom to watch it. It was
me a couple of other kids. I remember saying "huh, it blew up" and the other
kids got very mad at me saying it didn't, and I was very very sad to be
correct. We then just went back out to recess.

------
clamprecht
My parents remember where they were when John F. Kennedy was killed. For me, I
remember exactly where I was when the Challenger exploded. They announced it
on our middle school PA system. It was a weird feeling.

~~~
erbo
They announced it on my high school's PA system, during my second-period
civics class. Following that class was our morning break; I went immediately
to the classroom for my next class, physics. A number of people were there
already, huddled around a boom box that was tuned to a news station reporting
on the accident. I didn't actually see the footage until I got home from
school that day.

Always thereafter, when watching a Shuttle launch, I would be (at least
figuratively) holding my breath between the "go at throttle up" call and SRB
separation.

 _Yet the gods do not give lightly of the power they have made,_

 _And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid,_

 _Though a nation watched them falling, yet a world could only cry,_

 _As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky!_

\- From "Fire in the Sky," written by Jordin Kare

------
c0ur7n3y
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjol)

How can we, as engineers, learn from this so that similar things don't happen
on our watch?

[http://www.webcitation.org/651nnfKDv](http://www.webcitation.org/651nnfKDv)

~~~
theorique
typo:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly)

------
InclinedPlane
Here's a highly relevant essay, "The Thermocline of Truth", which has
applicable lessons to any organization but is especially applicable to
software: [http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-
the-t...](http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-
themocline-of-truth/)

It's so easy for truth to be lost when communicating between widely disparate
"levels" in large organizations, but more often than not there is a reckoning
when perception and reality come into sharp conflict, and reality will always
win.

------
spdustin
I was in the fifth grade, living in central Florida. Everyone in our school
was watching, it was just something our school always did. Fragments of the
memories remain, but they are strong ones. Hearing "major malfunction" from
the NASA audio. Tom Brokaw saying something about it being, "the
understatement of the year." Crying, with nearly every other human in sight,
at the vision of the split condensation and smoke trails in the sky. Going
home early.

Still stings to think about it.

------
pjungwir
I saw it on T.V. in elementary school. My teacher was something like a semi-
finalist to be aboard. We'd been doing class projects all year as part of the
competition.

------
CapitalistCartr
I was in the military then. I remember that morning vividly. Until then the
Shuttle seemed a crowning achievement.

~~~
chiph
So was I. I was working in job control and we had the TV on to watch the
launch. After it was obvious that the shuttle was destroyed, the NCOIC called
the Colonel, who then ordered all the units facilities secured. A few minutes
later the General in charge of the base ordered the security police to lock
the gates and defensive postures to be taken. Once higher command confirmed
there was no hostile action involved, the gates were opened and people living
off base (civilians, military with housing allowance) could go home.

------
pgrote
29 years. Wow.

I sort of expected better space craft by now.

Do the space shuttles continue to evolve had their been no accidents?

~~~
mikeash
SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Dragon 2 are better in a lot of ways. The Dragon 2 isn't
quite flying yet nor has Falcon 9 demonstrated its reusable capabilities, but
I think it's close enough to count now. It's not as capable in some ways (you
probably couldn't do something like the Hubble servicing missions with one,
and definitely couldn't bring satellites back to Earth) but substantially
cheaper and should be much better in the reusability department.

Falcon 9 should be about 90% reusable within the next few months (the first
stage will be reused, the second stage will be thrown away, but the vast bulk
of the rocket is in the first stage) and Dragon 2 should be reusable from the
start.

It should also be a lot safer since the entire Dragon 2 capsule can fly away
from the rocket if it starts to explode. If a Challenger-like scenario
happened there somehow, everyone would most likely survive, and you'd just
need a new $50 million (roughly) rocket for the next shot.

Progress has been slow, but it's still there.

~~~
fredgrott
to give you an idea.. the Saturn V engines are somewhat only a generation away
from the V1 in WWII

~~~
mikeash
I assume you mean the V2? The V1 was basically a UAV using a (weird) air-
breathing engine.

------
RohanAlexander
I recently read 'The Challenger Launch Decision' by Diane Vaughan [0]. It
looks at the organizational structure that led to the Challenger disaster. If
you're interested in learning more about the background to the launch, and the
lessons for any complex project, then it's well worth reading.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Challenger-Launch-Decision-
Technol...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Challenger-Launch-Decision-
Technology/dp/0226851761)

------
mongol
First, this happened. In Sweden, our Prime Minister was murdered one month
after this. Two months after that, Chernobyl happened. It was an eventful
start of the year.

------
TheOtherHobbes
I know someone who worked as an engineer on one of the incarnations of the
ISS.

I told her I thought a ride in the shuttle would be a fun birthday present.

"You'll never get me up in that thing," she said. "I've seen the plans."

I also remember New Scientist running a feature with a ball-park statistical
risk assessment of the entire program, which estimated that if nothing changed
two vehicles would be lost before the program ended.

So... tragic. But predicted. And so nearly avoidable.

------
matt_morgan
I saw the news on a chalkboard in LeConte Hall at UC Berkeley, going to class
or Physics Lab, perhaps. I was 17 ... what a loss of innocence.

------
ninive
Sounds a real odd memory. First cause I was almost ten, sick from a strong
flu, and resting in my grandma bed to let her assist me as a child. Got my
first Polaroid camera as an anticipated birthday gift, and being inside the
same engineer i am now, i was ready to shot the Shuttle with an instant. And
in a matter of seconds, it blows up crew included. An incredible sad day.

------
Agustus
Reading through the report, it becomes clear that there needs to be an idiot
assessment officer, similar to the gimp in Pulp Fiction. Their role, filled by
a layperson with a rudimentary knowledge of engineering, will be to be kept
completely away from any decisions that are not critical to a mission, they
will be knowledgeable only to those that are critical. If the IAO does not
understand something even for a moment, then it is the responsibility of the
engineers and managers to either refine it or go back to the drawing board.
Verbiage should be clear and concise:

If it is colder than 50 degrees fahrenheit outside, do not launch. IAO would
say: "what temperature is it outside? 50 degrees?" Runs over to the abort
launch button.

Reading the Challenger O-ring process and its reduction in perceived danger as
it progresses up the management ladder reminds me of reading Tufte's
discussions on the Columbia failure ([http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-
a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...](http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-
msg?msg_id=0001yB)).

The engineering for parts is amazing, but it is so easy to make things "within
specification." The section where a part was reduced from 1-R critical but
with redundancy to 1 without redundancy juxtaposed against the blow-by that
occurred on multiple occasions strikes at the heart ethics.

~~~
hobs
As long as the person was paid more for every time they aborted the mission,
that sounds perfect.

