25 Years Ago - The Loss Of Challenger (STS-51-L)

[W4GPL]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfnvFnzs91s

This is one of my earliest childhood memories. I was watching CNN at home with my Mom while she was folding clothes.

And now, 25 years later, we hardly have a manned space program. *sigh*

[kb2crk]

i was in my college dorm room watching the launch when it happened. i could not believe my eyes when it happened.

[ki4itv]

Watching it live.
My jaw hit the floor and I kept waiting for a logical explanation of why what I saw wasn't what actually happenend.
When I found out that the crew probably survived the blast only to fall into the ocean with no hope of rescue, I was absolutely horrified.

[N8YX]

Working as a service manager at a local (to me) appliance shop. Listened to the whole affair through a cheap POS AM/FM radio that had seen better days long before I arrived on the scene.

If we want the heavens, we're going to take risks - and incur losses. Ultimately, the fate of the entire human race hinges on the progress we make in reaching for those stars. It's too bad that most of the decision makers in politics - specifically, those charged with approving research budgets - merely tend to think in terms of their own lifetimes where space exploration is concerned. There are but a few long-term visionaries.

[W1GUH]

And a far bigger shame that the politicians on that day had there heads way, way up RR's ass and ignored those "chicken-shit" engineers who told them that there was a good possibility of a disaster. But those were supply-side, trickle-upon neo-cons who just "knew" the right thing to do, and anyone who's chicken-shit enough to make their living as an engineer was emminently ignorable.

The disaster that day is a perfect metaphor for what those trickle-upon'ers did to the U.S. of A. :(

[KC2UGV]

We watched it live in school. It was a big deal, a plain old teacher going into space. We all thought that meant ANY of us could do it.

When it exploded, everyone just froze.

[ad4mg]

Very sad, I heard about it on the radio. I had taken the day off, and we were four-wheeling at the state fairgrounds, where they were clearing land for what is now parking for the RIR race track.

The shock value was on par with that of the 9/11 attacks.

Jeff mentions this was one of his oldest memories. To put our age difference in perspective, the oldest significant national event I clearly recall was the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

[W4RLR]

I was in my home in a suburb of Madrid when I heard about it on the radio. I rushed back to work as it was an "all hands on deck" situation for AFN. We stayed live with the story for three days.

[NQ6U]

Was working in CATV at the time and was sitting in a room with nine TVs all tuned to different channels. Other than the one tuned to HBO, they were all showing the same thing.

[KG4CGC]

That was about 5 months before I launched my lucrative career in plastics.

A friend and I were listen to the radio and heard the news. Took a second to sink in. When I came to (so to speak) I turned on the TV and was in shock.

You know that feeling at first? Wondering if this is a sick advertising stunt for a movie or something.

[k0ews]

I was in college, sick and in bed. I had the radio on and they cut in with the news. I then turned on the TV, and that's all that was on for the next day or two. Very, very sad. My earliest memories were of the space program; we were living in Merritt Island, FL, during Apollo. My Dad worked for one of the contractors on it. Every neighbor we had, so it seemed, had someone who worked there. There was a sense, back in those days that we could do anything. That national pride we had carried forward from Apollo into the Shuttle age was rocked that day. And, when Reagan went on TV that night, I still remember that speech. It turned out to be one of the finest he gave.

[KG4CGC]

I was in college, sick and in bed. I had the radio on and they cut in with the news. I then turned on the TV, and that's all that was on for the next day or two. Very, very sad. My earliest memories were of the space program; we were living in Merritt Island, FL, during Apollo. My Dad worked for one of the contractors on it. Every neighbor we had, so it seemed, had someone who worked there. There was a sense, back in those days that we could do anything. That national pride we had carried forward from Apollo into the Shuttle age was rocked that day. And, when Reagan went on TV that night, I still remember that speech. It turned out to be one of the finest he gave.
I remember between 1968 and 1971, nearly every kid had space toys. Rockets, capsules, lunar landers. Some were even more futuristic leaning towards colonization of the moon. I distinctly remember one neighbor kid who had a Moon Tractor. Battery operated with foam covered wheels.

[kc7jty]

Mission control, we have a major malfunction.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.duartes.org/img/blogPosts/feynman.jpg&imgrefurl=http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/richard-feynman-challenger-disaster-software-engineering&h=248&w=200&sz=10&tbnid=490TMhDM5eIEwM:&tbnh=198&tbnw=160&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drichard%2Bfeinman%2Bimages&zoom=1&q=richard+feinman+images&usg=__qwVM6NMpE6wooSMiOMXDMVb7R1E=&sa=X&ei=-iZDTYy-IImosAP2w7iNCg&ved=0CBgQ9QEwAg

[ab1ga]

Our workplace had arranged for everybody to have an opportunity to watch the event, so I was in a conference room with about 20 people, eyes fixed on the screen.

I had a feeling something was up when I saw that first puff of dark smoke and the funny-looking sidewards plume, but I never dreamed that it was a harbinger of doom for that crew. For a while I thought I was seeing things until Dan Rather (alone among the covering anchors) also mentioned that first puff but got brushed off at the time.

The SRBs were an unnecessarily risky design; there was a competing bidder for the rocket boosters who would make them locally in one piece, no O-rings needed. But because the winning vendor's facility was in Utah, the SRBs had to be broken into pieces for transport. Your first mistake is your worst mistake.

Everybody tended to overlook the SRBs because they were pretty much mature technology, and the staged combustion liquid fuel motor was the hairy component in the system. I chatted with one of the engineers who worked on that project, and he seemed to feel that it was too big a bet on too new technology to be safe enough for use then.

And while the pressure from above was terrific, I think many of the engineers bleating "I told you so" weren't as vocal as they claimed to be at the time. I can only remember one man, Richard Boisjoly, who expressed his views strongly enough to make an impression, and the result was getting fired and never finding work in the aerospace industry. There may have been others, but Mr. Boisjoly's sacrifice is unique.

An interesting angle on the data used to make the decision is presented in a book by Edward Tufte, "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". In it Tufte shows that the SRBs had had multiple O-ring failures, but that the visual aids used to present the failures hid the role of temperature. He then provides a simple table which shows the relationship neatly. One can imagine that presenting that one table would have changed the decision regardless of the political pressure. There was a component of "Death by PowerPoint" in the mix, even before PowerPoint was being used.

BTW, if you're into scientific data presentation you should definitely check out Tufte's book, it's a classic and a real eye-opener. There are also two subsequent books, but the first one really is a must-read.

73,

[KØWVM]

I was in elementary school and was living in Houston, Texas. That day was a bright sunny day and had a deep blue sky. 25 years later, I am in Nebraska, a little cooler outside and the same type of sky even here. Very ironic!

[KØWVM]

Our workplace had arranged for everybody to have an opportunity to watch the event, so I was in a conference room with about 20 people, eyes fixed on the screen.

I had a feeling something was up when I saw that first puff of dark smoke and the funny-looking sidewards plume, but I never dreamed that it was a harbinger of doom for that crew. For a while I thought I was seeing things until Dan Rather (alone among the covering anchors) also mentioned that first puff but got brushed off at the time.

The SRBs were an unnecessarily risky design; there was a competing bidder for the rocket boosters who would make them locally in one piece, no O-rings needed. But because the winning vendor's facility was in Utah, the SRBs had to be broken into pieces for transport. Your first mistake is your worst mistake.

Everybody tended to overlook the SRBs because they were pretty much mature technology, and the staged combustion liquid fuel motor was the hairy component in the system. I chatted with one of the engineers who worked on that project, and he seemed to feel that it was too big a bet on too new technology to be safe enough for use then.

And while the pressure from above was terrific, I think many of the engineers bleating "I told you so" weren't as vocal as they claimed to be at the time. I can only remember one man, Richard Boisjoly, who expressed his views strongly enough to make an impression, and the result was getting fired and never finding work in the aerospace industry. There may have been others, but Mr. Boisjoly's sacrifice is unique.

An interesting angle on the data used to make the decision is presented in a book by Edward Tufte, "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". In it Tufte shows that the SRBs had had multiple O-ring failures, but that the visual aids used to present the failures hid the role of temperature. He then provides a simple table which shows the relationship neatly. One can imagine that presenting that one table would have changed the decision regardless of the political pressure. There was a component of "Death by PowerPoint" in the mix, even before PowerPoint was being used.

BTW, if you're into scientific data presentation you should definitely check out Tufte's book, it's a classic and a real eye-opener. There are also two subsequent books, but the first one really is a must-read.

73,

And the government or affiliated agency habitually goes for the cheapest bidder too. So, the risk is there and usually sooner or later the loss of life is going to come into play as it has a few times. When will they learn?

[ab1ga]

And the government or affiliated agency habitually goes for the cheapest bidder too. So, the risk is there and usually sooner or later the loss of life is going to come into play as it has a few times. When will they learn?

They don't go for the low bidder out of habit, but out of necessity. Although the Federal Acquisition Regulations stipulate that the selection of a vendor must provide the greatest value for the government, any procurement official who goes with other than the low bid had better have a compelling reason. In the case of the SRBs, Morton Thiokol had an acceptable record of performance, and had they not been selected the Congressional delegation of that state would have made sure there was blood on the walls.

[W3WN]

I was the Network Admin in the computer lab at CCAC Allegheny that day. Standing by the software desk talking about something with two instructors when I suddenly stopped, and said "did I just hear on the (background) radio that the Challenger exploded?"

The most amazing thing about the space program to date is that the US has "only" lost three crews in roughly 50 years of manned space travel. It does make you wonder if NASA has been too cautious over the years. Not that I want to see any more deaths or tragedies (who does?) but either they've been statistically lucky, or have expended a fortune in minimizing risk -- instead of accepting the risk and push forward.

[KC2UGV]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPYmSdyVZc

[N5RLR]

I was a new dad, working in a bodyshop with my nose buried in a '65 Thunderbird getting its convertible top* working again. I took a break and went into the office to find my sister, the shop coordinator, in tears. Minutes before she'd heard on the radio that Challenger had exploded.

A gentleman running a battery business out of an unused bay of the shop had a small B&W TV, and we watched the coverage and recap on it. Needless to say that everyone was in utter disbelief.

I wouldn't see the like again until 9/11, 15 years later.

* * * * * * * * * * *

* -- The T-Birds and Lincolns of that era had soft convertible tops that folded into the trunk area, with a filler panel between the decklid and rear seat. This made for a very sleek appearance when the top was stowed. The system used 3 motors, 7 limit switches, and 8 relays. Beautiful when it worked.