The arrogant negligence of administrators to overrule the concerns of the engineers is what makes it worse as it shows incompetence and willful ignorance at the top puts innocent lives at risk.
The space shuttle blew up the crew was not killed. They were blew out in a protective titanium shielded box that protected the crew and all of the crew turned on their emergency oxygen tanks and they were killed when they hit the water going about 250 miles an hour, and there’s other things online that explain this much better than I can
One of the worst written & poorly researched commentaries about the space program and in particular the Challenger disaster. Why would anyone waste their time creating this bullshit, to anyone who's familiar with what happened, this is such rambling nonsense. First of all, there had been 9 "O" ring failures and burn throughs of the SRB joints previous to the Challenger explosion, but luckily they had been in non-critical areas. Thaikol engineers knew of the "O" ring failures in temperatures ranging from 54 degree F to 71 degrees F, Thaikol redesigned the "O" rings & joints to eliminate the failures, but NASA wanted to use up the assembled SRB's to save money. NASA flight directors were told of Thiakol engineers concerns launching in cold weather, NASA told Thiakol it was their decision and asked about their concerns. Thiakol management told their engineers to "their management hats on" and clear the SRB's for flight. The real problem I have is that both NASA and Thiakol absolutely knew of the 9 previous "O" ring failures, but NASA kept asking for hard data and proof as a reason to delay the launch. In later interviews, Roger B from Thiakol thought the SRB would explode at ignition and when it didn't, he said "we dodged another bullet", obviously that changed at the 73 second mark when the SRB strut failed and impacted the MET. The failures in NASA & Thiakol's management cultures was horrific and ended up killing 2 Shuttle crews.
While I do see what you're saying we also have to consider that history does get shifted around a lot, so I wouldn't say its a terrible video. Perhaps, in the future they may correct their misinformation, which some channel have. I would say, if you did feel they weren't doing what you feel they should do. You could also do the research, video work, and commentary too.
Challenger and Columbia were both lost because NASA accepted deviations when they did not result in an accident so those events became the "new normal" for acceptable deviation until the day that the deviations caught up with them. Exactly the same condition that caused the B-17 crash at the airshow recently. This is why a deviation in flight safety should never be acceptable just because you got away with it before. When you get away with a deviation it does not mean your standards were too stringent, it just means you got lucky once and you cannot rely on luck to keep saving your bacon. Spaceflight is already hazardous enough without accepting additional risks because you were lucky before.
Soon as I saw the word horrific in the title I knew it was going to be BS. But first I read the comments and they confirmed my initial thoughts. Don't waste your time watching this crap.
I learned years ago.....prior to watching ANY video, I scan ahead and check out the comment section first. Often saves a lot of time watching a poorly assembled video....just as I did this one! BHE
Wasn't launch control. It was the heads at NASA that ignored the Morton-Thiokol engineer's warnings. Morton-Thiokol BEGGED the NASA headshed to delay the launch...they refused. Launch Control, which is ONE department within that mechanism had ZERO visibility on Morton-Thiokol's concern's and recommendation's. This CRIME rests SQUARELY on NASA leadership. THEY REFUSED TO LISTEN to M-T.
It wasn't launch control's decision, it was NASA management putting pressure on Morton Thiokol to approve the SRBs to operate at significantly lower temperatures than they were tested for. The blame is squarely on NASA management's shoulders.
Astronauts White, Chaffee & Grissom lost their lives preparing for Apollo 1. So, No. The Challenger mission was not the 1st "...loss of life during a NASA mission."
@@MRCAGR1 it was meant to fly some time in 1967 (if i remember correctly) but during some early test there was an electrical issue which sparked the pure oxygen environment inside the capsule while astronauts where inside.
The video omits an important element of the Challenger story. When the solid rocket boosters were being assembled it was found that the round segments of the casing had been distorted during the water impact and were not longer perfectly circular. The segments did not fit well together and had to more or less be forced into position to complete the assembly work. I think this was, in conjunction with the low temperatures, to be the cause of the malfunction.
In this regard it's worth noting that for the SLS, NASA has discarded the notion of trying to recover and reuse the SRBs. Now everything is going to be thrown away after one use - SRBs and main engines in addition to the core stage fuel tanks, sufficient proof that the reusability ideas for the Space Shuttle did not work out as theorized.
@@3dartistguy From what I understand, they had to be built in sections in order to be transported via rail from Morton Thiokol in Utah to their launching site. They couldn't go in one piece vertically, and transporting the boosters horizontally led to mechanical problems. Before the Space Shuttle no solid rocket motors were ever used on a launch vehicle rated to carry humans.
@@takashitamagawa5881 well it was a very poor design then. too bad the space shuttle didnt take off like a plane, achieve orbit, and than actually land like a plane as originally envisioned. I rememer at the time, my science teacher wasnt interested in the teacher in space program because he must have known about the poor design of the solid rocket boosters.
YES, then so should've been Reagan. There was tremendous backstage pressure from the Reagan administration on NASA to get the Challenger off the ground so Reagan could brag about his pet project "teacher in space" during his state of the union speech scheduled for that very night. NASA botched the opportunities to launch on previous several days with much better weather conditions when they had equipment problems, including the previous day, a perfect day for a launch, where they had a stuck crew access hatch handle. By the time they managed to free it by drilling it out, the launch window had passed already. So, on January 28th, the day of Reagan's state of the union speech, they had no choice but to launch come hell or high water to please the president so he could brag. Well, as it turned out, Hell came.
@@MegaSunspark Dr. Feynman looked into this accusation himself and found it baseless. You can read his first person account of his time on the Rogers Commission in his book, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" A fascinating read.
Aye! HORROR "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, CIA Director ...CHILD ABUSE
For those of us who grew up in the area, whose families worked at the Cape, and watched every launch live, this tragedy with the highly promoted teacher on board was next level... And even we were shocked they launched in such weather! RIP Astronauts 🙏🕊️
I was one of those school kids who watch this live. At about 13 years old I had no clue as to the seriousness of what I was looking at but it's hard now not feel sick and want to cry every time I see something about it
I was in high school. I heard about it when I walked into algebra class, but I didn't believe it at first when other students said the space shuttle blew up. Then a teacher came in and gave us the news.
I watched it live in school. The teacher instinctively turned the TV off and the principal got on the intercom and asked all the teachers to turn it back on. So much confusion.
There was indication, quite early in the flight, that something was amiss. The combustion pressure in the defective booster was low, giving a clue that there was a leak. However, traditional thinking was that a case breach would lead to an immediate explosion, so they assumed it was an indication issue. They were, of course, wrong.
The amazing thing was that the flight computers were about as powerful as a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer. Remember, this thing was designed in the 1970's and that was a high tech computer at the time. From a documentary I watched, the computers were removable, about the size of a large briefcase, and they carried a bunch of them on board in case one failed, the next one failed, the next one failed, and so forth. They had backups for the backups.
I’ll never forget that tragedy. I was watching at home with my family. We were all so excited counting down and everything. Then ended up in shock about what we were seeing. Crying and screaming. I was only 6 years old.
CHILD ABUSE,,"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, CIA Director ...
Before the accident happened, there were a number of problems that delayed the launch. One delay that really shocked me was that they needed a part for the door, but the "store was closed." WTF? 🤯 Couldn't someone with AUTHORITY open that NASA store? If I were the head of NASA and some store manager told me, "The store is closed", I would have FIRED them right away. I don't care if it's 3 am, WAKE TF up! 😡 I have a clear memory of my outrage. I was 19 when this happened.
@ronnieterry4916 and arrogant cnuts like Linda Ham were promoted after the Columbia disaster. The sick part is the crew could have survived if Linda had allowed multiple offers from American assets to image Columbia and see the damage to the RCC. Unfortunately Linda turned down offers from NRO, CIA, Hubble, USAF and others to image the damage to Columbia. Another issue was the foam that broke off the MET and caused the hole in the RCC was a last minute addition and completely unnecessary. One other thing people don't talk about is why Columbia was brought home on a standard high heat entry profile, rather than a low heat reentry that starts the reentry interface over Australia.
Back in 1976 when I took a class in Aviation safety the subject of the Space Shuttle came up. It was still in development. Our instructor was a Colonel Stevens Ret., who had worked with Chuck Yeager in the USAF Office of Safety, which Yeager ran. He predicted the Challenger disaster because short cuts had been taken with the design and warnings to NASA ignored.
No one screams 'safety' until disaster strikes. Until then safety engineers, officers or specialists are the villians who "slow things down", create inefficiencies, run-up costs, etc. A flight delay due to thunderstorms is a "delay" not a "safety hold". I spent a career in anesthesiology rarely postponing surgeries for additional heart or lung or diabetes data only to be castigated by surgeons, administrators or (especially) patients. The Michael Jacksons and Joan Rivers of the world never knew what hit 'em.
As a Gen X I can say we knew quickly just how horrible it was. It came out rather quickly that the Astronauts were alive for the entire fall back to earth.
There are indications that at least SOME of the crew were functional/coherent post breakup of the orbiter stack (attempts to restore power to the cockpit via toggled switches and a couple of emergency oxygen switches activated)... but they were already high enough that they were beyond the altitude of survivable environmental conditions and the cabin interior was exposed to the elements from the breakup. Had they somehow survived the LOX fireball eruption of the ET and the massive debris field, they would have been quickly rendered unconscious by the g-forces imparted to them by the breakup and by the loss of atmosphere inside the cockpit. While they may have been "alive" (that has never been, nor could be, definitively concluded) they would have all been unconscious at the time that they died instantly from the deceleration g-force of the cockpit's impact with the ocean.
Nothing new in this video; but if you didn't know about what was learned, it'd be OK to experience. However, glaringly missing from this video is the truth that at least 3 of the astronauts were not killed in the blow-up, but 2 min plus later when the crew capsule slammed into the ocean. And several of the crew switched on their reserve oxygen (or had it switched on for them) as the capsule descended at high speed.
Hmm click-bait title. So what exactly was 'way more horrific than people realize' ? How could it be more horrific? It was universally horrible and sad. Silly title. Might give 'Slash Gear' a miss from now on.
"By all metrics, the shuttle program was another success for NASA." Bull. From the very beginning it was not about what the astronauts did, but rather about which demographic boxes NASA was able to check off. The shuttle did not really teach us anything about space that we did not already know. (Neither has the ISS. It's not like it was the first space station with long-term occupancy.) Yes, the shuttle enabled the repair of the Hubble -- but the money wasted on the shuttle could have been used to launch a fleet of Hubbles, and those with larger apertures, too, since they would not have to be scaled down to fit in the Hubble bay. "But the shuttle inspired our kids!" Ask any kid today to name an astronaut currently on the ISS. These are not the Mercury 7, for the same reason a pilot doesn't have to be Lucky Lindy to fly across the Atlantic and no one much cares about the hundreds of people who will climb Everest this year. The shuttle is, I suppose, the only American spacecraft to be used and then discarded not because its replacement took over the job, but because it was understood to be more dangerous than the Russian spacecraft.
Morton Thiokol is still working for NASA today. They changed their name, got sold to another company to conceal who they are, this one was renamed too and merged to another company etc.
@@imtheonevanhalen1557 I know. I studied the matter and the actions of Roger Boisjoly for days. And the management of Thiokol DID launch the Space Shuttle on demand of NASA managemenet, which were too stupid to understand the problem, and believed physics could be intimidated like their employees, for marketing reasons. Wikipedia's Article (search for "Thiokol") says it bluntly: "The company was found at fault for the destruction of Challenger and deaths of the astronauts, as a direct causality from pressure from NASA to launch". In the same article there are listed all the splits and name changes Thiokol company underwent to hide their company history.
It was the director of NASA he bullied everyone! Out of spec launch condtions! Like plugging in a 110 v appliance in a 220 outlet not going to work. I was the process engineer on the advanced solid rocket boosters. 1500 people walked including me. You can see the boosters at Huntsville Al Space Center.
The solid busters were NOT fuel tanks. How did you get that wrong. They are SOLID fuel rockets that are filled as a slurry and it hardens. Then it is ignited and cannot be stopped until all the solid fuel has been used! Ever wonder why Sally Ride had only 1 flight? NASA lost it's way after the Apollo missions.
You're right. The center fuel tank was a fuel tank though, holding liquid hydrogen, and powered the shuttle's actual engines (the three big rockets on the rear). The boosters helped the whole thing get about 10 miles up, and once they were spent and ejected the shuttle's engines took it the rest of the way into space.
NASA has not improved since the challenger tragedy as the debacle of the Starliner has occurred because of the poor decision made at the top during launch. The Starliner has shown several helium leakages prior to launch which have occurred multiple times before that as Boeing could not repaired it permanently. Yet, NASA approved the launch of the Starliner thinking that the problem was not “serious enough” to cancel the launch.
I remember that morning. I was in school. We had just spent the previous three weeks building a paper model of the shuttle as a class. As soon as the shuttle exploded, well, as soon as the teacher realized what had happened, she just shut off the tv, and we started math. And that was that. We all knew what happened, but it was a different time. I think we all grieved in our own way. It was a big deal. It made it all over the news. Nobody ever talked to us about it. They didn't need to I guess.
Given that the Apollo 1 fire, Challenger's loss, and Columbia's loss (17 lives) were all inside the atmosphere, I'd suggest that space is looking like the easy part of the trip. Scientists are overlooking something that we all take for granted: air.
I was in 4th grade when this happened. It was an incredibly cold time for Florida and we were having snow like conditions in central Florida. The destruction of the shuttle was so bad that we were all allowed to go home. I remember the day very well.
Unfortunately NASA hadn't learned their lesson. They knew ice could break off and damage the shuttle's heat shield tiles. They were warned by engineers that the Columbia may have suffered damage to the heat tiles bad enough to cause a catastrophic failure. And again, they didn't heed the warning.
Well, when I was in the USAF during that, the big joke was "Where does NASA send their astronauts on vacation? All over Florida" Or, Christa McCallauf asking "What's that button for?" These were not mere enlisted jokes, my peers, other USAF officers were the worst offenders. Most people these days weren't even born in 1986 and frankly, a lot of people today don't even remember 9/11. Just goes to show how fast history moves.
It wasn't played at my school. I was the one who let staff know it happened. Having afternoon kindergarten I told my teacher when i got to school and she had a shocked look on her face and went to the office and the news spread like wildfire from there.
The investigation took two years. And all shuttle launches were canceled until it was complete. The subsequent Pepcon Disaster in Harrison Arizona was a knock on effect of The Challenger Disaster.
For the TLDR people: there was an engineer who warned his management about the o-ring but they ignored him. Also those potential astronauts survived the explosion and it was the impact with the water that killed them. A parachute would've saved them NASA didn't think it was necessary to put one in the nose of the capsule
I had to check the comments section within 30 seconds to see if people were losing their minds at the fact this is CLEARLY an AI voice reading a poorly "researched" ChatGPT "history lesson" and... yep. This channel should get a channel strike for BS. Sadly, RUclips doesn't care.
In Tufte's book on visual presentations, he plots seal damage versus temperature, which clearly shows the danger, versus Nasa's plot versus mission number that leaves it obscured.
The only way this video could have been any worse would have been if it were longer. Not to self, if you ever see anything coming from "SlashGear", know the thing that's being slashed is solid and reliable research and reporting. This is a travesty. You should be ashamed, but we all know better. If you did, This wouldn't still be up
You’re giving out erroneous information. The challenger was not the first loss of life for NASA, Apollo one was. Do your homework before you start lecturing to everybody and quite frankly there was no revelations in this rather boring unnecessary video, which is why your reviews are so great.
My opinion. Part of the responsibility falls on congress. When NASA first proposed the shuttle it was a beautiful craft. The Rolls Royce of space at the time. Then each year the budget was cut. NASA and their contractors were forced to start cutting corners. In the end we ended up with what we got. A Yugo of space. While it did it's job there was always a lot of problems. If we want to keep man in space we can't cut corners .
They new about heat shield damage from insulation breaking off the main fuel tank during launch before the second incident ass well and did nothing to fix the design problem !
I hope they won't allow pride to influence the right decision about Starliner. If it can bring the astronauts safely, so be it. If not, they should make the right call.
Of course there are big risks, but the Challenger crew could've completed their mission successfully if the management listened to the engineers. They rushed it with full knowledge of the O-ring problem. That's why I hope they won't risk again.
Yea, I don't think this video really captures the true effect this event had on people at the time. There were months of build up to it, tons of excitement, and back then seeing a true disaster unfold on television wasn't nearly as common as it is today. I was in the 6th grade walking between my school gym and my home room and could probably still put you within 10 ft of the spot I was standing when I heard.
Challenger was not the first loss of life in the agency. Grissom, White and Chaffee burned in their capsule. Their Gemini capsule a top the launchpad during a test run. They died because NASA didn’t bother to have nonflammable materials inside the capsule and other protocols that failed in their rescue Including failure in communications between the inside of the capsule and personnel on the outside
It was so cold, so very unusually cold, that many thought it would be postponed. How often do you see crowds watching a launch in Florida wearing fur overcoats?
And unfortunately, NASA is still making poor judgment calls. Look at the boing space capsule that’s sitting right now on the international space station because of a hydrogen leak which they knew about before launch.
The Energia Buran combo was an improved version of the Space Shuttle concept. Too bad the Americans stuck with Shuttle and didn't cooperate with the Russians to switch to Buran and improve on it. Then these beautiful iconic spacecraft would still be in service.
So many people get it wrong. Challenger did not explode. IT just broke apart. There was no shock wave, no detonation, no "bang" - viewers on the ground just heard the roar of the engines stop as the shuttle’s fuel tank tore apart. Challenger itself was torn apart as it was flung free of the other rocket components and turned broadside into the Mach 2 airstream. And the videos you see where there is a sound of an explosion is because some documentaries added the sound of the explosion to the video.
@@aktchungrabanio6467 My god, someone trying to be rude to someone pointing out facts they once learned at Space Camp. It also helps that I was in school when it happened, so I seen and heard about it first hand. Its funny how 3rd graders now days have to chime in when someone is just trying to be helpful for others who may not know something. Good comment though, gave me a good laugh!!!! 😂😂😂😂
@@dx1450 I have seen the video, several times. I also saw it on tv the day it happened. I also learned about it when I was at Space Camp when I was in high school. It was not an explosion. That is why you also see the booster rockets continue up before NASA sent a signal for them to detonate out of safety concerns. It looked like it exploded but later investigations found no detonation or explosion, which is why there was no explosion sound or shockwave. The fuel tank itself collapsed and tore apart, and the resulting flood of liquid oxygen and hydrogen created the huge fireball believed by many to be an explosion. At Space Camp the instructor used a can of pop as an example. He said the can of pop was the fuel tank. Try to squeeze it and you can't because it is under pressure, like the tank. Pop the top of the can open and the pressure is released, like the hole created in the side of the tank. Tilt it on its side and the pop flows out the hole, like the fuel from the fuel tank. Then try and crush the can. You can now crush (or collapse) it because it is not under pressure anymore. The tank collapsed from the Gforce and the fuel ignited causing the fireball. The shuttle turned broadside into the airstream which caused it to break apart.
And yet Columbia happened for exactly the same reasons. Foam had dislodged during previous mission launches but they had got away with it. It seems the lessons of Challenger were not learnt.
It would have been much more interesting to do a piece on the theory the entire crew of the Challenger actually were never onboard. Some of them still use their real name; another said he's a twin to the astronaut who died, etc. There are articles and photos online.
I was out of school this day, for some reason. My parents delivered the local newspaper and I was helping them, since I was out of school. As we waited just outside the production building, the printing press had just started when some dipshit ran inside shouting "stop the presses!", like he was in some kind of fricking movie. That's when we heard what happened. We waited for hours while the newsroom gathered information and the newspaper was updated with the story.
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. Virgil I. Grissom
There were other problems with the Shuttle not discussed on this NASA because of outside pressure and a lack of proper funding adopted a fly as is attitude and it cost 7 lives well actually 14 as they didn’t learn the first time. What slays me is that NASA acts like the do all tell all when dealing with SpaceX. Who has the better safety record. ?
Garbage story. Move on, thumbs down, don't subscribe. We have to rid youtube of these garbage providers who just regurgitate stuff they google and even get that wrong.
Don't blame that on the WHOLE of the US. MOST of us here in the States LOVE and respect Elon. Don't take our media's word for how the majority of us see him. Most of us here in the States appreciate his genius. Trust me on that.
Peer pressure killed those people 😢 Nobody with the authority had the BALLS to tell the mainstream news they'll have to WAIT. Instead they caved into that peer pressure of millions of people watching on TV. They wanted an AUDIENCE so badly, they got it. 🤦
Umm, no. Delays were common, and this particular mission had already been delayed 4 times! The previous delay was from January 22 to the launch date of Jan. 28.
Doesnt explain why it was more horrific than people realise there is nothing new in this post
The title is 100% clickbait
Thanks! I'm gone.
The arrogant negligence of administrators to overrule the concerns of the engineers is what makes it worse as it shows incompetence and willful ignorance at the top puts innocent lives at risk.
@lu-uf8zj It was Reagan. The flight had been hyped to the sky, and he wouldn't tolerate a third scrub.
The space shuttle blew up the crew was not killed. They were blew out in a protective titanium shielded box that protected the crew and all of the crew turned on their emergency oxygen tanks and they were killed when they hit the water going about 250 miles an hour, and there’s other things online that explain this much better than I can
One of the worst written & poorly researched commentaries about the space program and in particular the Challenger disaster. Why would anyone waste their time creating this bullshit, to anyone who's familiar with what happened, this is such rambling nonsense. First of all, there had been 9 "O" ring failures and burn throughs of the SRB joints previous to the Challenger explosion, but luckily they had been in non-critical areas. Thaikol engineers knew of the "O" ring failures in temperatures ranging from 54 degree F to 71 degrees F, Thaikol redesigned the "O" rings & joints to eliminate the failures, but NASA wanted to use up the assembled SRB's to save money. NASA flight directors were told of Thiakol engineers concerns launching in cold weather, NASA told Thiakol it was their decision and asked about their concerns. Thiakol management told their engineers to "their management hats on" and clear the SRB's for flight. The real problem I have is that both NASA and Thiakol absolutely knew of the 9 previous "O" ring failures, but NASA kept asking for hard data and proof as a reason to delay the launch. In later interviews, Roger B from Thiakol thought the SRB would explode at ignition and when it didn't, he said "we dodged another bullet", obviously that changed at the 73 second mark when the SRB strut failed and impacted the MET.
The failures in NASA & Thiakol's management cultures was horrific and ended up killing 2 Shuttle crews.
most of these videos are just as poorly made
While I do see what you're saying we also have to consider that history does get shifted around a lot, so I wouldn't say its a terrible video. Perhaps, in the future they may correct their misinformation, which some channel have. I would say, if you did feel they weren't doing what you feel they should do. You could also do the research, video work, and commentary too.
I did my research, which is why I know how crappy this video is but i don't have time to do a video. @Lonezewolflonewolf
@@Lonezewolflonewolf this IS the future it's messed up
Challenger and Columbia were both lost because NASA accepted deviations when they did not result in an accident so those events became the "new normal" for acceptable deviation until the day that the deviations caught up with them. Exactly the same condition that caused the B-17 crash at the airshow recently. This is why a deviation in flight safety should never be acceptable just because you got away with it before. When you get away with a deviation it does not mean your standards were too stringent, it just means you got lucky once and you cannot rely on luck to keep saving your bacon. Spaceflight is already hazardous enough without accepting additional risks because you were lucky before.
Soon as I saw the word horrific in the title I knew it was going to be BS. But first I read the comments and they confirmed my initial thoughts. Don't waste your time watching this crap.
I learned years ago.....prior to watching ANY video, I scan ahead and check out the comment section first. Often saves a lot of time watching a poorly assembled video....just as I did this one! BHE
There's got to be a way to stop RUclips from spreading all kinds of mental poison also known as BS.
It must be repeated: Doesnt explain why it was more horrific than people realise. There is nothing new in this post.
And much of what is included is misleading and/or poorly worded.
@@DrMackSplackem Plus, may I add, the video producer is a douche.
The weather was too cold, and outside of the approved range. Gross negligence on the part of the launch control.
Wasn't launch control. It was the heads at NASA that ignored the Morton-Thiokol engineer's warnings. Morton-Thiokol BEGGED the NASA headshed to delay the launch...they refused. Launch Control, which is ONE department within that mechanism had ZERO visibility on Morton-Thiokol's concern's and recommendation's. This CRIME rests SQUARELY on NASA leadership. THEY REFUSED TO LISTEN to M-T.
I blame Reagan. He wanted a hurried launch on
a cold day.
@@leomarkaable1 Freezing in Florida, didn't know that happened until this tragedy.
It wasn't launch control's decision, it was NASA management putting pressure on Morton Thiokol to approve the SRBs to operate at significantly lower temperatures than they were tested for. The blame is squarely on NASA management's shoulders.
Astronauts White, Chaffee & Grissom lost their lives preparing for Apollo 1. So, No. The Challenger mission was not the 1st "...loss of life during a NASA mission."
They do not count as it happened during a test.
Yes, I know, it is nitpicking.
I think Apollo 1 was never meant to be launched, it was a ground test only.
@@MRCAGR1 it was meant to fly some time in 1967 (if i remember correctly) but during some early test there was an electrical issue which sparked the pure oxygen environment inside the capsule while astronauts where inside.
You forgot the Columbia
@@jasonparis5635 That happened way later
The video omits an important element of the Challenger story. When the solid rocket boosters were being assembled it was found that the round segments of the casing had been distorted during the water impact and were not longer perfectly circular. The segments did not fit well together and had to more or less be forced into position to complete the assembly work. I think this was, in conjunction with the low temperatures, to be the cause of the malfunction.
In this regard it's worth noting that for the SLS, NASA has discarded the notion of trying to recover and reuse the SRBs. Now everything is going to be thrown away after one use - SRBs and main engines in addition to the core stage fuel tanks, sufficient proof that the reusability ideas for the Space Shuttle did not work out as theorized.
Thank you for your post. I've never heard this before and it makes perfect sense why the o rings leaked or they didn't seat properly.
@@takashitamagawa5881I’m wondering why they didn’t build the solid rocket boosters in one piece instead of in sections
@@3dartistguy From what I understand, they had to be built in sections in order to be transported via rail from Morton Thiokol in Utah to their launching site. They couldn't go in one piece vertically, and transporting the boosters horizontally led to mechanical problems.
Before the Space Shuttle no solid rocket motors were ever used on a launch vehicle rated to carry humans.
@@takashitamagawa5881 well it was a very poor design then. too bad the space shuttle didnt take off like a plane, achieve orbit, and than actually land like a plane as originally envisioned. I rememer at the time, my science teacher wasnt interested in the teacher in space program because he must have known about the poor design of the solid rocket boosters.
I remember my 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Brown turning the tv off a few minutes after it exploded. This was a huge deal when it happened.
Yep, psy-op to traumatise kids, they're still alive.
@@TONE11111ha ha! Whuut?? Never heard that one! 😂
And, as usual with government/major companies, no one was indicted for involuntary manslaughter.
Shouldn't those administrators be held liable for criminal negligence?
YES, then so should've been Reagan. There was tremendous backstage pressure from the Reagan administration on NASA to get the Challenger off the ground so Reagan could brag about his pet project "teacher in space" during his state of the union speech scheduled for that very night. NASA botched the opportunities to launch on previous several days with much better weather conditions when they had equipment problems, including the previous day, a perfect day for a launch, where they had a stuck crew access hatch handle. By the time they managed to free it by drilling it out, the launch window had passed already. So, on January 28th, the day of Reagan's state of the union speech, they had no choice but to launch come hell or high water to please the president so he could brag. Well, as it turned out, Hell came.
@@MegaSunspark Dr. Feynman looked into this accusation himself and found it baseless. You can read his first person account of his time on the Rogers Commission in his book, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" A fascinating read.
@@MegaSunspark You got owned. Someone with gravitas at the time looked into it. What do you have?
OH, THE HORROR! I learned nothing new. I thought that I was going to learn about what the astronauts experienced after the explosion and breakup.
Aye! HORROR "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, CIA Director ...CHILD ABUSE
For those of us who grew up in the area, whose families worked at the Cape, and watched every launch live, this tragedy with the highly promoted teacher on board was next level... And even we were shocked they launched in such weather! RIP Astronauts 🙏🕊️
I was one of those school kids who watch this live. At about 13 years old I had no clue as to the seriousness of what I was looking at but it's hard now not feel sick and want to cry every time I see something about it
I was in high school. I heard about it when I walked into algebra class, but I didn't believe it at first when other students said the space shuttle blew up. Then a teacher came in and gave us the news.
Life definitely before the internet
Management change worked real well for the Columbia crew didn't it?
I watched it live in school. The teacher instinctively turned the TV off and the principal got on the intercom and asked all the teachers to turn it back on. So much confusion.
I remember seeing it in real time. Took a few minutes to realise what had happened. 😢
Im 45 and i remember as a kid being made to watch this.
I’m 40 years old and was only 2 so I have no memory of this
1986?
As a US Marine I watched it live; it was a cold and sombering day.
Enough said,
No that's not enough said. I wanna know the whole story. The real story.
There was indication, quite early in the flight, that something was amiss. The combustion pressure in the defective booster was low, giving a clue that there was a leak. However, traditional thinking was that a case breach would lead to an immediate explosion, so they assumed it was an indication issue. They were, of course, wrong.
first loss of life? I seem to remember a mission called Apollo 1. 😢 How soon we forget.
Apollo 1 never went ahead because the astronauts died during a test for it.
Yes it was not a “mission” however it is poorly worded making it sound like it was the first loss of life in the American space program.
i was going to a job interview that company also went down in flames
Even if the Space Shuttle was an uneconomic and complicated space craft - i'm missing it. Nothing compares to this 18 wheeler in space.
The amazing thing was that the flight computers were about as powerful as a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer. Remember, this thing was designed in the 1970's and that was a high tech computer at the time. From a documentary I watched, the computers were removable, about the size of a large briefcase, and they carried a bunch of them on board in case one failed, the next one failed, the next one failed, and so forth. They had backups for the backups.
I’ll never forget that tragedy. I was watching at home with my family. We were all so excited counting down and everything. Then ended up in shock about what we were seeing. Crying and screaming. I was only 6 years old.
Flown first in 1977 and still looks like the most futuristic thing ever designed.
Correction 73 seconds i was down there on that fateful day
CHILD ABUSE,,"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, CIA Director ...
Very sad how all those astronauts lost their lives
Before the accident happened, there were a number of problems that delayed the launch.
One delay that really shocked me was that they needed a part for the door, but the "store was closed."
WTF? 🤯
Couldn't someone with AUTHORITY open that NASA store? If I were the head of NASA and some store manager told me, "The store is closed", I would have FIRED them right away. I don't care if it's 3 am, WAKE TF up! 😡
I have a clear memory of my outrage. I was 19 when this happened.
Workers actually lost their jobs. Unlike more recent failures where no one lost a job. Nor did they even receive a slap on the wrist.
@ronnieterry4916 and arrogant cnuts like Linda Ham were promoted after the Columbia disaster. The sick part is the crew could have survived if Linda had allowed multiple offers from American assets to image Columbia and see the damage to the RCC. Unfortunately Linda turned down offers from NRO, CIA, Hubble, USAF and others to image the damage to Columbia.
Another issue was the foam that broke off the MET and caused the hole in the RCC was a last minute addition and completely unnecessary. One other thing people don't talk about is why Columbia was brought home on a standard high heat entry profile, rather than a low heat reentry that starts the reentry interface over Australia.
Back in 1976 when I took a class in Aviation safety the subject of the Space Shuttle came up. It was still in development. Our instructor was a Colonel Stevens Ret., who had worked with Chuck Yeager in the USAF Office of Safety, which Yeager ran. He predicted the Challenger disaster because short cuts had been taken with the design and warnings to NASA ignored.
No one screams 'safety' until disaster strikes. Until then safety engineers, officers or specialists are the villians who "slow things down", create inefficiencies, run-up costs, etc. A flight delay due to thunderstorms is a "delay" not a "safety hold". I spent a career in anesthesiology rarely postponing surgeries for additional heart or lung or diabetes data only to be castigated by surgeons, administrators or (especially) patients. The Michael Jacksons and Joan Rivers of the world never knew what hit 'em.
As a Gen X I can say we knew quickly just how horrible it was. It came out rather quickly that the Astronauts were alive for the entire fall back to earth.
There are indications that at least SOME of the crew were functional/coherent post breakup of the orbiter stack (attempts to restore power to the cockpit via toggled switches and a couple of emergency oxygen switches activated)... but they were already high enough that they were beyond the altitude of survivable environmental conditions and the cabin interior was exposed to the elements from the breakup. Had they somehow survived the LOX fireball eruption of the ET and the massive debris field, they would have been quickly rendered unconscious by the g-forces imparted to them by the breakup and by the loss of atmosphere inside the cockpit. While they may have been "alive" (that has never been, nor could be, definitively concluded) they would have all been unconscious at the time that they died instantly from the deceleration g-force of the cockpit's impact with the ocean.
Nothing new in this video; but if you didn't know about what was learned, it'd be OK to experience. However, glaringly missing from this video is the truth that at least 3 of the astronauts were not killed in the blow-up, but 2 min plus later when the crew capsule slammed into the ocean. And several of the crew switched on their reserve oxygen (or had it switched on for them) as the capsule descended at high speed.
Hmm click-bait title. So what exactly was 'way more horrific than people realize' ? How could it be more horrific? It was universally horrible and sad. Silly title. Might give 'Slash Gear' a miss from now on.
Maybe because the astronauts fell into the ocean 🌊 while conscious
"By all metrics, the shuttle program was another success for NASA." Bull. From the very beginning it was not about what the astronauts did, but rather about which demographic boxes NASA was able to check off. The shuttle did not really teach us anything about space that we did not already know. (Neither has the ISS. It's not like it was the first space station with long-term occupancy.) Yes, the shuttle enabled the repair of the Hubble -- but the money wasted on the shuttle could have been used to launch a fleet of Hubbles, and those with larger apertures, too, since they would not have to be scaled down to fit in the Hubble bay. "But the shuttle inspired our kids!" Ask any kid today to name an astronaut currently on the ISS. These are not the Mercury 7, for the same reason a pilot doesn't have to be Lucky Lindy to fly across the Atlantic and no one much cares about the hundreds of people who will climb Everest this year.
The shuttle is, I suppose, the only American spacecraft to be used and then discarded not because its replacement took over the job, but because it was understood to be more dangerous than the Russian spacecraft.
NASA of the 60s and 70s was a different animal to NASA of the 80s.
Morton Thiokol is still working for NASA today. They changed their name, got sold to another company to conceal who they are, this one was renamed too and merged to another company etc.
The engineers at Thiokol repeatedly called on the morning of the launch saying DO NOT LAUNCH
@@imtheonevanhalen1557 I know. I studied the matter and the actions of Roger Boisjoly for days. And the management of Thiokol DID launch the Space Shuttle on demand of NASA managemenet, which were too stupid to understand the problem, and believed physics could be intimidated like their employees, for marketing reasons.
Wikipedia's Article (search for "Thiokol") says it bluntly: "The company was found at fault for the destruction of Challenger and deaths of the astronauts, as a direct causality from pressure from NASA to launch". In the same article there are listed all the splits and name changes Thiokol company underwent to hide their company history.
It was the director of NASA he bullied everyone! Out of spec launch condtions! Like plugging in a 110 v appliance in a 220 outlet not going to work. I was the process engineer on the advanced solid rocket boosters. 1500 people walked including me. You can see the boosters at Huntsville Al Space Center.
The solid busters were NOT fuel tanks. How did you get that wrong. They are SOLID fuel rockets that are filled as a slurry and it hardens. Then it is ignited and cannot be stopped until all the solid fuel has been used! Ever wonder why Sally Ride had only 1 flight? NASA lost it's way after the Apollo missions.
You're right. The center fuel tank was a fuel tank though, holding liquid hydrogen, and powered the shuttle's actual engines (the three big rockets on the rear). The boosters helped the whole thing get about 10 miles up, and once they were spent and ejected the shuttle's engines took it the rest of the way into space.
NASA has not improved since the challenger tragedy as the debacle of the Starliner has occurred because of the poor decision made at the top during launch. The Starliner has shown several helium leakages prior to launch which have occurred multiple times before that as Boeing could not repaired it permanently. Yet, NASA approved the launch of the Starliner thinking that the problem was not “serious enough” to cancel the launch.
I remember that morning. I was in school. We had just spent the previous three weeks building a paper model of the shuttle as a class. As soon as the shuttle exploded, well, as soon as the teacher realized what had happened, she just shut off the tv, and we started math. And that was that. We all knew what happened, but it was a different time. I think we all grieved in our own way. It was a big deal. It made it all over the news. Nobody ever talked to us about it. They didn't need to I guess.
I remember watching this tragedy happen right in front of my own eyes on live TV 📺 I just couldn't believe it!! RIP 7 astronautas! 🙏🕊💔
I met Ron McNair in front of his tiny AFB house in Houston immediately after returning from a previous shuttle mission. I won't forget it.
Given that the Apollo 1 fire, Challenger's loss, and Columbia's loss (17 lives) were all inside the atmosphere, I'd suggest that space is looking like the easy part of the trip. Scientists are overlooking something that we all take for granted: air.
I was in 4th grade when this happened. It was an incredibly cold time for Florida and we were having snow like conditions in central Florida. The destruction of the shuttle was so bad that we were all allowed to go home. I remember the day very well.
Unfortunately NASA hadn't learned their lesson. They knew ice could break off and damage the shuttle's heat shield tiles. They were warned by engineers that the Columbia may have suffered damage to the heat tiles bad enough to cause a catastrophic failure. And again, they didn't heed the warning.
Well, when I was in the USAF during that, the big joke was "Where does NASA send their astronauts on vacation? All over Florida" Or, Christa McCallauf asking "What's that button for?" These were not mere enlisted jokes, my peers, other USAF officers were the worst offenders. Most people these days weren't even born in 1986 and frankly, a lot of people today don't even remember 9/11. Just goes to show how fast history moves.
It wasn't played at my school. I was the one who let staff know it happened. Having afternoon kindergarten I told my teacher when i got to school and she had a shocked look on her face and went to the office and the news spread like wildfire from there.
The investigation took two years. And all shuttle launches were canceled until it was complete. The subsequent Pepcon Disaster in Harrison Arizona was a knock on effect of The Challenger Disaster.
For the TLDR people: there was an engineer who warned his management about the o-ring but they ignored him. Also those potential astronauts survived the explosion and it was the impact with the water that killed them. A parachute would've saved them NASA didn't think it was necessary to put one in the nose of the capsule
I had to check the comments section within 30 seconds to see if people were losing their minds at the fact this is CLEARLY an AI voice reading a poorly "researched" ChatGPT "history lesson" and... yep. This channel should get a channel strike for BS. Sadly, RUclips doesn't care.
Hey, it sells ads....LOL!
Management prioritizing schedule over safety.
They had it coming.
STILL MY FAVORITE SPACE LAUNCH THANKS FOR THE UPLOAD !
In Tufte's book on visual presentations, he plots seal damage versus temperature, which clearly shows the danger, versus Nasa's plot versus mission number that leaves it obscured.
I remember watching it happen on TV. Was at school,then they let us go home. Was a BIG DEAL,back then.
next time listen to your engineers.. oh wait, no next time
Of course there was a next time, shuttles kept flying for almost 20 more years...
COMPLACENCY & HUBRIS, WHAT A DEADLY COMBINATION & SO IT PROVED HERE ! ! !
The only way this video could have been any worse would have been if it were longer. Not to self, if you ever see anything coming from "SlashGear", know the thing that's being slashed is solid and reliable research and reporting. This is a travesty. You should be ashamed, but we all know better. If you did, This wouldn't still be up
More horrific than having a manned space craft explode on national television while children across the country watched?
You’re giving out erroneous information. The challenger was not the first loss of life for NASA, Apollo one was. Do your homework before you start lecturing to everybody and quite frankly there was no revelations in this rather boring unnecessary video, which is why your reviews are so great.
Ive heard all of this already. Nobody talks about they survived the explosion but died when they hit the water
No documentary about this event omitting to mention Allan J. McDonald is complete.
The shuttle program may have been a dud, but the main RS-25 engines were amazing.
This was so messed up from the jump. Sad and disastrous at the same time.
The horrible part was the crew was alive and tried to fly the shuttle until impact....
My opinion. Part of the responsibility falls on congress. When NASA first proposed the shuttle it was a beautiful craft. The Rolls Royce of space at the time. Then each year the budget was cut. NASA and their contractors were forced to start cutting corners. In the end we ended up with what we got. A Yugo of space. While it did it's job there was always a lot of problems. If we want to keep man in space we can't cut corners .
They new about heat shield damage from insulation breaking off the main fuel tank during launch before the second incident ass well and did nothing to fix the design problem !
I was 2 years 4 months old when the challenger explosion 1986
I hope they won't allow pride to influence the right decision about Starliner. If it can bring the astronauts safely, so be it. If not, they should make the right call.
Exactly
I don’t mean to sound callous but traveling to space is extremely risky and dangerous but still I hope all those astronauts that died Rest In Peace ☮️
Of course there are big risks, but the Challenger crew could've completed their mission successfully if the management listened to the engineers. They rushed it with full knowledge of the O-ring problem. That's why I hope they won't risk again.
I remember watching this on live TV i was 16 at the time
Yea, I don't think this video really captures the true effect this event had on people at the time. There were months of build up to it, tons of excitement, and back then seeing a true disaster unfold on television wasn't nearly as common as it is today. I was in the 6th grade walking between my school gym and my home room and could probably still put you within 10 ft of the spot I was standing when I heard.
NASA ignored safety warnings
Challenger was not the first loss of life in the agency. Grissom, White and Chaffee burned in their capsule. Their Gemini capsule a top the launchpad during a test run.
They died because NASA didn’t bother to have nonflammable materials inside the capsule and other protocols that failed in their rescue
Including failure in communications between the inside of the capsule and personnel on the outside
It was so cold, so very unusually cold, that many thought it would be postponed.
How often do you see crowds watching a launch in Florida wearing fur overcoats?
What went wrong? Rather than listen to the engineers, management listened to the politicians
And unfortunately, NASA is still making poor judgment calls. Look at the boing space capsule that’s sitting right now on the international space station because of a hydrogen leak which they knew about before launch.
Remember that horrible day so very clearly!
Case in point NASA got away with murder twice
1. Challenger
2. Columbia
Good to hear they still aren't blaming McDonnell Douglas as usual . . . This happened because LM playing politics forced their way to the Com
The Energia Buran combo was an improved version of the Space Shuttle concept. Too bad the Americans stuck with Shuttle and didn't cooperate with the Russians to switch to Buran and improve on it. Then these beautiful iconic spacecraft would still be in service.
So many people get it wrong. Challenger did not explode. IT just broke apart. There was no shock wave, no detonation, no "bang" - viewers on the ground just heard the roar of the engines stop as the shuttle’s fuel tank tore apart. Challenger itself was torn apart as it was flung free of the other rocket components and turned broadside into the Mach 2 airstream. And the videos you see where there is a sound of an explosion is because some documentaries added the sound of the explosion to the video.
My god you are SO INTELLIGENT!!!!
@@aktchungrabanio6467 My god, someone trying to be rude to someone pointing out facts they once learned at Space Camp. It also helps that I was in school when it happened, so I seen and heard about it first hand. Its funny how 3rd graders now days have to chime in when someone is just trying to be helpful for others who may not know something. Good comment though, gave me a good laugh!!!! 😂😂😂😂
Look at the video. The center fuel tank exploded.
@@dx1450 I have seen the video, several times. I also saw it on tv the day it happened. I also learned about it when I was at Space Camp when I was in high school. It was not an explosion. That is why you also see the booster rockets continue up before NASA sent a signal for them to detonate out of safety concerns. It looked like it exploded but later investigations found no detonation or explosion, which is why there was no explosion sound or shockwave. The fuel tank itself collapsed and tore apart, and the resulting flood of liquid oxygen and hydrogen created the huge fireball believed by many to be an explosion. At Space Camp the instructor used a can of pop as an example. He said the can of pop was the fuel tank. Try to squeeze it and you can't because it is under pressure, like the tank. Pop the top of the can open and the pressure is released, like the hole created in the side of the tank. Tilt it on its side and the pop flows out the hole, like the fuel from the fuel tank. Then try and crush the can. You can now crush (or collapse) it because it is not under pressure anymore. The tank collapsed from the Gforce and the fuel ignited causing the fireball. The shuttle turned broadside into the airstream which caused it to break apart.
And yet Columbia happened for exactly the same reasons. Foam had dislodged during previous mission launches but they had got away with it. It seems the lessons of Challenger were not learnt.
How will we ever go to mars if we are so scared 😱 of trying again
It would have been much more interesting to do a piece on the theory the entire crew of the Challenger actually were never onboard. Some of them still use their real name; another said he's a twin to the astronaut who died, etc. There are articles and photos online.
You can post anything but that doesn’t make it true. This nonsense is a perfect example.
I was out of school this day, for some reason. My parents delivered the local newspaper and I was helping them, since I was out of school. As we waited just outside the production building, the printing press had just started when some dipshit ran inside shouting "stop the presses!", like he was in some kind of fricking movie. That's when we heard what happened.
We waited for hours while the newsroom gathered information and the newspaper was updated with the story.
"More horrific" in what way? There is *NOTHING* new here folks! Click bait at it's *worst!*
All old news , nothing new
Just a headline to make you watch BS
6th grade. Mrs Johnson’s homeroom class. Brookside middle school Sarasota Florida. And yes my teacher was crying. Not a good day
I don't know anybody who thinks this wasnt horrible we found out later that they were likely alive until they hit the water that's sad
Space Shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry February 1, 2003 from launch foam damage to left wing..
I hate remembering that day.
Sensational click bait title. If it had been titled as a "documentary" (albeit short), that would have been much more accurate.
Sorry but it was NOT NASA's first time loss of life! Apollo 1
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.
Virgil I. Grissom
Clickbait title is not cool. I watched the incident at school and thought you had more info than was already known🤦♀️ Good research but bad titling
What do you mean way more horrific ... compared ro what 🙄
Wasn't Feynman's opinion excluded from the final Rogers Report and, instead, added reluctantly as an "addendum?" Someone remind me.
Yes it was.
as others have said, your attempt to explain the o-ring failure is simply not close to accurate.
There was no solid fuel tank !
There were other problems with the Shuttle not discussed on this NASA because of outside pressure and a lack of proper funding adopted a fly as is attitude and it cost 7 lives well actually 14 as they didn’t learn the first time. What slays me is that NASA acts like the do all tell all when dealing with SpaceX. Who has the better safety record. ?
Garbage story. Move on, thumbs down, don't subscribe. We have to rid youtube of these garbage providers who just regurgitate stuff they google and even get that wrong.
Clickbate.
Criminally Negligent but no one was charged. America should be proud of Elon but they treat him like shit. What is wrong with you guys?
Don't blame that on the WHOLE of the US. MOST of us here in the States LOVE and respect Elon. Don't take our media's word for how the majority of us see him. Most of us here in the States appreciate his genius. Trust me on that.
If Elon were in charge, even larger cost cuts and risks would have been accepted.
Judging by the build quality of his cars I'm sure they would've been fine...
Peer pressure killed those people 😢
Nobody with the authority had the BALLS to tell the mainstream news they'll have to WAIT.
Instead they caved into that peer pressure of millions of people watching on TV.
They wanted an AUDIENCE so badly, they got it. 🤦
Umm, no. Delays were common, and this particular mission had already been delayed 4 times! The previous delay was from January 22 to the launch date of Jan. 28.