January 28th marks the 25th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger

danger boy

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=nasa-memorials-mark-25th-anniversar-2011-01-26

tough to imagine that it's been 25 yrs since the space shuttle Challenger disaster. how can time fly by so fast?

where were you when that event took place?

bobman1235

I was five, so I have no idea. However, my high school biology teacher claimed to be Christa Mcauliffe's cousin. He had her picture in his classroom and always had a thing on the anniversary.

Fongolio

I was still a hooligan in '86 and saw the news come on the TV at a pot dealers house. As far back as I remember I've always been facinated with space and space exploration (I still remember being just mesmerized watching the first astronauts on the moon in '69). The Challenger disaster was devastating to me at the time even though I had no real personal stake in it. Same as Oklahoma, 9/11, Katrina, Haiti, or the recent Arizona tragedy. These are events that shake our foundations and force us all to feel the reality of being mortal and compassion for those that experience huge personal loss. The sad thing is how quickly as a society our memories dim of these events and we can forget that today still many lives are negatively impacted and many from these tragic events still need our support.

shack

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was watching the launch on TV...and hoping somehow there was some way they were alive. I also remember vividly the Saturday morning when I heard on the radio in my car the Columbia was in trouble and ultimately disintegrated on re-entry. The eighth aniversary of that disaster is on 2-1-11...just a few days away.

Polkersince85

We've had the Mercury capsule burnout, the Challenger and the Columbia. A handful of brave men and women.

shack

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txcoastal1

Me and a buddy had skipped school hanging at my house listening to some music (AC/DC)while watching the launch. as the shuttle went up then a poof of smoke which we thought were the boosters departing and we never saw the shuttle reappear, I told him to turn the music down, right as I turned the volume up on the TV 1st thing I heard was "It blew up" heart dropped we were in awe.

This was very close to home as my English teacher also a coach, had made it to the top 3 to join this launch...we got our butts right to school....sad day indeed.

I was in San Antonio while in high school but have lived in Nasa country for 8 years now shuttle program is important to this Region and America ...

eor

I remember walking from my car into the Student Union. It was a beautiful day. I looked over and thought "what a strange looking cloud". I had no idea until I walked into the silence of the Student Union.

markmarc

I was student teaching at the time. The personal lesson I learned that day about how to act in a crisis situation while in front of students has helped thru several difficult days in my career.

bikezappa

Yes a very bad day indeed. We should also remember Richard Feynman, who was on the commitee investigating the cause, for showing us on live TV a photo of the shuttle with a coating of ice just before lift off. He then took out a section of the shuttle o-ring, that sealed the explosive gases, from a glass of ice water. He stapped the o-ring in two. Brittle or cold o-rings don't seal in explosive gases very well. Many engineers at NASA knew of this problem but were ignored.

Danny Tse

shack wrote: »

I was watching the launch on TV...and hoping somehow there was some way they were alive.

Some of the astronauts were still alive after the explosion....read about the fate of them at wikipedia :frown:

BlueFox

I was in college. My routine in the morning was get up, turn on the TV on the way towards the kitchen, and make coffee. Anyway, I turned on the TV right before the launch, so I paused to watch it. When it blew up I couldn't believe it. I started shouting to my roommates "The space shuttle just blew up", but they didn't believe me at first.

Anyway, it seems like yesterday, and I still feel bad about what happened.

Gadabout

I was on vacation, in Switzerland at the time of the disaster. It was bit hard for me to understand the lady running the bed and breakfast as she came down stairs crying and tried to explain to us what happened in German. It was hard to get much news coverage where we were except the radio. A very tragic day indeed.

It was also a day that was very personal for me. I was working for Morton Thiokol, the manufacture of the boosters.

Scott

shack

Danny Tse wrote:

Some of the astronauts were still alive after the explosion....read about the fate of them at wikipedia :frown:

True....

Myth #3: The crew died instantly

The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then.

What's less clear is whether they were conscious. If the cabin depressurized (as seems likely), the crew would have had difficulty breathing. In the words of the final report by fellow astronauts, the crew “possibly but not certainly lost consciousness,” even though a few of the emergency air bottles (designed for escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground) had been activated.

The cabin hit the water at a speed greater than 200 mph, resulting in a force of about 200 G’s — crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew did lose consciousness (and the cabin may have been sufficiently intact to hold enough air long enough to prevent this), it’s unknown if they would have regained it as the air thickened during the last seconds of the fall. Official NASA commemorations of “Challenger’s 73-second flight” subtly deflect attention from what was happened in the almost three minutes of flight (and life) remaining AFTER the breakup.

danz1906

I was in Basic Training at Fort Knox when it happen,very Sad Day!!!