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.
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!
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.
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 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.
"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.
The system should have been evolving already by the time of the Challenger failure; by that time it was already clear that the system could not meet its goal of quick and/or cheap re-usability. But by that time NASA already had a full "fleet" and a space station to assemble, and had no taste (or money) for developing a new system--or even variations on the existing STS system. There were some design improvements over the years, but the system remained basically as first flown in 1981 until it was shut down, with no successor in mind.
The STS was supposed to be a first generation system, to fly for 10-15 years before being replaced. By now we should be on a third-gen STS, having learned the lessons of the first few. Had that happened, they might have a pretty good system by now. But NASA got locked into a flawed 1st gen system by over-buying the first run out of over-confidence, by politics, inertia, etc. (Part of the problem was that the orbiters were designed for 100 flights, so NASA wanted to get something like that out of them. But the flight rate ended up so far below expectations that the darn things just wouldn't wear out.) I guess it's just as well; NASA doesn't really have the structure for cost-effectiveness. STS v3 might have been good enough to stifle the emergence of something like SpaceX, which has a much better shot, long-term, of really making spaceflight work.
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.
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 ) 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
30 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 80.2 ms ] threadAlways 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
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.
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
I sort of expected better space craft by now.
Do the space shuttles continue to evolve had their been no accidents?
The STS was supposed to be a first generation system, to fly for 10-15 years before being replaced. By now we should be on a third-gen STS, having learned the lessons of the first few. Had that happened, they might have a pretty good system by now. But NASA got locked into a flawed 1st gen system by over-buying the first run out of over-confidence, by politics, inertia, etc. (Part of the problem was that the orbiters were designed for 100 flights, so NASA wanted to get something like that out of them. But the flight rate ended up so far below expectations that the darn things just wouldn't wear out.) I guess it's just as well; NASA doesn't really have the structure for cost-effectiveness. STS v3 might have been good enough to stifle the emergence of something like SpaceX, which has a much better shot, long-term, of really making spaceflight work.
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.
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 ) 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.
How can we, as engineers, learn from this so that similar things don't happen on our watch?
http://www.webcitation.org/651nnfKDv
I remember seeing the explosion, and the TV being turned off rather quickly.
Still stings to think about it.
[0] http://www.amazon.com/The-Challenger-Launch-Decision-Technol...
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.
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...).
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.
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.