The Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster Investigation
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Who really was at fault? The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger (OV-099) (mission STS-51-L) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members, which included five NASA astronauts and two Payload Specialists. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC). Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring was not designed to fly under unusually cold conditions as in this launch. Its failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurised burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter. The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. The exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown; several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. The shuttle had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable. The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident, with the agency violating its own safety rules. NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings, but they had failed to address this problem properly. They also disregarded warnings (an example of "go fever") from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning, and failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors. As a result of the disaster, the Air Force decided to cancel its plans to use the Shuttle for classified military satellite launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, deciding to use the Titan IV instead. Approximately 17 percent of Americans witnessed the launch live because of the presence of Payload Specialist Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first teacher in space. Media coverage of the accident was extensive: one study reported that 85 percent of Americans surveyed had heard the news within an hour of the accident. The Challenger disaster has been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics.
Comments
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I SAW IT EXPLODE ON TV...I WAS DEVASTATED.....POOR PPL
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Obviously, we have a major malfunction. Understatement of the century
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9:28 Looks like Christa McAullife in the foreground. Did she have an identical twin sister?
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This was a sad day but what really sticks in my craw is how like rats attracted by cheese you see conspiracy theorists coming out calling this a hoax. The families that lost loved ones wish this was a hoax.
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These guys are alive, we have not been to the moon and doubtful about space in general.
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Saddest part is that thiokol , the makers of the solid boosters , begged nasa not to launch at such low temps.........but nasa in all their wisdom , vetoed the recommendations and they launched anyway.........someone should have gone to prison for their incompetence...........they tried to cover it up and failed
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I wish they would use MPH instead of kilometres
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Godless America wanted to CHALLENGE Allah, so your CHALLENGER was challenged by the Almighty.
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Absolutely terrible.
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This man Charles solve the whole problem right ?get the fuck outta here I can tell Charles put some money up in making this documentary
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Oh cry me a river y in every documentary there is always one man that is working his ass of to find out what happen am sure everyone played a part that one guy can fuck off
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At a meeting of the Lincoln Amateur Radio Club, they had someone who worked on the investigation of the accident, and he said, that if NASA had implemented the Navy's safety protocols, then the Apollo 1, Apollo 13, Challenger, and Columbia disasters would never have happened.
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Something I still cant wrap my head around......how is it that the O-rings from the SRB's were the determined/proven cause of the disaster and yet the only things still functioning (quite properly it appears) after the explosion and vehicle separation were the very SRBs themselves? If the O-rings had malfunctioned, how are they still firing so well after the event in question? One might argue that they the SRBs are flying very erratically after separation, but that can simply be understood and explained by the fact that the SRBs are no longer attached to the main vehicle that is determining their trajectory. The SRBs were remotely detonated within 10 seconds from the time of vehicle breakup......are the SRBs the only section/portion of the Space Shuttle that can be remotely detonated in the event of an emergency? I mean, what great skill on that person's part in the timely remote detonation of the VERY piece(s) of equipment that would be met with the most scrutiny and controversy over any other part, section, or piece of the entire Space Shuttle and its' millions of components.
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So they put the teacher on that in order to get more attention so people got more interest in the program... I would say it accomplished that.
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I remember seeing the liftoff and explosion over and over on TV that day and feeling the desperate emptiness of the sky and sea. Not the same magnitude as 911, but the same overwhelming helplessness and despair. I'm Christa's age. I felt so sad for her children.
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damn you old 9?
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All this was revealed by Richard Fyneman, this bloke's just nicked his work and passing it off as his own work twat
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If Time Travel Was Possible they shoud steal alive from now it woud change the future
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If it stayed on until they detached it they would be here today
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