I was visiting farmers reviewing plans for the next crop year. I'd just arrived and the farmer says do you mind if we watch the Challenger launch before starting? It's got that teacher going up in space. I told him that my high school government teacher had been one of the ten finalists so I took a pretty keen interest myself.<p>I can remember the numbness I felt in his living room as we watched the Challenger explode. It's something once viewed that you can't unsee. Words fail you in trying to explain it.<p>I had no idea at the time that there were five engineers who tried valiantly to stop the launch because of the cold weather and failed.<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/28/464744781/30-years-after-disaster-challenger-engineer-still-blames-himself" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/28/464744781...</a>
> You may not know it, but you carry some of his words with you in your own earthly exploration, printed in every U.S. passport.<p>This whole article was fantastic, but this was the coolest part for me. To learn that his quote is on every passport. I've never read the quotes on my passport before, but now I have.
"the solid rocket boosters ignited and somewhere in the right booster, a 0.280-inch-wide O-ring failed due to the cold."<p>The 'solid rocket boosters' being constructed in segments because they had to be transported by rail from Utah. They had to be constructed in that state as part of the deal to get the politicians to vote in the finances.
The story of the Challenger that day is one of the few things that can reliably squeeze a tear or two from me. Interestingly, I've never heard about this part of it, thanks.
On Challenger's last day, I had met very early that morning with a couple of angel investors who signed a funding commitment for my first company. Went home, watched Challenger explode. An hour later, angel investors called to say "never mind".<p>Watching Challenger blow up hurt worse. Especially in following months when failure analysis showed it could have been avoided by launching within the allowable temperature window.<p>Some days you really remember.
Not just the soccer ball but the whole crew compartment.<p><a href="http://www.space-shuttle.com/challenger1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.space-shuttle.com/challenger1.htm</a>
I went to Clear Lake from 2001-2004. Lot's of friends with relations to NASA and supporting industries. Sad I can't remember the soccer ball being on display.<p>Any other Falcons out there remember seeing it?
> The failure allowed heated, pressurized propellants to leak out onto the external fuel tank, causing catastrophic structural failure. Seventy-three seconds into its 10th flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart, killing all seven members of its crew. It was 11:39 a.m.<p>Sigh. It's perhaps silly of me in an age of Bush, Obama, and Trump, but I'm saddened to see this line repeated yet again, 30 years on. Perhaps Malinowski is just echoing old reporting. But a journalist of her caliber seems likely to have run this by NASA. Which suggests NASA PR is still prioritizing spin over integrity, even all these years later.<p>For those who haven't seen this line before, the template is "<explosion> <fast> <dead>". As in 'the explosion ripped apart the shuttle faster than the blink of an eye, killing the astronauts'. By such word-smithed sleigh-of-hand, NASA would leave readers with the impression that the crew was killed immediately, a quick non-lingering death, without flat-out lying.<p>One thing we're sure of is that some of the seven were <i>not</i> killed in the breakup at 11:39. I don't recall whether Onizuka's air pack was one of those found, and found to be manually activated. Nor whether there ended up being any evidence of cabin depressurization. But my understanding is that now, as then, there's no reason to believe that some of the seven didn't survive until cabin ocean impact minutes later.<p>> On the roof of the launch control tower, the families of the crew desperately searched the twin trails of smoke that twisted skyward for signs of the crew cabin.<p>:/ Perhaps it doesn't matter. It's not <i>that</i> different a story. And there's the "little white lies are fine" interpretation of integrity. Why <i>shouldn't</i> popular history get a prettified version? And given how NASA is funded, embracing integrity might be quite unhealthy. And yet... I'd have been happier if Malinowski wrote this paragraph a bit differently.