Episode 80: The Space Shuttle, Part VI

Probably the most famous picture of the Challenger disaster. After the explosion 73 seconds into the mission, the two rocket boosters continued to climb, crisscrossing in the sky.

Gray smoke from the right side of the right solid rocket booster, not seen until tape of the launch was carefully watched following the disaster, indicates that there is a problem with an O-ring.

If a piece of solid rocket fuel had not miraculously sealed the gap left by the faulty O-ring, the shuttle would have exploded before it ever cleared the tower.

Unfortunately, the shuttle flew some extreme wind sheers that shock the stack and caused the temporary plug to come lose, dooming the mission. Here, at T + 58 seconds into the flight, flames can be seen coming out of the gap in the O-ring on the right side solid rocket booster.

The shuttle is enveloped in flaming liquid propellant after liquid oxygen tank ruptures at the 73 second mark.

The forward section of the fuselage, including the crew compartment, can be after the vehicle breaks up. After reaching a height of 65,000 feet - about 20 kilometers - the debris fell back into the ocean. During the fall, the remains of the shuttle stack reached terminal velocity of 207 miles - 333 kilometers - per hour. Even at that speed, it took about two minutes and forty five seconds to hit the water after breaking up. It was not the explosion but the impact with the ocean that proved fatal for the crew.

Millions of people were either present or had tuned in on TV to watch the Challenger launch, including thousands of school children nationwide. It was a shocking, heartbreaking event for everyone.

President Reagan rescheduled his State of the Union address and instead address the nation a different way, offering his condolences to the families who had lost loved ones.

Later that week, the president and the first lady attended a memorial service for the fallen Challenger Seven, as they were now being called, along with thousands of other mourners.

Episode 79: The Space Shuttle, Part V

 

Christa McAuliffe was always concerned that she wasn't accepted by the "real" astronauts of the STS-57L mission, but following a feeling out period, she was befriended by each one of them. Judy Resnik, one of the most outspoken astronauts against the payload specialist position in general and the Teacher in Space "PR Campaign" in general, became her mentor and good friend. Commander Dick Scobee made sure both McAuliffe and Payload Specialist Greg Jarvis were always included in crew training and activities.

(Seated, Left to Right: Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, Ron McNair. Standing, Left to Right: El Onizuka, Chrisa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, Judy Resnik)

Teacher in Space runner up, Barbara Morgan (far right), served as McAuliffe's understudy and was also included in much of the training and other crew activities.

The STS-51L mission patch included a symbolic apple after McAuliffe's name

NASA's crawler, the largest land vehicle ever built, bringing Challener and it's shuttle stack to launch pad 39B in January 1986.

Episode 78: The Space Shuttle, Part IV

Vice President George H.W. Bsuh announced Christa McAuliffe as the winner of NASA's Teacher in Space program.

Christa, and runner up (ie Christa's understudy) Barbara Morgan, both reported to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for four months of training in September 1985.

Episode 77: The Space Shuttle, Part III

 

After Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space on Challenger, that shuttle continued to make history, including Bruce McCandless's untethered space walk, the photo of which either inspires those who see it, or gives them the heebie-jeebies.

The pictures from this space walk as some of the most reproduced of the shuttle era.

Challenger also carried air force colonel Guy Bluford, the first African American astronaut, to orbit.

Colonel Bluford's launch was the first of the few night launches that took off during the shuttle ear.

After 20 launches, shuttle missions were becoming ho-hum, routine, and to some extent, mundane. TV stations stopped carrying the launches live and the US public no longer looked forward to every mission with anticipation. President Reagan decided it was time to inject new life into the shuttle program and announced that the 25th shuttle mission - Challenger's 10th flight - would include the first non-astronaut crew member, a school teacher. New Hampshire high school social studies teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was sure she had no chance at being selected but she decided she had to apply for this once in a lifetime opportunity.