Challenger - Countdown To Disaster

cymatty

cymatty

cymatty

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Channel 4 Thu Feb 02 9:00 PM
1 (125 min., Subtitledin English, United Kingdom, Education/Science/Factual Topics)
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On 28th January 1986, the American nation was plunged into mourning when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in the skies over Florida, killing all seven crew. Challenger and her crew were doomed before they left the launch pad. This is the story of how, despite every warning, that tragedy came to pass.

Using dramatic reconstructions based on factual information and the moving stories of those who were there, this film follows the fortunes of Challenger's crew in the year leading up to their deaths, and the increasingly desperate attempts of two engineers to stop the launch. While Christa McAuliffe (a teacher, planned to be the first ordinary citizen to go into space) and Challenger's commander Dick Scobee prepared for a flight that should have made history, engineers had discovered that a vital component of the shuttle's twin solid rocket boosters was faulty and, instead of ushering in a new era of space travel for all, Challenger's ill-fated flight exposed just how unready the shuttle was to fly at all. Interviewees include Roger Boisjoly, engineer at Morton Thiokol and the 'whistle blower'; Arnie Thompson, also an engineer at Morton Thiokol; Jud Lovingood, deputy to the manager of shuttle propulsion at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center; and June Scobee, wife of Dick Scobee, Challenger's commander.
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Could be a good watch. :)
 
Jokester said:
Yeah watching this now, from what I remember the crew weren't actually thought to have been killed until the crew compartment hit the water.

Quite a shocking story of how the engineer's were ignored if I remember correctly.

Jokester
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Phew thought it was going to be a lonely thread. :)

Yeah it seems they ignored the warnings.
 
Whats even more stupid is the fact they risked saftey when it was supposed to be a showcase for nasa, attracting lots of media attention. The got lots of attetion but for the wrong reasons.
 
chopchop said:
i saw this a few weeks back. the design people said a washer was unlikely to stand a cold temperature, but the managers insisted that they carry on with the launch anyway.

idiots!!
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They said the washer was unstable at any temprature. :eek:
 
Jokester said:
It would appear that George Bush is backing NASA to go to Mars, but how much cold hard cash he's giving them I'm not sure, it certainly won't be enough for going to Mars or even returning to the Moon in a hurry I would have thought.

If anyone is going to do it, it'll be the Chinese.

By the sounds of things, NASA will be going back to what they intended originally, a small reusable craft for crew only.

Jokester
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/spacecraft/index.html
 
chopchop said:
nope they said at the time of launch the temperature would have been too low for the seal to work properly.
if it was at any temperature, then the seal wouldnt have been used in the first place.
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Sorry yeah, they also said it was unstable at room temperature as well, earlier in the program. :)
 
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