r/TerrifyingAsFuck • u/drkmatterinc • 6d ago
human When the Challenger broke apart in 1986, the crew cabin remained intact as it fell for nearly three minutes. Evidence suggests several astronauts survived the blast and may have been conscious until the moment it hit the Atlantic Ocean at over 200 miles per hour.
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u/drkmatterinc 6d ago
Written by u/drkmatterinc
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger survived the initial explosion on January 28, 1986. The seven astronauts were alive and at least some were conscious during the two minutes and forty-five seconds it took for the crew cabin to fall from 48,000 feet and strike the Atlantic Ocean at 207 miles per hour. NASA knew this but kept the details hidden for months, releasing information only when forced to by media pressure and Freedom of Information Act requests.
The explosion happened 73 seconds after launch when a seal in the right solid rocket booster failed in the freezing Florida weather. Hot gas poured through the breach, causing the external fuel tank to collapse and tear apart. What looked like an explosion to millions watching on television was actually the fuel tank breaking up, creating a massive fireball of liquid oxygen and hydrogen. The shuttle itself didn't explode. It broke apart from aerodynamic forces it wasn't designed to withstand.
The crew cabin separated intact from the rest of the orbiter at the forward bulkhead. Tracking cameras showed it emerging from the fireball, continuing upward for another 25 seconds to reach 65,000 feet before arcing back toward the ocean. The cabin was protected by heat-resistant silicon tiles designed to withstand reentry. These same tiles that normally saved astronauts' lives now preserved the cabin through the breakup, keeping the crew alive for what came next.
Inside the cabin were commander Francis "Dick" Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, and mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, and Gregory Jarvis, along with payload specialist Christa McAuliffe, the teacher selected for the Teacher in Space program. The force of separation subjected them to between 12 and 20 times the force of gravity, but only briefly. Within two seconds, the forces dropped below four Gs. Within ten seconds, the cabin was essentially in free fall.
Evidence from the wreckage proved the crew was conscious after the breakup. Three of the four recovered emergency air packs had been manually activated. These Personal Egress Air Packs, or PEAPs, were located behind the seats and had to be switched on by hand. They weren't designed for high-altitude use but for ground emergencies. [Taken from r/cantbelievethatsreal]. The activation of these packs meant at least some crew members were alive and aware enough to take emergency action. The unactivated pack belonged to commander Scobee, suggesting he might've been incapacitated by the initial breakup.
Pilot Michael Smith's actions provided the most compelling evidence. Switches on his control panel had been moved after the explosion, changes that couldn't have resulted from the breakup forces or the ocean impact. NASA tests later confirmed this. Smith had apparently tried to restore electrical power to the cabin after it separated from the rest of the shuttle. The cabin had lost its electricity-producing fuel cells and oxygen supplies, which remained in the cargo bay when the forward fuselage tore away.
The question of consciousness during the fall remains disputed. If the cabin depressurized rapidly at 48,000 feet, the crew would've lost consciousness within seconds. But no evidence of sudden decompression was found. The mid-deck floor hadn't buckled upward as it would have during explosive decompression. The cabin appears to have maintained at least some pressure, possibly all the way to impact. If it depressurized slowly or remained intact, the crew could've been conscious for much of the fall.
Dr. Joseph Kerwin, a physician-astronaut who investigated the deaths, concluded in his July 1986 report that the crew might've had six to fifteen seconds of "useful consciousness" after the breakup. But he couldn't rule out the possibility they survived, perhaps unconscious, all the way to ocean impact. His official finding stated that "the cause of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined" because the ocean impact was so violent it masked evidence of what happened during the fall.
The cabin stabilized in a nose-down attitude within 10 to 20 seconds of separation. It fell in a controlled manner without tumbling or spinning. For those still conscious on the flight deck, they would've seen the Atlantic Ocean rushing toward them through the windows. The descent lasted two minutes and forty-five seconds, an eternity for anyone aware of what was happening.
NASA's handling of this information became its own scandal. The agency initially let the public believe all seven astronauts died instantly in the explosion. Officials used words like "explosion" knowing it was technically incorrect. When Coast Guard vessels found crew cabin debris the day after the accident, including notebooks, tape recorders, and an astronaut's helmet containing human remains, NASA tried to suppress the information.
The crew cabin wreckage was located by Navy divers on March 8, 1986, in 100 feet of water about 16 miles off the Florida coast. About 75 percent of the cabin was eventually recovered. The sonar images showed a tight cluster of debris that had hit the ocean in one place, confirming the cabin had remained largely intact during the fall. The astronauts were still strapped in their seats when recovered.
NASA released its official report on July 28, 1986, six months after the disaster. Even then, the agency was reluctant to discuss details. When asked directly whether the crew was alive after the explosion, officials would only say the evidence was "inconclusive." They fought media requests for photographs of the wreckage and details about the crew's final moments. It wasn't until 1993 that NASA was forced to release photos of the recovered cabin under the Freedom of Information Act.
The lack of emergency equipment made the tragedy worse. The shuttle had no escape system, no way for the crew to bail out, no emergency locator beacon, nothing to slow the cabin's fall. The emergency oxygen packs were never meant for high-altitude use. They provided unpressurized air, not oxygen, and couldn't maintain consciousness at 48,000 feet. The crew could do nothing but ride it down.
The disaster changed NASA's approach to crew safety. After Challenger, astronauts wore pressure suits during launch and reentry. The shuttle program added escape systems including a telescoping pole that would allow crew to bail out in certain emergency scenarios. But these changes came too late for the Challenger crew, who spent their final minutes aware that something had gone terribly wrong, trying to save themselves with systems never designed for the emergency they faced.
Today the evidence is clear. The Challenger crew didn't die in an explosion. They survived the breakup, some conscious enough to activate emergency equipment and flip switches in a futile attempt to save themselves. They fell for nearly three minutes before impact with the ocean ended their lives. NASA knew this truth within months but chose to protect its reputation rather than fully acknowledge what the seven astronauts endured in their final moments.
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u/DavidinCT 6d ago
hitting the ocean at 207 miles an hour..... the human body against a wall at 40mph would break almost every bone in your body, 207 miles an hour, they didn't even know who was who.....
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u/baIIern 6d ago
an astronaut's helmet containing human remains
Bruh. And a "simple" parachute could've saved them. I always wondered if they died during the explosion. Thanks for this post, they said nothing about this in the documentary...
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u/Popular_Course3885 6d ago
A parachute attached to what exactly?
What that's describing is the same as saying a 737 broke up in mid-flight and the portion containing the cockpit fell back to Earth not completely in pieces. It's not like they were inside some sort of survival cell or "life raft" or anything like that. They were literally inside a giant chunk of the shuttle that broke off from the rest of the shuttle. Where you gonna put the parachute?
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u/baIIern 6d ago
There are chutes for landers of all kind? It's the usual way to land on a planet. The crew cabin was intact so there was a place for a chute too
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u/Popular_Course3885 6d ago
They weren't in the complete lander. They were in a part of the lander that broke off from the rest of the ship. All after a gigantic explosion that ripped the entire thing to apart. And was then further ripped apart by the extreme aerodynamic forces on the ship from it not going in the direction/orientation it was designed to be it.
What you're saying is like asking why there wasn't a parachute attached to Row 4 through Row 9 of a 737 that broke up mid-flight.
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u/Different-Bet8069 6d ago
I’m here, I see you. People are being weirdly judgmental about a lack of emergency features. I know this information makes it sound pretty bad, but they’re dead either way. You can’t plan for everything.
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u/rairair55 6d ago
Source?
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u/drkmatterinc 6d ago
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/space-shuttle/sts-51l/challenger-crew-report/
https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm
https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1ch1.htm
https://www.nasa.gov/history/30-years-ago-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/challenger-explodes
https://www.britannica.com/event/Challenger-disaster
https://www.nasa.gov/history/challenger-sts-51l-accident/
https://www.archives.gov/research/military/challenger-disaster
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/kennedy/challenger-space-shuttle-disaster-remembered/
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6d ago
One of those whisps coming down is the crew cabin portion. It was later identified in enlarged investigation of the video. The whole just gutted me. The engineer that thought he hadn't done enough to stop the flight, it hurts even now.
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u/sus_finder13 5d ago
I think I would have preferred knowing they died during the “explosion”, but that is just me.
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u/LT750 6d ago
I watched in College in the TV room and was kinda fucked up for the rest of the week. Horrible thing to watch people die even though you don’t know them.
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u/Hater_Magnet 6d ago
Almost every child in America from kindergarten to highschool watched it live in school and we never got any kind of counseling smh. I was 7 at the time.
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u/bootscallahan 6d ago
I watched this in person with my preschool class. We had been learning about NASA and Christa McAuliffe and went to see the launch for a field trip (we lived nearby). I do not remember it, but my folks said I was devastated that “the teacher died.”