January 28, 2012
OV-099
Seventeen years and one day after the tragedy of Apollo 1, the American space program lost another crew.
And to a young Wonderduck, they were all fascinating. That I had the flu, or something flu-like, was only a minor impediment. I had stayed home from school and was sacked out on the couch, covered with a couple of blankets, as I watched the whole terrible event live. Some say that the loss of the Challenger was my generation's Kennedy Assassination. I suppose that's so. It certainly changed me.
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McAuliff, Jarvis, Resnick, Scobee, McNair, Smith, Onizuka
The story of the Challenger disaster and the associated fallout has been often told, and I won't repeat it here. What I do want to mention is that I'm one of those few people who was actually watching the launch live on CNN when everything went pear-shaped. The three major networks were showing normal programming; Space Shuttle launches had already become old hat by 1986. To CNN, then only six years old and not the monolithic success it is now, launches were still important news. And to a young Wonderduck, they were all fascinating. That I had the flu, or something flu-like, was only a minor impediment. I had stayed home from school and was sacked out on the couch, covered with a couple of blankets, as I watched the whole terrible event live. Some say that the loss of the Challenger was my generation's Kennedy Assassination. I suppose that's so. It certainly changed me.
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Posted by: GreyDuck at January 29, 2012 10:32 AM (eHm8o)
2
I was in the school bookstore at Drexel when someone said the Shuttle blew up, so I went over to the student center and watched the TV, heart in my guts.
Posted by: Mauser at January 29, 2012 08:44 PM (cZPoz)
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I always had a closer connection (for lack of a better word) to Columbia. Maybe because it was the first. I know the Challenger disaster affected me; I found a little essay I wrote voluntarily amongst keepsakes and memorabilia recently. Still, it was just one of those big, dumb accidents at the time. The Columbia accident really tore me up, though. Of course, that's coming up here in a few days. History can be funny (odd funny, not ha ha funny, in this case) sometimes.
Posted by: Ben at January 30, 2012 11:47 AM (RalIr)
4
I blame Environmentalists for Columbia. They changed the foam formulation because environmentalists objected to the chemicals given off by the foam curing. That's the old foam that actually stayed on the tanks. NASA ended up sacrificing seven lives on that Green Altar.
Posted by: Mauser at January 31, 2012 05:00 AM (cZPoz)
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Except that Columbia was using one of the last of the old tanks, with the older foam formulation.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 31, 2012 06:08 AM (+rSRq)
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Really? I had never heard that anywhere else.
Posted by: Mauser at February 01, 2012 04:44 AM (cZPoz)
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