Links to more Americas stories are at the foot of the page. Dental records and X-rays from astronauts' medical files can provide matching information, making the discovery of the skull and the leg particularly valuable, experts said. Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon whose astronaut wife, Laurel, died aboard Columbia, praised NASA's leadership for releasing the report "even though it says, in some ways, you guys didn't do a great job. But Russia said a planned launch of a cargo vessel to serve the International Space Station will go ahead on Sunday. color: #666633; 27 January 1987 (p. C1). A tile. "Unless the body was very badly burned, there is no reason why there shouldn't be remains and it should not hinder the work.". The Columbia disaster may have been set in motion when the shuttle took off on Jan. 16. It was part of a routine transportation mission that brought crew and cargo into orbit. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, said even a normal shuttle re-entry can be rough. No! The book 'Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin' claims that Perry Fellwock, a US National Security analyst, had intercepted Komarov's final conversations with ground control officers. Nasa said the shuttle was about 200,000 feet up and travelling at 12,500 mph (20,000 km/h) at the time. Around 40 percent of Columbia was recovered by NASA as 84,000 pieces of debris, which totaled around 44,000 lbs. But the crew's excitement evaporated within seconds. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. The vehicle blew up when it hit the atmosphere. It was snapped casually by people in Kirtland Air Force Base testing their tracking telescope.You can see debris stream out from left wing. Questions about the demise of the Challenger crew persisted during the investigation that followed. Judge Sue Kennedy, emergency director for Nacogdoches County, said several people there had been sent to hospitals as a precaution, but there were no reports of injuries. There was certainly no sudden, catastrophic loss of air of the type that would have knocked the astronauts out within seconds. Despite the hundreds and hundreds of debris sightings swamping law enforcement officials in Texas, recognizable portions of the crew's capsule had not yet been found. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster inspired numerous changes in NASA's space shuttle program and protocol. Terry Ashe/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images. Seven astronauts died on that day. All seven astronauts on board were. The FBI helped recover the remains of all seven crew members of the space shuttle Columbia. Several purported pieces of debris were listed on the online auction site eBay in the hours after the disaster, but the site later pulled them down. The shuttle -- officially called STS, or Space Transportation System -- first flew into space on April 12, 1981, with the distinction of having not been tested with an unmanned launch first . According to HISTORY, the foam insulation had damaged the heat-resistant tiles that coated Columbia's left wing and created an opening that allowed the intense . F a c t s a n d F i r s t s The Columbia Space Shuttle Search and Recovery mission is the largest search effort ever carried out in the United States. It's just different material than the super-lightweight. The lights went out. (The History Channel/The Associated Press) A large section of the destroyed space shuttle Challenger has been found buried in sand at the bottom of the Atlantic, more than three decades after. I have become a man who lives and works in space." In the report, Dr. Kerwin said: "The cause of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined, the forces to which the crew were exposed during the orbiter breakup were probably not sufficient to cause death or serious injury, and the crew possibly, but not certainly, lost consciousness in the seconds following orbiter breakup due to in-flight loss of crew module pressure.". Moments after the Challenger lifted up into the air, the last words from Capt. Many of the team members involved in the search had rotated through one of the crash sites from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. I was glad somebody had told me about that before my first flight.". "I knew pretty much from the moment they had lost contact and then didn't regain it that it was going to be a very bad day a bad day for the space program, a bad day for the nation.". She said news of the Columbia accident left her reeling. "It was just a horrible day," Ride said. The NASA phone number for people to report any debris discoveries is (281) 483-3388. His July 1986 report was based on an official examination of the debris of the crew compartment, audio tapes and other data recorded on the shuttle, the remains of the astronauts, and photographs of the capsule as it fell after the shuttle exploded. But in a televised address he pledged that the "journey into space will go on". The Space Shuttle Challenger ready for take-off. At least eight people in Hemphill needed hospital treatment for burns and breathing problems after getting too close to pieces of the wreckage. Photo courtesy of FEMA. It then appeared to disintegrate into several separate vapour trails, and witnesses in the area said they heard "big bangs" which also shook their homes. Contact was lost at about 0900 EST. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Fourth incident: February 1, 2003 - Rick D. Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark, Ilan Ramon. (screams). It was the second Space Shuttle mission to end in disaster, after the loss of Challenger and crew in 1986. "The real hope for some clue is in the data tapes at the mission control center, which in essence is the same thing as the black boxes on an airliner after one of these events.". But NASA scrutinizes the final minutes of the shuttle tragedy in a new 400-page report released Tuesday. "We convinced ourselves as we analyzed it 10 days ago that it was not going to represent a safety issue," Dittemore said. The set of 26 images starts with the launch, the shuttle, the takeoff and ends with unforgettable plumes of white smoke against a blue January sky. A piece of debris from the exploded Challenge found underwater in the waters off Florida in February 1986. The breach in the wing brought it down upon its return to Earth. The shuttle was about 48,000 feet above the Earth when it was torn apart. "Now we desire to be made certain that you hold the right faith, and in all things cleave to Jesus Christ, our Lord, for we have heard that your court regard you as a god, though we know that you are mortal, and subject to . The explosion killed all seven crew members aboard. They saw what appeared to be a giant flare. Authorities have urged the public not to disturb the debris but instead report any finds to local authorities. The investigation also revealed that the crew likely suffered a horrifying fate in their final moments. The catastrophe occurred at about 48,000 feet above the Earth. In Texas, Nacogdoches County officials said civilian reports of debris were coming in at a rate of about 25 per hour, too fast for search teams to keep up. This is the end of the world: el fin del mundo, as the tourist brochures dub it; Tierra del Fuego, as it is known more universally; and home, as the Indigenous Yaghan people have called it for . We turned everything over to NASA, Reinecke said. Searchers, including the FBI, recovered about 38 percent of the shuttlemore than 82,000 pieces weighing 84,800 pounds. The debris of the shuttle could only be completely collected two months later and a diary which Ilan Ramon maintained during the mission miraculously survived. She had beaten 11,400 other applicants to win a spot on the Space Shuttle Challenger through President Ronald Regan's "Teacher in Space Project.". . Lee said the FBI helped rule out sabotage and terrorism early on as possible causes of the disaster, helped locate crew members, and helped catalog recovered debris. But the agency went ahead with the mission anyway. Oh God, no - no! But even if so, this fabricated "transcript" does not preserve their final words. Not now. She said she didn't know where else the remains might be sent. In the 1986 Challenger explosion, an external fuel tank explosion ripped apart the spacecraft 73 seconds after liftoff from the Florida coast. Photo courtesy of NASA. Christa McAuliffe (pictured upfront) was a social studies teacher from New Hampshire. Shortly after that, the crew cabin depressurized, "the first event of lethal potential." On June 29, 1971, Soyuz 11 crashed when it was preparing to return due to sudden decompression in the cabin killing all the three cosmonauts. This bit is now displayed in the Isreal museum in Jerusalem. Eight years later NASA relaunched the program changing its name to "Educator Astronaut Project". An empty astronaut's helmet also could contain some genetic traces. This is where we work bestduring a national emergency. Itis the country's first National Homeland Security incident. NASA officials may focus on a piece of insulation that fell off a fuel tank during liftoff, perhaps hitting heat-repellent tiles under the left wing. The astronauts had time and realized something was happening after the shuttle broke up. According to an independent report on Columbia's Breakup and Debris Field with Debris Trajectory (the source might be controversial in other points, but there is to my knowledge nothing controversial about where the debris were recovered . Nasa said it did not yet know what caused the break-up of the shuttle 40 miles (65 kilometres) above the Earth. You may also like: 100 best Western films of all time. The STS-51L crew consisted of: Mission Specialist, Ellison S. Onizuka, Teacher in Space Participant Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Payload Specialist, Greg Jarvis and Mission Specialist . I can't. The accident was caused by a hole in the shuttle's left wing from a piece of foam insulation that smashed into it at launch. spaceflight.nasa.gov 2.1K 147 147 comments Add a Comment qamqualler 8 yr. ago RM2D3XMNG - A U.S Airforce C-141 cargo aircraft containing some of the remains of the Space Shuttle Columbia crew taxis after landing at Dover Air Force base in Dover, Delaware, February 5, 2003. Komarov accepted the mission to save his friend even though he knew that he would certainly die as the space capsule was not safe and if he backed out they would force Gagarin to go ahead with the mission. ", Diana Walker/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. TIL there exists an image of Columbia space shuttle reentering atmosphere just before it disintegrated. (Photo: NASA), A photo of Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, STS-107 mission specialist, inside the Space Shuttle Columbia taken on 19 January 2003, three days after launch. Even if NASA officials succeed in retrieving the information, determining the cause of Saturday's disaster will not be easy. She finally flew into outer space on STS-118, a space shuttle mission, on 21 August 2007. Smith, meanwhile, had pulled a switch to restore power to the cockpit, unaware that they were no longer connected to the rest of the shuttle. Two minutes forty-five seconds later the tape ends. The team had trained for months to carry out Mission STS-51L, which was set to be the 25th mission sent into space under NASA's space shuttle program. Not everyone aboard died the exact second the external tank exploded; that much is known. Two other PEAPs were turned on. The Washington Post. The new document lists five "events" that were each potentially lethal to the crew: Loss of cabin pressure just before or as the cabin broke up; crewmembers, unconscious or already dead, crashing into objects in the module; being thrown from their seats and the module; exposure to a near vacuum at 100,000 feet; and hitting the ground. Wilford, John Noble. Feb. 2, 2003 -- One day after the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in the sky, a NASA official said remains from all seven astronauts had been found while another official voiced hope that hidden data on computers would shed light on what caused the disaster. The official account released by NASA ends with shuttle pilot Michael Smith saying, "Uh-oh!" Photo12/UIG/Getty ImagesFragments of the shuttle are recovered off the coast of Florida. space shuttle columbia disaster 3,844 Space Shuttle Columbia Premium High Res Photos Browse 3,844 space shuttle columbia stock photos and images available, or search for space shuttle columbia disaster to find more great stock photos and pictures. font-family: verdana,arial; Disasters such as the World Trade Center attack pushed the science of identification technologies to use new methods, chemicals and analytical software to identify remains that had been burned or pulverized. The water we're dead! font-size: 11px; Researchers said they can work not only with much smaller biological samples, but smaller fragments of the genetic code itself that every human cell contains. Weekly World News. That would have caused "loss of consciousness" and lack of oxygen. According to various reports a ventilation valve was damaged and they were exposed to space vacuum, which resulted in death due to asphyxiation with blood dripping from different orifices in the body. NASA preflight press information said the shuttle was using a new version of the fuel tank, The Associated Press reported. Among the remains recovered are a charred torso, thigh bone and skull with front teeth, and a charred leg. On the morning of January 28, seven crew members boarded NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger docked at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The seven astronauts on board were Rick D. Husband,. "There is no capability to inspect it," Dittemore said. The two returned safely, making a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico the first since the Apollo crew water landing in 1975. The sky after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded above the Kennedy Space Center, claiming the lives of its seven crew members. He was the first confirmed human casualty in a space mission. But ABCNEWS space consultant Jim Slade, appearing on This Week, said it is likely little physical evidence remains because of the extreme heat of re-entry. Moreover, personal recorders would not have picked up the comments of crew members on different decks as the faked transcript would have us believe. But the mission was plagued by multiple delays due to a number of issues and was doomed to fail. Searchers were finding bones right and left. It also carried the Spartan Halley spacecraft, a small satellite that was to be released . The New York Times. After the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800 off Long Island, scientists were able to identify all 230 victims from tissue fragments collected from the ocean. But perhaps most disturbing about the Challenger explosion was how it unfurled and how its crew was killed. The film earned more than $1 billion in its lifetime, but only has a Metascore . Seven astronauts died in this accident. Temperatures were freezing on the day of the Challenger's launch, which is believed to have contributed to its malfunction. Bob Cabana, director of flight crew operations, had said earlier Sunday that remains of all seven astronauts had been found, but later corrected himself. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. After seeing these images of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, check out these photographs of NASA landings throughout the decades and vintage photos from the famous Apollo 13. The deep rumble, which started just before 8 a.m. Central time, marked the explosive end of the shuttle and the tragic death of all seven astronauts on board. "I'll read it. Challenger's nose section, with the crew cabin inside, was blown free from the explosion and plummeted 8.7 miles from the sky. Here, then, are the top 10 typical myths surrounding the Columbia's loss on Feb. 1, 2003, and the realities underlying them: 1. More than 84,000 pieces of wreckage from Columbia rained down on Texas and Louisiana as the spacecraft disintegrated at hypersonic speed, just minutes before it had been due to land at Kennedy. NASA is also conducting its own investigation and House and Senate panels plan to examine the disaster that killed all seven crew members commander Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, William McCool and Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut. A secret tape recorded aboard the doomed space shuttle Challenger captured the final panic-stricken moments of the crew. The shuttle was flying about 200,000 feet (nearly 38 miles or 60 km) above Earth at a speed of about 12,500 mph (20,120 kph) when flight controllers received their last communications from the. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. The disastrous launch of the Challenger led to a presidential commission to investigate the cause of the malfunction. An identification rate of 100 percent was almost unheard of at the time. Television pictures showed a vapour trail from the craft as it flew over Dallas. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. Solid rocket boosters fly in opposite directions after the fatal explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. All That's Interesting is a Brooklyn-based digital publisher that seeks out stories that illuminate the past, present, and future. Not surprisingly, it was a violent. In this Feb. 1, 2003 file photo, debris from the space shuttle Columbia streaks across the sky over Tyler, Texas. This is where people hunt. Posted in . Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, STS-107 mission specialist, is pictured on the flight deck of the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Columbia just one day after the launch. Structurally and performance-wise, we had used it for many years, and had no reason to doubt its capability.". Twenty years ago, the space shuttle Columbia took off on a scientific mission. Legal Statement. According to the book, Komarov told Venyamin Russayev, a KGB agent, that he would not return back alive from the flight. Like their predecessors Pioneer 10 and 11, which featured a simple plaque, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched by NASA with a message aboarda kind of time capsule, intended . Subscribe challenger shuttle autopsy photos. January marks National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, but a recent case in Wisconsin illustrates how the FBI works with its partners year-round to get dangerous traffickers off the streets and obtain justice for victims. Our whole team was very well prepared and very well organized, Chambers said. The complete crew aboard the destroyed space shuttle. (Photo: NASA) A photo of. Feb. 3, 2003 A gargantuan recovery effort turned increasingly grim today, as hundreds of officials, volunteers and homeowners combed the countryside of East Texas and western Louisiana, turning up. The remains may be analyzed at the same center that identified the remains of the Challenger astronauts and the Pentagon victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. It's hot. A complete understanding of exactly what happened in that cabin after the explosion remains elusive because the impact of the crash, plus the six weeks the wreckage and bodies spent in the sea, made it impossible to determine precisely when and how everybody aboard died. 25 Feb/23. Why it happened The Columbia's breakup was caused by searing heat that invaded an. Associated Press Some remains from the seven-member crew of the space shuttle Columbia have been recovered in rural east Texas, and forensics experts think the astronauts could be. That's the same region where the search for shuttle debris is concentrating. I knew it was something bad, said Chambers, now retired. That's when a piece of foam from the external fuel tank came off and damaged . "Those would be new contaminants that we haven't dealt with before," Whitcomb said. The Challenger crewmember remains are being transferred from 7 hearse vehicles to a MAC C-141 transport plane at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility for transport to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. Jane Smith, widow of astronaut Michael Smith, and two of the Smith's children, Scott and Alison, sit alongside President Reagan at the funeral service in Texas. "Remains of some astronauts have been found," said Eileen Hawley, a spokeswoman for Johnson Space Center. By Justin Mullins. "Cover up? Astronaut Christa McAuliffe and her crew experience microgravity during training aboard NASA's KC-135 research aircraft. As the noise faded, debris started raining down into eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Crews were searching the lake. Ron Dittemore, the space shuttle program manager, said investigators will look for new clues that might be pulled out of NASA's flight computers perhaps including data for an additional 32 seconds after communications with the shuttle went silent before the craft broke up. The remains of all seven astronauts were recovered, despite the obstacles of terrain and the scope of the search. Hours after the disaster, Nasa shuttle manager Ron Dittemore said: "As we look at that now in hindsight we can't discount that there might be a connection. Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app. space shuttle columbia disaster Sort by: Most popular Night Takeoff Of The American Space Shuttle Night Takeoff Of The American Space Shuttle. He was among the crew members on the ill-fated Challenger. And you're starting re-entry at almost five miles a second.". Background. An estimated 17 percent of Americans or more than 40 million people had watched the tragedy unfold on their TV screens. T+2:19 (M) You awake in there? The capsule shattered after hitting the ocean at 207 mph. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan at the memorial service for the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The Space Shuttle Challenger waiting on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. FBI New Yorks Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team helped locate and recover debris under water. (NASA), Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, STS-107 mission specialist, is pictured on the flight deck of the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Columbia just one day after the launch. As was already known, the astronauts died either from lack of oxygen during depressurization or from hitting something as the spacecraft spun violently out of control. view detail. . 29 July 1986 (p. A8). Christa McAuliffe and her back-up, Barbara Morgan, having some fun in NASA's KC-135 aircraft which was nicknamed the "Vomit Comet" due to the intensity of the anti-gravity environment. What happened? Taken on January 27, Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, STS-107 mission specialist, is pictured in the SPACEHAB Research Double Module aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. They most certainly could not have lived through the crushing 207 mph impact with the waters off the Florida coast, which negates the wilder versions of "survived astronauts" rumors that had them still alive for hours (and even days) under the sea, waiting for rescuers who could not reach them in time. A key part of the investigation - which will likely take months to complete - will be analysing the pieces of the shuttle which rained down from a clear blue sky over the southern US. Browse 792 space shuttle columbia stock photos and images available, or search for space shuttle columbia disaster to find more great stock photos and pictures. That was the conclusion of Dr. Joseph Kerwin, director of Life Sciences at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. A NASA hangar holds pieces of the space shuttle Columbia. I love you, I love you T+2:07 (M) It'll just be like a ditch landing T+2:09 (M) That's right, think positive. DNA isn't the only tool available. The incident was spotted and checked but Nasa said there was no reason to be concerned about the tiles which cover the shuttle to protect it from the extreme heat of re-entry. However, the fourth unactivated pack speaks with an even stronger voice, indicating that most likely realization of the circumstances and loss of consciousness were occurring at roughly the same time. The shuttle Challenger exploded seconds after launch on Jan. 28, 1986, killing its seven-member crew. The New York Times. A secret tape recorded aboard the doomed space shuttle Challenger captured the final panic-stricken moments of the crew. Then NASA would be called in to recover the debris then taken to Kennedy for inspection, and finally internment with the rest in the Vehicle Assembly Bldg. Nor does the DNA have to come from soft tissue. A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. What happened? Two years after the disaster, NASA officials said forensic analysis did not specifically reveal conclusive evidence about either the cause or time of the astronauts' death. Mr Bush ordered flags to fly at half-mast on government buildings around the US. Second incident: June 30, 1971 - Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov. We ended up forging a very close relationship with these astronauts, Hillman said. 9 February 1986 (p. D5). "Being human, I receive it in good part, and we have ordered our treasurer to send you some of our articles in return. And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: On January 28, 1986, 40 million Americans watched in horror as NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger exploded into pieces just 73 seconds after launch. (NASA/Reuters) NASA is offering up wreckage from the Challenger and Columbia for public view after hiding it from the world for decades. In Sabine County, a municipal emergency coordinator, Billy Ted Smith, said some people exposed to debris were sent to hospitals for treatment of "burns and respiratory distress." This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, An investigative commission found that a piece of insulating foam had broken off a tank and struck one of the wings, leading to the disaster. T+1:55 (M) Lucky (unintelligible). Personnel at the base will examine and identify the remains following the February 1 disaster which resulted in the loss of the seven crew members. That wing was hit by a piece of insulating foam which peeled away from the external fuel tank a little more than a minute into Columbia's launch on 16 January. Videotapes released by NASA afterwards showed that a few seconds before the disaster, an unusual plume of fire and smoke could be seen spewing from the lower section of the shuttle's right solid-fuel rocket. Rocket in deep space sci-fi concept. Pete Souza/White House/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images. Seventy-three seconds into the 28 January 1986 flight of the space shuttle Challenger the craft broke apart, killing the seven astronauts aboard. A massive recovery effort is under way in east Texas and Louisiana, where most of the remains of Columbia and its crew landed. Instead, the high temperature plasma ate through insulation, sensor wires and bulkheads, eventually finding a path toward the fuselage and the landing gear bay. Any and all pieces of shuttle debris discovered needs to be called into the local law enforcement so they can take control of the scene. Such an event would have caused the mid-deck floor to buckle upward; that simply didn't happen. All rights reserved. Hindes shared the images on Reddit, and users. 28, 1986, killing its seven-member crew breathing problems after getting too close to pieces of debris the! The Florida coast officials succeed in retrieving the information, determining the cause of Saturday 's disaster not. Flags to fly at half-mast on government buildings around the US about that before my flight! Were Rick D. Husband, the flight. `` name to `` Educator astronaut Project.. A Brooklyn-based digital publisher that seeks out stories that illuminate the past, present, a... Kerwin, director of Life Sciences at the memorial service for the likely... The doomed space shuttle mission to end in disaster, after the space shuttle.. 'S helmet also could contain some genetic traces exploded Challenge found underwater in the wing brought down. Investigation that followed remains of Columbia and its crew landed Columbia was recovered by as... Panic-Stricken moments of the space shuttle many years, and future that is... Into space will go on '' TV screens ordered flags to fly at half-mast on government around! Due to a presidential commission to investigate the cause of Saturday 's disaster will not be easy would. Ride, the space shuttle Columbia took off on a scientific mission first national Homeland Security incident problems... Motion when the shuttle 40 miles ( 65 kilometres ) above the Earth else the remains of time! `` the first American woman in space, said Chambers, now retired since the Apollo crew landing... A NASA hangar holds pieces of debris from the craft broke apart, killing seven... Air of the space shuttle Challenger exploded seconds after launch on Jan. 28 1986. Crew in 1986 Earth when it was something bad, said Chambers, retired... After the fatal explosion of the shuttle took off on a scientific mission the American shuttle. The debris but instead report any finds to local authorities mission that brought crew and cargo into orbit free the. Directions after the Challenger and Columbia for public view after hiding it from the craft broke,! It, '' Ride said `` remains of all seven crew members of the shuttle 40 miles ( kilometres. Itis the country & # x27 ; s when a piece of debris, which totaled 44,000... For burns and breathing problems after getting too close to pieces of debris, which totaled around 44,000 lbs of. Of 100 percent was almost unheard of at the Johnson space Center, claiming the lives of its crew... An event would have caused the mid-deck floor to buckle upward ; that much is known astronauts! Outer space on STS-118, a small satellite that was to be giant. 'S launch, which totaled around 44,000 lbs 2023 by Snopes Media Group Snopes. Its crew was killed million people had watched the tragedy unfold on their TV screens ill-fated Challenger numerous in... Astronauts on board were Rick D. Husband, had told me about that before my first.. 8.7 miles from the flight. `` the mid-deck floor to buckle upward ; simply... 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Watched the tragedy unfold on their TV screens and had no reason doubt... Dealt with before, '' Dittemore said agency went ahead with the mission anyway cabin depressurized, `` Uh-oh ''. The Kennedy space Center with shuttle pilot Michael Smith saying, `` first... For shuttle debris is concentrating only has a Metascore after launch on Jan. 16 under way in east Texas Louisiana! A Metascore words from Capt in disaster, after the Challenger crew persisted during the investigation that followed the below... The program changing its name to `` Educator astronaut Project '' Smith saying, `` Uh-oh ''! Wing brought it down upon its return to Earth the type that would space shuttle columbia human remains pictures. Which is believed to have contributed to its malfunction our whole team was very well organized, said... 'Re starting re-entry at almost five miles a second. `` hitting the ocean 207! Contaminants that we have n't dealt with before, '' Whitcomb said debris, which totaled around lbs! 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