28 Jan 1986

[Muck]

WTSP.com

On a chilly January morning 24 years ago, optometrist Jack Moss raised his new video camera to the sky over central Florida and captured one of the darkest moments in American space exploration - the explosion of the shuttle Challenger.

In the videotape, a stream of white smoke behind the climbing shuttle shoots into view, but Moss, his wife and a neighbor noticed immediately that something was amiss when the channel separated into two streams.

"That's trouble of some kind," Moss can be heard saying. "That didn't look right."

.../cont/...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMfXAVM4Bl8]YouTube - NEW Amateur video of Challenger explosion . NASA Space Shuttle[/ame]

 

[Merih]

This is very ironic, my Engineering Ethics professor was discussing this accident last week. The engineer who gave permission to launch had a bad feeling about launching due to a faulty O-Ring...but he was pressured into saying yes because the President wanted to mention the launch in the State of the Union address the next day.

Key thing to take away for my fellow engineers; don't listen to any manager that says "Take off your engineering hat and put on your managerial hat." First rule in the National Society of Professional Engineers is the safety of the public. Nothing comes above that.

 

[scooter1369]

I still remember watching that live from our school courtyard in Port Orange. The whole school went quiet.

 

[Muck]

I still remember watching that live from our school courtyard in Port Orange. The whole school went quiet.

I didn't see it live. The first I heard of it was while waiting in the line for lunch. One of my friends came up and asked me if I'd heard about the shuttle.
I was expecting some sort of *joke and he just said "it blew up" and I just thought "well that isn't very funny".

All of my classes after lunch were spent just watching the news coverage of it all.


*For weeks before the launch there were constant McAullife jokes making the rounds.

 

[Jake]

I came back from class to our room at Haverfield and found my roommates watching the aftermath on TV. It had just happened minutes earlier.

 

[PlanetFrnd]

I was in my afternoon K class at Wilson Hills Elementary... even at 5 we knew it was sad and scary.

 

[buxfan4life]

I was in 5th grade, we were at recess (indoors since it was raining) and a classmate who worked in the library came in to tell us what happened. We all thought she was joking until they announced it over the PA. We all kind of sat there stunned.

 

[cincibuck]

I had the launch on in my classroom. What struck me was the NASA spokesman announcing the launch and saying, "There appears to be some sort of a malfunction..."

Maybe that was better than the hysterical call on the Hindenberg, "Oh the humanity, the humanity..." but it seemed so removed from reality.

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

I had the launch on in my classroom. What struck me was the NASA spokesman announcing the launch and saying, "There appears to be some sort of a malfunction..."

Maybe that was better than the hysterical call on the Hindenberg, "Oh the humanity, the humanity..." but it seemed so removed from reality.

 

[Muck]

This is very ironic, my Engineering Ethics professor was discussing this accident last week. The engineer who gave permission to launch had a bad feeling about launching due to a faulty O-Ring...but he was pressured into saying yes because the President wanted to mention the launch in the State of the Union address the next day.

Key thing to take away for my fellow engineers; don't listen to any manager that says "Take off your engineering hat and put on your managerial hat." First rule in the National Society of Professional Engineers is the safety of the public. Nothing comes above that.

Bob Lund

There's a very good documentary about all of the arguments behind the scene that day.