From faulty O-rings to deadly weather and foreboding warnings. The engineers
closest to the Challenger Space Shuttle knew what was wrong – so why didn’t NASA step in?
The Challenger was destroyed due to a faulty O-ring seal in one of its
booster rockets, allowing burning gas to escape.
The rubber O-rings weren't supposed to be burned by the gasses resulting from
liftoff, but that's exactly what happened during the testing phase.
Shockingly, according to the Rogers Commission Report, when it was found that the O-rings could
be damaged, engineers at both NASA and Morton Thiokol, the company contracted
to design and build the rockets, decided that the situation was undesirable but acceptable.
A test in 1977 revealed another ominous problem.
The rocket ignition could cause parts of the rocket's steel casing to bend outward,
reducing the pressure on the O-rings. Keep in mind, the opposite was supposed to happen,
with parts bending inward and helping the O-rings to seal properly.
At this point, engineers began to sound the alarm.
One characterized the current design as "unacceptable" in October 1977,
and another stated in January 1978 that redesign was necessary to, quote:
"Prevent hot gas leaks and resulting catastrophic failure."
Despite this, nothing was changed. NASA had more than theory to go on after its second shuttle
mission, when the Space Shuttle Columbia flew in November 1981. When they recovered and examined
that shuttle's right rocket booster, one of its primary O-rings had been eroded badly.
The news was ultimately met with no action. Multiple subsequent shuttle missions during
the 1980s showed O-ring damage, yet still, the design wasn't changed.
“We learned that little things that seem harmless can become catastrophic events.”
By 1985, engineers at Morton Thiokol had another concern about the O-rings. Their
concern was based around how the cold weather would loosen the O-rings elasticity. Given
that NASA's bevy of planned shuttle missions included winter launches, this was a problem.
As told by NASA Space Flight, one of the engineers, Bob Ebeling, wrote a memo in October
1985 and titled it "Help!" in the hope of finally drawing attention to the issue. No help came.
On January 27, 1986, NASA called Morton Thiokol and asked how they felt about
a launch in 18-degree weather because the O-rings' lower threshold of safety was 40
degrees Fahrenheit. The engineers, when hearing this, were aghast.
Ebeling called his team together, and they all agreed that a launch in
such a temperature would be the death of the shuttle crew. In a teleconference with NASA,
the engineers laid out why Challenger should not be launched the next morning
and recommended that it not lift off in any temperature lower than 53 degrees Fahrenheit.
As engineer Roger Boisjoly later recounted to NPR, a NASA official was "appalled" at
the thought of waiting so long to launch. The clear, cold weather that night led to
ice forming all over the launch pad, but NASA still decided to proceed.
The crew were told about the ice when they were briefed on the weather that morning,
but they weren't told about any concerns regarding the
temperature's effect on the O-rings. To that effect, the mission was a go.
As detailed by the Rogers Commission Report, Challenger's launch was scrubbed repeatedly
for one reason or another. Had even one of those delays not occurred,
the shuttle might've lifted off in safer temperatures.
First, it was moved from January 22 to January 23 due to schedule ripples caused by the prior delay
of another mission, STS-61-C, and then the Program Requirements Change Board moved liftoff to January
25. After that, the aftereffects of STS-61-C's delay bumped Challenger again to January 26.
The evening before the new launch date, the mission was pushed off yet again due
to a forecast of wind and rain, which turned out to be entirely
wrong. As Gene Thomas, launch director for the Challenger mission, recalled:
"We decided we would not launch on Sunday,
and Sunday was a beautiful day. We missed an opportunity to launch."
Challenger's crew were strapped in and ready to go on the morning of
January 27 when another problem reared its head. A screw wouldn't release from
the shuttle's crew hatch. A drill was brought in, but its battery was dead.
According to NASA Space Flight, nine more batteries were brought to the launch pad,
and for reasons unknown, every single one went
dead. Liftoff was finally pushed back one more time to January 28.
“What should have been a day heralded for education turned to tragedy in a split second.”
At 11:38 AM on January 28, Challenger launched from Kennedy Space Center.
Footage later showed that dark smoke began to jet from one of the right-side
solid rocket booster's O-rings less than a second after liftoff began.
The shuttle broke the sound barrier 40 seconds up, and at around 59 seconds,
a plume of flame began to emit from the right-hand SRB. The crew wouldn't have known about this,
as further evidenced by their yells of "Wooooo hooooo!" at 60 seconds,
a mere quarter-second before the flame began to contact the orbiter's massive external fuel tank.
Per Spaceflight Now, even if the crew had known what was happening,
there was nothing they could've done. Just before 73 seconds came
the last words from Challenger, spoken by Mike Smith: "Uh-oh."
Immediately afterward, the shuttle was torn apart as the external fuel tank erupted into
a massive fireball. A few seconds later, an object was seen descending slowly by
parachute. Several TV stations began to focus on footage of the object in the
shock and confusion that followed. However, it was only the nose cap of one of the SRBs.
Anyone in the know wouldn't have focused on the parachuting nose cap for long because
there was no way for the Challenger crew to have escaped from the shuttle. The Rogers
Commission Report noted that Columbia had ejection seats similar to those of an SR-71
Blackbird for its four test flights early on, but that was when only two people were flying.
The seats were never meant to be in place for the actual shuttle
missions when it was assumed that all risks would've been accounted for and resolved.
NASA had, in fact, considered full crew ejection options back in 1971 when the
shuttle was being designed. They examined the feasibility of conventional ejection seats,
encapsulated seats, and a whole detachable crew compartment. The
problem was the cost of integrating any of these options into the design.
Open seats would've cost $10 million, encapsulated seats would've cost $7 million,
and the crew compartment option would have added a whopping $292 million to
the bill. After the Challenger disaster, the idea of an astronaut escape system
was examined once again. A number of designs were considered, but as before,
all of them were ultimately rejected due to the difficulty of their implementation.
Per the Rogers Commission Report, recovery efforts began within an hour of Challenger's
breakup, but the crew wouldn't be found until March 1986. Off the Florida coast,
two divers came across the crew cabin on the seabed approximately 100 feet below the surface.
It was a wreck of twisted metal and wires,
and the divers didn't know what they'd found until they saw a spacesuit bobbing in the
water. Low on air, the two men marked the location and swam for the surface.
The next day, the USS Preserver came to recover the lost astronauts. As detailed by NBC News,
that was easier said than done. Between the crash and the time spent underwater,
their remains weren't in good shape, having at times to be removed in parts.
First, Judy Resnik was recovered, followed by Christa McAuliffe. After this,
it was determined that the jagged, jumbled cabin would have to be raised from the ocean in order
to continue. As a crane pulled the cabin to the ship, a splash of blue appeared on the surface.
It was the jump-suited body of Gregory Jarvis, which had become free as the cabin was raised.
As the crew of the Preserver watched in dismay, it sank below the waves again. A search for
Jarvis immediately ensued, during which astronaut Robert Crippen even hired his own boat to help,
but Jarvis wouldn't be found again for another five weeks, 200 yards from where he'd been lost.
After failing to convince NASA to stop Challenger's January 28 launch,
Morton Thiokol engineer Roger Boisjoly went home. As detailed by NASA Space Flight,
Boisjoly, fearing the worst, had no intention of watching the launch,
but fellow engineer Bob Ebeling convinced him to do so.
When the shuttle seemed to lift off just fine, a wave of relief washed over the engineers ... until
they saw the fireball. Everyone present knew just what had happened. Despite his efforts,
Boisjoly felt responsible for the seven astronauts' deaths, as did Ebeling.
Over the following months, the once-bulky Boisjoly lost quite
a bit of weight and became plagued by headaches, insomnia, and depression.
He testified to the Rogers Commission and also sued both NASA and Morton Thiokol. However,
his lawsuits weren't successful, and Boisjoly's
actions led to his shunning by some of his colleagues, worsening his despair.
As told by his wife to NPR, Boisjoly did eventually find peace, however,
through speaking to engineering schools about the disaster,
which he continued to do until his death in January 2012.
According to a report by NASA scientist Joseph P. Kerwin, when the Challenger broke apart,
its crew, protected by the cabin, wouldn't have been killed or even seriously injured. But,
were they still conscious as they fell toward the sea? The answer is unclear.
After the orbiter was torn apart, the sturdy crew cabin began to free
fall. The central question is how quickly the cabin depressurized.
On the ocean floor, the cabin was a mangled mess, but that was due to its impact. Given the damage,
it couldn't be determined whether there'd been any breach in the
cabin before the crash. There is one chilling indicator of the crew's fate.
“The challenger’s fast. The launch is fast. Its… bang! And then its a two minute ride down.
And, your conscious, we know that.”
Of the four personal egress air packs, or PEAPs, that were recovered,
three had been activated before the impact. However, Kerwin noted that the PEAPs may
have been activated "instinctively" due to depressurization right at breakup, in which
case they wouldn't have kept the astronauts awake, as they only provided regular air.
For what it's worth, per NBC News, three-time shuttle commander Robert Overmeyer, who
participated in the cabin's recovery, is certain that the Challenger’s astronauts were conscious.
Tragically, there was no chance of survival when the cabin struck the ocean at 207 miles per hour.