Welcome back guys.
Weve talked a lot about Space on this channel because like me, a lot of you think its mind
blowingly cool.
However, as Im sure youre all aware, space is a very inhospitible environment.
Theres a million things that could kill us up there and many things that could go wrong
as we try to get there.
Sometimes, this has led to the deaths of people and hard lessons to learn.
My name is Danny Burke and this is the top 10 terrifying space disasters.
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Starting off at number 10 we have the Challenger Disaster.
This Space Shuttle had many successful missions in the 1980s and had gained a lot of attention
for its 10th mission on January 28th 1986.
One of the reasons was that it was to carry Americas first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe.
Because of this, millions of people and school children were watching the launch live to
see the historic event.
Just over a minute into the shuttles launch, as the world watched, a burning gas failure
caused the shuttle to explode and disintegrate.
Its thought that the crew may have survived the initial explosion but not the resulting
impact with the ocean below.
17% of Americans watched the disaster live and many people will still tell you where
they were that fateful day.
Coming in at number 9 we have Columbia.
The Space Shuttle Columbia was one of NASAs flagship spacecrafts.
In 2003, it had already flown 27 sucessful missions to space.
However, the 28th was to be its last.
During the launch on February 1st, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the shuttles
external tank and struck its wing.
NASA managers played down the damage and said there was nothing that could be done anyway.
Upon re-entry into Earths atmosphere, hot gas burst through the shuttles wing, causing
it to become unstable and break apart.
All 7 Astronauts were killed and NASA suspended its launches for 2 years while an investigation
was launched ...
Coming in at number 8 we have the Vostok Explosion.
On March 18th, 1980, the Soviet Union was preparing to launch a rocket carrying Ikar,
a military spy satellite.
At the time, the Soviet press reported it as a success, we now know that is far from
the truth.
Some time before launch, the rocket exploded on its pad, blowing up 300 tonnes of rocket
fuel that incinerated the whole area.
The blast killed 48 soldiers and many more were left with horrific burns.
Moving on to number 7 we have SpaceShipTwo.
This space plane was Virgin Galatics main foray into commercial space travel.
On Halloween 2014, co pilot Michael Alsbury unlocked the shuttles feathering system too
early during a test flight over Californias Mojave Desert.
The system is supposed to be used to ensure a safe descent but it was deployed while the
craft was still ascending.
It disintegrated two seconds later, killing one pilot and injuring the other.
The co pilot was cited as partially to blame for the crash but the ships designers were
also faulted for not creating a fail safe system.
The crash sparked a lot of debate about the safety of commercial space flight after decades
of it being conducted by governments.
Next up at number 6 we have Apollo 1.
Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 missions but as you
might expect, there were 10 previous space missions that were part of that project.
The first one, Apollo 1, was a space disaster.
As the crew went through their checklist before launch, an electrical fault sparked a fire
in their command module.
In a matter of seconds, it burned them alive causing death by asphyxiation.
The following inquiry found lethal design flaws with the Apollo 1 module.
If there is any silver lining to take from this, its that these safety improvements helped
Apollo 11 successfully land on the moon 2 years later.
Coming in at number 5 we have Soyuz 1.
At the height of the Space Race with the US, the Soviet Union launched Soyuz 1, a capsule
manned by cosmonaut Vladimir Komarv on board.
To put it quite simply, it want ready.
The engineers who built the craft knew it wasnt ready, the management team knew it wasnt
ready, even Vladimir himself probably knew it wasnt ready.
The craft had failed 3 earlier unmanned texts, not a single one succeeded.
Still, the government put so much pressure on them that the launch went ahead.
Amazingly, Vladimir managed to reach space but the problems had already reached critical
levels, the whole shuttle was breaking and the mission was aborted.
Vladimir had to manually re-enter Earths atmosphere which he survived but disaster struck when
the crafts parachute failed to deploy.
It slammed into the ground at high speed, instantly killing Vladimir.
For many people, this marked the Soviet Union losing the race to the moon.
At the number 4 spot now we have the Nedelin Catastrophe.
This one is frankly astonishing but the reason most of us in the west havent heard about
it is because it was a Soviet Disaster from 1960 at the height of the cold war so it was
kept tightly under wraps.
Now we know the full story.
On October 24th 1960, the Soviet Union were testing an Intercontinental missile using
rocket technology.
It was a 30m long, 141 ton missile called the R-16.
As it sat on the launch pad, a short circuit caused the rockets engines to fire accidentally.
The fuel tanks blew up in a huge explosion.
The fireball incinerated all of the nearby crew.
In total, 78 people were killed and further 120 were injured.
The Soviet Union did not acknowledge the event had happened for another 29 years …
Moving on to number 3 we have The Xichang disaster.
In the 90s, American engineers were being forced to attach their satellite to foreign
shuttle launches because of the ban on commercial payloads following the challenger disaster
we discussed earlier.
One of these launches was near the small Chinese town of Xichang.
The satellite was attached to the untested Chinese Long March 3B rocket.
An error in the rockets on board timing system meant that it began to arc way too soon.
The 426 ton missile flew for 22 seconds over a valley with buildings and people in before
slamming into the side of a hill.
The huge explosion sent shockwaves throughout the area.
The Chinese Government said that 6 people were killed but international observers said
that the area had not been properly evacuated and as many as 500 people may have died in
the disaster.
Coming in at number 2 now we have the X-15.
This was a joint project between NASA and the US Air Force for an aircraft that could
skim just below the surface of space.
The test flight took place on November 15th 1967 and was piloted by Michael J Adams.
The craft successfully reached its peak altitude of 266,000 ft and began to pull a rocking
maneuver on board so that the camera could scan the horizon.
Unfortunately, this rocking sent the craft into a spin and then a nosedive.
It reached speeds of 160,000 feet per minute and broke up during the descent, killing Adams
in the process.
And finally at number 1 we have Soyuz 11.
On June 7th 1971, the Soviet Unions Soyuz 11 space shuttle arrived at a space station
on a routine mission.
3 weeks later, they left to return to Earth.
12 minutes into their descent, a faulty ventilation valve opened while the capsule was still 104
miles above Earth.
The 3 crew members suffocated to death almost immediately.
The strange this is, the ground crew had no idea anything was wrong.
It wasnt until they opened the the capsule that they found the 3 cosmonauts were dead
and didnt know the cause of death until a full autopsy.
Although they were on their way back to Earth, the fatal accident occurred in Space making
these 3 men the only human beings known to have died in space.
But if this space disaster video has taught us anything, unfortunately, they may not be
the last.
Lets hope safety prevails … If you guys want more space videos - youve
got the whole universe to choose from, let me hear your suggestions - Im Danny Burke,
thanks for watching and Ill see you in the next video!