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  #21  
Old 01-28-2018, 08:19 PM
PhantomCruiser PhantomCruiser is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by beckychestney View Post
I was in high school and heard a similar announcement in 1986. Sticks with you doesn't it?
Same here, pretty sobering event. I was leaving school to go to my co-op job. Everyone at work was in a kind of shock.

That also puts us at the same age Becky
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  #22  
Old 01-29-2018, 08:19 PM
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luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by beckychestney View Post
It's hard to imagine ole' Gus going for a spacecraft with such a crappy hatch design (especially after the dog he got on Liberty Bell 7). One account I read said it took 90 seconds to get it open under the best of circumstances. Wally Schirra did refuse to fly in a block one so maybe if there had been a more united front by the astronauts it would have been different.
Yes, but it was "go fever" and it WAS that point in time when "do it or I'll find someone who will" was the rule rather than the exception... so in hindsight I guess not TOO surprising. Those guys were the "test pilot's test pilot" back then and so they knew a certain amount of risk went with the job, and sometimes they hung it out over the line-- and sometimes could pull it back in, sometimes not... a lot of it was "fate"... You either accepted that and did the job, or you did something else.

Quote:
Originally Posted by beckychestney View Post
Challenger was a warning to us about putting lives into the hands of corporate executives. Engineers were concerned but it seems executives put their corporate image ahead of safety.
It wasn't so much corporate executives-- it was "mid level NASA managers" and "program inertia"... It was the same sort of thing that led to Columbia years later... That, and a cavalier attitude that had developed that 'nothing bad will happen, because nothing bad had happened YET." I see the aftermath of such thinking walking around farm shows, seeing guys missing limbs or fingers because they took "one chance too many" and lost-- didn't respect the dangers of what they were doing and ended up paying for it, and for every one of them, there's a lot more who aren't around anymore because it killed them.

The engineers from Morton Thiokol who designed and built the boosters, recommended scrubbing the launch due to low temperatures, citing the demonstrated fact that the previous coldest launch of the shuttle boosters at a temperature of 53 degrees showed severe O-ring erosion, and they were overruled... more than that, the very NASA managers they were making their recommendation to did their best to denigrate and intimidate them, saying, "My God, Thiokol! When are we supposed to launch? Next June?" They then went into a separate conference with the "executives" and then they came back and told the Thiokol engineer's supervisor to "take off your engineer's hat and put on your manager's hat", essentially overruling their recommendations. In short, NASA's people put pressure on the company engineers and their managers to "give them the answer they wanted to hear" instead of the "true answer they had been giving". That's the long and short of it... what it all boils down to.

I had the same shuttle book you showed in your post... it was an interesting (if rather fanciful) read, but it reflected the thinking at the time, which was telling. IIRC (it's been a number of years since I read the book, and it's falling apart with age LOL) but the book basically was telling that the shuttle program expected to eventually fly 50 missions a year-- basically that's WEEKLY shuttle flights. I know I've read in NASA studies and in other materials that at one time they even talked about flight rates of 70+ flights a year, which is a launch about every 5 days (nevermind that there was NO funding or payloads to support such flight rates, they were still used to "justify" certain assumptions about costs per flight and such and give ridiculously low estimates of mission costs...) NASA *was* under enormous pressure to increase flight rates of the shuttle to meet "program performance expectations" and the best they had ever been able to do was 9 flights the previous year (1985) IIRC, a feat they never again even came close to. Of course some of those flights had near misses-- including one SRB on the previous flight (at 53 degrees) that came back with a hole burned in it big enough to stick your head through, due to O-ring burn-through-- thankfully for that crew it happened on the side of the SRB opposite the External Tank, and basically right at SRB burnout.

At any rate, basically the same thing happened with Columbia, which is what is SO sad... it's not like it was something "out of the blue" or some elaborate chain of "unfortunate events" that was completely unforeseen and was a million-to-one shot... No, previous missions had come back with orbiter damage to various degrees due to foam strikes damaging the TPS heat shield, including one flight with a hole burned clean through the belly of the orbiter, thankfully in a non-essential area. Instead of "Oh, WOW! We got lucky-- we nearly lost an orbiter and crew! We better stop and fix this!" it was more like "Oh, yeah, that's happened before, all the way back to STS-1; it's no big deal, just a little extra maintenance after landing... if anything bad was gonna happen it would have already..." Until something bad DID happen.

Later! OL J R
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  #23  
Old 01-29-2018, 10:48 PM
PhantomCruiser PhantomCruiser is offline
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There is a term for that we use (and are guilty of) here in the nuclear power industry, "Institutional Arrogance". Our managers here got a letter last year from the NRC informing them that there was a "chilled work environment" here, meaning that the line workers were reluctant to bring up safety issues for fear of reprisal.

Of course managers explain their way out of trouble and roll the problem back onto the maintenance workers...

It's all fun and games until something bad happens.
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  #24  
Old 01-30-2018, 04:28 AM
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I'll chip in....

-- My first space memory was watching John Glenn's flight in February 1962. I was 6. Mom had to go to the dentist that day (not sure why I wasn't in school...) and they had the TV on at the dentist's office. I remember being amazed that people could actually make out what Glenn was saying. It just sounded like static to me.

-- In July '69, my late brother was stationed in the USAF in Oregon. We drove out from Illinois to visit him and watched the moon landing and moon walk from his house. I remember it was hard to tell what was going on because the picture seemed so grainy.

-- By this time, I was really into modeling, and used my paper route money to buy every space model out there. Even made a big (probably 3'x3') moon base with plaster of Paris so I could display my Revell 1/48th scale Lunar Module. Then decided I wanted to add a Surveyor to depict Apollo 12, so I scratchbuilt one. Since I lived in small-town Illinois and the closest hobby shop was miles and miles away, I made Surveyor's tubular frame out of uncooked spaghetti. The model was fragile, but it looked pretty decent. I've always wanted to tackle Ton Noteboom's Surveyor....

-- My mom was the librarian in our hometown and every summer she had a kids' reading program. One summer -- can't recall the year but it was during the Apollo years -- the theme was "Space." So mom wrote a letter to NASA and said, "Is there anything you could loan to us to display?" This was a library in a no-name town of 2,700 in East Central Illinois, mind you. So one day, a truck pulls up to the library and they wheel in a crate; inside was a mannequin wearing a FULL APOLLO SPACESUIT. I think mom's eyes popped out of her head, and I know mine did. She had it for the entire summer. My job during the summer was to clean the library in the mornings before it opened, and more than once I was tempted to try on the spacesuit (how hard could it be to unzip it and take the mannequin out?) but I never did. I was smart, for once.

-- In the summer of '71, my folks decided to take a two-week drive to the East Coast, so I talked them into putting Florida on the trip and we got to see the launch of Apollo 15. Even from miles away, a Saturn V launch was damn impressive.

-- In April '81, I was a reporter covering federal courts for the Brownsville Herald in Texas. I was in the courthouse when Columbia was supposed to launch, so I persuaded U.S. District Judge James DeAnda to let me watch the launch on the TV in his chambers. Since I was a full-fledged space geek, I was able to provide a running commentary....

-- By 1982, I was working at The Dallas Morning News. I persuaded my editor to send me to cover the launch of the first Conestoga rocket on Matagorda Island in September 1982. Got to meet Deke Slayton. In fact, I went back later to do an in-depth profile of him, spending several days with him in Houston. Interesting guy. An engineer through and through. Asked him about the T-38 barrel roll he did on Columbia's first landing, which basically ushered his exit from NASA. In the course of the story, I interviewed several other astronauts (Tom Stafford I recall for sure, and Gordon Cooper and maybe others, but my memory is hazy) and it's kind of cool to hang up the phone, turn to a co-worker and say, "I just spoke to one of the seven Mercury astronauts."

-- In June '85, I got to cover the launch of Discovery on STS-51-G. It was carrying a "Getaway Special" (remember those?) experiment from some high school kids in El Paso. From the press site, a shuttle launch was something that photos or videos just don't prepare you for. For one thing, the RSRMs burn so brightly that you can't look directly at them. Film or video seems to correct for that. But in person, it's like looking directly at the sun. You can't do it. And a shuttle launch was something you felt as much as saw. The rumbling reverberated through you. You actually felt it inside.

-- When Challenger disintigrated, I was among the reporters my paper sent on the first flight out to Houston and we spent several days camped out at JSC. It was a madhouse. Nobody knew anything. After three days or so, I got dispatched to cover the recovery effort from KSC. I tell people I spent a week a mile or so from the shore and never once saw the ocean.

-- By the time of the Columbia disaster, I was working in the Twin Cities. I was cleaning the house that Saturday because my wife at the time was coming home later that morning from a three-month stay in Germany. Watched the news on CNN. Had I still been working in Dallas, I no doubt would have been sent to East Texas. I'd been to Toledo Bend and Sabine County plenty of times on other stories, so when they were talking about pieces of Columbia falling out of the sky, I knew where they were landing. Picked up my then-wife from the airport. She hadn't heard anything about the disaster.

Last edited by dhanners; 01-30-2018 at 05:26 AM.
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  #25  
Old 01-30-2018, 07:45 AM
kingjason14 kingjason14 is offline
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I'll chip in. Being part of the Star Wars generation, Sci-Fi and actually aerospace were my interests. My Grandfather was an experimental test pilot for Boeing, and I got to fly in small planes and actually pilot a sailplane at 9 or 10 years old. Grandpa tried to foster a love for all things aviation in all the grand kids (two of my cousins are/were professional pilots, I lost my dream of flying when the Army lowered the seated height limit by 5cm, and shredded my contract). Grandpa got me Jim Irwin's autobiography, autographed, to me. It is next to several other autographed aviation books (Chuck Yeager, and Tex Johnston), as well as out of print books like "We Seven".

For years the Seattle Science Center had a Gemini capsule mock up and I remember that being able to get in it.

I remember being in religion class and the announcement was made that the space shuttle had exploded. In a rare move, the teacher wheeled a TV in the classroom and turned on the news. It became a very somber morning.

The summer of 1987 we had our family vacation to Florida, and went to KSC. Didn't see a launch, but got the tour. that was one of the highlights (and Epcot).

The first real paper model that I built was a 1:100 Saturn V. I built some Mercury stuff to go with it. I have switched my scale focus, and those capsules are still on my build pile, only in 1:18.
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  #26  
Old 01-30-2018, 08:42 AM
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I remember in the early 1960's being outside playing and looking up wondering if that astronaut was flying overhead at the moment.

I was in Florida maybe 80 miles south of the Cape for the last couple of Moon shots. I could see them during the ascent stages.

In 1986 I stopped at the Kennedy Space Center for a tour. Challenger was on the launch pad. The tour bus took us as close as was allowed to the launch pad. A few days later I was watching the launch on TV. We all know what happened then.
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  #27  
Old 01-30-2018, 08:48 AM
mercurykid mercurykid is offline
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CNN and Challenger....

I worked for Turner Broadcasting when Challenger was lost. I can remember the morning as though it was yesterday. As a member of the info tech dept (we managed the phones and computers throughout the TBS/CNN domain in Atlanta) I sometimes spent a few minutes in the newsroom to watch the proceedings, especially during special events like a manned shuttle launch.

At the time, our CNN operation and newsroom was located in the basement of an old country club near downtown Atlanta. CNN was barely six years old, still trying to find a niche in the global news realm, and running on a shoestring budget. On that January 1986 morning, we were the only remaining TV network still covering the shuttle launches live from KSC; the launches had become so routine that the big three American networks broadcast game shows, local programming, and such.

John Holiman, CNN's science correspondent had usually narrated each launch live from the Cape, but as I said, the launches had become so routine that CNN chose to have him describe the events from our Atlanta studio.

The actual launch took place and the shuttle climbed as we had seen many times before. Holiman made some brief comments on the progress, letting the scene unfold as usual. Then the Challenger blew up.

I remember seeing the event unfold on some of the monitors in the newsroom; our little IT shop was located in the very back of the newsroom, so we had a clear vantage of what was transpiring within the room....

At first, Holiman seemed confused by what was happening, especially with the two SRB's emerging from the fireball of the exploded fuel tank and shuttle. He then noted that something seemed to have gone wrong. The newsroom was silent. Everyone was watching the monitors (some 75 people or so). After a few moments, the place erupted. People were shouting across the newsroom, some gasping, others calling into microphones to get the CNN on site reporter's attention... The place was chaotic. Bob Furnad, CNN's senior producer shouted over the din calling for quiet and professionalism.

Above several desks in the newsroom were banks of tv monitors that showed what was being broadcast by the other networks. Within moments each network had interrupted their programming with live coverage of the unfolding event.

The rest of the day progressed with countless replays of pictures showing icicles hanging off of the launch pad gantry, shuttle, and the SRBs (pictures taken earlier that morning prior to launch time). And... the actual launch was shown over and over from various angles. Speculation on what had caused the disaster ran the gamut, with some speculation being close to what eventually had happened. Early on, the weather had been suspected to be a contributing factor to the accident.

It was a day I'll never forget, being close to the event in a way that most other folks could never be.
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  #28  
Old 01-30-2018, 09:33 AM
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airdave airdave is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by beckychestney View Post
Yep! The original is long gone but here's a quick snap of a replacement I bought a couple of years ago:

Thats a National geographic supplement.
I knew I recognized it.
We've been collecting Nat Geos for decades...most are gone now,
but I have a huge box full of the Maps and Poster supplements saved.

Sure enough, I have this one from 1973.
I don't think its ever been unfolded! Looks mint shape.
What am I going to do with it?

There was also a really cool Mars map/poster from 73 (shown in the photo).
Its neat to see how much newer information has been acquired over the years.
The reverse side has a painting...an Artist's interpretation of the Martian surface.
Obviously long before we had landed anything on the surface.

Oh yeah, that Astronaut poster has the Apollo photo of Earth on the reverse as Mark Hansen suggested.

This is a very cool thread...brings back memories for me too.
Nothing as exciting as some of the stories so far...
but I visited Cape Canaveral in 1982....or was it "Kennedy Space Center"?
Just took the normal Visitors tour and saw whatever was there at the time.
No Space Shuttle unfortunately...I remember it had taken off a few days before we got there.

But I did get to to see the display Saturn V which I heard is now rusting away in storage.

I bought some souvenirs. I'll see what i can dig up.

I have some photos from that trip...although they have strangely discoloured over the years.
I'll scan the prints and post them in my photo gallery.
(Somewhere I have the original negatives, but I don't think its worth the trouble to hunt for them.
I'll just scan the 5"x7" prints and clean them up a bit)
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  #29  
Old 01-30-2018, 12:32 PM
mercurykid mercurykid is offline
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CNN and Challenger Correction

After watching a CNN post from that event, I see that the correspondent describing the disaster was Tom Mintier, not John Holiman as I noted. Mintier was CNN's science correspondent.

I have to chalk this up to my advancing years and the 30 plus years since the event.

I'm sorry for the confusion........
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  #30  
Old 01-30-2018, 04:57 PM
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airdave airdave is offline
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wow you got me started!
This thread has stirred memories of my own "space adventures"!.
thank you.

I have been going through old photos and finding souvenir items and other things.
I watched the Moon Landing live in 1969...we even took photos of the TV!

I was lucky enough to visit the Kennedy Space Center in 1982.
Took the Visitor Bus Tour and toured the Rocket Park.
One memory that stands out were the dozens of Gators lining the ditches along the entry roadway into the base.
The main gate guards instructed us not to get out of our car if we had a breakdown!

At age 10, my Mother redecorated my bedroom (while I was away on a Trip).
My Curtains, Bed spread and Pillow cases were all done in an Apollo Moon Landing theme.
I still have the fabrics!

I've uploaded some photos to my Flikr library...so rather than hog the space here,
I'll direct you there, if you are interested.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/659362...57665228495918

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