Challenger: Didn’t the crew die when the shuttle exploded? | the Chronicle

On January 28, 2021, they were filled 35 years of what was for many the most important tragedy in NASA history: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, 73 seconds after takeoff, at the base of Cape Canaveral, in the state of Florida.

Crew, which we knew to have died instantly, was made up of Michael j smith, Francois Scobee, Ronald mcnair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik. McAuliffe was more than just a crew member, a history and English teacher, she was the first civilian without astronaut training to be part of a space launch crew.

The most widely accepted assumption so far was that all crew members were killed instantly. at the time of explosion. However, “The Burning Blue: The Untold Story of Christa McAuliffe and the NASA Challenger”, a book by Kevin cook dedicated to McAuliffe, reveals that those inside the Challenger remained conscious and attempted to save the ship in the moments that followed.

A few days before takeoff, temperatures in Florida were very low, so some experts advised to postpone takeoff because the cold could affect some parts of the rocket. But since it had been postponed before, they decided to go ahead, because according to the calculations of the organization the probability of something going wrong was 1 in 100,000, Therefore, it was launched on January 28, 1986.

Within a minute and a half of getting off the ground, pilot Michael Smith looked out the window and saw some kind of smoke or vapor, it turns out the right booster rocket was spouting fuel. It was then that the cold of the previous days took on importance. Because of this, the rubber seals between the reinforcement sections containing the fuel had hardened. The rings did not expand as they should, leaving less than a millimeter gap between the sections. The result? A few grams of superheated fuel was burnt, generating a flame.

What started out as a spark grew and within seconds it penetrated the aluminum liner of the fuel tank, which broke almost immediately, resulting in burning the hydrogen fuel eventually caused the explosion.

Despite everything, the astronauts cabin remained intact and managed to separate from the spacecraft. “They were aware, at least initially, and fully realized that something was wrong.”Cook has detailed in his book referring to students.

Once separated from the fireball, they continued to rise in inertia for about 20 seconds, then fell into the ocean about 12 miles from the launch site. This fall lasted more than two minutes and the impact exceeded 330 km / h.

This is how the Challenger caught fire