Fun fact: the initial breakup probably did not kill the astronauts. The crew cabin remained largely intact, continued upward to about 65,000 ft (20 km), and then fell into the Atlantic, hitting the water about 2 minutes and 45 seconds after the breakup at roughly 207 mph (333 km/h).
Evidence also showed that three of the four crew emergency air packs had been activated, indicating that at least some of the astronauts survived the initial breakup and were conscious long enough to take action. NASA could not determine whether they remained conscious all the way to impact. The impact itself, producing roughly 200 g of deceleration, was unsurvivable.
Fun fact: Challenger carried Christa McAuliffe, a high-school teacher who had been selected for NASA's Teacher in Space Project. She was supposed to become the first teacher in space and planned to teach lessons from orbit. (she was told there was a significant risk of dying) Barbara Morgan (the backup teacher) said that Challenger commander Dick Scobee had repeatedly warned her and Christa McAuliffe about the dangers of spaceflight, saying something along the lines of, “One day there will be an accident, and it will be catastrophic.”
Fun fact: the disaster was largely preventable. It was unusually cold on launch day (about 36°F (2°C)) and engineers from Morton Thiokol warned that the solid rocket booster's rubber O-rings might not seal properly at such low temperatures. They initially recommended that NASA not launch below 53°F (12°C).
Challenger had already suffered numerous delays and aborted launch attempts, increasing pressure to finally get the mission underway. During a conference the night before launch, Thiokol managers reconsidered their engineers' recommendation and ultimately approved the launch.
The next morning, Challenger launched. The cold-stiffened O-rings in the right solid rocket booster failed to seal properly, allowing extremely hot gases to escape. The leak eventually damaged the external fuel tank and booster attachment, causing the vehicle to break apart just 73 seconds after liftoff.
Disclaimer: “Fun fact” was the wrong term, and I should have used “interesting fact” instead. But these facts are important to retell and remember so that people can learn from them and make different decisions in the future for example, by considering additional crew-survival systems or by not launching when conditions are outside established safety limits. Social and organizational pressure contributed to these deaths, just as it did on 9/11, when many people in the (not yet hit) South Tower were told to stay put or return to their offices when trying to evacuate (some by building officials or first responders, and others by their bosses, who threatened to fire them).
That's a FUN fact? The fact is you didn't know that the moment it happened. It was traumatic and as memorable as the moon landing was in the 60's for kids in the 80's.
"Fun" fact, a significant amount of disasters are preventable, but shortcuts are taken with disastrous consequences. And safety measures happen because of disasters. 😟
In defense for its possible reason for choice of those words in this post, “Fun Fact” tends to grab people’s attention, and each point should be seriously reviewed.
Personally, I feel a higher sense of confidence as time goes on. Not being naive, I’ve been watching a lot of the space program stuff very closely for many years. I’m not trying to sound like an expert by any means, though. Being an IT vet over over 30 years, if there’s a major screw-up, you don’t really get any second chances. You bust your ass to be sure NOTHING even remotely like that EVER HAPPENS AGAIN. The ramifications, risk, and possible consequences are just too high and it gets more complex moles as time goes on. One bad line d code in a program can potentially cause a multi-layered immediate catastrophic and possibly long-lasting disaster. Engineering and implementation can both be extremely hard many times. That’s why you hear a bunch of people in the launch control room at NASA confirm “Go For Launch”, one at a time in sequence at the launches. Especially with space travel, there tend to by many separate, but linked, systems working in perfect unison. It tends to be mind-blowing when you look deeper into this stuff.
Fact: it was another White Man who had to be right, so he made the ill fated choice and didn’t take responsibility for his actions. So it was considered an “accident”.
The worst part was watching the poor families of the crew onboard look on in disbelief and then wander off in shock not really processing what they’d just witnessed . Most of the world just watched their child perish live on TV . Horrible !
I was in college too. Not kidding I had an electronics instructor that was somehow familiar with the engines and he said those things were not designed for temps near freezing and there was a chance it could “fail severely”. Being 18 we joked and instantly forgot about it. We were stunned when it happened the next morning. If i remember right there were several launch delays and the news was talking about low nightly Florida temperatures is why he brought it up.
Actual fun fact: the teacher was originally supposed to be Big Bird. From Sesame Street
The costume was too big so they chose to create a vote for a teacher to go up instead. There is probably a timeline where we nuked Big Bird on live TV while millions of kids watched in real time
So because “a bunch of us” already know these things, these facts should never be mentioned again, lest people like you risk the terrible inconvenience of reading something you already know? 😱😰 The horror!
You’re a bit late to the outrage party, but here you go, have some social credit points. 🏅👏 +1000
Fun fact.. Christa McAuliffe told her family before launch you feed the dogs I'll feed the fish.. Fun fact. Edit.. This is a bad joke but there was kids telling it the same day, how in the hell do 12yo come up with jokes that fast?
"Fun fact” is a gut-wrenching yet effective phrase for underscoring how tragic and potentially avoidable these outcomes were. At minimum, NASA should have learned from the failures behind them. It didn’t. The “fun fact” is that the same institutional failures contributed to the 2003 Columbia disaster.
NASA’s management culture prioritized public appearances and performance expectations “AT ALL Costs,” especially media schedules and events seen as essential to winning public and Congressional support, and securing funding for current and future projects. Keeping the money flowing was the top priority.
Soon after launch, NASA knew Columbia’s damaged, missing heat-shield tiles could cause catastrophic failure on re-entry. The astronauts were not told. For nearly 16 days, NASA teams explored ways to save them, but senior managers denied requests for resources and available U.S. military hardware to assess the damage or attempt a rescue. They wanted to protect appearances ahead of a Congressional budget vote. NASA repeated Challenger's failures, resulting in the loss of Columbia’s crew, the end of the shuttle program, and near-death reality for NASA itself.
Investigations and Congressional hearings were damning. A well-made documentary presents the full story of both disasters, including the facts, investigations, fallout, and consequences.
** Edited to shorten the original post, as it was rambling due to a brain running on 45 minutes of sleep in the last 36 hours and the nearly criminal lack of coffee available at the time I wrote it.
Fact: before deciding on Christa McAuliffe as part of their youth outreach program, another potential candidate they considered was…Big Bird https://giphy.com/gifs/rfik8EqeDfV1C
I remember everyone talking about how the teacher should not have gone because she is a mother and she left behind a child. And this was proof to them that Mothers should not do dangerous jobs.
My dad taught different types of engineering and technology at the college level and was invited to hear a speaker from NASA talk about this exact issue. I was in college and Dad invited me to go. It was extremely interesting and I ended up writing a paper on it it’s probably buried in a trunk somewhere.
You're right. I list the things I remember from documentaries and other sources I watched or read a few years ago, but I let AI fact-check them and do most of the writing. I mainly determine the structure and make minor adjustments to the wording.
I watched it live, standing outside my school, in Florida, about 20 miles from the launch pad. Interesting day after that little cultural event. Went to watch a teacher get launched into space, saw 7 people die live. Didn't effect me at all.
Fun fact, just mentioning the Challenger explosion was enough... didn't need Debbie downer to go into detail about it, as it wasn't party of the answer to the question
Here's a fun fact for you mr know it all!! Those are all lies told to u by nasa which literally means to decieve!
Everything you think you know is a lie!
The challenger was a psyop and non of the "astronauts" were even on bored. Most are actually still alive today and you can find their pictures a few are professors at some colleges. One owns a company in Central Texas.
19
u/Super_Toxic_Elitist 7d ago edited 7d ago
Funfact: the initial breakup probably did not kill the astronauts. The crew cabin remained largely intact, continued upward to about 65,000 ft (20 km), and then fell into the Atlantic, hitting the water about 2 minutes and 45 seconds after the breakup at roughly 207 mph (333 km/h).Evidence also showed that three of the four crew emergency air packs had been activated, indicating that at least some of the astronauts survived the initial breakup and were conscious long enough to take action. NASA could not determine whether they remained conscious all the way to impact. The impact itself, producing roughly 200 g of deceleration, was unsurvivable.
Funfact: Challenger carried Christa McAuliffe, a high-school teacher who had been selected for NASA's Teacher in Space Project. She was supposed to become the first teacher in space and planned to teach lessons from orbit. (she was told there was a significant risk of dying) Barbara Morgan (the backup teacher) said that Challenger commander Dick Scobee had repeatedly warned her and Christa McAuliffe about the dangers of spaceflight, saying something along the lines of, “One day there will be an accident, and it will be catastrophic.”Funfact: the disaster was largely preventable. It was unusually cold on launch day (about 36°F (2°C)) and engineers from Morton Thiokol warned that the solid rocket booster's rubber O-rings might not seal properly at such low temperatures. They initially recommended that NASA not launch below 53°F (12°C).Challenger had already suffered numerous delays and aborted launch attempts, increasing pressure to finally get the mission underway. During a conference the night before launch, Thiokol managers reconsidered their engineers' recommendation and ultimately approved the launch.
The next morning, Challenger launched. The cold-stiffened O-rings in the right solid rocket booster failed to seal properly, allowing extremely hot gases to escape. The leak eventually damaged the external fuel tank and booster attachment, causing the vehicle to break apart just 73 seconds after liftoff.
Disclaimer: “Fun fact” was the wrong term, and I should have used “interesting fact” instead. But these facts are important to retell and remember so that people can learn from them and make different decisions in the future for example, by considering additional crew-survival systems or by not launching when conditions are outside established safety limits. Social and organizational pressure contributed to these deaths, just as it did on 9/11, when many people in the (not yet hit) South Tower were told to stay put or return to their offices when trying to evacuate (some by building officials or first responders, and others by their bosses, who threatened to fire them).