This report originally appeared in the Jan. 29, 1986 edition of the Daily News -- the day following the space shuttle disaster.
Man's dream of conquering space died a little yesterday.
In a boiling maelstrom of flame, the shuttle Challenger disintegrated 72 seconds into a flight from Cape Canaveral, killing teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first "citizen in space," and her six astronaut companions.
In a boiling maelstrom of flame, the shuttle Challenger disintegrated 72 seconds into a flight from Cape Canaveral, killing teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first "citizen in space," and her six astronaut companions.
America's ambitious venture to reach beyond our world suddenly became more costly, and President Reagan and the nation mourned the loss of "seven heroes."
"This is truly a national loss," Regan said in a national eulogy after cancelling his planned State of the Union address last night. "We mourn seven heroes ... who escaped the surly bounds of Earth to touch the face of God."
It was the first in-flight disaster in the 25-year, 56-launch history of the U.S. space program -- and the worst recorded disaster for either the Americans or the Soviets.
NASA immediately suspended its ambitious 1986 shuttle schedule until it can determine why Challenger exploded.
"We're obviously not going to pick any flight activity until we fully understand what the circumstances were relative to the launch,"Jesse Moore, associate administrator for space flight, said at Cape Canaveral.
Moore declined to speculate about how long an investigation might take.
One area of concern was the amount of ice that formed on the launch pad before the takeoff.
Temperatures plunged to a low of 24 degrees overnight and the wind chill at the top of the 250-foot launch tower reached 10 below zero. Water systems were left running to keep lines open. Icicles then formed at various places on the pad.
The countdown leading to tragic launch was put on hold about 9:08 a.m. and resumed two hours later following inspections of the ice by a team of specialists.
One of the victims, McAuliffe, was a high school social studies teacher in Concord, N.H., who had been chosen from 11,146 teachers to become the first "ordinary" citizen in space.
Another victim was physicist Ronald McNair, whose father Carl operated an automobile body repair shop in Harlem until about eight months ago.
McAuliffe, 37, had planned to give two 15-minute lessons from space, with the PBSpublic television network beaming them to 25 million students in schools from Florida toCanada and Alaska. Her husband, Steven, and children, Scott, 9, and Caroline, 6, were watching from a VIP stand at the launch site, with Christa's parents, Edward and Grace Corrigan.
As Challenger exploded into a boiling ball of flame, the Corrigans grabbed each other, but it was not until several seconds later that they appeared to understand what had happened.
Francis Scobee, 46, was the commander of the planned six-day flight, which had intended to release and retrieve one satellite to study Haley's comet and to launch another satellite that would become part of the space communications network.
Other members of the doomed crew were co-pilot Michael Smith, 40, Judith Resnik, 36,Ellison Onizuka, 39, and satellite engineer Gregory Jarvis, 41.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration refused to predict the disaster's impact on the U.S. space program, beyond saying that it would temporarily suspend all flights.
The last flight of Challenger started in the usual flawless, spectacular fashion:
The gleaming craft, one of four in the NASA shuttle fleet, had risen from Launch Pad 39-B at 11:38 a.m. after five postponements caused by freezing weather and technical glitches.
SMOOTH CLIMB
It was climbing smoothly, trailing a spectacular but normal 700-foot geyser of fire, when suddenly it erupted into a huge boiling ball of fire and shot out of control.
The news sent shock waves around the world.
Reagan was presiding over a meeting in the Oval Office when aides rushed in to tell him of the Challenger disaster. He watched a replay on an office television set, then announced that he was postponing his State of the Union Address, which had been slated for last night, for one week. Reagan also ordered Vice President Bush to fly to Cape Canaveral to lead the investigation.
The flight was the 10th for the workhorse Challenger and the 25th shuttle flight, and its loss was the worst setback for NASA since the first Apollo moon capsule burned as it sat on its launching pad during a simulated liftoff 19 years and one day ago. Killed in that explosion were astronauts Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Edward White 2d and Roger B. Chaffee.
FLIGHTS CANCELED
Amid confusion over the future of the space program, Reagan said that he was sure that NASA would launch no missions pending the outcome of the Challenger investigation. This might take a year or longer, some experts said.
NASA said the Challenger mission seemed entirely normal until one minute, 12 seconds after launch, when the shuttle had reached a speed of 1,977 miles per hour -- three times the speed of sound. At that point, it was 10.4 miles up and eight miles offshore.
Mission control in Houston told the shuttler "Challenger, go at throttle-up" an order to switch to full power. Scobee increased power to the main engines and, in his words, said, "Roger, go throttle-up."
Suddenly, the spacecraft was engulfed in a ball of flame.
On a slow-motion video re-run of the explosion, it was difficult to determine the source of the explosion. But closeups of the doomed craft clearly showed that the huge fuel tank filled with more than 525,000 gallons of volatile liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellant, ruptured and tore Challenger into many pieces.
BOOSTERS FLY OFF
After the explosion, the two solid fuel booster rockets -- capable of 2.6 million pounds of thrust -- separated and continued to fly crazily out of control in the clear blue sky, trailing long tails of smoke as they plunged into the sea.
A voice on public address system at mission control said, "Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation, obviously a major malfunction."
"We have no down link," he added, meaning that there was no communication from the orbiter.
After a 40-second pause, he said: "We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle exploded. (The) flight director confirms that we are out looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done."
Debris raining down from the $1.2 billion craft, which exploded at an altitude of just over $54,000 feet, prevented rescue squads from entering the area for an hour, a Defense Department spokesman said.
Mission control reported that the spacecraft had exploded and fallen into bits in the Atlantic in an area about 18 miles off Cape Canaveral and that ships and planes were en route.
Shortly after the explosion, the House of Representatives held a moment of silence to honor those on the shuttle. Chaplain James David Ford led members in a prayer -- "May your spirit, oh Lord, be with them."
Unlike the shuttle Columbia during its first flights at the dawn of the shuttle era, Challenger was not equipped with ejection seats or other ways for the crew to get out of the spacecraft. Not that it would have made any difference, said experts who saw the explosion.
This story is based on wire service and Daily News staff reports.
NASA immediately suspended its ambitious 1986 shuttle schedule until it can determine why Challenger exploded.
"We're obviously not going to pick any flight activity until we fully understand what the circumstances were relative to the launch,"Jesse Moore, associate administrator for space flight, said at Cape Canaveral.
Moore declined to speculate about how long an investigation might take.
One area of concern was the amount of ice that formed on the launch pad before the takeoff.
Temperatures plunged to a low of 24 degrees overnight and the wind chill at the top of the 250-foot launch tower reached 10 below zero. Water systems were left running to keep lines open. Icicles then formed at various places on the pad.
The countdown leading to tragic launch was put on hold about 9:08 a.m. and resumed two hours later following inspections of the ice by a team of specialists.
One of the victims, McAuliffe, was a high school social studies teacher in Concord, N.H., who had been chosen from 11,146 teachers to become the first "ordinary" citizen in space.
Another victim was physicist Ronald McNair, whose father Carl operated an automobile body repair shop in Harlem until about eight months ago.
McAuliffe, 37, had planned to give two 15-minute lessons from space, with the PBSpublic television network beaming them to 25 million students in schools from Florida toCanada and Alaska. Her husband, Steven, and children, Scott, 9, and Caroline, 6, were watching from a VIP stand at the launch site, with Christa's parents, Edward and Grace Corrigan.
As Challenger exploded into a boiling ball of flame, the Corrigans grabbed each other, but it was not until several seconds later that they appeared to understand what had happened.
Francis Scobee, 46, was the commander of the planned six-day flight, which had intended to release and retrieve one satellite to study Haley's comet and to launch another satellite that would become part of the space communications network.
Other members of the doomed crew were co-pilot Michael Smith, 40, Judith Resnik, 36,Ellison Onizuka, 39, and satellite engineer Gregory Jarvis, 41.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration refused to predict the disaster's impact on the U.S. space program, beyond saying that it would temporarily suspend all flights.
The last flight of Challenger started in the usual flawless, spectacular fashion:
The gleaming craft, one of four in the NASA shuttle fleet, had risen from Launch Pad 39-B at 11:38 a.m. after five postponements caused by freezing weather and technical glitches.
SMOOTH CLIMB
It was climbing smoothly, trailing a spectacular but normal 700-foot geyser of fire, when suddenly it erupted into a huge boiling ball of fire and shot out of control.
The news sent shock waves around the world.
Reagan was presiding over a meeting in the Oval Office when aides rushed in to tell him of the Challenger disaster. He watched a replay on an office television set, then announced that he was postponing his State of the Union Address, which had been slated for last night, for one week. Reagan also ordered Vice President Bush to fly to Cape Canaveral to lead the investigation.
The flight was the 10th for the workhorse Challenger and the 25th shuttle flight, and its loss was the worst setback for NASA since the first Apollo moon capsule burned as it sat on its launching pad during a simulated liftoff 19 years and one day ago. Killed in that explosion were astronauts Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Edward White 2d and Roger B. Chaffee.
FLIGHTS CANCELED
Amid confusion over the future of the space program, Reagan said that he was sure that NASA would launch no missions pending the outcome of the Challenger investigation. This might take a year or longer, some experts said.
NASA said the Challenger mission seemed entirely normal until one minute, 12 seconds after launch, when the shuttle had reached a speed of 1,977 miles per hour -- three times the speed of sound. At that point, it was 10.4 miles up and eight miles offshore.
Mission control in Houston told the shuttler "Challenger, go at throttle-up" an order to switch to full power. Scobee increased power to the main engines and, in his words, said, "Roger, go throttle-up."
Suddenly, the spacecraft was engulfed in a ball of flame.
On a slow-motion video re-run of the explosion, it was difficult to determine the source of the explosion. But closeups of the doomed craft clearly showed that the huge fuel tank filled with more than 525,000 gallons of volatile liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellant, ruptured and tore Challenger into many pieces.
BOOSTERS FLY OFF
After the explosion, the two solid fuel booster rockets -- capable of 2.6 million pounds of thrust -- separated and continued to fly crazily out of control in the clear blue sky, trailing long tails of smoke as they plunged into the sea.
A voice on public address system at mission control said, "Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation, obviously a major malfunction."
"We have no down link," he added, meaning that there was no communication from the orbiter.
After a 40-second pause, he said: "We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle exploded. (The) flight director confirms that we are out looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done."
Debris raining down from the $1.2 billion craft, which exploded at an altitude of just over $54,000 feet, prevented rescue squads from entering the area for an hour, a Defense Department spokesman said.
Mission control reported that the spacecraft had exploded and fallen into bits in the Atlantic in an area about 18 miles off Cape Canaveral and that ships and planes were en route.
Shortly after the explosion, the House of Representatives held a moment of silence to honor those on the shuttle. Chaplain James David Ford led members in a prayer -- "May your spirit, oh Lord, be with them."
Unlike the shuttle Columbia during its first flights at the dawn of the shuttle era, Challenger was not equipped with ejection seats or other ways for the crew to get out of the spacecraft. Not that it would have made any difference, said experts who saw the explosion.
This story is based on wire service and Daily News staff reports.
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