New amateur footage of Challenger disaster surfaces

[Spot's Meow]

Sad stuff. I was born on the day of the Challenger explosion. It's hard for me to imagine it affecting people so much because we seem to care so little about the space program now, at least the people around me. I don't pay attention to any of the launches that go on.

[RobertVA]

I had read some material about the shuttles and watched several earlier launches on TV. As I watched the launch on TV I initially thought that was a odd looking booster separation. Then I noticed there was much more exhaust from the boosters than there normally is at separation. That's when I realized the external tank had disintegrated. For a short period after that realization I was hoping to see the orbiter glide out of the cloud of steam (from the external tank propellants), but of course all I saw was falling debris. I still wonder if one of the larger pieces I saw that day was the crew compartment.

I was in a computer club meeting when Challenger broke up and someone from the business school we were meeting at told us after the meeting ended (just a few minutes after it was reported on the news).

[AJBryant]

I was working nights, then, so slept during the day and missed the launch. When I woke up and came out of my cave, one of my housemates said, "The shuttle blew up." I thought he was kidding. "Ha ha. Yeah, right." Then I turned on the TV.

Blew my mind.

[Mark de Vries]

God, that's so sad. I can never watch any footage of the disaster without chills down my back.

[Yeoman Randi]

Locutus of Bored wrote:

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Yes, that's why I said that in my post:

I did see that you had said that. But I still think there was no point in him sharing it. And to be frank, for all we know, once he gave it to them they filed it away in that gigantic room in a box that no one ever looks in.

[Rageforthemachine]

Wow what a coincidence I was just watching old footage of the Challenger explosion yesterday. Most of the newscasts were confused at first because they lost visual site of the shuttle after the explosion.

I was in high school when it happened. They had announced over the loudspeaker what had happened. It was of course a big thing in schools because Christa McAuliffe was on the shuttle. My friends and I were all space nerds so we were pretty shooken up, but being teenage boys as well we were also making jokes by lunch time.

[ThankQ]

This was the first "Do you remember what you were doing when..." event of my life. I was 7 years old, and the Halley's Comet buzz coupled with the Teacher in Space program generated a lot of "space buzz" in 1985 and 1986.

Squiggy wrote:

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No new information will come from this. It's just a new vantage

I agree that this video will not shed any new light, but I do recall that NASA sent out a thing asking for ALL video to be turned over for the investigation. At the time, no one knew WHAT evidence might shed light onto the cause of the disaster. It's easy to look back after 25 years and say this isn't helpful, but in January 1986, no one knew what would or would not be helpful.

[Emher]

USS Triumphant wrote:

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This is how I experienced it, too, except I was in 5th grade, and by the end of that same school day, I had already heard the "What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts" thing. I was so sad and PISSED.

I would have punched their fucking lights out.

But seeing as I wasn't there and I was a year and three months old, I couldn't.

[knine]

I was in fifth grade. I remember it happening but don't remember much else. I've tried to supress most memories of grade school. I remember my wife waking me up when Columbia went down though. I could hardly believe it.

[John Picard]

Spot's Meow wrote:

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Sad stuff. I was born on the day of the Challenger explosion. It's hard for me to imagine it affecting people so much because we seem to care so little about the space program now, at least the people around me. I don't pay attention to any of the launches that go on.

Small world: I turned 16 that day.

[KimM]

Yeoman Randi wrote:

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I did see that you had said that. But I still think there was no point in him sharing it. And to be frank, for all we know, once he gave it to them they filed it away in that gigantic room in a box that no one ever looks in.

He may have put it away as a way of dealing with it himself. People box up and put away terrible memories all the time. It would have served very little good to share it and add to the media frenzy; and to be so close to such a disaster must have hurt tremendously. It's one thing to know about terrible things happening in the world but quite another to stand witness. Accident and crime witnesses frequently find their memories blocked as a way to protect themselves. To be able to physically put that way might have helped him cope with his helplessness.

[Candlelight]

I'm still waiting for that other tape of the North Tower collision on September 11 to be released. It was shot by some mexican overstayer who didn't want to give it up in case they found out he was illegal (or something like that, been a few years).

I still remember the still image they caught from it, taken inside a car or truck looking over at the building.

[MANT!]

The man sounds like my old Optometrist from when I was a kid in Fla. right down to the
"They've got trouble"..

I was in the UK at the time, prior to the Challenger disaster the ITN news called it "The Space Shuttle" almost as if it was a USA-UK co-effort, after the explosion, they made it a point of calling it "The American Space Shuttle", distancing themselves from any involvement..

just something that stuck in my craw at the time..

[The Cutest of Borg]

I was a junior in high school. In the middle of first period, they announced over the intercom that Challenger had been lost. Every subsequent class had a TV tuned to one network or another and we watched things unfold.

A few years ago, our family was at Cape Canaveral for the 20th anniversary of the disaster. Within a few days you have the anniversary of the three worst space disasters in American history - Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia. They had a great memorial program for all three accidents, and laid wreaths at the Astronaut Memorial Wall. Glad I could be there for it.

[Spot's Meow]

goldbug wrote:

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The man sounds like my old Optometrist from when I was a kid in Fla. right down to the
"They've got trouble"..

The article does say that he is an optometrist, so I'm sure that it is your doctor.