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First amateur video of Challenger shuttle explosion revealed

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Man, that sucked so much. I remember sitting in middle school civics class watching this live when it happened. It got real damn quiet real damn fast the way watching shit go down in real time did on September 11th. Crazy that his footage was unrevealed for so long.
 
eh...I'm curious but even the amateur video taken from a great distance released a couple weeks ago was hard. I was a little kid who desperately wanted to be an astronaut when this happened. Broke my heart. I'll never forget that day.
 

Aurongel

Member
That was more disturbing than I thought it would be. The crowd's rapidly changing reactions reminded me of all that amateur footage from 9/11.
 

sangreal

Member
Good find; worth it for the crowd reaction. I just watched the CNN video and in typical fashion the anchor decides the launch isn't exciting enough and he needed to chime in right before it exploded.

What's with the 1960s super8 video though? The videos from the cheap camcorder that recorded my childhood in the eighties don't look like that.
 

BFIB

Member
Chilling. At least it was over quickly.

Sadly, for the crew, it wasn't:

Myth #3: The crew died instantly
The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then.
What's less clear is whether they were conscious. If the cabin depressurized (as seems likely), the crew would have had difficulty breathing. In the words of the final report by fellow astronauts, the crew “possibly but not certainly lost consciousness,” even though a few of the emergency air bottles (designed for escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground) had been activated.
The cabin hit the water at a speed greater than 200 mph, resulting in a force of about 200 G’s — crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew did lose consciousness (and the cabin may have been sufficiently intact to hold enough air long enough to prevent this), it’s unknown if they would have regained it as the air thickened during the last seconds of the fall. Official NASA commemorations of “Challenger’s 73-second flight” subtly deflect attention from what was happened in the almost three minutes of flight (and life) remaining AFTER the breakup.
 

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
Sadly, for the crew, it wasn't:

Myth #3: The crew died instantly
The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then.
What's less clear is whether they were conscious. If the cabin depressurized (as seems likely), the crew would have had difficulty breathing. In the words of the final report by fellow astronauts, the crew “possibly but not certainly lost consciousness,” even though a few of the emergency air bottles (designed for escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground) had been activated.
The cabin hit the water at a speed greater than 200 mph, resulting in a force of about 200 G’s — crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew did lose consciousness (and the cabin may have been sufficiently intact to hold enough air long enough to prevent this), it’s unknown if they would have regained it as the air thickened during the last seconds of the fall. Official NASA commemorations of “Challenger’s 73-second flight” subtly deflect attention from what was happened in the almost three minutes of flight (and life) remaining AFTER the breakup.

Whelp, ruined my day.
 

_Isaac

Member
It is really weird how the whole crowd reaction is so delayed. Even after the explosion I think I heard a woman still say "Oh it looks so beautiful!", and then like a minute later the announcer announced the explosion and then they were finally shocked.
 
It is really weird how the whole crowd reaction is so delayed. Even after the explosion I think I heard a woman still say "Oh it looks so beautiful!", and then like a minute later the announcer announced the explosion and then they were finally shocked.

Yeah, in the amateur video from a distance most everyone thought it was perfectly normal. It's disturbing.
 

CFMOORE!

Member
Sadly, for the crew, it wasn't:

Myth #3: The crew died instantly
The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then.
What's less clear is whether they were conscious. If the cabin depressurized (as seems likely), the crew would have had difficulty breathing. In the words of the final report by fellow astronauts, the crew “possibly but not certainly lost consciousness,” even though a few of the emergency air bottles (designed for escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground) had been activated.
The cabin hit the water at a speed greater than 200 mph, resulting in a force of about 200 G’s — crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew did lose consciousness (and the cabin may have been sufficiently intact to hold enough air long enough to prevent this), it’s unknown if they would have regained it as the air thickened during the last seconds of the fall. Official NASA commemorations of “Challenger’s 73-second flight” subtly deflect attention from what was happened in the almost three minutes of flight (and life) remaining AFTER the breakup.

i remember reading this a really long time ago. pretty crazy. i am inclined to believe they were alive until it smashed into the water. pretty crazy shit indeed. but i am happy we never let this discourage us from continuing with space exploration, no tragedy should ever stop us from continuing these pursuits.
 
Sadly, for the crew, it wasn't:

Myth #3: The crew died instantly
The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then.
What's less clear is whether they were conscious. If the cabin depressurized (as seems likely), the crew would have had difficulty breathing. In the words of the final report by fellow astronauts, the crew “possibly but not certainly lost consciousness,” even though a few of the emergency air bottles (designed for escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground) had been activated.
The cabin hit the water at a speed greater than 200 mph, resulting in a force of about 200 G’s — crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew did lose consciousness (and the cabin may have been sufficiently intact to hold enough air long enough to prevent this), it’s unknown if they would have regained it as the air thickened during the last seconds of the fall. Official NASA commemorations of “Challenger’s 73-second flight” subtly deflect attention from what was happened in the almost three minutes of flight (and life) remaining AFTER the breakup.
FUCK.

dying in an air crash has to be among the very worst ways to go. so long to see and feel the end coming.
 

Borgnine

MBA in pussy licensing and rights management
"Ad astra per aspera"

Go dad go.

Dreams-Visions said:

If you go to wikipedia you can see a close up photo of the intact crew cabin coming from the explosion. You probably shouldn't though.

Interesting videos, I've never actually seen anything other than the official one they play all the time.
 

Owensboro

Member
Yeah, in the amateur video from a distance most everyone thought it was perfectly normal. It's disturbing.

Well, from their side, nothing like that had ever happened with a USA shuttle launch before. I imagine if I had been in the crowd at the time my thought process would have been "Well, that doesn't look right, but these are NASA scientists.... so everything is okay.... right?" Even with all the evidence of it going on (two spiraling smoke trails) I would have been in denial right up until I was told by an official what happened. It's completely unbelievable that it happened, both back then and now.
 

Amagon

Member
I found it disturbing watching the video cause you know nobody in it would of thought that a accident would happen and it did.

:/
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Remarkable footage. Really brought back the feeling I had the day it happened.

I still remember that day in school so clearly; I was in 3rd or 4th grade so it's one of few memories I have from then. We pooled the classes on our side of the school together and brought in a TV on a cart from the A/V room to watch it live. Everyone was really excited. Shortly after it blew, the teacher turned the TV off and it was wheeled away. We were confused, and the teachers and staff were really sad and quiet.

I didn't understand what happened until after school when I got home. The image of the multiple smoke trails after the explosion is forever burned in my mind.
 

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
I remember watching it live on TV when I was a kid. My school let us out for lunch 30 minutes early so we could go home and watch it on TV. We didn't have class when we got back to school because it was all we could talk about.
 
Go dad go.



If you go to wikipedia you can see a close up photo of the intact crew cabin coming from the explosion. You probably shouldn't though.

Interesting videos, I've never actually seen anything other than the official one they play all the time.

Where in the photo?
 
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