The coverup regarding the fate of Challenger astronauts

originally posted by: Milah
I've read that they may have still been conscious even a couple minuted AFTER the shuttle broke apart.

How come 'EJECT' seats with parachuts & oxygen masks arent provided for each individual astronaut to remain in during liftoff and reentry?

Even Sci Fi movies have them and have had for decades! Get with the program NASA! Unless you're more concerned with loss of the equipment than loss of an entire crew of genious human crew - ONE disaster after ANOTHER!

Probably a reason those movies are considered Science Fiction and not Science Fact..most likely it is because most of what you see in them is not currently possible.

As for your ridiculous and inaccurate "one disaster after another" statement care to elaborate?

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Yes, in that case though they were going to be able to slow the cockpit area down before they ejected.

a reply to: wildespace

When people smirk and snort about how an organisation the size of NASA, with as many personnel as they have could never hope to keep a secret - any secret (take your pick..ET life, UFO's, Global warming) for any length of time, i think it would be a good idea to refer them back to this thread and it's links.

They simply cannot be trusted, and they most certainly do not work with the public and what the public deserve to know at the forefront of their minds.

How disrespectful they were to those unfortunate astronauts and their families..it's actually staggering.

Chuck a hero in a garbage bag and then into a garbage can?! How very honourable of them.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
reply to post by Valhall

 

They were alive long enough for the pilot to be attempting to restore power to the crew cabin. That can take a little bit of time, so we can assume from that they were alive most of the way to impact. Personally, I believe that they were alive all the way down.

After reading that article, so do i.

For me, the crux of the issue isn't whether or not the astronauts died during or very shortly following the break up of the shuttle, or were alive until they hit the water and then died, the issue is that NASA broke the law and lied repeatedly, and coerced many others to lie to maintain NASA's version of events.

That, and the fact that zero escape equipment was ever factored into the shuttle design originally nor subsequently..unless we conclude that NASA's newest space vehicle no longer requires a Human crew...that could be seen as a safety measure to prevent astronauts dying in space related incidents again...no astronauts will of course mean no astronaut deaths to have to lie about and cover up later, but it also effectively means the end of NASA's Human space programme and the dawn of the robotic programme that i tend to think is being formulated right now to replace manned flights.

a reply to: MysterX

I don't have proof, but I vaguely remember them talking about the astronauts being alive till they hit the water even way back then...But that was living just down the road from the launch so we might have had different reporting.

a reply to: Irishhaf

No, I was all the way out in Hawaii and I knew that at least some of them were alive. They said that from not long after the investigation started.

a reply to: MysterX

There was an escape system designed in at the start, but for feasibility reasons it wasn't put into the final design.

NASA didn't lie about this though. They said fairly early on that the crew survived the explosion. It also didn't take long for them to come out and say they were to blame for making the go decision when they shouldn't have.

one of the articles mentioned reasons for not doing a cabin separation system was needing mechanisms to sever conduits and supply lines as well as explosive bolts that would present a danger of unintended explosions and also mass considerations.

my thoughts on this are as follows. plug style umbilical connections with check valves in the case of hydraulic, water, or other fluids and gases such as life support air lines from the fuel cells under the cargo bay deck. leakage/ pressure sensors as well as at least one life support power fuel cell and tankage in the crew module.

instead of explosive bolts use a series of breach locking lugs like found on artillery pieces. the mated part makes a small rotation to lock in and a small rotation to unlock and clear. you could use an air bladder (think hot rod show car suspensions) or hydraulic rams to push off if that is even necessary. every thing safetied to Hades and back so that the system cannot be actuated by normal flexing or accidentally by the crew.

Perform saucer separation maneuver!

Thanks for keeping thread alive guys. I'd like to link a related ATS thread titled Challenger disaster: "obviously a major malfunction" and "the vehicle has exploded" - explained, which examines the two often-misunderstood things about that tragic event.

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Regarding the Columbia Shuttle disintegration, there's also a "dodgy" point regarding some of the last words from the commander Rick Husband, which have been officially transcribed as "and, uh, Hou..." and which don't make much sense, especially as it was an isolated communication.

If you listen to the audio recording, he clearly says "Feeling the heat" which is his reaction to the Shuttle's control systems strugging with the unusual situation.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That is also very upsetting..that they were warned of potential problems..I think about the o rings specifically. Wasn't it also the 1st flight with a civilian?

The helicopters out of Patrick AFB were ours. We had flown two aircraft down from NAS Jacksonville. We usually tried to do a cross-country flight down for a shuttle launch. We'd take some of the maintenance and support people along to watch the launch and then we would fly back home. The Transient line at Patrick was one of the best places to watch a launch from. When we saw the explosion one of our pilots smacked me on the shoulder and gave me the turn up engines signal. We were going about 3 minutes later. We were hover taxiing down the runway when NASA control made us go back because they were concerned about falling debris. Thirty minutes later we were cleared to go and recovered some of the first pieces of wreckage. The thirty minute wait ticked us off a bit because the water temperature was low enough that if someone had got out hypothermia would have killed them before we could get there.

I had heard that some of the astronauts survived the impact and their cause of death was drowning.

a reply to: vonclod

First with a teacher. Morton Thiokol engineers were practically screaming at them to scrub the launch because of the Rings. But as usual politics came in to play.

I occasionally wonder about the Columbia. Considering the size of the area over which everything was scattered, and all the fairly delicate components that came down intact, including the tape from the on-board video camera, I wonder how much stuff -- including remains of the crew -- are still lying in some Texas swamp somewhere.

a reply to: Blue Shift

For information about the fate of the Columbia crew, you should check out this publication:

"Loss of Signal: Aeromedical Lessons Learned from the STS-107 Columbia Space Shuttle Mishap"

ston.jsc.nasa.gov...

I had the opportunity to read this prior to publication and found it to be a refreshingly candid assessment that reflects changes in NASA culture since the Challenger accident.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: vonclod

First with a teacher. Morton Thiokol engineers were practically screaming at them to scrub the launch because of the Rings. But as usual politics came in to play.

No real evidence of politics, except NASA's ferocity in pushing ahead to win the argument in Congress over cancelling the AF's expendable launchers.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
The helicopters out of Patrick AFB were ours. We had flown two aircraft down from NAS Jacksonville. We usually tried to do a cross-country flight down for a shuttle launch. We'd take some of the maintenance and support people along to watch the launch and then we would fly back home. The Transient line at Patrick was one of the best places to watch a launch from. When we saw the explosion one of our pilots smacked me on the shoulder and gave me the turn up engines signal. We were going about 3 minutes later. We were hover taxiing down the runway when NASA control made us go back because they were concerned about falling debris. Thirty minutes later we were cleared to go and recovered some of the first pieces of wreckage. The thirty minute wait ticked us off a bit because the water temperature was low enough that if someone had got out hypothermia would have killed them before we could get there.

I had heard that some of the astronauts survived the impact and their cause of death was drowning.

Thanks for sharing. I was at JSC. Flight docs later told me the crew cabin hit the water sideways at high speed and the 100-G impact converted the contents to metal and meat confetti.

a reply to: JimOberg


Which is the politics I was referring to. NASA almost HAD to get the shuttle up that time.

The movie The Challenger Disaster with William Hurt,I thought, was very good.

More juicy details (forgive me for using this term) about the attempted coverup in this article: www.cbsnews.com...

"Local security measures are being taken to assure that the recovery operations can take place in a safe and orderly manner," NASA said in a carefully worded statement. "In deference to family wishes, NASA will not make further comment until recovery operations and identifications are complete."

But by monitoring radio traffic, reporters knew when remains were brought ashore. In one telling exchange, the captain of the lead recovery ship, the USS Preserver, refused instructions to bring crew remains back to port in secrecy and in the dead of night.

"I consider that most inappropriate for these conditions, I'd like to have you verify with our chain of command," the captain angrily called to shore.

The shore control operator said he would check the order, but "on that particular one, that apparently is their call, over."

"This is Preserver," the captain replied after a pause. "Aboard Preserver, it's my call." When Preserver docked later that night, its running lights were on and two military ambulances met the ship.

"That was the breakthrough, in my mind, in what we were able to cover," Hall said. "When we couldn't get anything from NASA, we went out and bought receivers, (and) we all went to Jetty Park, and we would listen to those receivers, and we really found out a lot about the debris recovery. The reason we were there was twofold. One, was to get pictures of the debris and two, to see if they'd recovered the bodies of the astronauts."

originally posted by: wildespace....

If you listen to the audio recording, he clearly says "Feeling the heat" which is his reaction to the Shuttle's control systems strugging with the unusual situation.

I doubt it. Heating in the cabin would have been nominal, until the higher drag on the left wing chine jerked the nose hard left, tumbled the vehicle, and broke its back after one or two flips, with comm loss at the moment the tumble began.

What they would have noticed leading up to that was the aft right RCS jets coming on one after the other trying to keep the nose centered.