Talk:Space Shuttle Challenger disaster/Archive 2

First teacher in space

The potential first teacher in space was killed on this disaster, so who was the first teacher in space who was launched and landed safely from a successful mission? Bigtop 22:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Barbara Morgan will be the first when she launches on STS-118 next June. Boringguy 12:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Correct. Thus there have been no "Teacher in space" type missions completed since Challenger, but one is coming. SchuminWeb (Talk) 15:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Delisted GA

The five references given do not cover the entire article, pretty much all of the references in culture section isn't referenced, and it's not even in prose. I don't know if that single reference up top is giving everything for the exact flight sequence, but this needs to be made more clear, call the reference explicitly in the text if you can. Many of the sections don't seem to be referenced at all, and I notice a small group of citation needed tags. Turn that popular reference section into prose, and get some more references is the moral of the story here. 208.62.171.226 19:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, this is User:Homestarmy, for some weird reason, it keeps logging me off whenever I try to type onto this page. Homestarmy 19:20, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Eh, and now i'm back, that's weird. Homestarmy 19:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Am I the only one who wonders whether the popular culture references section actually belongs in a seperate article? MLilburne 12:56, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

You're not alone. As currently written, that section is a travesty and an embarrassment to the article. A few pop cultural references might be appropriate if they are widely known, such as a plot element on a major TV show. However in general "References in popular culture" sections are magnets for mindless trivia, often in poor taste and which have no meritorious contribution. This is an encyclopedia, not Usenet, not a high school locker room, not a blog joke site. Wikipeida is already suffering from credibility problems as a serious reference work. Sections like this (as currently written) weaken Wikipedia and diminish the valuable contributions of serious editors. Joema 13:48, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't really have the energy to re-write it myself (I'd rather concentrate on the body of the article), but I wonder whether hiving it off into a seperate article might just be passing the buck. Either way, I think a consensus needs to be reached on what to do with it, and then something needs to be done. MLilburne 19:03, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed merge. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the merge debate was request withdrawn by initiator. Cjosefy 12:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

As with the STS-107 and Space Shuttle Columbia disaster pages, please do NOT merge STS-51-L and Space Shuttle Challenger disaster for the same reasons. One is about the planned mission, while one is about the disaster that unfolded instead. Totally different realms. SchuminWeb (Talk) 03:40, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Oppose per above --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 13:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Opposing the merge, for the same reasons. MLilburne 17:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Oppose the merge, for the same reasons. Joema 19:53, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I concur, per Shumin's argument; these two articles should not be merged. Zurel Darrillian 16:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Oppose the merge, per SchuminWeb. The mission and accident are two very distinct items deserving of seperate articles. Cjosefy 19:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment From a reader perspective it would be useful if you would make the distinction clearer at the top of the articles - I'm thinking of something closer to the disambiguation notices. I couldn't understand why there were two articles until I read this section (which does makes perfect sense) --SiobhanHansa 20:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Removing -- Scetoaux 01:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Overhaul

This article's recent delisting from GA status has prompted me to start a fairly thorough overhaul. It really ought to be a GA, at least, but there are quite a few things that need improvement. What I have done or am planning to do includes:

• (1) Adding citations and removing a few uncited (and unhelpful) statements
• 2) Writing a new section on "Pre-launch conditions" which focuses on the cold weather prior to launch, and the concerns that it prompted.
• 3) Restructuring the timeline to include the events listed in the "Failure sequence" subsection (which I have eliminated).
• 4) Adding more information on the accident investigation, both on the Rogers Report and on the Report of the House Committee on Science and Technology (which isn't currently mentioned).
• 5) Expanding the "Cause of failure" subsection and perhaps promoting it to its own section
• 6) Possibly (pending the results of the discussion above) removing the section of "References in popular culture" to its own article.

If any of this is problematic, or if there are further things that need to be looked at, please let me know. MLilburne 14:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

References in popular culture

Per the discussion above (under "Delisted GA"), I've made a start on converting the "References in Popular Culture" section into prose. I would have at least mentioned the numerous songs and television shows that referenced Challenger (while not discussing them in detail), but I didn't have any citations for the references in the old section, and I'm trying to be fairly strict about only including references in the article that can be cited. MLilburne 13:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

It seems you've removed nearly all of the "References in Popular Culture" section, rather than moving it to a separate article.. was this intended? or were you planning on putting some of it back? Mlm42 13:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that it merits a seperate article as it stands. I would like to try to integrate some more information about Challenger and popular culture into this article, but I'm not sure that I have the time at the moment. Do you have an opinion on what ought to be done? I would certainly appreciate another point of view. MLilburne 14:30, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

yeah, fair enough, another article probably isn't appropriate; but a good sized section should be, since this event did affect many people around the world, and this is reflected by how often it is referenced in popular culture. to draw an comparison, the featured article RMS Titanic has a sizable popular culture section (even when it was elected a featured article). Mlm42 17:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I have now put as much into the prose popular culture section as seems notable, and as I have reliable references for. Still a work-in-progress, but hopefully it's an improvement. MLilburne 11:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

The Jay Greene photo caption

The previous caption under the Greene photo reads:

Greene reacts to the loss of the Challenger.

That is misleading. This guy is a trained, mature, professional. He does not communicate with others in the control room by making faces at them with his mouth agape as if he were an actor in a Hollywood movie. He is talking into his microphone and the shutter clicked as he is sounding out the vowel of a word. Please ensure that the caption does not suggest that he is doing some kind of movie pose: he is at his console and doing his job. -- PinkCake 01:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Having largely written the article on Jay Greene, I certainly agree that he is a trained, mature professional. On the other hand, I have also watched the footage of Mission Control after the Challenger accident, and I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that the picture shows him reacting to the loss of Challenger. All of the people in Mission Control did show signs of emotion, including Greene, and the picture does tally with his accounts in interviews of how he realised that something was wrong.

Still, I see your point, and agree that the interpretation of the picture isn't exactly provable. I just wanted to note that the original caption wasn't necessarily as misleading as you imply. MLilburne 04:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I am sticking with your caption but have changed it slightly, so as to read "Jay Greene at his console after the breakup of Challenger". When the picture was taken, the disintegration had already occurred. The picture is one of several in the JSC Image Collection described as being "taken of Mission Control following announcement that STS 51-L launch phase was not proceeding nominally." MLilburne 08:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

From the video monitor with NASA Select Television in the background, the photo was taken 25 to 30 second after the breakup of the Challenger. I'm sure he was done reacting by then. BoringGuy

Good article

You really did do a great job with the remake, and I think this qualifies as a good article (despite a few formatting issues, nothing too serious). If somebody wanted to refine it, you could try and reposition the pictures to eliminate some of the blank space, and try to clean up the headings/consolidate a bit. Otherwise, another great Wikipedia article. Pcbene 13:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I'm afraid that I don't know much about formatting, so will have to think about how to make those changes. If anyone else wants to help out, I would really appreciate it... MLilburne 10:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

GA Review

In reviewing the article in accordance to Good Article Criteria, I have decided to decline the GA nomination at this time for concerns listed below.
1. It is well written. - Needs Improvement

• The lead needs some work in accordance to WP:LEAD to provide a more complete overview of the article. For instance, Christa McAuliffe is the only crew member mentioned in the lead and there is not any mention of the changes and reforms that happened in the aftermath. (Done)
• In going through the WP:MOS, I can't really see the encyclopedic form in having a "Transcript timeline" of the entire disaster down to what is being spoken on the intercom. That is a bit of information overload in an article that is meant to be a description of the Challenger disaster. A paragraph form, with a prose summary of what happened and link to a Wiki-source with the transcript seems to be more appropriate. I could possibly see the benefit in having a content fork with a link to Timeline of the Challenger Disaster but including the whole transcript doesn't seem to fit with what this article should be. (Done)
• There is a little OR-ish tone and speculation in the section Crew escape was not possible. Part of the concern stems from the lack of references in this area. I would encourage the editors to take a look and maybe do some rewording to alleviate the OR tone. (Done)
• The External links area is a bit long. I see merit in all the links but I would encourage some editorial discretion and pare down the list to the top 5-7 links that offer the most benefit to the reader. The longer the list is, the more tempting it grows to become a link farm with more and more added. (Done)

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable. - Pass

• The article was easily verifiable, incorporating the use of in-line cites direct the reader to reliable sources. However I would recommend reviewing WP:CITE to see how to consolidate the cites and remove duplicate footnotes. (Done)

3. It is broad in its coverage. - Needs Improvement

• There is amply coverage on the different investigations in the accident and even reports on what their findings was but details on what NASA did in response to the disaster and the investigation is missing. The Challenger disaster had a profound effect on the shuttle mission program and that should have treatment in the article. (Done.)

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy - Pass

• The article does an excellent job of covering an emotional topic in a very clear NPOV tone.

5. It is stable - Pass

• The article did get a bit of a rewrite since its delisting but has been more or less stable through its history.

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic. - Pass

• The article makes excellent use of images to help illustrate the topic.

I want to thank the article's editors for the hardwork and dedication that they have put into the article to get it up to this point. There are many positive aspects of the article and it is in solid position to meet the criteria for Good Article status in the near future. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Agne 22:15, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I think there's been a little bit of confusion, as the article had already been passed as GA, but for some reason it was left on the list of articles to be reviewed. Nonetheless, I will abide by your judgment, and try to correct some of the deficiencies in the article over the next few weeks. MLilburne 10:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I have now made the changes requested and will be resubmitting the article for consideration. MLilburne 15:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

maximum altitude?

what was the maximum altitude the shuttle reached? i didn't see it in the article, but may have missed it.. Mlm42 11:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a good question. I'm not sure, but will see if I can look it up and include it in the article. MLilburne 12:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. MLilburne 07:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

cool, thanks. Mlm42 08:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Pop culture references again...

I can see that more unassimilated trivia is likely to creep into the pop culture section over time, just as it crept into the bullet point list. Does anyone have any suggestions for what should stay and what should go? It will be difficult to incorporate some of the things that have been added into the flow of the section, and I dislike leaving things in that don't have citations. MLilburne 06:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

As long as the facts are easily verifiable (which most seem to be), you only really need citations if something is challenged.. and popular culture sections never really have a flow anyway; the popular culture section of any popular article will grow sentence by sentence as each person will have some different factoid to add.. once it gets to a certain size they sometimes break off into their own articles, like RMS Titanic in popular culture recently did. but generally, i'd say keep most things that are added. Mlm42 08:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Although in a "real" encyclopedia, a section about the Challenger accident in popular culture would have some sort of flow or argument to it. The goal is not, I think, to simply have a collection of trivia, but to have a section that tells you something about how the accident affected society. Still not sure how to accomplish that.

For the article, I'm trying to stick to the rule of citing anything that might possibly be challenged. Featured Article status may still be a long way away, but it's worth approaching as closely to the standards as possible. MLilburne 08:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

fair enough; i guess the point is that, contrary to "real" encyclopedias, wikipedia articles are never finished.. so at various stages somebody will put all the random trivia facts into a nice coherent section, and then soon later, others will come by and add more random trivia breaking the coherentness.. it's inevitable, really, so it's sometimes best to just go with the flow. Mlm42 08:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

"Cocoa beach" picture

It may be a picture of Challenger, but in my opinion it is superfluous to the article, since the "SRB plume" picture shows basically the same thing, only more clearly. Does anyone think there's a good reason for it to stay? MLilburne 08:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I do. I think it's useful because it shows the other side of the shuttle stack. Thus I think it should stay for sake of completeness. SchuminWeb (Talk) 22:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I think if we were making arguments about completeness, there could be a lot more pictures that could be included. But I suppose I see your point. If it stays in for that reason, though, maybe it should have a caption that emphasises that point? MLilburne 07:51, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

i'm generally not a fan of that image.. it's fairly low quality, and although it shows a different angle, it doesn't particularly add much more. Mlm42 13:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

GA Passed

I read this article carefully, and passed it as GA. I read the suggestions made by Agne27, and to my eyes, you have addressed all concerns. This is an excellent article, and I found the prose to be very compelling. I actually thought it an "A" class article. Jeffpw 22:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Timeline removal

While I appreciate efforts to improve this article, as discussed in Space Shuttle Columbia disaster - Featured article, I wanted to say I disagree with the removal of BOTH the timeline format dialog section AND the timeline format failure sequence. These can be seen in their original format here: [1]. The failure sequence timeline was removed in this edit on 17-Sept-06: [2].

Because of the time-critical nature of events preceding aviation accidents, general news and information coverage of such incidents often includes a timeline section. You see this in Time Magazine, New York Times, Aviation Week, etc. A properly-sized timeline section doesn't weigh down the article or swamp it with unnecessary detail. Timeline format facilitates quicker recognition of what happened when, and better illustrates the chronological relationship of events preceding the incident. Readers who don't require that level of detail can easily skip over that section. The timeline format is much more readable than prose format. Is there any way we could re-insert the timeline format dialog and failure sequence sections? Joema 19:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I just want to mention first of all that I did list on the talk page all the changes that I was planning to make before I made them, in case someone wanted to object. But I'm happy to discuss them now too.

First, the dialogue. I tried to include all of the relevant dialogue in the "Launch and failure" section. If there's anything important that I missed, of course you should go ahead and add it, but I think it's excessive to include absolutely everything that was said, and it's certainly excessive to do so in dialogue form.

Second, the timeline. I did indeed remove the failure sequence section, and I did so because it was really redundant when put next to the main "Launch and failure" section, which described basically the same events at the same level of detail. In my opinion, the article is better with the failure sequence section removed. That is not to say, however, that the addition of a different kind of timeline might not improve the article further. I can see the argument that a short timeline make matters clearer, perhaps as a box on the side of the article. Could you produce a draft of the sort of thing that you might want to add, so that we could discuss a substantive proposal? MLilburne 20:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

You're correct, you have the essential items, only in prose format. As you said, the same content that worked in timeline format appears "excessive" in prose format. That illustrates why timeline format is so often used in aviation-related disaster accounts.

There's no way to retain the current prose format for the dialog and failure sequence sections, yet avoid duplication if restoring a timeline section (whether in a separate box or in-line). Do not misunderstand -- it's a high quality article as currently written. The changes you've done are improvements, and that's appreciated. But personally I think the timeline format was better suited for the dialog and failure sequence sections. I'm sorry I didn't catch this sooner, before the work was done.

The best stop-gap solution I can think of is creating a new specialized article titled "Space Shuttle Challenger disaster timeline", including ONLY the timeline format dialog and failure sequence material from this version: [3], and linking to that from the main article, say in the "See Also" section. That way it doesn't clutter the main article. The material would be preserved in the original format for those readers inclined to pursue it further. How about that? Joema 21:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

A specialised timeline article would be an excellent compromise, if you're happy with it. (I'm still happy to consider other options in the longer term, just so you know.) MLilburne 21:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Understood and thanks. Let me write the article, add the link then we can examine the result. This method preserves the original content, the current article form, and requires the least work. Also, if later even more detailed timeline info is added, it goes into the specialized article without further cluttering the main article. Joema 23:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Still trying to find time to do this. Good work on the other changes. Joema 23:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Missed this the first time around. Thanks. No rush on the timeline article... my feeling is that it can just be integrated into the article with one of these notices:

Further information: [[:Space Shuttle Challenger disaster timeline]]

. MLilburne 10:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of crew section

It was mentioned in the first peer review that the section on Challenger's crew didn't look very good at the top of the page, and that perhaps it should be moved to the bottom. I agree that it doesn't look very good, but I'm not sure that it fits very well at the bottom either. Now, of course, we have the STS-51-L article, so my feeling is that discussions of the crew belong in that article and not this one. I have removed the crew section so that this article (which is getting quite long) focuses only on the disaster. MLilburne 10:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, although there's a natural tendency to ask "what about the crew info?". In normal linear presentations of this subject (e.g, TV documentary, newspaper, etc.) of course the crew info must be included. But Wikipedia is a heavily hyperlinked, information-rich format. The crew info is one click away under STS-51-L. We must also remember this is an encyclopedia article that documents the topic, not a TV documentary which is often biased by emotional appeal for ratings. I've seen STS-51-L TV documentaries where I came away knowing little besides it "blew up" and Christa McAuliffe died. Relocating the crew info to a separate article at first may seem odd, but upon reflection I think it's OK. Joema 23:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

For future reference

An annotated bibliography on the accident. MLilburne 10:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

NBC news coverage

Boringguy has removed a sentence on the NBC live coverage of the Challenger launch, saying in the edit summary that "NBC did not show the launch live. The Today Show is 3 hours old on the west coast." There was a solid source for the statement that was removed, namely, as cited: Wright, John C., Dale Kunkel; Marites Pinon; Aletha C. Huston (Spring 1989). "How Children Reacted to Televised Coverage of the Space Shuttle Disaster". Journal of Communication 39 (2): 27. Thus, I have put the statement back in. If there is verifiable evidence this is wrong, however, I would certainly be interested in hearing it. MLilburne 11:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

NBC is an even better source. See the Challenger: Beyond the Tragedy clip at MSNBC.com. Boringguy 15:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough. For future reference, it would have been helpful if you'd mentioned this when you removed the sentence for the first time, just so that others could verify the source of your information. MLilburne 16:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Damaged clevis - ?!

> It was later determined that these smoke puffs were caused by the opening and closing of a damaged clevis in the aft field joint of the right-hand SRB...

Well, as far as I know there was no "damaged clevis". Tang and clevis were NOT damaged, they were misdesigned. Ok to edit?

> However, aluminum oxides from the burned cryogenic propellants

Aluminum from CRYOGENIC propellants???

> at T+60.238 there was visual evidence of flame through the rupture impinging on the external tank.

Evidence of... the rest of sentence doesn't sound like correct English (at least to me).

> Challenger veered from its correct attitude with respect to the local air flow and was immediately torn apart by aerodynamic forces of 20 (g)--well over its limit of 3 g.

Why (g) is in ()s? Why double-dash? Also, I think that 3 g is operational limit, not design limit. According to x1.4 NASA rule, design limit should be at least 4.2 g.

> the PEAPs supplied only unpressurized air, and hence would not have helped the crew retain consciousness.

helped the crew TO retain consciousness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.212.29.187 (talk • contribs)

These are all good points. Please do go ahead and edit anything that you feel needs work. MLilburne 12:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Edited —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.212.29.171 (talk) 11:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

Death of Crew

"probably when the crew compartment hit the surface of the ocean"

This is a quote from the official NASA report on the disaster. I have this quote also on the official video evidence of the disaster produced by NASA. Dobbs 18:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

To me this statement comes across as being very speculative and does not seem to fit well with the rest of the article. Later in the article it is stated (with citation) that "the cause of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined" and due to the destructive forces involved with the ocean impact "evidence of damage occurring in the seconds which followed the explosion was masked". Therefore to make such a statement in the opening paragraph of the article is misleading. Would it not be better to clearly mark it as a quotation with a citation footnote as not to impart a sense of actuality on the reader? While the word "probably" denotes the statement as undetermined it is still misleading in that without being marked as a quotation the reader could assume that it is a well established conclusion, for which it can not be because of the uncertainty surrounding the exact integrity of the crew module immediately after breakup. - Jaqel 01:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not really speculation. The information (but not the exact quote) was taken from the Kerwin report, which is reference 8 in the article. It was referenced four times in the article, but I'll put the pointer here: [4]. If there's no citation available for the quoted phrase, it shouldn't be given in quote format. If there is a citation is should be provided, if the quote format is retained. However the basic statement itself is not speculation, but is simply rephrasing information from the Kerwin report. Namely the astronauts were probably not killed in the vehicle breakup or the decent to the ocean surface. Joema 03:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I had read the entire report linked to by reference 8 prior to making my judgements about the statement, in no place does that report suggest that the crew died "probably when the crew compartment hit the surface of the ocean", it could be assumed that the crew "probably" died due to surface impact from the statements "the forces to which the crew were exposed during Orbiter breakup were probably not sufficient to cause death or serious injury" and "Medical analysis indicates that these accelerations are survivable, and that the probability of major injury to crew members is low" however assumptions are speculation. The referenced report states in several places that the findings were inconclusive and due to a degree of uncertainty the cause of death could not be conclusively determined; "the cause of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined", "The impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was so violent that evidence of damage occurring in the seconds which followed the explosion was masked", "There are uncertainties in our analysis", and "the skilled and dedicated efforts of the team from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and their expert consultants, could not determine whether in-flight lack of oxygen occurred, nor could they determine the cause of death.". While I am in no way denying that surface impact was the cause of death, and while that cause remains probable, the statement itself reads like hearsay, which without proper citation to back it up as an official conclusion does not belong in a serious encyclopaedia article. In it's given position and form the statement impacts on the quality of the article. Given that the circumstances surrounding the cause of death are covered in more detail in a later section of the article that statement simply has no need to be there and removing the statement does not damage the article in any way. The structure and integrity of the surrounding paragraph is not reliant on the presence of that statement in any way and in no way does the removal of that statement degrade the paragraph. So without proper citation to back it up I see no reason why the statement should remain especially when the presence of the statement has an impact on the quality of the article, however I'm always open to debate so feel free to elucidate any points I may have missed. - Jaqel 17:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's not vital the statement (sourced or not) be in the 1st section, as it's covered later in the article. The original statement in quote format should definitely not be present unless sourced. Even if not in quote format, a footnote would still be appropriate, considering the subject matter.

However -- the statement itself is not really speculation, although I'd favor somewhat different wording, e.g: "crew members were probably not killed by the vehicle breakup, but could not have survived the ocean impact". I'm perfectly OK with just deleting it so, at this point it becomes a side issue. The Kerwin report says of the vehicle breakup: "probability of major injury to crew members is low". There was much uncertainty over whether the crew cabin lost pressure, but this has no impact on cause of death. It's impossible to die from hypoxia of that brevity. By contrast the report says the ocean impact was "far in excess of...crew survivability levels." Don't confuse the uncertainties in the report which had no affect on cause of death vs the more certain statements that did affect probable cause of death. This could easily be referenced from other sources which would support the "probable cause of death" statement, such as: [5], [6], and[7]. Joema 01:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

As I have stated I do not deny ocean impact as a probable cause of death, however without concrete evidence (for which the report clearly states the lack of) it can be no more than speculation, no mater how probable that speculation is. I simply don't believe the statement should be there, and in it's current construction (as a quote or not) it detracts from the article, that is why I deleted it in the first place. However it appears that deleting it is stepping on somebody's toes, which is why (after it had been re-added by Dobbs and I had read his explanation) I re-formatted it as a quote, if it is not a quote then it should at the very least be re-written to more accurately reflect the official conclusion, and if it is a quote then citation should be provided. - Jaqel 02:54, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the statement again to tidy up the article. Please do not simply re-add it, if you absolutely must have the statement there for some reason please at the very least re-write it to more accurately represent the official conclusion, or if it is a quote please include appropriate citation. And could you also please provide an explanation for re-adding it here.

On a side note, is there any way I or somebody else can fix my "Edit Summary" it should point here. Jaqel 09:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

No known way to change an edit summary. Recommended procedure is doing a "dummy edit" and adding the corrected edit summary in that. Joema 15:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok I've messed it up now, sorry about this, thanks for your help anyway. If an admin would like to delete my most recent edit (if that's at all possible) I would appreciate it. It would be handy if the wiki had a summery preview feature, perhaps on the same page as the article preview. Jaqel 23:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes edit summary preview is badly needed. Further on death of crew: there's an extensive discussion of this in astronaut Mike Mullane's book "Riding Rockets". He was close friends with Judith Resnik, who died in the Challenger disaster, so was personally motivated to examine this area. His conclusion is they were certainly alive until water impact and possibly (though not probably) conscious: [8] Joema 00:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

According to the National Geographic Channel's Sconds from Disaster programme on the disaster at least three pilots survived the initial explosion as they had activated their emergency oxygen tanks, although others may have survived either incapacitated by injuries or unconcious. It is therefore likely that at least three survived until the point of impact with the ocean 86.129.180.76 17:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)thelostlibertine

Didn't NASA insist for months that all aboard died instantly, and only later did it come out that this wasn't true? (Cf. Apollo 1) I'm trying to remember where that was reported.--Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 16:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Citation number 1 which points to the ohiohistory.wordpress.com website is incorrect. The article it references fails to support this claim. 66.92.36.82 (talk) 23:29, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Today's Featured Article nomination

I've nominated this article for Today's Featured Article on 28 January 2007. Its nomination is loacated here. Please take a look and comment on the proposal. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 12:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

This should have been on the main page today! 198.203.175.175 (talk) 15:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

YouTube links

Please don't post links to YouTube videos about the Challenger accident. The one that was posted last night has already been removed from YouTube due to a terms of service violation. Besides which, the External Links already include a link to the official NASA documentary on the accident, which is hosted at the Internet Archive and is thus a lot more likely to be there for the long haul. MLilburne 08:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Protection

This article is on the front page, but doesn't appear to be protected from anonymous users like me.

Also, Need Another Seven Astronauts. --90.240.34.177 00:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOPRO Gdo01 01:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

A complete response would include the fact that this is a disputed policy. See Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection. –Outriggr § 05:41, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Until it is overturned, that is the only explanation necessary. Believe me, I disagree with it too but that doesn't mean we shouldn't tell people about the policy. Gdo01 06:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

cool!

awesome that this made the featured artical! just did a project on this last week! -=—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pendragonneo (talk • contribs) 01:38, 28 January 2007

Tang

Reviewing edit: 17:20, 11 December 2006 Blueboy96 (Talk | contribs) (→Rogers Commission investigation=)

Is 'tang' the right word here? I'm not sure if tang is a technical term or not, never heard it myself.

Yes, the SRB Field Joints were a standard type of joint called "Tang and Clevis"Arakunem 15:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Jokes

I'm a little bit surprised that this article doesn't include any mention of all the sick jokes (like the above anon alludes to) that circulated widely after the accident. Now I understand why they might not have been included, since it's a sensitive subject and those who worked on this article are focusing on the engineering.

But there should be a section on them under references in popular culture, since IIRC at least one radio DJ was fired for cracking the Tang joke onair. You can also find that Michael Lewis mentions in Liar's Poker that the day of the accident, several people in different parts of the world called in with the Need Another Seven Astronauts joke (might also go under the part about how rapidly the news spread). Finally, there's a backpage column in The New Republic (don't know by who, Kinsley maybe?) a week or so later daring to suggest that the jokes were a popular reaction to the way the media told Americans how they would feel. (And there can be a link to one of the online archives of those jokes which still exist).

I mean, I remember, and I think everyone else old enough to does, just how widespread those jokes were. There's enough material there to make some discussion of it encyclopedic and relevant. If there's some reason why, I'll respect it, but I think it's a noticeable omission. Daniel Case 05:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a very good question. The jokes used to be mentioned in the old "popular culture" section, which was just a list that people added to. What tended to happen was that they got more and more tasteless, and were added without any effort to set them in cultural and historical context. There is definitely an argument for mentioning them if they can be discussed in the context of reliable secondary sources (like the New Republic article, which I had not encountered), but I have to say that I'm afraid the section would go downhill very quickly. MLilburne 09:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Literally the first thing I noticed when I checked the article. I don't know if it was an '80s thing or just a way to cope but there were a lot of jokes, to the point where I believe it easily passes the notability test. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.57.45.44 (talk) 04:35, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Video footage

I've always wondered if footage of the launch/explosion exists aside from the official NASA clip. Is there any record of anyone taking camcorder footage? All I've ever seen over the past 21 years is the official NASA footage (the one which cuts to wide-angle a second after the explosion and zooms out). -76.4.49.201 05:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard that there was any major camcorder footage of the accident, and I've certainly never seen any despite having immersed myself in the topic when working on the article. Appendix N of the Rogers Report is the Photo and TV Team Report, and it does say that "films from private citizens and news media were made available to the team" but it seems to analyse (as far as I can tell) only the NASA film. MLilburne 09:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe that at a height of 48,000 feet (8 miles, 15km), that 1986 personal camcorders would have just reported a bright dot that was not moving as the breakup occurred. The NASA version would likely be one of the few with the magnification needed. IMO, of course. CodeCarpenter 15:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The UK magazine SpaceFlightNews showed stills from camcorder footage shot at New Smyrna (?) beach on 28th January 1986. I believe this was in the January 1987 issue. The footage clearly shows various "puffs" before the main SRB contrail, and the shuttle arcing upwards into the sky at T+40 seconds. The magazine also showed a zoomed-in shot of the moment of explosion; the SRBs, ET and orbiter are clearly visible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.19.57.170 (talk) 17:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

Well, this is quite old, but if anyone else reads this page like myself, Yes, there is indeed an alternate angle for this disaster. While researching this several weeks ago, I found a home video on YouTube uploaded by the person who filmed it. They are considerably farther away than the NASA clip, so you won't be getting a close up, but you can clearly see the ship explode, as well as several shots of of the camera panning down to follow burning wreckage. Just search around, I assure you it's there. Kind of creepy too, as you actually get the hear people's confusion and fear as to what exactly they are witnessing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by OnTheMantle (talk • contribs) 17:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The Discovery Channel did a special on human spaceflight a few weeks ago that included footage of the Challenger exploding that I have never seen before, and I am pretty sure it is new to the public. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.16.204.74 (talk) 20:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Usually mass emotive event clips will not be shown until the generation that originally viewed it live broadcast are deceased. I'm sure when all of us are dead and gone there will be footage of 9/11 that had never been viewed by the public. Kennedy's full death records will not be made public until that generation is gone. We should probably see new challenger footage in the upcoming years. -Preceding unsigned comment added on 2:24, 17 February, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.164.0.100 (talk) 08:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Forces

Excellent article. Personally I find this clear, neutral account of the disaster far more moving than a more sensationalist approach. One small niggle: The article says "was immediately torn apart by aerodynamic forces of 20 g". Isn't g a measure of acceleration not of force? Do any of the sources give a figure in Newtons instead? 4u1e 13:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You are right. The sentence as it is makes no physical sense. I've edited it to what I think was the intended meaning. As for the Newtons, I'm not sure that such figure would be relevant, since here we are not talking about a single force exerted on a particular point of the body in question; instead we have distributed aerodynamic and mass forces, whose effects on the body are globally expressed by the load factor. Giuliopp 00:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

NASA stock

Early in Oliver Stone's 1987 movie Wall Street, John McGinley tells Charlie Sheen that Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is so greedy he was short selling NASA stock within minutes of the shuttle's explosion (the scene is actually set in 1985, making it anachronistic).

Other then the fact this was set in 1985, does or did NASA even have stock? I can't find anything on the wikipedia article about them being a publicly listed company, it says they're a US government agency which is what I always thought they were 203.109.240.93 14:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right. NASA is a government agency and as such isn't traded on the stock market. MLilburne 16:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the image of the breakup that said 'the crew was trying to spell "Save us!" before being returned to sender'. Bad facts and poor taste, in my opinion.

If I remember correctly, the original writing of the script had Douglas saying he sold short Morton Thiokol, which Sheen replied "The company that designed the booster rockets?" but this was just cut down to NASA later to make the scene flow better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.18.71.195 (talk) 21:38, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Location?

Could someone put in that this occured in the United States, and in what city and state? --Fang Aili ^talk 18:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone else think this is a very US-centric article? I think most people in the US know what the Challenger was, but some young people might not, and people in other nations might not have the foggiest idea. Besides being US-centric, the lack of location is a lack of context. --Fang Aili ^talk 02:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree, and just how far offshore was the crew cabin found? Excellent article, but how about a cutaway diagram of the booster or a picture of an actual O-ring... and a clip of Feynman's demonstration of its failure in icewater? What was it made of, and why did it fail at cold temperatures? What was it replaced with after the SRB redesign? 71.125.132.17 08:19, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Eyewitnesses

The Media coverage mentions the speed that the new spread. Along those lines perhaps mention of the large number of eyewitnesses in Florida should be made. Shuttle launches are clearly visible for well over a hundred miles until the main boosters separate and shut down. A very large number of people in the state saw the unusual plumes that day. Could it qualify as one of the single events with the most eyewitnesses? --Dan 19:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say no, partly because even after 22 years the only video footage I've ever seen of this launch has been the official NASA one. -Rolypolyman (talk) 15:56, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

There is in fact another video from a different angle, filmed by someone watching the launch from a considerable distance. It was uploaded by the person who filmed it, and can be found on YouTube.OnTheMantle (talk) 02:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Featured article

Looks like a perfect timing for a featured article - we're on the anniversary of the disaster! Bigtop 21:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, this was why we requested the 28th as the day this should be on the main page! MLilburne 21:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a truly excellent and readable article. Congratulations & thanks to everyone who's worked on this :) Kla'quot 23:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. MLilburne 15:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Speed at breakup & other questions

The article could use a little more info on how survivable the breakup was. "The breakup of the vehicle began at T+73.162 seconds and at an altitude of 48,000 feet (15 km).[8]" Could someone with access to the data add what the speed was where the breakup began? The story right after the accident was that the aerodynamic forces of the capsule tumbling would have killed them, a atatement which is no longer operative. And what was the air pressure outside the crew cabin in the event of a large penetration of the crew capsule, at the altitude where the breakup began and at the max altitude? If they were not wearing a pressure suit, were they just wearing normal clothing, and when did NASA abandon the wearing of pressure suits at launch? Did the Challenger crew even have parachutes on board? With 20/20 hindsight, would a parachute have slowed the crew capsule enough they could have survived the splashdown or could have bailed out when the capsule got down to 5,000 feet or so? An aeronaut survived a freefall descent from a balloon at 100,000 feet if I recall correctly. Edison 21:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You may want to look at the section "Crew escape not possible". Shuttle astronauts wore pressure suits and had ejection seats for the first four Shuttle missions, but they were not worn afterwards. As the article says, "time of useful consciousness at that altitude is just a few seconds; the PEAPs supplied only unpressurized air, and hence would not have helped the crew to retain consciousness." I don't believe that there were personal parachutes on board the shuttle (there are now, but as the article says, a bail out would not have been possible during a Challenger type scenario). I also doubt very much that a larger parachute would have helped at all; given that the crew compartment was tumbling after the accident, it seems unlikely that it would have deployed successfully.

After the Challenger accident, NASA thoroughly reviewed all the escape options. I doubt that it's possible for non-experts to second-guess their conclusions. MLilburne 21:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, understand that astronauts cannot escape from the orbiter during powered flight. However I recall it is possible for commander to abort shortly after launch, separate orbiter from the boosters, and glide for landing at KSC or ditch if necessary, if there is enough time to make that decision prior to breakup. I think article should mention this in its extensive discussion of the possibilities of crew escape. 71.125.132.17 08:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes that is a contingency abort. Pretty much pure manual controlling of the orbiter for the astronauts. The problem is there was only 8 seconds between when the flame appeared and the shuttle stack broke apart. Eight seconds for NASA to react, tell the crew to abort, the crew process this and react, and for the orbiter to put enough distance between it and the SRBs/ET stack before the stack failed. There simply was not enough time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.18.71.195 (talk) 22:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

About Rocket Engines

The article says that "[loose ice] might either strike the shuttle or be aspirated by its main engines". I don't suppose that any of the engines onboard the Space Shuttle aspirate anything from the atmosphere, given that they are rocket engines. Have I missed something? Giuliopp 23:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

According to testimony given to the Rogers Commission by Rocco Petrone, aspiration "happen[s] when the large SRM [Solid Rocket Motors] motors ignite and in effect suck in air." (Rogers Report, volume 1, chapter 5, p. 114). There had been previous incidents with the SRMs aspirating loose debris on the launch pad. (Vaughan, Challenger Launch Decision, p. 330. Hope that answers your question. MLilburne 10:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

SMEs are not SRBs. I'd also jibed at the idea of the SMEs aspirating debris. IIRC the SMEs start first, since if all was not well they could be shut down whereas once the SRBs are lit, remaining stationary ceases to be a viable choice. Do we have a rocket scientist handy who could take us through that one? Midgley 14:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Entrainment? I can make sense of the jet of exhaust from the SRB entraining air thus producing a current of air past the nozzle, which would "suck in" air from above thus tending to drag ice off the structures and accelerate it downwards. I don't know how much force would be involved, and I suspect that vibration would be a bigger influence - shaking stuff off. I don't see the text as written as being good. Midgley 14:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right... it should be SRBs and not main engines. I'll make that change. However, I don't think it can be denied that they were worried about ice being aspirated by the SRBs. MLilburne 15:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

They were certainly worried about ice being shaken off by vibration. I think the worries about aspiration, though, were more to do with loose ice that might already be present on the pad (perhaps shaken loose by the start of the SMEs). I agree that it's unlikely this effect could actually pull ice off the structures.MLilburne 15:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I got the point and clarified the sentence, otherwise it seems to suggest that the SRBs work like a jet engine, which is definitely not the case. Giuliopp 00:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

boost and max-Q

"At T+51.860, the SSMEs began throttling back up to 104% as the vehicle approached Max Q, the period of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle." As I understood it, throttle down was to limit max-Q, and the engines then throttled back up _after_ max-Q, thus avoiding excessive forces, and then maintaining acceleration. Is the text correct? Midgley 14:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You understand it the same way I do. However, the time is from a pretty reliable source, which clearly shows that the throttle up started before Max Q: http://spaceflightnow.com/challenger/timeline/ MLilburne 15:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

OK. Midgley 01:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi: I am bob dacosta who published the articles on what happened to the Challenger and it ws the underlying later brought down the Columbia..the cause is what is known as the X-factor also known as the law of unexpected consequences.

When the shuttle's engineering specifications were originally written, a safety margin was factored into everything. As a specific example let's say that physical science showed that the shuttle would need 5 million pounds of thrust to launch with its payload. And as a result they specified the pressure per square inch (PSI) for 7 millions pounds of thrust's for all materials and bonds for the sake of safety. Unfortunately while the shuttle was being designed there were instances where other launches of rockets were failures. A few seconds after launch, not far above the pad the engines shut down and rockets that had just left the pad stopped in mid air, fell down back first and exploded on the launch pad. As a result, in order to err on the side of safety they decided to hold the shuttle on the launch pad for an additional ca. 5 seconds after reaching the the 5 million pounds of thrust necessary to launch while making sure there would be would be no failure in the first 5 seconds after ignition. During that interval as the engines continued to fire, and the thrust continued to build and the shuttle is firmly held to the pad, enormous stress builds. As a result the shuttle would lean in the direction of the very heavy, loaded reusable fuel tanks strapped to one side. Then when the shuttle is released it snaps back to a perpendicular attitude as it is freed from the launch pad. The snap back causes what is known as the bending moment and far more than the specified PSI stress occurs to the materials and bonds. Tiles sometimes peeled off on the early launches as happened in the case of the Columbia. And at the same time unseen micro-cracking began throughout several critical areas. In the case of the Challenger micro-cracking that had begun in a prior launch were forced to expand under tremendous pressure in the fuel lines from the additional pressure of its launch minutes before. The leaking fuel ignited and burned through the tail of the shuttle and exploded.

Sorry you couldn't find me, I live in Northern Virginia today not too far from Washington DCthese days. After the Berlin wall came down in October 1989. I merged Defense Science 2000+ with another of my publications called Defense Science and Electronics, and renamed the magazine Aerospace and Defense Science and went to quarterly. I published the last issue of Aerospace and Defense Science Magazine and retired from publishing in Nov of 1991. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.118.244.172 (talk) 21:46, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Tufte was specific about Microsoft Powerpoint, the article is not

"Information designer Edward Tufte has used the Challenger accident as an example of the problems that can occur when information is presented unclearly. He argues that if Morton Thiokol engineers had more clearly presented the data that they had on the relationship between cold temperatures and burn-through in the solid rocket booster joints, they might have succeeded in persuading NASA managers to cancel the launch.[43] Tufte has also argued that poor presentation of information may have affected NASA decisions during the last flight of the Columbia.[44]"

He argues about Microsoft Powerpoint. Is there a cogent reason why that argument should be as diluted as it is in teh current text? I don't think it should be. Midgley 01:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The Challenger disaster occured before the PowerPoint era began. From what I recall from Visual Explanations, the current text is not a bad summary. I'll try to get my hands on a copy of the book again and make it more precise. For the Columbia disaster, he definitely names PowerPoint as the villain, but the real problem he identifies is bad writing habits that the software tends to encourage, rather than innate problems in the software. I don't work for Microsoft ;) . How about if we aim for, say, two paragraphs summarizing Tufte's arguments about the Challenger disaster, and two or three sentences for his arguments about the Columbia disaster? Kla'quot 06:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

We should also include counter-arguments from here: Representation and Misrepresentation: Tufte and the Morton Thiokol Engineers on the Challenger. With the arguments and counter-arguments, we could have a whole new section on the communication deficiencies that contributed to the decision to launch. This would make the article longer but I think it would be worthwhile. Kla'quot 06:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, although I find Tufte's arguments fascinating, I think that another section in this article would be too much and would push it over the limits of readability length-wise. It's already over 60K and thus we really should be starting to think about summary style and about splitting off sections into their own articles. I've thought for some time about creating an article specifically on the Space Shuttle Challenger launch decision, and the expansion that you've suggested would fit quite handily in that article. What do people think? MLilburne 08:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed the article is long enough, and adding a detailed "launch decision" section would (a) make it too long and (b) unbalance the article with excessive content on that on one item. As you suggested, linking to a separate "Challenger launch decision" article is the best way to handle it.

As stated above Microsoft Powerpoint didn't exist until 1990; Challenger happened in January 1986. So the whole Powerpoint thing is a red herring regarding Challenger -- this article is Challenger, NOT Columbia. Nonetheless Tufte's argument is that poorly designed visual presentations (manually-drawn overhead transparencies in this case) contributed to the launch decision. With the benefit of hindsight he constructs a graph that he thinks might have been more persuasive in preventing the launch: [9]. However examination of the graph shows his curve fit is so poor quality it has little predictive value. In statistical terms the confidence interval and prediction interval are poor. To a knowledgeable person (and we assume his audience knew basic high school statistics) this would indicate lack of preparation and poor understanding of statistics, and might have weakened the "no launch" case even more than happened.

There was no shortage of forceful written and verbal arguments against launch. The Thiokol engineering manager arguing for no launch couldn't have put it much more forcefully: "...I don’t know why NASA would ever launch below 40 degrees Fahrenheit if that is what the SRM (Solid Rocket Motor) was qualified to. In fact, I made the direct statement that if anything happened to this launch, I told them I sure wouldn’t want to be the person that had to stand in front of a board of inquiry to explain why we launched this outside of the qualification of the solid rocket motor..."

Written memos prior to the launch warned Thiokol of the O-ring problem: "...if we do not take immediate action to dedicate a team to solve the problem...we stand in jeopardy of losing a flight with all the launch pad facilities." [10]

There's lots of interesting material on the Challenger launch decision: [11], particularly in the Rogers Commission hearings: [12], [13], and supporting documents: [14], A separate properly-written encyclopedic article seems like a good idea. Joema 14:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Great comments, Joema. Spinning out Space Shuttle Challenger launch decision is an excellent idea. Kla'quot 15:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, that sounds like an agreement. I will create the new article as a stub and then we can work on spinning it out. We'll want to remove some of the "Pre-launch conditions" and "Rooted in history" sections from this article and place them in context in the new article. MLilburne 17:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hold the line on article size

This article has actually been improved as a result of its time on the front page, which is fantastic. However, I think we have to be very careful about continuing to add to it and expand it ad infinitum. It was already at the upper bounds of the acceptable length when it was a FAC, and it's just kept expanding since then. I'm going to be keeping an eye on its length and trying to trim down the prose a little bit. (See WP:SIZE.) As I mentioned above, it's also time that we started considering summary style and subarticles (see WP:SUMMARY). Personally I think a good place to start would be with an article specifically on the Space Shuttle Challenger launch decision. I'd welcome comments on the idea. MLilburne 08:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Media Coverage

I recall like many of my age watching this on Newsround in the UK. A few short comments about the global media coverage would be an improvement, its a little US-centric. Catwhoorg 13:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

No Explosion

Correct as described. Here is some more info. (I'm not a good enough editor to try and fit this in to a Featured Article, so maybe one of you can do so...) The Flight Dynamics Office (FIDO) was relaying a message to the Flight Director (FLIGHT) that the Supervisor of Range Operations (SRO) had destroyed what was left of the launch vehicle. These communications were not done on the main OIS Net channel that the Public Affairs commentary monitors, so at first blush it would seem that the vehicle was destroyed by explosion. The Public Affairs commentator (PAO) would have been more correct to say "The vehicle has been exploded".

The back-channel OIS comms went like this:

  PAO: .... Obviously a major malfunction. (pause) We have no downlink.
  FIDO: FLIGHT, FIDO
  FLIGHT: Go
  FIDO: SRO Reports vehicle exploded
  FLIGHT: (long pause) Roger
  PAO: We have a report from the flight dynamics officer....

Arakunem 15:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The Last Communication

Why do people always say that the last communication from Challenger was "Go at throttle up"? Probably because its in the NASA transcript - what should have been said, not was actually said. Its clear that the last communication was "Go with throttle up". Even Capcom Richard Covey says "Go with throttle up" - this can be seen on the film made at mission control that day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.19.57.170 (talk • contribs)

The last communication was "Go at throttle up." That's the wording of the call. Have you ever seen a picture of that famous CAPCOM neck tie with all the calls from the first shuttle launch? It said "Go at throttle up." "Go with throttle up" doesn't even make any sence. "Go at throttle up" means that all systems are go at the point of throttle up (which occured at about 58 second). Plus, everytime I listen to the air-to-ground audio from the launch, I hear it as "Go at throttle up." When Col. Covey says "at," it almost sounds like he is saying "et" which can be mistaken for "with." Boringguy 05:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that the call actually happens after throttle-up itself has occured. Go with throttle-up implies that they are go to carry it out, so NASA would not use such a call to avoid ambiguity. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 12:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

We use "Go at throttle up" because that's what the NASA transcript says. Inserting different wording would be original research, which is against Wikipedia standards.

Also be advised the main engine throttle operations are totally automatic, under computer control. The astronauts don't vary throttle settings except in rare contingency situations. The flight controller "throttle up" call and the crew readback of that call are simply an acknowledgement the computer-controlled SSME throttle changes are happening (or have happened). The calls don't indicate action by the crew to change throttle settings. As GWSimulations said, the actual throttle up event happened before the call, automatically under computer control, at T+51.8 seconds. See table "STS 51-L Sequence of Major Events" (scroll down): [15]. Joema 14:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't agree. Many people with whom I've talked have said it says "go with". Also, regarding CAPCOM calls, in STS-26, the ground communicator says "Discovery, Go with throttle up". It seems in this case that people are hearing what should have been said, not what was actually said. Shades of "One small step for {a} man"....? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 90.197.238.135 (talk) 10:21, 11 February 2007 (UTC).

If you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe the guy who was the Flight Director: 29 January 1986 News Conference Boringguy 15:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen the video of that press conference before! Is there any more where that came from? MLilburne 16:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

In case anyone can't see the video, it's Jay Greene (Ascent Flight Director on Challenger STS-51-L) speaking at a news conference on 29 January 1986. He explains (1) The call is "go AT throttle up" (2) Purpose is to indicate all systems on vehicle are looking good, it's NOT a "go" for the commander to throttle-up (3) Call is made AFTER the throttle-up event is completed. Joema 20:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there an audio file of the commands given to Challenger? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.19.57.170 (talk) 11:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

Do you mean in the article? (I gather you've heard the audio already.) In any case, the Challenger astronauts weren't actually given any commands during the launch, only status reports. MLilburne 11:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I heard "Go with throttle up" a hundred times. Anything else is revisionist, whether it's the official line or what-he-meant-to-say. Same with "One small step for man". I believe my ears. 71.125.132.17 08:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

You should listen to the audio tapes more clearly then. The problem is that the audio quality is simply bad (for untrained ears standards). Also note how "go at throttle" conjoins when you speak it very quickly and a little unclear (the latter to simulate radio conditions). "go at" becomes worse because they are adjoined syllables. When you speak it quickly you almost skip the entire 'a' sound. Similarly the consonants "at throttle" have a same problem due to the "t th". Given the conditions of how the words were spoken, combined with they way they were recorded and added to that peoples expectation that you are being told what WILL(/IS) happen(ing) opposed to what HAS happened when you watch something like that. The human mind is very good at "correcting" such issues by basically making up information, in this case there was little information, and with th being the most audible sound, most minds went "must be the word 'with', between go and throttle". Almost every major newssource that detailed the event at the time quoted this incorrectly as well, so you see why many people might THINK that, but it's not correct and even as soon as 29 January 1986 NASA started correcting people on this. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It is most certainly "...go AT throttle-up." I have a copy of the film shot in Mission Control room when the accident happened. CAPCOM Richard Covey clearly says "at". It's a nominal call to the crew, tells them that the SSMEs are performing as expected as they throttle up out of the "bucket." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.212.206.162 (talk) 20:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

SRB POV of Challenger disaster

I found this video at google.com and it shows the Challenger disaster from the SRB camera. I didn't know they had cameras on the SRBS.

By the way, here is the link: [16]

Great find! One change - I think that this camera was mounted on the External Tank. Its view is high above the orbiter, and the SRBs are clearly visible in the footage. SchuminWeb (Talk) 06:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I suspect this to be a fake; mounting cameras to the ET was only a recent innovation. Why would NASA keep quiet about this for all these years? They've never mentioned this camera before, and it would have been during the Rogers Commission. Also, when the oxygen tank exploded, it surely would have vapourised the camera? Also, the report on the disaster says that the right hand SRB broke free from its aft attachment point and swiveled into the ET, with the aft portion striking the right wing of the orbiter. We see nothing of that in the video. Its a fake, QED.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 90.197.238.135 (talk) 10:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC).

Yeah, that's a fake. NASA didn't start mounting cameras on the ET until much later. And if it had existed we would have seen it in the video analysis. I'm removing the link. MLilburne 10:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Given the file description says "montage .. Original video by RocketCam, Atlantis STS-112 spce mission", I don't think we need to seriously consider the possiblity it's real. Shimgray | talk | 18:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

That footage was the famous "ET Cam" from STS-112 (Google it) as stated on the file description. However, there were cameras on board Challeger's SRB. They were engineering film cameras designed to capture parachute deployment. The films were lost in the range safety destruct. Boringguy 01:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Bad Math?

The "media coverage" section now states "seventeen percent of respondents in one study reported that they had seen the shuttle launch, while eighty-five percent said that they had learned of the accident within an hour". 17 + 85 = ???. This is obviously wrong, but the citation is from a journal. Does anyone have the original journal article or another source? If not we should just remove this section altogther. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

There's not necessarily any inconsistency, nor any math error. "Percentages of responders" are often stated that way -- there's no implication the numbers must total 100%. E.g, a population is given a medical treatment. It's often described something like: "x% responded after one day, y% after two days", etc. There's no implication or necessity that x%+y% = 100%. You're simply stating the % of the total population that responded by a given time. You don't add up the % that responded at each point in time. Joema 21:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah... i suppose so. Still, if someone has the original journal article, or another source, do you think we could check this, and add those kind of statistical details in a footnote? It does look quite weird to me. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 21:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I have the original journal article and I'm the one who wrote the section. In my reading, the 85% *includes* the 17%, so there's no inconsistency at all. MLilburne 09:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Disaster the right word?

Looking up the meaning of disaster, while it has a very cool pun, it doesn't really seem like the right word. There have been car accidents with 7 deaths, probably military helicopter crashes, etc. I don't mean to minimize what happened, but when compared to Sept. 11 or hurricanes hitting densely populated areas, the Challenger accident was at most a psychological disaster. 171.71.37.207 00:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I also wondered about that, but I suppose it was a disaster in many ways aside from the deaths of the astronauts and their guest--for the U.S. space program, for Reagan's political and public relations initiatives, for NASA's pre-launch technical review policies, and for America's image of technological infallibility. A couple of years ago I saw a reference to "the Three Mile Island catastrophe" in an Associated Press story. Now there's a poorly-chosen label (zero deaths, zero injuries).

--NameThatWorks 03:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Personally I dislike the use of the term "disaster" in connection with Challenger (as you'll see, I used "accident" in most of the article), but I didn't think it was worth the trouble of getting the page renamed. If someone else wanted to do it, I certainly wouldn't object. MLilburne 11:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

While the term "disaster" may seem exaggerated, we should be guided by the already-established, prevailing practice by historians, other encyclopedia writers and news media regarding the nomenclature. The Challenger loss is commonly described as "Challenger disaster". Both Encarta and Britannica so describe it. Wikipedia's usage is currently consistent with those, so adopting a new and different term seems unnecessary. Joema 16:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll agree with Joema's view of it. Yeah, "disaster" is a bit much when "accident" will suffice, but being consistent with other scholarly works is also important. SchuminWeb (Talk) 23:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I feel that 'disaster' is exactly the right word for this situation. While an 'accident' conveys the unintentional occurrence of a situation unforeseeable for which no one is at fault, a disaster describes a perfect storm of combining factors that led to an sooner or later inescapable result. One that COULD be foreseen. Many engineers and others had fears of just such a catastrophic failure that did in the end occur. That plus the attitude of NASA management plus the added factor of extremely adverse meteorological conditions at launch combined to create this 'storm'. When you throw in all the added blowback and effect it had on witnesses, the space program and nation as a whole it would seem 'disaster' is the exact term for this unfortunate historical incident.

This was no accident. It was bound to happen sooner or later with knowledge those in charge already had. Yet they relied on unknown providence to handle any occurrances that may happen, just as was done with the O-ring's earlier failures and 'self-fixes'. ntvypr 07July2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.38.59.2 (talk) 13:43, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Photo

Got any use for this photo? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Strong Jetwind & Roger Boisjoly

The National Geographic show Seconds From Disaster stated that a strong jetwind occured during the fatal flight.The jetwind was first noticed when Eastern Airlines Flight 677,a Boeing 757,was cruising over Cape Kennedy,and encountered the strong jetwind.When Challenger exploded,it was exactly in the area of the strong jetstream.Some photos show that the blasting smoke after the explosion went sigzag until coming above the jetstream,and contunied to climb vertically.

The night before the launch,Firecall booster engineer Roger Boisjoly had a scenario similar to the disaster.The icy conditions would make the o-ring burn out and a disaster would happen on the launh pad.He tried to convince NASA not to launch,but his warning was ignored.He showed the Firecall managers photos of the rocket boosters from Discovery`s near fatal flight one year earlier,that the o-ring nearly burned out,and could have exploded the same way as Challenger.

Key of events during flight:

73 seconds before disaster-A hole in the o-ring caused the o-ring to nearly burn out,and if it did,a disaster would have happened at the launch pad,possibly resulting more fatalities.

70 seconds-The hole get`s filled by alliminium peices,which prevents a launch pad disaster.

13 seconds-The shuttle encounters the strong jetstream,and shakes voilently,this makes the alliminium peices fall out from the hole,making the flame getting able to burn trough it.A flame then appears visible on a video footage filmed during the fatal flight.

3 seconds-The flame burns down the o-ring,making the rocket booster separate from the tank.

1 second-The booster hits the tank,and the flame makes the rocket fuel ignite.

0 seconds-The shuttle explodes,and 7 astronauts are dead.

Title of article

I've change the introduction to eliminate one word. Certain events have names, like the Falklands War or World War II. The Challenger accident does not have a title. Some American TV and news broadcasts like to give events a title, almost as if it were a film or theatre production. We should not copy such practices in Wikipedia. So I have not highlighted the title of the article into the introduction as is done with biographies or names of wars.

An example is a news broadcast may have theme music and the headlines "Showdown with Saddam" or "Mayhem in Madrid". This is a bit silly. Let's not copy them. Mrs.EasterBunny (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank-you for your thoughtfulness about this! I agree we want to avoid the dramatic practices of certain other media! But after some review and thought, I assert it is correct to use the phrase "Space Shuttle Challenger disaster" in the introductory sentence of this article. (If you prefer "accident" to "disaster" that would certainly be understandable, as it would be a bit less dramatic.) The article cannot, however, be titled, "Space Shuttle Challenger", because that is the title of another article entirely! And the article's introductory text should (per WP:MOS I think) include its title. (sdsds - talk) 16:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

As discussed above, "Challenger disaster" has been well-established for years. Both Encarta and Britannica so describe it. Wikipedia's usage is currently consistent with those, so adopting a new and different term seems unnecessary. However using that term for the title is one thing. Repetitively using it in the article body adds nothing. I think the wording prior to the last change is better -- more concise. Also, the shuttle is not currently operated by NASA but by United Space Alliance, so that phrase seems misleading. True it was operated by NASA in 1986, but stating that is an extraneous detail. The lead section should describe the topic, not who operates the shuttle, who built it, etc. Joema (talk) 13:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for providing that feedback about the change! Reading WP:LEAD, though, it seems the lead should establish context. The location of a spaceflight launch disaster doesn't tell the reader much about the entity for which the launch was conducted. (E.g. European launches take place in South America; Russian launches in Khazakstan, etc.) Even if it had been a United Space Alliance launch, the phrasing would be "launched on behalf of NASA". As the reader can easily determine, NASA establishes the context of this having been a United States civilian launch. (sdsds - talk) 21:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops! I should have emphasized more that in fact I agree with Joema's assertion that NASA, per se, isn't so important in the lead of this article. What is important is expressing succinctly and with a WP:NPOV that these people died while participating in the civilian spaceflight program of the United States. "NASA" is just a succinct way of saying that. Indeed it seemed succinct enough to squeeze it into the first sentence, but if someone wants to move it to a later sentence that would be understandable. Joema, is it safe to assume the other wording changes to the first sentence (i.e. mentioning that people died and not mentioning the time of day) are OK? (sdsds - talk) 23:20, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it's OK but overall quality has diminished over the months due to a succession of ill-coordinated edits. E.g, the first three sentences mention "broke" apart, and then "disintegrated" twice. That's excessively wordy, redundant and unecessary. Note the wording in this version, which is more concise and clearer: [17]. Joema (talk) 05:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Anniversary not newsworthy anymore?

Noticed today that I couldn't find anything about any memorials or rememberances scheduled for today on CNN.com or USAToday.com in honor of the 7 astronauts who bravely gave their lives. 22 years later and it seems like they have been forgotten by the news media. How sad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ArcAngel (talk • contribs) 19:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC) We can't speak for CNN but Wikipedia lists the event on the main page under anniversaries. Mrs.EasterBunny (talk) 20:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Challenger Revealed

I think that mention must be made of Richard C. Cook's "Challenger Revealed" (ISBN 1560259809)published by Basic Books in January 2007; whatever one may think of Cook's conclusions, this book, written by someone inside NASA merits consideration, especially in so far as possible deeper, systemic reasons behind the disaster (a military/political angle to the story)Guerre1859 (talk) 21:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Why no Morton Thiokol liability?

After the Challenger accident, Thiokol agreed to "voluntarily accept" the monetary penalty in exchange for not being forced to accept liability.[40]

This sentence shouts for an explanation. Can someone knowledgeable add a sentence or two explaining why this was allowed? Tempshill (talk) 20:23, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Cause and Time of Death question

The findings are inconclusive. The impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was so violent that evidence of damage occurring in the seconds which followed the explosion was masked. Our final conclusions are: the cause of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined; the forces to which the crew were exposed during Orbiter breakup were probably not sufficient to cause death or serious injury; and the crew possibly, but not certainly, lost consciousness in the seconds following Orbiter breakup due to in-flight loss of crew module pressure.

When the capsule was recovered, weren't the bodies inside dismembered? Its gruesome but shouldn't it be mentioned in the article? Also, weren't photos taken of the recovered capsule itself? --98.232.182.66 (talk) 10:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Not much about it out there but I did find an article from Time magazine here [18] that talks about the crew capsule and remains recovery. DrNegative (talk) 09:05, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Spoken word link

I'm not sure why this has remained like it has for over a year, but the link at the bottom, that is in a box that has the spoken version of this article, is causing some massive formatting issues. It squished everything below it into the tiny, right-aligned box, including the See also section and External links, as well as the template. From looking at the history, this has been this way for a very, very long time. It also causes horizontal scrolling, because so much stuff cannot fit in that one inch box.

I tried to figure out what is causing the issue, but was not able to resolve it. I removed for now, the spoken word box:

{{Spoken Wikipedia-4|2007-01-28|--Space_Shuttle_Challenger_Disaster--.ogg|--Space_Shuttle_Challenger_Disaster_part_2--.ogg|--Space_Shuttle_Challenger_Disaster_part_3--.ogg|--Space_Shuttle_Challenger_Disaster_part_4--.ogg|2007-01-28}}

I'd appreciate it if someone could figure out why it is causing the problems, and fix it so it does not adversely affect the format of the page. Thanks! Ariel♥Gold 12:33, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, per WP:MOS and WP:LS, I increased slightly the image sizing in the lead section. Also, the external links had two YouTube links to network news broadcasts (ABC/CBS), which is a copyright violation, so I have removed those. I also removed the Snopes link, as it is not relevant, since it is about a fake rumor. Ariel♥Gold 12:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Political/media pressure?

This article seems to link the reason for the launch starting at a bad time was due to political and media pressure to get it going faster after many delays. However, I just read an article from msnbc about myths about the Challenger disaster, which although may not be reputable, says:

"There were pressures on the flight schedule, but none of any recognizable political origin. Launch officials clearly felt pressure to get the mission off after repeated delays, and they were embarrassed by repeated mockery on the television news of previous scrubs, but the driving factor in their minds seems to have been two shuttle-launched planetary probes. The first ever probes of this kind, they had an unmovable launch window just four months in the future."

I don't know if this is true or not, but I think it is worth looking in to, and I couldn't find anything about these probes on the page. G man yo (talk) 14:13, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It's published in a reliable source, so if you think that the article can be reworked based on this source, then go for it. SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Only one problem: I don't know how to cite sources. I guess I could learn, though. G man yo (talk) 12:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

That's what I came here to post about as well. The article itself makes claims that Reagan pressured NASA to stop delaying the mission, yet no source is given on any of that in the article. If you google "challenger, myths, Reagan, pressure," you find all sorts of sites, including the MSNBC story that seem to call that a complete myth with no evidence in favor of it. 216.135.32.226 (talk) 16:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Background on NASA

Although this is a great article, I feel that it is missing background information. I think that giving a brief background of NASA and their policies, people's view of NASA and people's view of space travel in general is needed. The article sort of intersperses some of this info throughout the whole thing, but I think that a section on it would help. G man yo (talk) 07:03, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction re: "No Explosion"

The "No Explosion" section does an excellent job of dispelling the mistaken notion that Challenger exploded. And YET....right in the second paragraph of the introduction: "...and causing a massive explosion as this fuel was immediately ignited..." Someone with more time than I have at the moment needs to go thru the article and correct any such contradictions. StanislavJ (talk) 00:26, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Most of the problem "explosion" references were added by an anonymous editor on 17-Oct 2008. I tried to fix those. I also restored a more appropriate encyclopedic tone and format to the lead section. There's no need for great in-line detail in the first section, especially when terms are hotlinked for easy reference. Adding great detail in line causes digressions which impede readability. See Elements of Style. Joema (talk) 13:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Bert Hinkler trivia

Regarding this edit, if someone feels the info adds to the article, it could be supported by this online link. Offline sources include "Elizabeth Gosch. "Fed: Bundaberg historic house home to Challenger memorabilia." AAP General News . Newspaper Source Plus, EBSCOhost (accessed May 25, 2009)." and "David Dale. 2001. "SIGN POSTS." Sydney Morning Herald, The : 24. Newspaper Source Plus, EBSCOhost (accessed May 25, 2009)." I don't personally feel strongly that it adds to the article, but I did find sources that support it and am providing them here in case someone wishes that info to be restored in a way that can be cited.  Frank  |  talk  17:44, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

There is primary source articles compiled at the Hinkler Hall of Aviation in Bert Hinkler's home town of Bundaberg including the original Glider relic that was presented by Dr June Scobee. If people really dont feel this adds to the article than how does a recovered American Flag presented by some boy scout group qualify moreso than a piece of pioneer aviation history being commemorated with a launch into space?

In the same regard though, I remain sceptical that any of these recovered trinkets are genuine, including the flag simply because of the forces acting upon the spacecraft, if someone can present us with a signed manifest by NASA stating the contents of the astronauts flight lockets etc, I think it's safe to say both items should either be included as trivia or removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.208.30 (talk) 05:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

christy mcauliffe - big help for other things too

She was not only a space piolot but, also a volenteer at church.Also, a girl scout leeder and YMCA founder.She worked at a hospital. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.217.252.116 (talk) 00:49, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

what

Does anyone know what number ship the challenger is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.208.98.158 (talk) 23:33, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

• OV-099 --GW… 21:21, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

is this a spelling mistake?

in the vehicle breakup section there is a sentence 'Challenger veered from its correct attitude with respect to the local air flow and was immediately torn apart by abnormal aerodynamic forces resulting in a load factor of up to 20g (etc)' - is it meant to be attitude? i'd have thought it was meant to be altitude, but as i have no idea about space travel etc, i have no idea if i am right or wrong, lol! therefore can someone else please confirm what it is supposed to be? thanks 77.97.110.57 (talk) 20:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• "Attitude" is correct. --GW… 21:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• "attitude" = "orientation". Shimgray | talk | 23:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

POV language reversions

There was a revert war happening between an IP (characterized as "block-evading long term disruptive editor") and established editors. The IP was removing POV language that was unsourced. After the last reversion of the IP's edits I took responsibility for the edit. Now I have been reverted with an edit summary of "Can we take this to the talk page rather than constantly going back and forth with reversions?" So I am bringing it here. There are three real changes to the article.

1. Removal of "best-known" from the sentence "One of the commission's best-known members was theoretical physicist Richard Feynman."

   Is Richard Feynman one of the "best-known" members when Neil Armstrong and Chuck Yeager were also members?

2. Replacement of the word "mortally" with "seriously" in the sentence "Feynman, who was then mortally ill with cancer, was reluctant to undertake the job."

   Was Richard Feynman mortally ill 2 years before he died or was he seriously ill at the time?

3. Removal of the word "famously" in the sentence "During a televised hearing, he famously demonstrated how the O-rings became less resilient and subject to seal failures at ice-cold temperatures by immersing a sample of the material in a glass of ice water."

   Who, other than this article, characterizes his demonstration as famous?

Hopefully we can come to some consensus whether these are good changes or not. -- GB fan 12:39, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this with some excellent points! I only reverted your edit and suggested it go to the talk page since it seemed that regular wikipedia contributors were reverting the changes back to the "best-known, mortally, and famously" from the changes imposed by (mostly) IPs and it looked like it was going to continue since there were very few arguments listed in any of the edit summaries.

After seeing your reasoning, I am fine with you reverting my revert, however, I am but a small name with no real clout on wikipedia. I'd probably wait to hear from ScrapIronIV, Materialscientist, and JamesBWatson3, as they were the initial people reverting the changes. Thanks for the level-headedness! --Bassmadrigal (talk) 13:16, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Bassmadrigal, so if I understand correctly, you didn't revert my edit because you thought it was wrong or you thought the older version was better, you reverted it because others had reverted the same edit before because of block evasion. You reverted my edit to stop a potential future revert war, does that make sense? I understand the reason for reverting block evaders without looking to determine the validity of the edit but other than that, I don't understand blindly reverting edits. If you had questions about why I made the edit, why didn't you ask rather than reverting the edit? -- GB fan 18:16, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I reverted it to stop a potential future revert war. And the reason I did it is because I didn't know you from any of the other editors. Several known editors (known, in that they were logged into an account rather than random IPs, not that I'm familiar with their contributions) prior to you had reverted the various anonymous IPs proposing the same edit as you. It had already gone back and forth several times before you went in with an extremely short edit summary that didn't expound on why your edit should stay (which, if you noticed a reverting war starting, I feel there should be a better edit summary). Yes, now that you've specified it better here, I totally understand it (and agree with it), but since it already seemed like an edit war was taking place, I chose to suggest bringing it to the talk page so discussion could be made rather than continuing the edit war. Without providing a more concise edit summary (something like, "removing POV that is unsourced"), it is anybody's guess as to why you're making the changes you are. Maybe I should've done more research on the matter, but I'd been seeing it bounce back and forth in my watchlist, each time the new version would be reverted by actual editors rather than anon IPs. I figured those known editors were more familiar with the source than the random IPs. Sorry for any problems I may have caused.--Bassmadrigal (talk) 20:13, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

I can tell you without a doubt that none of the three of them would have come back here and reverted me. They were reverting the ip because he was a sock puppet. They would not come here and revert an admin and over sighter over a good edit. You really should do more research and understand what is going on before you act. -- GB fan 22:12, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Well, I didn't know you were an admin, and as you stated, the other three editors had reverted the same edit, so when someone else came and reverted their reverts, I figured it was possibly that person logging into an account to try and push their agenda. Your "good edit" was the exact edit that the previous three people reverted, so I felt I was founded in reverting it and suggesting movement to the talk page. Again, your edit summary was pretty weak and could've had more substance to prevent questioning why it was changed back to the version that had previously been reverted (and I would've glossed over the entry in my watchlist). I am not going to thoroughly research every aspect of an article and its editor to ensure the changes they suggested are to be left (most of the time I accept them without question if there's no obvious reason to question them). If a change mimics previously reverted edits (and those edits seem to be constantly brought back and then reverted), I'd probably make a similar decision again to suggest bringing it to the talk page. This was nothing against you or your edits, just trying to prevent additional reverts and get a discussion going so everyone can be on the same page. Sorry I took time away from your other admin duties.--Bassmadrigal (talk) 22:44, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Reverting to stop reverts doesn't make any sense at all. -- GB fan 01:36, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

It was a good way to ensure all the people involved paid attention to it. I've tried raising issues myself on talk pages and everyone just ignores them. But an edit summary asking people to take it to the talk page seemed like a better option.--Bassmadrigal (talk) 02:04, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

You didn't take any time away from anything. I do what I want. If I didn't want to talk about this I wouldn't. I just think you didn't think through your revert enough before you did it. -- GB fan 01:55, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I did think through it, although, it seems that we would come to different decisions in each other's shoes.--Bassmadrigal (talk) 02:04, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Another question if you will indulge me. As you thought through what you were going to do, why did you think the version you reverted to was an improvement to the article? -- GB fan 10:07, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I hadn't read enough into Richard Feynman to know whether he was mortally ill at the time. Your comment here stating that he lived 2 years after the commission was the first I'd realized it. I also didn't remember that there were other well-known members of the commission. But, as I stated above, the only reason I reverted it is because it was the exact same edit that previous (logged in) editors had reverted. I've seen it plenty of times when people try and push their agendas into an article and the other editors continually revert them. I didn't look deep enough into it to see if one version was better than the other, just that your version had been consistently reverted by other editors, so I reverted it as well and suggested that it move to the talk page to prevent a further revert war. Had I known you were an admin, I wouldn't have reverted your edit. For all I knew, you were one of the random IPs who decided to log in to push their changes. I figured it was better to take discussion to the talk page and leave the page to the version it was before the random IPs started changing it.--Bassmadrigal (talk) 13:04, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

@GB fan: I absolutely agree with your changes. "Best-known", "mortally", and "famously" stink so badly, I don't know if it's appropriate to call them peacock or weasel words; their uncited use qualifies as OR and seems to push a POV. I'd even go so far as to call it purple prose. This also raises an issue I've seen and don't like, that once an editor has been blocked for policy violations, that is taken as license to regard all of the person's edits as somehow "tainted" and fair game for reversion (regardless of their merit); this makes no sense at all and is not good for the Wikipedia. @ScrapIronIV: @Materialscientist: and @JamesBWatson: please explain yourselves. JustinTime55 (talk) 14:47, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Implications regarding ejection system

The opening paragraphs mention the ejection system and implies that had there been an ejection system the astronauts might have lived, making the assertions that a) several astronauts survived the initial explosion and b) the previous ejection system was removed. Assertion a has no citation and as I understand is a hotly debated topic, so shouldn't be taken for granted. Assertion b is completely true, but consists of a lie through ommission. It implies, when combined with the previous assertion, that with this ejection system lives may have been saved. This is completely untrue, as evidenced by various sources:

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-04-08/news/mn-1124_1_crew-members

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1988/Shuttle-Carrying-New-Escape-System/id-50c3be84147652b242204463a5b036d5

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/02/could_ejection_seats_have_saved_the_columbiaastronauts.html

http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1325/why-didnt-the-space-shuttle-have-a-launch-escape-system

So, I think that section is best removed. I'm not a regular contributor so I'll leave the decision up to someone else to make, but it seems clear to me that it's inaccurate and really somewhat inappropriate. 138.38.7.96 (talk) 19:50, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Challenger, go at throttle up (not "with")

First of all, the official transcript of the Challenger voice recorder tape at https://history.nasa.gov/transcript.html states "Roger, go at throttle up."

Also in File:Challenger_Mission_Control.ogv we hear the words being spoken inside the control room, with slightly better audio quality than the audio accompanying the launch footage, and with subtitles that say "go at throttle up".

However, the clearest indications come from the audio of other shuttle launches, of which there are numerous videos on YouTube. Every shuttle launch has a throttling-down phase to about 72% followed by throttle up. In some of these videos the phrasing is very much more distinct and unmistakable.

For example, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJb1mDME6J4&t=1m37s (at 1:37), which shows the launch of Columbia's last (ill-fated) flight, where the "at" is entirely unambiguous: "Columbia, Houston, you're 'go' at throttle up".

The phrasing "you are go" is also used in Discovery's final launch, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy1Nc4YpAUI&t=12m05s (at 12:05), which suggests that the "go" in "Challenger, go at throttle up" was not a command but perhaps an authorization or even a simple status notification.

[strike out original phrasing, which was too strongly a personal interpretation]

In Discovery's final launch the words "Discovery, Houston, you are go at throttle up" are spoken at 12:05, eight seconds after the captions show that the SSME Thrust indicator has already reached 104% at 11:57. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy1Nc4YpAUI&t=11m55s (at 11:55). We are already in the "throttle up" stage, and control is telling us that all systems are go at this stage.

In other words, this is not an instruction to the shuttle pilot to "go with throttle up", rather it confirms that the status is a "go" at the "throttle up" stage. See dictionary.com meaning no. 55 for "go": an adjective meaning "functioning properly and ready", with the sample phrase "all systems are go" in the context of a rocket launch.

— P.T. Aufrette (talk) 04:57, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. See also [19], lots of go! :) Polyamorph (talk) 11:56, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Goals

Generally, it's good practice to include the planned mission goals of the launch. This seems to be lacking here. 40.142.183.194 (talk) 18:34, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

That would be in the article about the mission, not this one. See STS-51-L. - GB fan 18:37, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Videos section

The opening for the videos section mentions 7 videos. There are 8 bulleted videos. While I cannot imagine one of them being uncounted yet still being in the list, I will ask here. Zaccari (talk) 18:54, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Diane Vaughan's book and Normalization of Deviance

Hi, I just read Diane Vaughan's very excellent book "The Challenger Launch Decision". It is very well researched and presents different root causes to the Rogers and Presidential commissions. Namely, her belief that the root cause was not managers acting as "amoral calculators" and breaking rules, but instead the causes are rooted in work group culture, false paradigm in belief in o-ring redundancy, and normalization of deviance. I find it surprising none of this is mentioned in this article, and the concept of "normalization of deviance" is not even mentioned. I was going to add some information on this well respected research, however if this has been hotly debated in the past I don't want to blunder into the hornet's nest! Can anyone advise if there is opposition to adding some of this material? Thanks. Zatoichi26 (talk) 20:41, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I added some relevant facts from Vaughan's book to the O-Rings Concerns section, but my above question still stands regarding adding some of her conclusions on the cause. Zatoichi26 (talk) 21:19, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

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Recovery

"...which covered an area of 480 nautical miles (890 km),..." Is this supposed to be square nautical miles and square km?

Yes. I corrected the mistake and added a proper source. There was no source for the number, which in fact was slightly incorrect (the search area was 486 square nautical miles).Renerpho (talk) 03:56, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

"Vattnett Viskar"

The correct spelling (and the Swedish word for "the water", from which the band's name is taken) is not "Vattnett" but "Vattnet", with only three t's. In the linked article the name is correctly spelled. I'd alter it here, but I don't have the necessary technical skills to make the change without damaging the link (if I try to position the cursor on the word, the link is automatically activated, which of course isn't what I want to do). So I've put this comment on the Talk page in the hope that someone else can fix it.213.127.210.95 (talk) 16:04, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

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Richard Feynman

I recall a (BBC?) TV interview in which Feynman said, some time after the investigation had concluded, that he'd realised that he'd been unerringly pointed to the right things to investigate, but had never found out by whom (and, I think he had no interest in finding out). That reinforces his criticism of management for ignoring professionals. Is there a WP:RS source? I'd prefer something written, preferably by a third party. Narky Blert (talk) 10:16, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

US astronaut Sally Ride tipped off General Kutyna about the temperature problem, and he dropped hints to Feynman. Source. Narky Blert (talk) 14:10, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I cannot remember if this was covered in a bbcdocumentary but this info didn’t come out till after Rides death. Roxy, in the middle. wooF 14:23, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

@Roxy: I had no luck in finding on YouTube the interview I remembered, so still have no evidence for the comment by Feynman I remembered. That may be a dead end.

I adopted an indirect approach. I watched a recent ahistorical dramatisation, which was somewhat free with the facts. For example, it suggested right at the end that Feynman had guessed that a female astronaut had been involved. However, it did give me Kutyna's name (printed, so I didn't have to guess the spelling). Google did the rest, and confirmed that Feynman had indeed been pointed in the right direction. Yrs, Narky Blert (talk) 19:24, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

ChallengerSimple.png image removed

I've removed the image File:ChallengerSimple.png. This is partly because it's difficult to follow through, given that it's basically nine instances of the same pair of drawings with different parts highlighted.

The main problem is the caption to the centre top image. It reads:

SRBs are fastened to the ET by joints which contained a rubber seal called an "O-ring". The O-ring holds the joint together ...

This is very wrong. The O-rings were in the joints between segments of the SRBs. Imagine four tin cans stacked up. These cans are the segments of the SRB; where one can [segment] meets the next one, there is a joint around the edges. The O-rings are around the circumference of these joints. Further, the O-rings play no part in holding the joint together: their function was purely to seal against the emission of gases through the joint instead of down through the rocket nozzle. See this image, bottom row, second from left - the Field Weld Joint. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:18, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Good removal. The 9 o'clock image caption is also very wrong. VQuakr (talk) 14:56, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Why was paragraph about new movie removed?

On the 31st of January, 2019, I posted a paragraph about a new movie that was released. The movie, titled "The Challenger Disaster", was described in the "Film" heading. My post was written in neutral style, and followed the format of the two entries above it. I included three footnotes to published outside material.

The movie's official Web site is: www.TheChallengerDisaster.com.

And yet, the paragraph was removed in its entirety. I was not notified, much less consulted. Can anyone explain why? Thank you.

BBBookWorm 08:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BBBookWorm (talk • contribs)

@BBBookWorm: Thank you for your contribution. I assume you are talking about this edit. Judging from a quick Google search, it looks like the movie doesn't meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. There have been other movies about the Challenger accident that aren't listed here. Qzekrom (talk) 05:53, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Qzekrom: Thank you for the reply and explanation. I have read the referenced guidelines. I will track the movie's progress, and resubmit if it later meets the "notability" standard. BBBookWorm 08:20, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

"Mandella Effect"

I corrected the date from 1986 to 1984 because I was in a Hawaii elementary school when us students watched the Challenger explosion recorded replay following the live news coverage of the explosion. I am not the only one who knows it was 1984, as this discussion site shows multiple people know it was 1984: https://mandelaeffect.com/challenger-explosion-1984-1985-1986/. The BIG QUESTION is that the video source is CNN coverage from 1984... what year-2000 non-compliance problem or else history revisionist agenda caused both electronic and printed page archives from mulitple source to indicate 1986? Not all news sources are free, and some what to charge a subscription monthly fee for access to their archives before a certain year... but that means they have ORIGINAL printed newspaper or ORIGINAL news video showing the Challenger explosion occurred in 1984.

I can trace this back to the fact I attended a Hawaii Junior High School in early 1985, moved to California mid-1985, finished 7th grade and 8th grade in a California Jr. High School, and attended High School in 1987. NO WAY did we watch the "1986 Challenger Explosion" at San Marcos Junior High in San Marcos, CA 92069... that was my 8th grade year! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:483:200:ED21:B058:25AF:DCF5:8B98 (talk) 10:55, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Reviewing the site that you've linked, you are referring to the comments, which are not a reliable source. If you are able to find a reliable source arguing for a different date, you are welcome to add it; however, a person's memories are not sufficient proof for Wikipedia. NekoKatsun (nyaa) 15:30, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Your memory must be defective. I know for a fact the Challenger loss occurred after I moved from Florida to Connecticut in August 1985, but again this is meaningless for Wikipedia's purposes because we have a policy of WP:No original research and require WP:Reliable sources (please spend a few moments reading these). A quick Google search will verify the 1986 date. The Year 2000 problem has nothing whatever to do with this. "The BIG QUESTION is", why are you so invested in a conspiracy theory? JustinTime55 (talk) 16:03, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Quote: "...the shuttle was just not designed to fly under those conditions."

This edit had added what is perhaps the most succinct quote that identifies the fundamental reason why this tragedy happened. It was promptly removed by John, with a suggestion that this issue be discussed here in the Talk section and a consensus built first if we are to include it. The full quote is this, from Robert Veilleux, a Teacher in Space candidate:

"The day they finally flew the shuttle Challenger, I never thought they would because it was in fact a very cold morning and the shuttle was just not designed to fly under those conditions." (emphasis added)

The lede, for a very long time, had a stable form that included a succinct quote by Bob Ebeling from Thiokol:

"[W]e're only qualified to 40 degrees ...'what business does anyone even have thinking about 18 degrees, we're in no man's land.'"

That was removed from the lede on Feb 10 with this edit. That edit also removed from the lede this succinct quote by Ken Iliff:

"Violating a couple of mission rules was the primary cause of the Challenger accident."

These are three quotes that speak very clearly as to the reason why this tragedy happened. I can understand the view that we do not want to clutter up the lede with too much detail, so I gave my best effort by paring this down to just the quote shown in the title of this section. I am actually of the opinion that all three quotes can be written into the lede in a way that is not cumbersome.

(If we want to minimize clutter in the lede, I will suggest removing the paragraph that speculates on the exact moment of death.)--Tdadamemd sioz (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

We do not normally carry detail in the lead that is not in the main body. I could accept a modified version of this in the body, with a one-sentence summary in the lead. --John (talk) 21:22, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

John said in his edit summaries that his main objection was non-NPOV, rather than clutter, and I basically agree. Tdadamemd, you've made clear in the past how upset you are with NASA over this incident, but we're not here to crusade against NASA stupidity. We've really got to tone it down a bit in the article intros, which should not be hyped with details of inflammatory quotes. I agree with John: single-sentence summary, but the Veilleux quote should go in the body rather than the intro. JustinTime55 (talk) 21:48, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I strongly agree that does not belong in the introduction of the article. It's fine to include objections/criticisms about the decision to fly in the body of the article, though I'm not sure that a fellow teaching colleague of McAuliffe's is the best candidate. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:12, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I would agree that there are many many others who have more technical knowledge than Veilleux.

But sometimes people need distance in order to feel the liberty to speak totally candidly. I will suggest to you that Veilleux is at an optimum distance.

Others who are close run the risk of making themselves appear stupid for their role in the launch decision. I will go so far as to tell you that they are at risk of exposing themselves to criminal culpability. (Thought bubble... "My negligence/incompetence killed those seven people. It might have been stupid for me to consent to that launch, but it would be even stupider for me to out myself.") Ok, that's a LOAD of speculation, so I'll stop here.--Tdadamemd sioz (talk) 00:47, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I see our job as editors here requiring us to leave our emotions out of our article edits. I fail to see how the highlighted quotes above are seen to be inflammatory. These are not angry words. They are factual words. (If you listen to Veilleux speaking, you can hear that for yourself.)

Thought bubble...

Consider a scenario where you go to start up your car, then rev the engine well past the redline ...and hold it there.  Your engine blows.  Your car is destroyed.
An investigation takes place and finds that the seals on the pistons failed, and because of that your engine blew.  Is it proper to summarize the cause of this destruction as a failure of those piston o-rings?  To do so muddies the waters and will cause confusion for the average reader who is trying to learn why this happened.


The reason it happened is because you as the operator failed to observe the design limits.

And THIS is why the Challenger tragedy happened. The lede and the body had been focusing on o-rings, engineers and managers, when all of the responsible operators (Mission Control, Launch Control) knew very well that they were exceeding the design limits. If you read the official report, you will see how, on the fly, they wrote temp waivers. And then when it got colder than the new waiver limit, they wrote a waiver to the waiver. (And those were not waivers to the SRB o-rings. *Any* component that was not tested and certified to fly at those cold temperatures could have failed.)

THIS is the kind of hubris that Ken Iliff is speaking about. This is the direct information that is missing from the article. You can bury that info if you want, and you'll be in good company. Because that's exactly what NASA did.--Tdadamemd sioz (talk) 23:39, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

• As something of an aficionado of this disaster, and an occasional editor of this page, I do sympathise with what you are trying to do here, Tdadamemd sioz. As an encyclopedist, I remind you again that we are not here to tell our readers "And THIS is why the Challenger tragedy happened." (your emphasis) but to describe the event dispassionately and fairly. One good tip in pursuing WP:NPOV is that quotes are not your friend. If we included this lengthy and emotive quote, wouldn't we have to have equally lengthy quotes from NASA and Thiokol operatives emotively giving their perspectives? And the article would become awful. No, we summarise, we attribute, we allocate due weight to the sources. This way lies a possible compromise. Would others agree? --John (talk) 00:02, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't follow the motivation for your post above. I'm not trying to have my own personal opinion added to the article. This Talk section is focused on what three people very close to the program had to say about it.

And I had just finished explaining how I don't see any of the quotes as emotive. I see them as factual. These quotes were all made many years removed from 1986. (Perhaps you haven't listened to Veilleux's steady, near-stoic voice.)

As for the potential for the article, or simply the lede, to get bogged down with too many quotes, our task is to select the most salient quotes. Or simply present a summary of what these sources have communicated. My edit effort chose to present the quotes, because I see them to be very concise.--Tdadamemd sioz (talk) 00:19, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

By the way, you're the first person I've seen use the word 'aficionado' regarding their association with 51-L. The root of that word is 'affection'. Maybe I should refer to myself as a 'disgustionado', because knowing the decisions made that led to launching that morning make my innards reel. (I haven't said a word here about the icicles!) Of course, when it comes to editing the article, the only professional approach is to keep such emotions, whether it be affection or disgust, in check.--Tdadamemd sioz (talk) 00:28, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

If the fundamental objection here is that the three quotes listed above are too much (quotes are not your friend), then my suggestion would be to use just the clipped quote that was used in the title of this section:

"...the shuttle was just not designed to fly under those conditions."

That's a total of 11 words. And perhaps the most concise explanation of why this happened.--Tdadamemd sioz (talk) 00:36, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you that this is a proposal to add an 11-word quote to the article. I agree with nothing else you say. Aficionado was intended to mean "someone with great interest in and knowledge of", but perhaps I flatter myself. Summarise, don't quote, is the way forward, I repeat. --John (talk) 01:11, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I seem to have an uncanny ability to offend people. Maybe some day I will figure out why that is.

I had hoped that this section would have grown into a healthy discussion on how we can present the best info on Challenger. So far, that has not happened. It appears that my (lack of) communication skills is the primary reason for that.--Tdadamemd sioz (talk) 03:11, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

"Summarise, don't quote..."

Ok, in an effort to make progress here by going with John's suggestion to 'summarize, don't quote', I will ask everyone in this discussion to give a 20-word or less summary to explain the cause of the Challenger failure.

Right now, the article communicates "defective o-ring design and bad management". Six words.--Tdadamemd sioz (talk) 03:17, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

The explanation of the defective o-ring design part of this summary is well covered. The bad management, however, is not so detailed - it consists of references to 'poor safety culture', a recognition that the problems with the o-rings were well known yet overridden and other unsatisfying hints. There are references in both article and talk that engineers look to the disaster and the subsequent investigations for lessons.

Where is the analysis of the management discussions that led to the decision to launch  ? This is the more important cause, since the o-ring part of the problem was partially understood and already being addressed. It is the area from which the more important lessons should be learnt and, I would suggest, even now in 2019, a cause of problems resulting in deaths - perhaps the Grenfell Tower disaster has many of the same causes resulting in a far higher loss of life.

This is both a comment on the article and a plea for information. If there is a reference I should follow that does describe those decisions, I should like to read it. Perhaps one of the many references explains in detail but that is not clear (there are many references, and the descriptions of them are terse). What are the lessons we should take away from this event ? From this article they would appears to be 'don't rely on engineering that is known to be operating outside its limits' and 'don't make bad decisions'. I think the latter deserves a stronger place than it currently has. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.5.212.236 (talk) 19:32, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Dead link

The link to the paragraph in the "Recovery of debris and crew" section which says

On board Challenger was an American flag, dubbed the Challenger flag, that was sponsored by Boy Scout Troop 514 of Monument, Colorado. It was recovered intact, still sealed in its plastic container.[52]

goes to a 404 page on the reference site (and would a plastic container seriously survive that explosion?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.167.196 (talk) 22:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Jean Michel Jarre and Rendez-vous Houston

Is there any reason why the 1986 Rendez-vous Houston concert is not mentioned? I was reading the article and thought there should be something about this in the Aftermath/Tributes section. It was a major event dedicated to the memory of the astronauts. At the time it had over 1 million people in attendance. Jean Michel Jarre also released the album Rendez-Vous with music especially composed for the event. I respect this article for the information regarding the disaster, but I consider the concert somehow relevant among the many tributes to the astronauts.

I searched the History of the article and sometime in November 2007 a bit of information about this event was removed. If no one opposes or writes, I'll try writing something about it in the near future.

And btw, thanks to all wikipedians involved in this article. Such a fascinating but overwhelmingly bitter subjet.— Preceding unsigned comment added by HMFS (talk • contribs) 04:09, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Owl City - Meteor Shower

I'm not sure, but I don't believe the Owl City song is dedicated to the crew of Challenger. The song is not actually in reference to space flight at all. The other is, however. There could be a note somewhere from Owl City that I am not aware of, but it should be included in the article if there is. If no one objects, I'll remove the Meteor Shower reference.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.10.56.224 (talk) 16:23, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

A body is no longer living.

For Greg Jarvis's body, use "it" instead of "he" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.130.55.207 (talk) 18:42, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Incorrect. We say (for example) that we buried "his body" or "her body", never "its body". Human remains keep their gender for all time. Narky Blert (talk) 14:17, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

"Human remains keep their gender for all time". I suffer a personal rejection feeling when 'gender' is used in place of 'sex'. When I was a kid we laughed at that kind of victorian prudery.--Damorbel (talk) 18:24, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Should explain WHY the SRB was built in multiple pieces, and thus subsequently failed.

The contract to make the SRBs went to Morton Thiokol, in Utah, perhaps for political reasons. It would have been impossible to ship such a huge device, in one piece, to Florida. (Roads have overpasses, railroads had tunnels.) So, they designed it to be constructed in multiple pieces that could be moved individually. That led to the weakness that caused it to fail. Had they contracted with a company that built the device on the Gulf Coast, it could have been barged as a single unit to Florida and it would have not been possible for it to fail in the way it did. This article should include material that reveals this. They died due to politics. http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/archive/general/ethics/boosters.html Aeroview854 (talk) 02:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

@Aeroview854: While that is a valid point, it's easier to look back on the disaster as a failure of politics, while at the time it was viewed as a safe option. While it subsequently came out that there were issues with the O-rings in the 24 preceding flights, the general understanding was that the multiple segment SRBs were a safe option. While the SRBs were redesigned after the disaster, and the cost-benefit of changing manufacturers mid-program can be debated, the engineers and safety personnel associated with the Space Shuttle continued to trust multi-segment SRBs for the rest of the program, and are doing so again on the SLS system. Obviously these people are not perfect and can make mistakes, but it seems difficult to fathom that they would stick with the multi-segment SRB if it is doomed to fail. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 15:49, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

This "roads and rails" thing sounds like a permutation of the "space shuttle was designed to fit Roman roads" email forward/meme. Additionally, other transportation methods could have been used- cross-country shipping of the Shuttle itself was figured out, for instance. I don't believe there are reliable sources that support this. tedder (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2020 (UTC)