Engineers: Evidence Shows At Least 3 Astronauts Survived Challenger Explosion

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There are things that happen in the world during one’s lifetime, and many of them are disasters of one kind or another.  There are events that remain in memory for a lifetime, such as the Kennedy assassinations, that horrible day on September 11, 2001, natural disasters, mass shootings, and the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle in January 1986.
challenger-space-disaster-670x440-1

Most can remember exactly what they were doing when they heard about the death of the Challenger, and most of us assumed, given the power of the explosion, which was played endlessly for days on the major news networks, that no one survived.  Experts tell us now, however, that may not have been the case.

From Wackulus:

On January 28th, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after take-off with 7 astronauts on board.  The shuttle disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean off of the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida.  It was later found that the failure was due to the failure of an O-ring seal in its right rocket booster.

From this photo taken during the launch, you can see dark gas emitting from the craft in the lower right of the photo.  This is from the faulty O-ring.  Even if the gas was seen at the time, it was too late to prevent the craft from taking off.

Challenger_lift-off

After an investigation, it was discovered that the engineers knew the O-rings had a high possibility of failure at low-temperatures.  They had warned NASA as far back as 1977 and again prior to the launch.  Even though the scheduled take-off day was uncharacteristically cold, NASA elected to proceed with the launch against the engineers advice.

At T+58.788, a plume can be seen from a hot gas leak.  Astronauts were unaware and can be heard saying “Go at throttle up”.  At T+72.284 the shuttle had a sudden acceleration.  Immediately afterwards came the last communication from the shuttle, when Pilot Michael J. Smith said “Uh-oh.”  Seconds later, the shuttle disintegrated.

It’s almost certain that several or all of the astronauts survived this event; it was later found that 3 of the 4 recovered Personal Egress Air Packs had been activated.

The crew cabin was located in a particularly robust section of the spacecraft.  During the breakup, it detached in one piece and went on its own trajectory and tumbled into a ballistic arc.

Challenger_breakup_cabin

Within 10 seconds, the cabin was in a complete free-fall.    During the investigation, it was found that several of the switches on pilot Mike Smith’s right hand panel had been moved from their launch positions.  This was likely an attempt to restore power to the craft.  After testing, it was found that the switches could not have moved from either the break up of the craft or the impact in the ocean.  Either Michael or someone else had survived the explosion and tried to regain control of the craft.

Read more about the Challenger explosion at Wackulus.

About Post Author

Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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Glenn Geist
8 years ago

I can’t help thinking the decision to ignore objections from engineers and push for a launch had political pressure behind it. Did that pressure originate from the top, from Ronald Reagan?

It’s moot, the shuttle is gone and we’ve learned the danger of that design, which I also believe was flawed by compromise from the start.

But how can anyone fail to be moved, thinking about those people aboard tumbling helplessly to their deaths? Did they have time to wonder if it would have been worth the money to provide them with ejection seats?

Marsha Woerner
8 years ago

All the shoulda’, woulda’, coulda’s!
Had we only known that there were survivors, we shoulda’, woulda’, coulda’ done something different. That ever loving 20/20 hindsight!
I’m sorry; it sounds heartless, but I can’t cry over spilt milk in this context! Yes, that’s good to know if we ever have a similar situation to that of Challenger. Maybe that’s the whole point of this, not “shoulda’, woulda’, coulda'”, here is how we WILL treat it, because we know the possibilities.
Change focus to future, not past!

Bill Formby
Reply to  Professor Mike
8 years ago

Yeah, like not launching it.

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