Not only did they broadcast the explosion they also caused it. Haha(not funny)
Richard Feynman was the one who let slip innocently what the cause was during an international press conference and made a lot of people in Washington very very mad.
Basically, the Whitehouse pushed NASA to launch despite the weather being too cold and that caused an expansion joint of an SRB to fail.
Feynman showed the world what happens to the expansion joint material by putting it in some ice water for five minutes during the press conference and showed it crumbled after he took it out of the glass.
That man was an international treasure and I miss him very much.
I just wish that book was never written and I hope that the majority of it is a lie
Which book?
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Americans Bein the First Nation dropping a nuke on another country…
nukes
We almost went to whole thread without someone mentioning that. Thank you for your service
“stop making me feeling bad about us nuking 2 cities”
Turns out risky business has risks.
The interesting thing isn’t how many fatalities NASA has had but rather how few they have had. Exploration has always gotten people killed.
I feel you don’t know what you’re talking about in this situation. It is well documented that if NASA had followed their own safety guidelines and listen to their own people, this would not have happened. So many people were waiting to watch the launch that NASA leadership felt they couldn’t abort. That is the sole reason this tragedy occurred, not “whoopsie daisy that sucks but we learned something” science.
The issue was that they knew there were issues with the shuttle and had been warned by several engineers about launching in the cold weather they were having at the time, but NASA ignored them and sent the Challenger on its way anyways. It’s been awhile so I forget the details of exactly what it was that was wrong, but I think it
was the metal in some screwsthat wasn’t able to deal with the differences in temperatures and the engineers said shit would go wrong if they didn’t replace them and nobody listened. It was a very preventable disaster that only happened due to laziness and impatience on NASA’s part.- it was the rubber in the O-ring seals that couldn’t handle the differences in temperature.
That more of a problem with the manufacturer, (Morton Thyiokol) telling NASA the o-rings were fine to fly coupled with NASA’s desire to prove the shuttle could fly in that low temp condition.
From Wikipedia:
Cecil Houston, the manager of the KSC office of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, set up a three-way conference call with Morton Thiokol in Utah and the KSC in Florida on the evening of January 27 to discuss the safety of the launch.
Morton Thiokol engineers expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings. As the colder temperatures lowered the elasticity of the rubber O-rings, the engineers feared that the O-rings would not be extruded to form a seal at the time of launch. The engineers argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the O-rings would seal at temperatures colder than 53 °F (12 °C), the coldest launch of the Space Shuttle to date. During this discussion, Lawrence Mulloy, the NASA SRB project manager, said that he did not accept the analysis behind this decision, and demanded to know if Morton Thiokol expected him to wait until April for warmer temperatures. Morton Thiokol employees Robert Lund, the Vice President of Engineering, and Joe Kilminster, the Vice President of the Space Booster Programs, recommended against launching until the temperature was above 53 °F (12 °C).
When the teleconference prepared to hold a recess to allow for private discussion amongst Morton Thiokol management, Allan J. McDonald, Morton Thiokol’s Director of the Space Shuttle SRM Project who was sitting at the KSC end of the call, reminded his colleagues in Utah to examine the interaction between delays in the primary O-rings sealing relative to the ability of the secondary O-rings to provide redundant backup, believing this would add enough to the engineering analysis to get Mulloy to stop accusing the engineers of using inconclusive evidence to try and delay the launch. When the call resumed, Morton Thiokol leadership had changed their opinion and stated that the evidence presented on the failure of the O-rings was inconclusive and that there was a substantial margin in the event of a failure or erosion. They stated that their decision was to proceed with the launch.
When McDonald told Mulloy that, as the onsite representative at KSC he would not sign off on the decision, Mulloy demanded that Morton Thiokol provide a signed recommendation to launch; Kilminster confirmed that he would sign it and fax it from Utah immediately, and the teleconference ended. Mulloy called Arnold Aldrich, the NASA Mission Management Team Leader, to discuss the launch decision and weather concerns, but did not mention the O-ring discussion; the two agreed to proceed with the launch.
Dunno about you, but it sounds a lot like NASA, especially Lawrence Mulloy, practically twisted Morton Thiokol’s arms until one of them (Joe Kilminster) relented and signed off on the launch. Mulloy even lied by omission at the end there to get his way. I wonder how he could sleep at night after this stunt.
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This legitimately almost ruined NASA.
Can’t be ‘ruined’ in the sense that they were important for military purposes before they created the ridiculous space force.
Even Boeing, a private company that with all their failures and criminal behavior should definitely be bankrupt, gets massive help bcs they’re a military contractor.Imagine a space organization almost be>ng ruined by one explosion! NASA is obviously too weak to handle space.
By then shuttle flights were so routine I didn’t even get up to watch the liftoff. My mom called me before work and told me it blew up.
Christa McAuliffe trivia: she was the only one in her training group who didn’t throw up on the “Vomit Comet”.
And thats why we call it the gulf of america
The…Atlantic Ocean?
Whoa there, if your not careful they will start calling it the American ocean
My nextdoor neighbor was in her class at the time. His thousand-yard stare when he got home that day was quite haunting.
We watched it live in elementary school, most of the kids didn’t get what had happened right away. Our teacher was just standing there stunned until an announcement came on the intercom asking all the teachers to turn it off. They didn’t say anything to us, just tried to pretend like we didn’t just watch people blow up live.
You actually didn’t watch people get blown up live. The crew survived the fire blast—it was the crash into the water ~3 mins later that killed them.
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ableism
In my defense I have ADHD.
“In my defense I am asian”
That would surely have made us feel better lmao! Still, that’s an interesting fact.
Well they still got blown up didn’t they?
Nope. The survived an explosion, fell a few miles, and got crushed inside the capsule and killed by g forces upon hitting the water…
How does anyone about that in such detail?
But doesn’t surviving an explosion imply that they did in fact get exploded? Just cause it ain’t kill em doesn’t mean they didn’t go through it
So, blown down
They didn’t get blown up. The Challenger did.
It’s the “not handling” part that gets us as kids. We knew better. Adults didn’t. In my case, I was in high school, but it was on a “Teacher workday, student holiday” we had each semester. I watched it live on NASA TV, which we had on channel UHF 55 in the DC area. Even the voice of mission control delayed about a minute or two. I remember thinking, “THAT didn’t look good…” but then they said nothing but normal speed and temp readings, so I thought it was just the angle of the chase plane. Only when the famous “forked cloud” appeared that the announcer said, “we have an apparent major malfunction,” or something.
I remember that last part from the announcer and we were all like “you don’t say…”.
The engineers knew! They begged them to stop the launch, but of course, no one makes the wheels not capitalism stop rolling!
profitprogress at all costs!Maybe it’s because it’s because I just finished reading this section in Range, but I think it’s more than the engineers knew.
When sociologist Diane Vaughan interviewed NASA and Thiokol engineers who had worked on the rocket boosters, she found that NASA’s own famous can-do culture manifested as a belief that everything would be fine because “we followed every procedure”; because “the [flight readiness review] process is aggressive and adversarial”; because “we went by the book.” NASA’s tools were its familiar procedures. The rules had always worked before. But with Challenger they were outside their usual bounds, where “can do” should have been swapped for what Weick calls a “make do” culture. They needed to improvise rather than throw out information that did not fit the established rubric.
Roger Boisjoly’s unquantifiable argument that the cold weather was “away from goodness” was considered an emotional argument in NASA culture. It was based on interpretation of a photograph. It did not conform to the usual quantitative standards, so it was deemed inadmissible evidence and disregarded. The can-do attitude among the rocket-booster group, Vaughan observed, “was grounded in conformity.” After the tragedy, it emerged that other engineers on the teleconference agreed with Boisjoly, but knew they could not muster quantitative arguments, so they remained silent. Their silence was taken as consent. As one engineer who was on the Challenger conference call later said, “If I feel like I don’t have data to back me up, the boss’s opinion is better than mine.”
I think most of us believe decisions should be data driven, but in some edge cases gut instinct is valuable.
It is easy to say in retrospect. A group of managers accustomed to dispositive technical information did not have any; engineers felt like they should not speak up without it. Decades later, an astronaut who flew on the space shuttle, both before and after Challenger, and then became NASA’s chief of safety and mission assurance, recounted what the “In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data” plaque had meant to him: “Between the lines it suggested that, ‘We’re not interested in your opinion on things. If you have data, we’ll listen, but your opinion is not requested here.’”
I think most of us believe decisions should be data driven, but in some edge cases gut instinct is valuable.
What you call gut instinct, I call the output of an immensely complex yet efficient organic neural network that has been trained on years to decades of relevant experience.
If business leaders think AI is so great, they need to get in on this shit while they can still afford it!
Yes! We accept output from a model as data for another model or to make a decision. Expert intuition is still data
no one makes the wheels not capitalism stop rolling!
profitprogress at all costs!I am honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here but I’m curious what NASA is selling that you threw capitalism in there.
It’s the system that affects people’s clear thinking that is the issue. Not everything is about money or efficiency. Hence the use of capitalism in their sentence.
Merchandise.
Yep, the soviet space program took fewer lives overall.
I’ve got this goober tagged as “tankie” in my app, they’re quite steadily pro Russian.
I’ve got this goober tagged as “tankie” in my app
lmao
I’m a Marxist, sure, very openly so. I don’t really think anyone cares about who you’ve sniffed out to be a commie or not, especially considering I have it plastered all over my profile and frequently outright state it. I wouldn’t say “pro-Russian,” either, the Russian Federation is deeply flawed and has tragically fallen from their far more progressive Soviet heritage.
I’m very anti-NATO, like the vast majority of Marxists, and I don’t fall for the hysteria around the Russian Federation as some ultimate evil, though, so if that’s all it takes to be “pro-Russian” for you then that’s funny.
So, you’re pro Russian, but smart enough to not outright say it. Because they certainly do a lot of evil stuff.
Being anti-NATO and not falling for the current hysteria that overplays the negative aspects of the RF and underplays the negative aspects of NATO-aligned countries is being “pro-Russian?” I’m far more willing to say I’m pro-PRC, or pro-Cuba, than I would be to say I’m pro-Russian, but I do understand that a lot of countries I support, like Burkina Faso, do rely quite a bit on the RF, and if the RF fell, the west would have a much stronger position in terrorizing the global south.
they already hit the independent thought alarm years ago https://lemmy.nz/post/1227237
Incredible, lmao.
I haven’t forgiven them for sending up a dog and a monkey though
Way more were semt by both sides.
And the first ones sent by NASA BTW
I don’t forgive the nazis or the americans either
The Nedelin disaster claimed more lives than NASA did over its entire existence.
Nedelin was a part of the millitary rocketry program, not the space program. If you want to include Nedelin, then the ICBM disasters in the US should also be included. The space programs and ICBM programs were very closely related on both sides, but if we strictly keep it to the space program the soviets were safer.
ICBMs are spaceflight rockets, imo it’s best to count them. The US hasn’t had such large accidents with ICBMs, mostly minor ones.
Even if we exclude those it’s not true. The US has sent significantly more people into space than the Soviets did, so NASAs accident rate was lower (hence safer), even if the absolute number of deaths was higher.
They wouldn’t even get there without Russian engines.
Spaceflight rockets are ICBMs, if we are being pedantic. The space program was the civilian-facing part of the broader rocketry programs.
Either way, if we exclude them, it is still true, but you can also measure by ratio. It just goes to show that you can manipulate real data to be presented in any way you want, and add or subtract context as needed for your angle.
Did they have a comparable number of people sent to space?
During the space race, sure, from what I can find.
Fewer human lives—sure, if you only include verified deaths—but the Soviet space program had considerably more deaths overall once you factor in other animals.
Not actually true, both sides used animal testing.
I know this. NASA’s animal fatalities were fewer and less often.
Sources:
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_dogs
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/sad-story-laika-space-dog-and-her-one-way-trip-orbit-1-180968728/
- https://www.nasa.gov/history/a-brief-history-of-animals-in-space/
- https://www.mygreenworld.org/blog/animals-in-space
- https://www.rbth.com/science_and_tech/2014/10/11/animals_in_space_what_does_it_take_to_be_tasked_with_explori_40531.html
- https://explore.britannica.com/explore/savingearth/laika-and-her-children-animals-in-the-space-race
- https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/brief-history-animal-death-space
Both sides sent animals into space, and many didn’t return. Animal testing in particular isn’t something unknown to science, nor was it done out of intentional cruelty nor for the purpose of profits, like the cosmetics industry. I feel like you’re narrowing in on something that ultimately isn’t an equivalent comparison, especially when compared to the scale of the food industry and its systematized mass brutality every second of every day.
Cite your sources please. Without verifiable sources, you’re just making shit up.
Am I making up that the US sent animals into space? What claim do you think I’m making up? I already linked my source 2 comments ago.
I think I was in 7th grade. We were watching. Right in front of our eyes and could hardly believe it. Everyone inhaled sharply and then a couple of short screems, then silence. After a good 5 minutes, our teacher came to his senses, turned off the TV, and started talking about being right with god because you never know when it’s your turn.
LOL
Perfect time for some biblethumping🤣…the teacher chose threatening with hellfire and brimstone. OMG.
Lutheran church school.
Yeah, that tracks. With any religious person even at a non-religious school.
Damn that’s cold
“No matter how good your life is, you could be next, children!”
Sad thing is, it likely reinforced the already strong indoctrination of a handful of those kids
I realized something was “off” when I found out that they counted my donations and sent me a letter saying that I was behind.
K through 8th grade and then I dipped.
The soviet space program took fewer lives than the US’s program, yet the US constantly made it seem like it was the soviets that didn’t care about human lives.
Nobody asked.
Gotcha, I’ll be sure to only repeat word for word what’s in the post. No new angles, no new ways of looking at the post content, just a single 👏 emoji.
Every single comment I see from you is in some way pro Russian, you’re a very one note commenter.
Can you elaborate? I’m certainly very pro-Soviet, as I’m a communist. I don’t hide that. I’m pro-communism, I support the PRC, Cuba, AES in general. The main purpose of my Lemmy.ml account is to talk about socialism and communism through a Marxist-Leninist lens.
I’m very anti-NATO, like the vast majority of Marxists, and I don’t fall for the hysteria around the Russian Federation as some ultimate evil, though,
You in another comment. The Russian federation is currently occupying multiple neighbouring countries, bombing civilians, and generally having a war crime of a time. And you’re saying they’re not evil?
You’re off the deep end, my friend.
Eastern Ukraine, the Donbass region, is very pro-Russia and very anti-Ukraine. Western Ukraine was shelling them for a decade, post-2014 coup, due to the hard shift from being aligned with Russia to being aligned with NATO. For these citizens, Russian presence is a good thing. Western Ukraine certainly hates that Russia has invaded, but the “hysteria” I am referring to is the kind that thinks even Eastern Ukraine opposes the Russian Federation.
So no, this isn’t a “pro-Russian” stance, in my opinion. Recognizing western-Ukraine’s shelling of civilians in eastern-ukraine for a decade, and the overwhelming support for Russian annexation of the Donbass region among Donbass residents in Donetsk and Luhansk, is something that even pro-NATO people need to recognize in order to figure out how to best deal with that underlying fact.
I can’t believe you’ve fallen for the “dey dombed bombas” story, you really are that brainwashed. All of Ukraine voted to leave Russia, most of it quite overwhelmingly.
And there was no coup, that was entirely orchestrated by Russia.
You really need to read some media from outside your bubble.
the op meme is about the US space program publicly vaporizing a bunch of astronauts
The Soviet program is still haunted by the ghost of a frozen Laika in perpetual orbit.
The world’s bravest and first true cosmonaut.
always.I mean… not really.
🛰️ Space Race Fatalities Comparison: Soviet Union vs United States
Aspect 🇺🇸 United States 🇷🇺 Soviet Union Total astronaut/cosmonaut deaths 9–10 (incl. test/training accidents) 8 (official) On-mission fatalities 3 (Apollo 1, ground test) 4 (Soyuz 1, Soyuz 11) Training/test deaths (astronauts) 6+ (e.g. Theodore Freeman, C.C. Williams) 4+ (e.g. Valentin Bondarenko, others possibly unacknowledged) Deaths among ground personnel <10 100+ (notably the Nedelin disaster) Transparency High (accidents publicized and investigated) Low (many incidents hidden until after 1989) Major catalyst event Apollo 1 fire Soyuz 1, Nedelin disaster
Key Takeaways
- 🇺🇸 U.S. suffered more astronaut fatalities, including test pilots and training accidents.
- 🇷🇺 Soviets had higher total human losses, especially among engineers and soldiers during explosive launch and fuel testing incidents.
- 🔥 The Apollo 1 fire led to sweeping design and safety reforms in NASA.
- 🚨 The Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 tragedies were fatal in-flight accidents; Soyuz 11 remains the only in-space human fatality.
- 🕵️ The Nedelin disaster, one of the worst rocket catastrophes in history, killed over 100 but was kept secret for decades.
- 🧾 Transparency and institutional accountability were key differences: NASA publicly investigated accidents; the USSR often concealed failures.
God I hate AI
You can certainly blur the space race with missile development as they were intimately tied on both sides, and if you want to include it then the deaths from the US ICBM disasters need to be included as well, but I do think it’s a bit absurd to uncritically report that 100+ people died in Nedelin when official numbers revealed it to be 54. Plus, wherever you sourced this from is clearly generally biased against the soviets beyond the scope of this report.
grok is this true
It’s true that all deaths on both sides were caused by people with JEWISH names. Coincidence? Not likley. Hitler killed less people. Elon is god. Sieg. Sieg!1!!!1
Grok, probably
The crew didn’t blow up(src).
The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then.
We were led out of our classrooms to watch it since we lived in FL. When the launch went pear-shaped, nobody really understood what had happened, we just thought it was part of the fuel tanks dropping away. We went back in, sat down and continued our day. I don’t think the teachers ever told us something went wrong and I found out about it that night at home.
Um, actually!
The crew didn’t blow up instantly at all, at that exact moment! They spent another three minutes falling back to Earth, where they blew up instantly upon hitting the surface!
There were no explosive materials onboard the crew pod so no, still no explosion when hitting the water. If anything, it would be closer to an implosion.
You know who could have been on that shuttle instead of a teacher? A Muppet.
Which could have been the weirdest tangent on a Wikipedia page. Jim Henson, Muppets, Sesame Street, retired characters, Big Bird, oh was that an early version of Abelardo?, Challenger shuttle dis-- what. What? What the fuck?!
When the guy who played Mr. Hooper died, they worked that into the show. The cast, sincerely grieving, had to explain to a seven-foot-tall canary that he wasn’t coming back. That’s not really he same kind of intrusion from reality, as acknowledging the same giant fowl fucking exploded on national television.
The only possible comparison would be if some show had a gimmicky live episode that happened to be scheduled for 9 AM, on a Tuesday, in September of 2001.
It was a snow day. A neighbor saw it live from his huge-ass satellite dish. He called to tell me it blew up, and I thought he was taking the piss.
