BF2S Forums 1-27-1986

Last edited by mtb0minime (2008-01-28 10:39:31)

~{TPP}~richoxon wrote:

change it to the twin towers

Roomba wrote:

I found out 20 years later that they died on impact not from the explosion. That haunted me more that anything. I can't believe it has been 22 years.

NASA Headquarters

Code M

Washington, DC 20546

Dear Admiral Truly:

The search for wreckage of the Challenger crew cabin has been completed. A team of engineers and scientists has analyzed the wreckage and all other available evidence in an attempt to determine the cause of death of the Challenger crew. This letter is to report to you on the results of this effort. 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.

Our inspection and analyses revealed certain facts which support the above conclusions, and these are related below: The forces on the Orbiter at breakup were probably too low to cause death or serious injury to the crew but were sufficient to separate the crew compartment from the forward fuselage, cargo bay, nose cone, and forward reaction control compartment. The forces applied to the Orbiter to cause such destruction clearly exceed its design limits. The data available to estimate the magnitude and direction of these forces included ground photographs and measurements from onboard accelerometers, which were lost two-tenths of a second after vehicle breakup.

Two independent assessments of these data produced very similar estimates. The largest acceleration pulse occurred as the Orbiter forward fuselage separated and was rapidly pushed away from the external tank. It then pitched nose-down and was decelerated rapidly by aerodynamic forces. There are uncertainties in our analysis; the actual breakup is not visible on photographs because the Orbiter was hidden by the gaseous cloud surrounding the external tank. The range of most probable maximum accelerations is from 12 to 20 G's in the vertical axis. These accelerations were quite brief. In two seconds, they were below four G's; in less than ten seconds, the crew compartment was essentially in free fall. Medical analysis indicates that these accelerations are survivable, and that the probability of major injury to crew members is low.

usmarine2005 wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

I was in elementary school (Fourth grade I think).

Ditto.  Watching it on those POS tv's.