Crew of the Columbia is getting a memorial service.

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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
52,241
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I remember when the Challenger blew up. Was on a submarine getting ready to pull into the Cape in Florida and we received an emergency message to go deep and fast out of the area. We were delayed a few days coming into port.

Wow, that's an interesting consequence of the event...never would have thought a submarine would have been affected by the explosion!
 

pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
22,398
5,005
136
Wow, that's an interesting consequence of the event...never would have thought a submarine would have been affected by the explosion!

They were more worried about getting hit with debris and getting in the way of the search ships. We were right under the area where it blew up.
 

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
17,745
16,062
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Dang. I was just reading an article about how NASA's Image Science and Analysis Group was collecting amateur photos & videos of the event to help piece together what actually went down:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/22/science/with-aid-of-amateurs-nasa-builds-mosaic-of-a-disaster.html

And perhaps speaking more to human nature, trolls were prevalent even back then:

We got back quite a bit of telemetry until the violent motion prevented transmission.

After loss of the reconstructed telemetry we then used the video, simulations and debris track to understand the flight dynamics as the shuttle was torn apart.

One of the guys I work with was part of the team to develop mitigation’s to protect the crew of the shuttle and any other vehicles going forward.

His team had the necessary but morbid task of understanding the different fatal environments the crew went through on the way from Mach 20 and 300,00ft altitude to the ground. There were several procedural and hardware changes that were made after Columbia to increase survivability for the crew but without an intact vehicle during the worst of reentry......

This is why Orion, SpaceX Dragon, and Boeing Starliner are all capsules on top of the rocket. It protects the all important heat shield.
 
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