Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Gunslinger on January 28, 2006, 11:45:29 AM
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20 Years ago today
(http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20040128b/challengercrew-browse.jpg)
(http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9610/10/feynmen/challenger.explosion.lg.jpg)
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A sad day for everyone everywhere :(
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20 years!!?! wow time goes by, i still remember it very good, was watching
it live on TV. Seeing the explosion, it was a total shock. Traveling to Space
AND returning safe to earth is still not a usual bussines, for me this people
are pioneers.
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GhostFt: How were you watching it live? The only way to do so was with the satelline feed from NASA TV. Perhaps you were watching one of the many shows that covered the first minute of the launch, then panned away to a different story before hurredly coming back and showing the replay?
It's a common phenomena about the Challenger incident (which, despite the caption above, was not an explosion) that millions more remember seeing it 'live' than actually did because of how the media covered space back then.
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at least they died doing something 99.9% of us can only imagine....
something inside of me still thinks to die in the persuit of incredible dreams is better than to live 1000 years doing nothing so incredible.
S!!! challenger crew, we still pray for your families.
:(
edit: chairboy, maybe he was at the launch pad?
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Originally posted by Chairboy
GhostFt: How were you watching it live? The only way to do so was with the satelline feed from NASA TV. Perhaps you were watching one of the many shows that covered the first minute of the launch, then panned away to a different story before hurredly coming back and showing the replay?
It's a common phenomena about the Challenger incident (which, despite the caption above, was not an explosion) that millions more remember seeing it 'live' than actually did because of how the media covered space back then.
I was 8 at the time and we were watching it live at school. I remember my teacher totally freaking out afterwords.
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I saw the smoke trail from tampa - was in my truck on the way back to the office and thought it was the strangest looking launch trail I had ever seen
walked into the breakroom at the office to fnd everyone watching the tv .....
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Watched with mom on cable since they were the only ones carrying the launch live. Networks dumped it.
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Originally posted by Chairboy
GhostFt: How were you watching it live? The only way to do so was...
who cares, i was watching it on TV that time, and if it was not 100% live
i dunno, as far as i remember it was live. Some german TV stations up
to day sending live coverage from all the starts, NASA, ESA and so on.
Any more Question Chairboy ?
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NASA.GOV (http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/dor_front/index.html)
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I remember it like it was yesterday.
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Challenger Transcript (http://www.space-shuttle.com/script.htm)
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A little known station called CNN was carrying it live at the time I remember reading.
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Originally posted by tapakeg
A little known station called CNN was carrying it live at the time I remember reading.
Back then, they were VERY little known. Few cable stations carried it, it didn't really get big until the Gulf War.
But you knew that and were just being silly, right?
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Chairboy is correct that most people who saw it on TV were seeing tape, not live coverage. Only some schools in the US were carrying it live via NASA, and they cut away seconds after the incident. They came back to it, though.
It doesn't really matter - live or tape. As Chairboy is saying, there are still plenty of myths about it (as with all things, since people are people...), but leaving the public with the myth that the flight was an unavoidable disaster inherent in the dangers of spaceflight was the saddest thing.
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One of my teachers came very close to being selected for the trip. She however was sent home due to medical reasons. Our school was one of those that had the in school live/or not feed. I was in her class watching when the accident happend, I also remember that day like it was yesterday. Mrs. Jeter was understandably distrought. Things like this make you realise how short life is....20 years...wow.
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(http://www.rgvchallengerlearningcenter.com/Challenger%20Crew.jpg)
What was each members position in the Shuttle?
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Check out the NASA link above, the flash presentation gives a brief bio on all the astronauts.
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I think the orbiter may have survived the explosion and the crew died when the orbiter impacted the water
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Seven angels spread their wings,
took their places, hovered, watched.
Eleven children wept by
wisteria not in bloom,
lilacs not in flower. There
is no purple, there are no
tears. "O, Angels of the loom,
weave my mother back into
the warp of time, slow the drift
of hadrons to trace again
my father's face, for there is
no purple, but too many,
many tears." Leaving relics
of flesh, a bit of bone for
the mourning world to dissect
with precision, bury with
pomp, they danced off ecstatic,
one perfect Bang, electron
to electron, dispersed in
the cool wind. At zero, plus
seventy four, marking time,
having slowed down to speed up,
eyeing the peace of space, blue,
deep, the white bullet, tagged
by destiny to explore
polar regions of the sun,
shattered. Whizzing atoms shot
fragmented past facets of
emptiness searing human
images across the clear,
icy void, the nothingness
of free Bubbles of silence.
"O, astronaut, astronaut,
hide yourself so cleverly
among moons that you cannot
be found. Become the marching
universe, become every
particle of it. Let those
who look for you not find you.
O, astronaut, astronaut,
scatter your molecules, merge
with the quarks, be our vanguard.
Send us out, at our choosing,
to explode among stars."
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wow 20 years I was in first grade. We had it all set up to watch in class, when for some reason it wouldnt show, every school channel was some stupid show on how to say hello in every language, starting with spanish. Later on the bus ride home, my buddies and I were playing with our transformers, one of my friends new ones was a space ship, and this kid across the aisle said, The space shuttle blew up, We said no it didnt shut up. He would not stop saying it over and over. So finally fed up I told him this new transformer did it. he still would not stop lying about the space shuttle blowing up, so I beat him silly for it.
got of the bus walked in the front door, and my mom and little bro were crying and the news was on..
Every year this time I feel sorta bad about kicking that kids butt.
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
I was 8 at the time and we were watching it live at school. I remember my teacher totally freaking out afterwords.
I didnt see it live. But I do remember it happening. I was 5, a few weeks shy of 6 years old. My 6th grade science teacher, a few years later, won the Christa Mcauliffe award.
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I can still remember sitting in the classroom watching this. We got out of a Trig test that day to sit and watch the launch. I swear it took several minutes to sink in, although it really must have only been seconds. Just staring at those solid boosters flyin off in crazy directions. The teacher turned it off, and a few minutes later they announced on the PA that there had been an accident and all the astronauts had been lost.
I'd just been to the space center in Florida a couple years before and seen another launch while on summer vacation. I had a "how to fly the space shuttle" manual, and a game for my Atari 2600 that was supposed to simulate launching in a space shuttle, docking with a space station, and landing again. Graphics stunk but it was fun and I was a Space Shuttle junkie.
Day of Remembrance. Apollo I, Challenger, Columbia. People who died fighting one of the few battles that get us to work together instead of fighting each other.
Apollo I: Gus Grissom; Ed White; Roger Chaffee
Challenger: Francis Scobee; Michael Smith; Judith Resnik; Ellison Onizuka; Ron McNair; Greg Jarvis; Christa McAuliffe
Columbia: Rick Husband; William McCool; Michael Anderson; Ilan Ramon; Kalpana Chawla; David Brown; Laruel Salton Clark
<>
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Check out the video they have setup for each. Very moving.
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/dor_front/
And as a final thought, this excerpt from President Reagan's speech that night, which took the place of his State of the Union address.
There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, 'He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.' Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."
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Originally posted by Eagler
I saw the smoke trail from tampa - was in my truck on the way back to the office and thought it was the strangest looking launch trail I had ever seen
walked into the breakroom at the office to fnd everyone watching the tv .....
I woke up in sarasota that morning. The foreman and I had been left behind the night before to finish up a wallpaper job. The rest of the crew had gone home to St. Pete. I remember stepping outside and seeing the gulf waters. I was windy and the water was all white caps and had that dark greenish color when a storm is near. It was the coldest I had ever felt down there, I think 29 degrees, and it chilled you to the bone.
We finished up and started home, as we got to the top of the skyway bridge, I saw the pillar of cloud rising in the distance, it's just as awesome everytime you see it. About 3/4 of the way up, it split into two pillars. My foreman said "that can't be the shuttle, it doesn't do that", and I say "of course it is, what else can it be, it's supposed to launch now, maybe the booster rockets disengaged early". We didn't have the radio on and didn't think to turn it on. Never once did it cross our minds that something went wrong.
As we got across the bridge we stopped at a gas station/convenient store, we noticed the place was full of people inside. My foreman went in to get gas, he came rushing out, "it blew up!". There was a tv in the station and everyone was crowded around it watching the news flash. I stepped outside the van and looked up at the pillar of cloud still lingering, it was surreal.
I was young, I thought I was born to change the world, cure diseases, explore new frontiers, make the world a better place, all that. And scientists trying to do that were my heroes. With every launch flew my hopes and dreams. One of my favorite songs was "countdown" by Rush. I always found it very inspirational.
It also struck me as very ironic, to watch one tragedy from the site of another. The skyway bridge was two spans at one time, but during a foggy morning, the bridge was struck by a passing ship, and one span collapsed. Several vehicles drove off in the fog falling 150 feet to the water. The remaining span had two lanes, so they made a north and south bound lane while the new bridge was being built. I happened to witness the launch while crossing the top of that span.
It was long ago, but the pictures of watching the launch from the bridge and looking at the pillar of cloud at the gas station are still very vivid in my memory. I'll never forget that day.
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Back in those days I was still living at home, playing full time in a band...staying up late, sleeping in late. Dad also tended to stay up late and sleep in as well.
So there we were, all crapped out. Except mom. SHe had a job.
.......mom was at work that morning and her youngest son and husband were still crapped out from the previous evenings festivities.
I remember hearing the phone ring early that morning, then dad coming to the door and knocking, he opens up the door and says "your mom called, the space shuttle challenger just exploded after lift off!. so there we both were, Father and son, standing in front of the morning TV news show in our underwear watching the space shuttle blow up. Blow up it did, in spectacular fashion, over and over and over again. And again and again and again...all day long we watched that space shuttle blow up.
Space Shuttle Challenger, what a fantastic crew you were. you have my eternal gratitude, my love and my everlasting respect.
Please visit this page and allow yourself some time to pay respect:
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/dor_front/index.html
Go to the "day of rememberance flash" and please take the time to honor these people.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11031097/
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sandman. Thanks for pissing bright yellow streams of noxious poison all over the day of remembrance.
Most people who care to pay tribute already have that crap figured out, but indeed, having folks like you guarantee the wretched details of doubt and regret is a debt few can argue against.
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Suit yourself.
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like I need your permission?
bugger off.
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Feeling rather tender tonight, aren't we?
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nope. not tender....just inspired.
I know your heart is in the right place, its your mind thats all ****ed up.
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I thought the article was interesting.
As for my heart... I can't remember where I was on January 28, 1986 other than somewhere on the other side of the planet. I can't recall reading about it until after 6-12 hours had passed. We certainly didn't see video until months later. So... I have no shocking memories of the Challenger.
As for my mind. You'll have to take that one up with MSNBC. They wrote the article. Links to the myths page can be found in a number of places on their Challenger Anniversary page. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11062587/from/RS.1/
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Can't believe it was 20 years ago...
A few years after the event, a elementary school was erected in Christa McAuliffe's honor, named after her. I attended said school from Kindergarten to 5th grade.
Truely sad.
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nothing could be as shocking as seeing the WTC collapsing, both of them, live on the news.
thats the single most spell bound moment of my life, utter horror mixed with shamefull eyeball-glue, unable to believe what you see but unable to look away..
:(
edit: i say this because i just watched the challenger footage again, inspired by this thread. its shocking.....but seeing that plane hit the building, and it falling down was 100 times more terrible to witness.
edit2: crap, i really didnt intend this to minimise or disrespect what we are comemorating here. thoughtless post, but im gunna leave it.
can delete it if it offends anyone me saying this.
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Sad accident, but there has been so many accidents later with more loss of life and its has been 20 years. This weekend 66 people lost their life in Poland when a roof fell down on their heads.
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Nilsen, the accident you talk about is a horrible tragedy, but it is in no way connected
to the challenger accident, sorry but it doint belong to this topic.
Originally posted by Nilsen
Sad accident, but there has been so many accidents later with more loss of life and its has been 20 years. This weekend 66 people lost their life in Poland when a roof fell down on their heads.
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I still know EXACTLY where I was, almost to the foot, where I was going, and what I was doing. I was driving a wrecker down Broad Street in Murfreesboro right at the intersection of Broad St. and Tennessse Blvd., going to pick up and old green Mercury that belonged to a customer and was continually breaking down. It was misting rain. I was listening to an classic rock album station and when they announced that the Challenger exploded you could actually see traffic just slow down to a crawl. I remember seeing people in their cars, with an empty look of horror and confusion. I had been a in a big hurry, I was going to fix the Merc, and then go to lunch at my favorite watering hole and have a couple beers. Patty Murray was the DJ on 103KDF that day, she could hardly get through the announcement, she later moved ot Florida and was killed in a car wreck. I picked up the old ragged Merc, took it back to the shop, and took the rest of the day off. I still have a VHS tape that has coverage from that day.
When Columbia exploded, I was at a friends house, we were having construction day to build Pinewood Derby cars for the Cub Scout pack. Those boys were devestated. A few weeks later, at the district race, one of the Cub Masters was pitching a hissy fit about the cars the boys built that were not directly from the patterns in the manual. There was a boy there who had built a car that was a great model of the Columbia. He was whining about that one too. I told him if he opened his mouth about it again I'd take him outside and personally stomp a mud puddle in his bellybutton and stomp it dry.
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Originally posted by Nilsen
Sad accident, but there has been so many accidents later with more loss of life and its has been 20 years. This weekend 66 people lost their life in Poland when a roof fell down on their heads.
Building code
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Originally posted by Gh0stFT
Nilsen, the accident you talk about is a horrible tragedy, but it is in no way connected
to the challenger accident, sorry but it doint belong to this topic.
Just putting things in perspective.
Those fellas on the spacecraft earned good money doing what they prolly have dreamed of for most of their lives, and they knew the risk. Therefore I dont understand why so many people call it a disaster etc. It is ofcourse a great loss for their families and possibly was for the space programme but thats about it for me.
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Originally posted by Nilsen
Just putting things in perspective.
Those fellas on the spacecraft earned good money doing what they prolly have dreamed of for most of their lives, and they knew the risk. Therefore I dont understand why so many people call it a disaster etc. It is ofcourse a great loss for their families and possibly was for the space programme but thats about it for me.
Well then if you want to compare it to a roof collapse in a 3rd world country. Where there was a chance for the victims to escape.
This was a tragic accident due to the fact a proven system failed in a catastrophic explosion with no chance of survival
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NASA to Recruit Suicidal Muslims for Next Shuttle Crew
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HOUSTON — NASA scientists have decided not to fix the Space Shuttle to make it safe, and instead have decided to recruit suicidal Muslims for the Shuttle crew.
“Duct tape and chicken wire were not working,” said NASA Chief Mad Scientist, Dr. Weiner von Himmler, “and we don’t want to spend any more money of the spacecraft itself. Were devoting all our money to engineers’ salaries; we have 14,000 in Florida alone, where they vote, incidentally.”
The scientist said risk of catastrophe was unavoidable in manned space flights.
“It is what we call allowable risk,” he said. “It is also known around here as a long shot, crap shoot, winger, widow maker, Hail Mary, and death wish. We have some fun with these names!
“Anyway, people forget that there are 2.5 million parts on the Shuttle that work flawlessly. Let’s get some credit for that! It’s true that you need 2.7 million parts to keep the Shuttle in the air, but 2.5 divided by 2.7 is 93%, and last I heard that was an ‘A’ in high school!
Emma Dubin
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Originally posted by gear
Well then if you want to compare it to a roof collapse in a 3rd world country. Where there was a chance for the victims to escape.
This was a tragic accident due to the fact a proven system failed in a catastrophic explosion with no chance of survival
Poland may not be rich, but third world?
Anyways. I doubt the "proven system failiure" reason is why people get so upset by a shuttle blowing up. ;)
They were celebrities and that is why people care so much.
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Originally posted by Nilsen
Just putting things in perspective.
Those fellas on the spacecraft earned good money doing what they prolly have dreamed of for most of their lives, and they knew the risk. Therefore I dont understand why so many people call it a disaster etc. It is ofcourse a great loss for their families and possibly was for the space programme but thats about it for me.
Astronauts earn standard government salaries ranging from about $45-100,000. Not a lot for what they do.
http://www3.ccps.virginia.edu/career_prospects/briefs/A-D/Astronauts.shtml#earnings
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Originally posted by gear
Not a lot for what they do.
Living their dream?
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Originally posted by Nilsen
Anyways. I doubt the "proven system failiure" reason is why people get so upset by a shuttle blowing up. ;)
They were celebrities and that is why people care so much.
Only after the loss of the shuttle. How many knew of them when their training started ?
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Originally posted by gear
Only after the loss of the shuttle. How many knew of them when their training started ?
I didnt know any of them, and still cant name one. Same goes for the last mission that went bad...or the one that went good.
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i can see where nilsen is coming from, my last post here was sort of getting at that point too, all be it in a total respectfully and remorsefull manner.
I would rather go BOOM in a spacecraft *for the chance* of going up into space than end up retiring in a bungalow and dying wondering WTF i spent 80% of my life working a crappy job for.
my dream is to die painfully and unexpectedly. A Warriors death fitting for a Clan Cameron Warrior. yes my blood is strongly Scottish, with the rest being Irish. I am a warrior born again into a stupid health and saftey regulations world.
eaten by a shark, mauled by a bear fighting for my life with a hunting knife for a few seconds of that perfect feeling.... I AM ALIVE!!!
these 7 people would have felt more alive in the split second of being blown up than most of us ever feel.
have you ever been suddenly in a situation you didnt forsee, an armed mugging, a wild animal attack, a hurricane, an earthquake?? nothing can prepare you, or simulate the rush of endorphins and the brains sudded thoughts and reactions.
I want to die as the rest of the beasts do, chitting my pants and tuly knowing that up till this moment i was in denial of what the meaning of life is.
the meaning of life, is death.
nothing else matters.
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Originally posted by B@tfinkV
my dream is to die painfully and unexpectedly
I thought about being blown up at ground zero of a nuclear blast! Now that is one way to go.
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oh crap... *WWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMPH!*
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I wanna die in a fistfight with a HUGE icebear on live-tv.
Chuck Norris can eat my shorts!
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There’s relative proof pointing to the initial explosion did not kill them right away. The photos of the crew compartment show it intact, this means they could have been alive while it plummeted towards the ocean.
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."
http://www.space-shuttle.com/challenger1.htm
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Originally posted by xrtoronto
I thought about being blown up at ground zero of a nuclear blast! Now that is one way to go.
Yeh WHAT RUSH:O
Need a ice could beer too:aok :cool:
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BTW, they didn't die right away.
The O-ring failed, a jet sawed away at the tank, it failed structurally, and the orbiter tilted up. They probably felt a light thump as the shuttle broke free, then a second later, got thrown sideways against their seatbelts. Around them, the shuttle began to break up, and a few seconds later, the cabin depressurized as the crew area was ripped free of the orbiter. You can see it in the film as it breaks free of the stack.
Now, trapped in their seats and tumbling out of control, they're probably screaming. As the cabin rotates, they see the ocean down below alternating with the sun shining into the now freezing cold cabin, then maybe they catch a glimpse of the growing fire/steamball behind them from the hydrogen and oxygen reacting.
At this point, they're being beaten black and blue by the shifting G forces of the spinning crew module, and the lack of air means they're gasping for breath to scream with. The spinning is inducing nauesea, and a few of the crew members are probably throwing up or dry heaving in their last moments of life, consumed by panic and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're about to die.
Things begin to fade our as hypoxia starts to set in, but a minute later, the cabin descends far enough that they start to come back, never fully unconscious. At this point, the cabin is in a lazy spiral as it falls, wires hanging out and pieces of metal and plastic flapping. The crew looks helplessly at each other, and maybe tries shouting encouragement, but they all know that the end is coming near. Out the windows or ripped open holes in the cabin they can see the ocean getting closer and closer. At this point maybe some of them are praying, we'll never know because power to the recorders was cut when the cabin tore loose. The roar of the wind in the cabin grows louder and louder, and they can probably hear each other screaming as the cabin passes through a thousand feet. Seconds from impact, they can see the choppy waves below them, for some of the crew, it's the last thing they see. For others, maybe it's the back of the seat in front of them, or a patch of the ubiquitous blue velcro that's on every panel. Time for one final scream of terror befor-
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RADM Richard H. Truly
Associate Administrator for Space Flight
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.
After vehicle breakup, the crew compartment continued its upward trajectory, peaking at an altitude of 65,000 feet approximately 25 seconds after breakup. It then descended striking the ocean surface about two minutes and forty-five seconds after breakup at a velocity of about 207 miles per hour. The forces imposed by this impact approximated 200 G's, far in excess of the structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels.
The separation of the crew compartment deprived the crew of Orbiter-supplied oxygen, except for a few seconds supply in the lines. Each crew member's helmet was also connected to a personal egress air pack (PEAP) containing an emergency supply of breathing air (not oxygen) for ground egress emergencies, which must be manually activated to be available. Four PEAP's were recovered, and there is evidence that three had been activated. The nonactivated PEAP was identified as the Commander's, one of the others as the Pilot's, and the remaining ones could not be associated with any crew member. The evidence indicates that the PEAP's were not activated due to water impact.
It is possible, but not certain, that the crew lost consciousness due to an in-flight loss of crew module pressure. Data to support this is:
The accident happened at 48,000 feet, and the crew cabin was at that altitude or higher for almost a minute. At that altitude, without an oxygen supply, loss of cabin pressure would have caused rapid loss of consciousness and it would not have been regained before water impact.
PEAP activation could have been an instinctive response to unexpected loss of cabin pressure.
If a leak developed in the crew compartment as a result of structural damage during or after breakup (even if the PEAP's had been activated), the breathing air available would not have prevented rapid loss of consciousness.
The crew seats and restraint harnesses showed patterns of failure which demonstrates that all the seats were in place and occupied at water impact with all harnesses locked. This would likely be the case had rapid loss of consciousness occurred, but it does not constitute proof.
Much of our effort was expended attempting to determine whether a loss of cabin pressure occurred. We examined the wreckage carefully, including the crew module attach points to the fuselage, the crew seats, the pressure shell, the flight deck and middeck floors, and feedthroughs for electrical and plumbing connections. The windows were examined and fragments of glass analyzed chemically and microscopically. Some items of equipment stowed in lockers showed damage that might have occurred due to decompression; we experimentally decompressed similar items without conclusive results.
Impact damage to the windows was so extreme that the presence or absence of in-flight breakage could not be determined. The estimated breakup forces would not in themselves have broken the windows. A broken window due to flying debris remains a possibility; there was a piece of debris imbedded in the frame between two of the forward windows. We could not positively identify the origin of the debris or establish whether the event occurred in flight or at water impact. The same statement is true of the other crew compartment structure. Impact damage was so severe that no positive evidence for or against in-flight pressure loss could be found.
Finally, 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.
/signed/
Joseph P. Kerwin
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chairboy that was fantastic! and horrific....
see, if this narative is true, they died with more of a feeling of being ALIVE than any of us are likely to feel in our lives.
no pain whatsoever, complete nauesea, endorphin rushes like nothing imaginable, they wouldnt feel the cold, or the G-forces. they would sense it was happening, but not feel it like if you cut your skin.
anyone here ever broken an arm or a leg really badly? it really honestly doesnt hurt for the first hour, you just know there is something really badly wrong with it.
i've broken my neck, only a hairline fracture and compressed verts, that really REALLY frikken hurt from the start. a minor fracture.
i've snapped my wrist and elbow so bad that my arm was totaly dead and twisted and bent the wrong way. major multiple fractures, it really didnt hurt, but the messages to my brain told me it was seriously damaged, and that made me naueseuos to the point of almost throwing up. it made me feel alive, and it made me feel totaly helpless, and oh such regret.
these poor brave humans would have felt feeling undesrcibable even by chairboy's fantastic imagination and narative.
but the feeling of helplessness and giving in to the force of creation that created them would have been like the most incredible dream ever.
we should comemorate thier deaths!
we should salute them, and be jealous of them for experiencing the ultimate of life's gifts.
uncontrolable, helpless, totaly unsalvagable death.
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Smashed my face and teeth when crashing my peddal bike. Truly did not hurt at all until i went to bed and all the adrenaline was gone. At first I was just high on adrenaline and abit scared cause i could almost not see on my left eye and i could feel that i had "chipped" afew teeth. I could feel the blood running from my face and when i saw my face in the mirror it was bad (worse than usual i mean). My Gf almost fainted when she opened the door cause i rode the bike all the way home. i could also see the looks on peoples faces when i went by on my way home.
Only when I had cleaned up and gone to bed and i started to really calm down and think about what could happen the pain came. I only have a few small scarrs today, but ill never forget how the pain was not there at all for the first few hours. Amazing really.
I did not even notice that the skin on my left palm was "gone" until I had a hot shower the next morning. THAT hurt
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i was at an outdoor swimming pool once years and years ago. some girl dived in at the shallow end and smashed her face and teeth in real bad.
she came back up to the surface with a stupid grin on her face and the look of someone who had done something foolish, but not serious. her head was cut open and her mouth was a total mess. she didnt even realise.
other people saw her, some screamed and some rushed to her aid. confused at their reactions she put her hand to her face and came away with it covered in blood.
then she started screaming, a good 10 seconds after the damage had been done.