challenger deaths

From: jdb@condor.cchem.berkeley.edu (Justin D. Bukowski)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Challenger Explosion UL?
Date: 30 Sep 1994 07:20:26 GMT

In article <36gbie$lma@pith.uoregon.edu>,
Gretchen Adams Bond  wrote:
>Well, I suppose the time has come. I have been lurking for quite a while and 
>have read and read and read the FAQ---and boys this one ain't there. Since I 
>have heard it from three different people who did work on or around the base
>where it occurred, all unknown to the others and in three different states---
>I am ready to jump in and take my punishment:

Ha ha! You read the *wrong* FAQ!
Another poor lurker falls into our trap!

>	The story goes that when the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded in the 
>1980's and a veil of secrecy was drawn in respect for the families, that 
>certain things were found when the craft was retrieved:
>
>1. Many if not all of the crew died of drowning
>2. The controls had been manually operated after the explosion
>3. Someone had tried to open the hatch to escape
>and from only one of the three:
>Most died of drowning but several were killed by the impact as they tried to
>move around the cabin in an effort to save the vehicle.

This is from the sci.space.tech/sci.space.science FAQ (part 10/13):

    HOW THE CHALLENGER ASTRONAUTS DIED

    The Challenger shuttle was not destroyed in an explosion. This is a
    well-documented fact; see the Rogers Commission report, for example.
    What looked like an explosion was fuel burning after the external tank
    came apart.

    The medical/forensic report by Joe Kerwin's team confirmed what was
    already suspected for other reasons: at least some of the crew were not
    only alive, but conscious, for at least a few seconds after the orbiter
    broke up. The forces of the breakup were not violent enough for a high
    probability of lethal injury, and some of the emergency-escape air packs
    had been turned on manually.

    However, unless the cabin held pressure -- which could not be determined
    positively, but seems unlikely -- they almost certainly were unconscious
    within seconds, and did not recover before water impact. They did not
    have oxygen masks (the emergency-escape packs held air, not oxygen, for
    use in pad emergencies) and the cabin apogee was circa 100,000ft.

    The circa 200MPH water impact was most certainly violent enough to kill
    them all. It smashed the cabin so badly that Kerwin's team could not
    determine whether it had held pressure or not. Their bodies then spent
    several weeks underwater. Their remains were recovered, and after the
    Kerwin team examined them, they were sent off to be buried.

    The Kerwin report was discussed in Aviation Week and other sources at
    the time. World Spaceflight News printed the full text.

>Each told me that they were warned that if they spoke and it was discovered
>then they would be up on Federal charges. This of course was only due to 
>"respect for the families". 
>
>So what has been released? And what of the threat of charges? This stuff is 
>definitely abroad as a rumor if nothing else for the last 4 years that I know of...

It's a big gov't, and like any faceless bureaucracy it
don't like its screwups exposed. The problem with (or
beauty of, depending on your perspective) conspiracy
theories is that lack of evidence neither supports
nor refutes the theory.

Just because your three sources work at or near NASA
doesn't mean the rumors they hear are any more true
than the ones you hear at the local bar. Ask them
what real data they have, not "well the guy I work with
said..."

Welcome aboard.

Justin "news.answers has lots of FAQs" Bukowski

January 25, 1995