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- <text id=90TT3464>
- <title>
- Dec. 24, 1990: Challenger:The Final Words
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Dec. 24, 1990 What Is Kuwait?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- GRAPEVINE, Page 15
- Challenger: The Final Words
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>By DAVID ELLIS/Reported by Linda Williams
- </p>
- <p> Nearly five years after the event, the legal wrangling
- continues over audiotapes of the space shuttle Challenger's
- final moments. Several news organizations (including TIME) sued
- NASA under the Freedom of Information Act to disclose certain
- aspects of its investigation into the accident. Most eventually
- withdrew their actions, but the New York Times has continued
- to petition for tapes to back up a NASA transcript of cabin
- conversation. In the official version, the final comment is
- pilot Michael Smith's "uh-oh," indicating he might have been
- aware of impending danger. A federal appeals court agreed with
- NASA that releasing the voice material would constitute an
- invasion of privacy. George Freeman, a Times lawyer, says the
- paper has not decided if it will appeal. But a NASA
- investigator has confirmed suspicions that the astronauts were
- conscious of their fate, and that among the last words from the
- craft were those of one astronaut saying to another, "Give me
- your hand."
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-