Conference 7.286::space

    About the breathing aperatus(sp).  Last night on the news I saw
    a report that reflects what you said.  It mentioned that of the
    seven emergency air supplies that are located on the back of each
    seat, three were found in the unstowed (possibly used) condition.
    
    My wife and I were very upset by the news report.  It also estimated
    that the free fall after the explosion was (I can't remember exactly)
    somewhere around three or four min. until impact occured with the
    water and all or some of the crew may have been alive until then.
    
    
     Charlie Smith  ;(  ;(  ;(
    

A less detailed version of this was in the VTX database yesterday afternoon.
				/AHM

Associated Press Tue 29-JUL-1986 08:22                             Challenger

   Pilot May Have Sensed Disaster, Crew Used Air Packs
Eds: INSERT four grafs after 16th graf, ``Krist said ...''
Laserphoto NY4
                             By PAUL RECER
                          AP Aerospace Writer
   SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - Challenger's astronauts apparently
survived the force of the blast that destroyed the space shuttle and
some lived long enough to breathe almost five minutes of air from
emergency packs, NASA officials say.
   When the craft exploded, pilot Michael J. Smith uttered,
``Uh-oh!'' providing ``the first potential indication of awareness''
of disaster among the seven astronauts who died in the Jan. 28
tragedy, NASA said Monday.
   It was the last utterance recorded on the spacecraft intercom
system, said Dr. Joseph Kerwin, an astronaut-physician who
investigated the crew's cause of death.
   Kerwin said that despite a probable decompression of the cabin at
65,000 feet, the crew could have had 6 to 15 seconds of ``useful
consciousness'' in the 12-mile fall toward the Atlantic Ocean.
   He said the crew cabin smashed into the water at 207 mph, and
that the destruction was so severe that the cause of death ``cannot
be positively determined.''
   An analysis of gauges on two of the emergency air packs,
including Smith's, showed that three-fourths to seven-eighths of the
five minutes of air had been expended ``through normal breathing,''
said Kerwin.
   The National Aeronautics and Space Administration released a
transcript Monday of the recorded intercom talk on the flight deck
during Challenger's launch. Smith's single utterance came at 73
seconds after liftoff, the moment the spacecraft came apart.
   The tapes were recovered from wreckage on the ocean floor, and
NASA and IBM engineers spent months analyzing the recorded data.
   NASA associate administrator Richard Truly said at a Washington
news conference Monday that until last week it was believed that the
crew had not sensed the disaster.
   Smith's remark, said Truly, could indicate ``there was a moment
of awareness,'' although he did not know postively what triggered
the remark.
   The last word received by ground controllers was from commander
Dick Scobee when he responded, ``Go at throttle up,'' to confirm
that Challenger's main engines were at full power. Words on the
intercom were not radioed to the ground.
   There were no comments on the tape from three crew members,
school teacher Christa McAuliffe, astronaut Ron McNair, and payload
specialist Gregory B. Jarvis. The three were on the middeck of
Challenger, and Truly said passengers riding there are routinely
instructed to remain silent during launch.
   Truly said the families of the astronauts were informed of the
findings before they were released Monday.
   Houston lawyer Ronald Krist, who is representing one of the
astronaut families, said he found the new information ``troubling.''
   ``What else are we not being told about?'' he suggested.
   Krist said he was representing a family, whom he declined to
identify, in negotiations with Morton Thiokol Inc., the manufacturer
of the shuttle solid rocket boosters.
   Former shuttle astronaut Robert Overmeyer, in an interview on the
``Today'' show, said, ``It would appear that for this one, unique,
set of circumstances, unique to this accident, ... had NASA had
parachutes on that crew capsule, you might have survived this
accident.''
   He said it would be possible to install an escape system on the
shuttle, but that would set back the resumption of the program.
   ``I'm afraid that the country would like to start flying for
national defense, for lots of reasons, and it probably is not
practical to do it at this time,'' he said.
   ``This was one unique set of circumstances at exactly that
altitude. A little bit higher there's no way it would have survived,
a little bit lower there's no was it would have survived. It was
just a unique set of accident that caused that crew capsule to
survive that explosion.''
   A presidential commission said the Challenger accident was caused
by a failed joint in the right booster. Superheated gas burned
through a fuel tank and ignited liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
The tank and the orbiter then broke apart.
   Kerwin said he and a team of engineers and scientists determined
that at least some of the crew remained conscious long enough to
activate the emergency air packs.
   Four packs were recovered, he said. Three had been turned on,
including one used by Smith. The one worn by Scobee was not
activated and it could not be determined who wore the other two.
   ``The crew possibly, but not certainly, lost consciousness in the
seconds following orbiter breakup due to in-flight loss of crew
module pressure,'' he said. The loss of pressure would be deadly,
despite the air tanks, he said.
   Truly said Smith and Scobee could not have activated their air
packs while strapped in their seats. Astronauts Judy Resnik and
Ellison Onizuka were riding just behind Smith and may have assisted
him.
   ``The most plausible explanation is that one of the two reached
over and turned on Mike's air pack,'' Truly said.
   The air packs are designed for use in the event an emergency on
the ground forces crew members to evacuate the shuttle through a
toxic cloud of gas. For this reason, the packs are designed to be
turned on after the crew leaves their seats.
   Kerwin said the crew compartment separated at 45,000 feet, arced
upward to about 65,000 feet, and then fell for two minutes, 45
seconds to the ocean.
   At the time of the breakup, he said, the crew endured about 2
seconds of 12 to 20 times the force of gravity.
   ``Analysis indicates that these accelerations are survivable, and
that the probability of major injury to the crew members is low,''
Kerwin's report said.
   If the crew members became unconscious due to a loss of cabin
pressure, they would not have had time to revive as the crew
compartment fell into denser air at lower altitudes, he said.
   Challenger's cabin shattered when its 207 mph fall ended on the
ocean with a deceleration force equal to about 200 times gravity,
said Kerwin.
   The force, ``far in excess of the structural limits of the crew
compartment or crew survivability levels,'' said Kerwin, caused such
destruction that the experts could not determine the precise cause
of death.
   An analysis of the harnesses, said Kerwin, showed that none of
the crew left their seats after the explosion.
the Challenger crew module from the ocean floor, and then to examine
all available evidence to establish the cause of death of the
crew,'' Truly said.
   ``I believe their efforts have now closed this chapter of the
Challenger loss. We have now turned our full efforts to the future,
but will never forget our seven friends who gave their lives to
America's space frontier.''
   Asked when the Challenger families were told of the findings,
Truly replied only ``over the past several days.''

This story was also posted yesterday, but doesn't seem to have changed.
				/AHM

Associated Press Tue 29-JUL-1986 04:48                        Challenger-Text

   Text of NASA Tapes of Space Shuttle Challenger Crew
With PM-Challenger Bjt
   WASHINGTON (AP) - Here is a transcript of the tape of the space
shuttle Challenger's internal intercom system from the moment of
liftoff:
   Liftoff: Mission Specialist Judith A. Resnik - ``Aaall riiight.''
   1 second: Pilot Michael J. Smith - ``Here we go.''
   7 seconds: Commander Francis R. ``Dick'' Scobee - ``Houston,
Challenger roll program.'' (Normal initiation of vehicle roll.)
   11 seconds: Smith - ``Go, you mother.''
   14 seconds: Resnik - ``LVLH.'' (Reminder for a cockpit switch
change, local verticle-local horizontal.)
   15 seconds: Resnik - ``(Expletive) hot.''
   16 seconds: Scobee - ``Ooohh kaaay.''
   19 seconds: Smith - ``Looks like we've got a lot of wind here
today.''
   20 seconds: Scobee - ``Yeah.''
   22 seconds: Scobee - ``It's a little hard to see out my window
here.''
   28 seconds: Smith - ``There's 10,000 and mach-point-5.'' (half
the speed of sound.)
   30 seconds: garble
   35 seconds: Scobee - ``Point-nine.'' (routine velocity report at
0.9 mach.)
   40 seconds: Smith - ``There's mach 1.''
   41 seconds: Scobee - ``Going through 19,000.'' (feet.)
   43 seconds: Scobee - ``OK, we're throttling down.'' (normal
thrust reduction.)
   57 seconds: Scobee - ``Throttling up.'' (normal throttle increase
to 104 percent of engine thrust.)
   58 seconds: Smith - ``Throttle up.''
   59 seconds: Scobee - ``Roger.''
   60 seconds: Smith - ``Feel that mother go.''
   60 seconds: Unidentified - ``Woooooo hooooo.''
   62 seconds: Smith - ``35,000 going through one-point-five.''
(Altitude of 35,000 feet and speed of 1.5 mach.)
   65 seconds: Scobee - ``Reading 486 on mine.'' (routine air speed
check.)
   67 seconds: Smith - ``Yep, that's what I've got, too.''
   70 seconds: Scobee - ``Roger, go at throttle up.''
   73 seconds: Smith - ``Uh-oh.''
   73 seconds: loss of all data.
   ---
   School teacher Christa McAuliffe and mission specialists Ronald
McNair and Gregory B. Jarvis are not heard on the recording.
   Mission Specialist Ellison Onizuka's voice is heard in the
conversations recorded two minutes prior to launch, much of it quite
light-hearted as the crew awaited liftoff. For example, at 1:58
before blastoff, Scobee says, ``Two minutes, downstairs - you got a
watch running down there?''
   At another point, Scobee refers to a routine operation involving
a liquid oxgyen vent cap by saying, ``There goes the beanie cap.''
   Onizuka replies, ``Doesn't it go the other way?''
   That crack is followed by laughter.

    	That "Uh oh" has got to be the biggest understatement of the
    decade!
    
    	And to think I used to have such idealistic views of NASA.
    
    	Larry
    

    About that 'Uh oh'.  It has not been concluded what caused the comment
    to be made.  I know, I know.  Everybody is saying 'OH come on, it's
    obvious!".  Well it isn't, but I have this to say...
    
    If you are driving down the road and you notice that your gas gauge
    is on Empty, you may say 'Uh oh', but if you we're cruising down
    the same road and your engine detonated, throughing your hood into
    the air and engulfing your car in flames I don't think you would
    say 'Uh oh'.  Likewise, I think, and this is also supported by the
    commission studing the tapes, that the comment was made as the result
    of something seen on the command console (a guage going to zero,
    or the computers starting to go down, etc).  If he was looking out
    the window and notices the SRB sailing by and the Liquid fuel tank
    engulfed in flames, I tend to think that his response would have
    been something stronger than 'Uh oh'.
    
    My opinion,
    jim
                         

    According to the Rogers report (pages 37 to 39), at just after 72
    seconds the SRBs and the main engines started to pitch, yaw and roll in
    an apparent attempt to compensate for forces from the unplanned plume
    from the breach in the right SRB.  About a second later all the main
    engines started to respond to loss of fuel and liquid oxygen pressure.
    The response led to shutdown of the engines, of course. I suspect Smith
    was responding to the indications of wild yaw, pitch and roll rates,
    since he had more time to see it before the recorder failed. 
        John Sauter 

      Even if Smith had know of the severity of the problem he might
    have made the understated interjection. The last time that I remember
    astronauts being in an exploding space craft was Apollo XIII. After
    the service module exploded and the oxygen started leaking one of
    the crew said something like "Huston we have a problem ... We seem
    to be venting a gas ...". He sounded very casual, sort of a "Has
    any body seen my tooth brush" tone of voice.
    
      Anything more excided than "Uh Oh" would have been the Wrong Stuff.
    
      George
    

    Actually, the Apollo 13 conversation bears out the theory that he
    may not have known. I believe the actual transmission was (Gary
    can probably help out here) "Houston we have a problem, we show
    a main B bus undervolt." Again, the commander was responding to
    the instruments, not the situation. One of the other crew members
    saw the explosion out the window on Apollo 13.
    
    In fact, consider the NASA commentator who rattled on for seconds
    about "no downlink" when we had all already seen the shuttle explode
    on TV.
    							-Brian
    

    Swigert: Okay Houston, we've has a problem here
    Capcom: This is Houston, say again please
    Lovell: Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a main B bus undervolt
    Capcom: Roger. Main B undervolt. Okay, stand by 13 we're looking
    at it
    Haise: Okay, right nowHouston, the voltage is looking good. And
    we had a pretty large bang associated with the caution warning there.
    And if I recall, main B was the one that had an amp spike on it
    once before.
    Capcom: Roger Fred
    
    At this stage they were responding to instrument readings (and the
    bang).
    
    BTW, 13 almost did not make it to earth orbit. The S-II vibration
    caused a LOX turbopump to cavitate starting an engine shutdown
    sequence. The central J-2 shutdown but the fault cleared itself
    before the others shutdown
    
    gar{

Re .9:

How many (pairs) of turbopumps does an S-II have?  One for each engine?
One for the whole stage?  Or somewhere in between for redundancy?
				/AHM/THX

    
    Apparently the newspaper MIAMI HERALD has stirred up
    the story "Shuttle Crew didn't die right away again.
    
    The MIAMI HERALD suggests there was an effort by NASA to conceal
    this from the public. A reporter from a Melbourne (Fla.) paper
    reminded radio listeners that NASA's original reports DO mention
    the possibility of the crew's surviving the initial
    booster problem.

    I don't know what all the fuss is all about.   I believe NASA did
    mention that the oxigen was turned on by some of the astronauts
    after the explosion.  The astronaut in the seat behind was the
    only one who could reach the control for the guy in front of them.
    Not all the individual oxigen supplies were turned on.  This was
    determined from evaluating the remains of the spacecraft.
    
    I don't believe there was any cover-up.  I feel that NASA simply
    just kept quiet out of concern for the families of the astronauts.
    This just goes to show that the newspapers love to manufacture news.
    I wish they would stick to the news.
    
    My opinion - the Miami Herald is just another scam sheet only
    interested in selling more copies of their trash.                      
    
    Ron                                              

    At Space Camp we had a talk with a guy who investigates airplane
    crashes and such, and I believe he had something to do with the
    Challenger investigation.  He said that Nasa's official statement
    is that we don't know that anyone survived the initial explosion,
    that some of the oxygen packs had been turned on (presumably after
    the explosion), and yes those were (perhaps deliberately) contradictory
    statements.  He then went on to say that there may have been more
    information shared between NASA and the families of the Seven, but
    that was none of our (the public's) business, and while we might
    be insatiably curious, we DON'T WANT TO KNOW.  He seemed quite serious
    about this, and on reflection I suspect he's right.
    
    Willie

re:< Note 195.13 by SNDCSL::SMITH "IEEE-696" >
>    we DON'T WANT TO KNOW.  He seemed quite serious
>    about this, and on reflection I suspect he's right.

Why is this?  On reflection I can think of no reason why I wouldn't want 
to know.  Does not telling the public help in any way?  I think telling 
the public makes the chance of another fatal accident less.  If the 
astronauts had survived for 2 1/2 minutes and they had parachutes, they 
might mostly have lived.  The theory is that they only experienced a 
hard kick and were quickly out of the explosion, so no fire.

If the public knows that an explosion is survivable, they will (or maybe 
the Congress will) demand the additional safety precautions.

Tony

    
    There was no cover up, all the information has been
    already know, what I see as a serious problem
    is the lack of using this knowledge to make the shuttle
    better.  Several simple things could be done.
    
    1) since the crew section can stay in one piece with out
       decompression, then figure out a way to land it, ie
       when it seperates form the rest of the shuttle it 
       could release a drag chute.
    
    2) The shuttle/crew cabin came near the launch, it position
       was seen yet it took 12 hours to recover the bodies.  What
       if the shuttle came down in the Pacific!  There are no
       ELTs  (emergency locator Transmitters) on the Shuttle.
       ELT are require for most commercial Air and Sea Ships,
       they should also be required for the Shuttle.  They are
       small and cheap and can be picked up by SAR SAT
       (search and rescue satellites)
       
    the first suggestion requires engineering changes but the
    second one is so simple I can not understand why it has 
    not been done.  The only argument against it, it may never
    be use, I hope so , but it could be the only source of 
    locating a downed shuttle.
    
    
       

>    Why is this?  On reflection I can think of no reason why I wouldn't
>    want to know. 
 
    What he meant is that you really don't want to know all the gory
    details, even if you think you do.  He said he had a friend who
    was bugging him for details on an airliner crash so he finally gave
    in and gave him the inside scoop.  His friend's response was "Thanks,
    but I wish you hadn't told me that."   
             
    Willie

>        1) since the crew section can stay in one piece with out
>       decompression, then figure out a way to land it, ie
>       when it seperates form the rest of the shuttle it 
>       could release a drag chute.
 
    Yes the crew section may stay in one piece, but it was decompressed,
    even pure oxygen doesn't help when you get high enough, and the
    weight penalties needed to make the crew section really separate
    (and separable) and add life support, power, parachutes and all
    the rest are prohibitive.  I get the impression that they may have
    been alive when they hit the water, but they certainly weren't
    conscious.
    
>    There are no ELTs  (emergency locator Transmitters) on the Shuttle.
 
    Well, I dunno about the shuttle itself, but there are EPIRBs on
    each of the astronauts orange suits, which include two-way radios
    to talk to the rescue planes with.  This is new since Challenger.
    
    I'm not too sure about all these new escape procedures and such,
    they have very small windows of time in which they can be used,
    they haven't been tested in anything approaching realistic conditions,
    the astronauts certainly haven't trained in them, and it's a little
    marginal (IMHO) that they would work as advertised.  I'm not saying
    safety and escape mechanisms shouldn't be around, just that I wouldn't
    want to bet _my_ life on them working.  There are failure modes
    of the STS that just cannot be made survivable, the best you can
    do is try to prevent them from happening in the first place.
          
    Take a wild guess what it would take to modify the shuttle to armor
    the crew section, make it separable in an emergency, and outfit
    it with power and life support.  Might as well design and build
    a whole new shuttle.  Then of course, since we've got it that far,
    why not add re-entry capability, and....
    Willie

>Why is this?  On reflection I can think of no reason why I wouldn't want 
>to know.  Does not telling the public help in any way?  I think telling 
>the public makes the chance of another fatal accident less.  If the 
>astronauts had survived for 2 1/2 minutes and they had parachutes, they 
>might mostly have lived.  The theory is that they only experienced a 
>hard kick and were quickly out of the explosion, so no fire.
>
>If the public knows that an explosion is survivable, they will (or maybe 
>the Congress will) demand the additional safety precautions.

	Lets think about this a little bit.  Does it matter if they
	died when they hit the water or in the intial explosion.  I think
	this is just a morbid thing to discuss, they would be just as dead
	no matter when they died.  As for the other two issues bought up
	about parachutes, this idea doesn't make much sense to me, the
	heat that must have been generated by the initial explosion as
	well as the thousands of metal fragments that were flying about
	would have meant either the parachute would have melted or it
	would have been ripped by flying debris.

	Also the other item that was missing from the article is that
	an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) is designed to go off
	and survive any "Survivable impact" in order to help locate
	survivors, not to find bodies or debris.  I don't know
	but my understanding of physics is that falling and hitting the
	water at about 200 MPH would not classify as something that is
	inheritently survivable, and I'm not sure if you could build a
	transmitter to survive that kind of impact.

	I don't understand what all this fuss is about did NASA lie or
	not, like I already said its being pretty morbid to want to know
	exactly how and when the astronauts and crew died.  It can't
	and won't bring them back, so we should just get on with the
	space program and leave the past in the past.

	My 2 cents worth.

				_Anthony Rizzolo

The question is, did NASA knowingly lie, and if so, why, and even if not,
what reasons could they have for lying.
If they DID lie, it pollutes everything else they said, and casts doubt
on all future statements.

They may have lied about when the astronauts died to soften the effects
of the tragedy: "At least they didn't suffer." as opposed to "Yes, they
lived for 2� minutes, in pure terror and pain, knowing they were going
to die and not being able to do anything about it."
How would the latter statement, true or not, affect public support?

They had every reason to lie about this, therefore any evidence that
indicates they might have lied gains more credence and becomes newsworthy.
And once you lie, you 1) have to keep lying, and 2) when you are discovered,
evrything hits the fan, and keeps hitting the fan.

How would you have decided to report the astronauts' deaths?

- tom powers]

    Who says they lied?  NASA announced that the astronauts did use
    some of the oxigen after the explosion.  Does a dead person breath?
    
    I've really heard enough of this crap.  If you'd listened to the
    news as you should have, then you wouldn't feel there was any cover
    up.  I'm not an insider to NASA, and I heard about it a long long
    time ago. This is not news.  News is a synonym for new stories.
    
    It really irks me to hear people say that NASA lied about the
    deaths of the astronauts.  It is simply untrue.
    
    Ron

    I was another one who remembered the details about the fact that some
    emergency equipment had been turned on.  It surprised me too, when
    people started talking about a coverup.  Just because it wasn't beaten
    into the public's brain until we could all walk, talk and sleep 'the
    emergency equipment was used' doesn't mean that NASA didn't say
    anything about it publicly.
    
John

    What makes this different from *"COVERUP"* is NASA mentioned the
    information and the media reported what they mentioned.  It is only
    a coverup when the information is hidden an leaked after the fact.
    And yes friends, the more responsible media services left it alone,
    
    		as well we should!
    
    Les
    
    
    PS:  Have we become so oversensitized to spoon fed garbage that
    	 we will only accept as truth from the government yellow journaled
         garp.  The only coverup in this case is the fact that during
    	 the first 2+min of solid burn, escape chances are nil.  This
         fact WAS covered up.  

    
    
    Let me share this with you...
    
    In 1987 (prior to joining Digital) I had a friend who worked in
    Melbourne, Florida....and lived in a condominium at Satellite beach
    which is just South of Cape Canaveral.  He and his wife can sit on
    their balcony (facing the ocean) and actually see the Launch Towers at
    the Cape.
    
    My friend's father works for NASA....and was present when the Navy
    located and returned the Astronauts bodies to the mainland.  He said
    his father told him the bodies were intact and not dismembered in any
    way.  At the time, this information was treated with 'extreme sensitivity'
    in deference not only the Astronauts relatives, but to a Nation that
    was having difficulty healing its wounds in the face of the Challenger
    tragedy and subsequent investigation.
    
    Somehow, it seemed 'less' painful to believe that death was "instantaneous"
    and that minimal suffering occurred, rather than to consider what the 
    alternatives might have been. 
    
    Now you know what I know...
    
    jlh