can someone please explain what happened and how there was a shuttle accident on jan.28 1986?

Question

tell me all you know about it!

Answer 1

I want to add to the failed o-ring answers, which are correct, that the Morton Thiokol O-ring was not defective: it had a temperature limit below which it was known to fail, and the shuttle was forced to launch below that temperature limit.

I say forced to launch because at least one of the Thiokol engineers objected strenuously to the launch, but was asked if he "wanted to wait until June" to launch. So, Thiokol gave NASA the go-ahead. However, NASA should still have postponed for a day the launch, because launch rules were being violated by launching after such low temperatures had been recorded. It is common to launch vehicles with concerns, but never concerns such as this one (to a critical launch component with no backup).

And, even had the "blowtorch" flame not impinged on the shuttle fuel tank it is possible the booster itself could have disintigrated or blown up in a few moments anyway, killing the crew. A similar event on a similar solid booster caused a Titan-IV to explode in California (it carried no people).

Finally, a big part of the explosion of the main tank was due to the right booster pivoting on the good forward attachment point, breaking loose, and "plowing" into the forward part of the orange fuel tank, breaking it up. That's what the pilot saw when he said, "Uh, oh."

Answer 2

Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, Mission STS-51-L

Crew:
Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik.

Christa McAuliffe was part of the Teacher in Space program. Millions of adults and schoolchildren in classrooms, including her own class, were watching live when the disaster unfolded.

The Challenger launched at 11:38 A.M. Jan, 28 1986. About 58 seconds into flight, a plume of smoke appeared at the lower part of the right solid rocket booster. A few seconds later this this plume turned into a flame. At 73 seconds, at an altitude of 48,000 ft, the right solid rocket booster with the flame broke off. Everything else came apart almost instantaneously. The last words heard from the crew were Pilot Michael J. Smith saying "uh oh." To add to the horror, evidence shows that the crew was probably alive for a while as they fell towards the Atlantic, and tried to deploy their emergency air packs.

A later investigation points to the right solid rocket booster having a defective O ring, which is a seal used to join sections of the booster together. It probably cracked, gas leaked out , and then ignited. All seven bodies were found still strapped to their seats.

NASA missions were grounded for nearly three years, and NASA was criticized for not being open enough with the investigation.

Contrary to popular belief, the shuttle never actually exploded, it broke up.

For people old enough to remember (people in their late twenties and up), the disaster is used as an example of "flashbulb" memory, because many can remember what they were doing at the time (younger generations will have 9/11 as their flashbulb memory experience). I am thirty now and remember having a snow day from school. I was playing at a friend's house when it happened.

I posted a link below which gives a more detailed account of the disaster.

Answer 3

OFFICIAL VERSION

On the launching pad, on the side of the large cylinder (Oxygen tank) attached to the bottom of the vehicle are the solid fuel rocket boosters. These boosters being reusable were constructed in sections. Solid fuel would be loaded on in the sections then the sections assembled into a rocket. On these recyclable solid boosters there are large sealing rings in the joints.

These solid rocket boosters are the spectacular part of the STS launch. They spew out the flame and smoke that every picture taker wants. And they deliver most of the initial thrust required to achieved enough velocity to achieve and maintain orbit.

Upon launch, these solid rocket are supposed to take the vehicle up to about 100,000' depending on the orbital path. Then once spent of fuel (it takes a lot of power and fuel) these boosters parachute back into the sea.

However in the Challenger disaster one of these rings on the lower sections failed. A jet of high pressure, high velocity, extremely hot flame escaped from the lower sections of the booster. It was by any other name a cutting torch.

Not only did the retaining ring failed but as luck would be the failure directed the jet of flame directly onto the surface of that massive oxygen tank strapped to the belly of of the STS shuttle. Kaboom.

The equivalent would be for you to take a cutting torch and apply the torch to a full medical or welding O2 gas bottle. Of course like the Challenger, this would be the last experiment you would do. But damn, you can duplicate the event.


UNOFFICIAL VERSION

All of the above plus.

There were four parts to this. What happened? Why? Accountability? and Remedy.

NASA was good on three of four. Accountability was left out mostly.

"an accident rooted in history." - Rogers Commission

Quietly buried in all the reports, one of which was a highly critical response from the Rogers Commission, were all the parts to charge the managers of NASA and the Reagan Administration with criminal negligence. Nothing was done to these people.

Space exploration is dangerous enough and launch is extremely risky because the crew is literally strapped to a controlled bomb. However, the administrators knowingly sent those astronauts up in a dangerous risky flawed vehicle. If private industry had done this in your workplace the managers would in jail convicted of criminal negligence causing death.

You see this wasn't the first time the rings had failed. They had pictures too. In all the other instances Engineers at the vehicle manufacturers and NASA knew that this was an exceedingly dangerous situation and that the problem had to be addressed. In other words Challenger should have never been launched in the first place.

The engineers prime contractor, then called Morton Thiokol knew full well that the sealing ring assembly on the solid rocket boosters was a flawed and dangerous design. But the managers of Thiokol did not relay those concerns onto NASA, officially. Yet, NASA knew about it because they had photo evidence that ring failures happened on several other launches.

NASA playing the blame game cited the Reagan government with failure to provided enough funds. The goal of most Republicans was tax cuts before common sense or safety.

Despite the budget cuts. Reagan wanted the flights to continue. Despite their better judgment at NASA the flights went on and with the flawed rings.

Remedial repairs to design of the shuttle booster rockets was undertaken after the accident. These changes which should have been undertaken when NASA and Morton T engineers had originally estimated that fixing the problem would take about two years of delay. The only difference, it took the two years and seven lives in reactively.

However thats not the worst of it. NASA learned nothing.

"NASA's response to the Rogers Commission did not meet the Commission's intent". - Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

In other words, seventeen years later the NASA monster management didn't change a note in their thinking. Again they had plenty of visual evidence that chunks of ice fell off the main Oxygen tank and struck the wings. They knew about it when they ordered Columbia to reenter the atmosphere. They knew about that problem when they launched Columbia.

In short, people died because of negligence of NASA managers and supervisors. None have been brought to court.

Answer 4

One of the O-rings which seal the sections of the solid state boosters failed, permitting flame from the booster to impinge on the shuttle. Richard Feynman investigated the disaster and found the cause; one of his autobiographical books discusses the matter in detail For more book info, see Amazon.

Answer 5

Yes, it was the Challenger and it happened off the east coast of Florida, I was there and saw it explode. We were watching it and right away we knew something didn't go right, because it had trail cloud bursts in 2 different directions. It was a clear day.
Then the News came. It was a shield that broke off during lift-off and exploded the fuel tank.

Answer 6

That was the Challenger disaster. Now you can look it up yourself.