- 7 months ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Conceived half a century ago, the space shuttles are a giant leap in man's quest to conquer
00:11space.
00:12It absolutely was revolutionary.
00:14It looks like something out of Star Wars.
00:17The world's first reusable spacecraft, they usher in a new era in space travel.
00:23Go on 17,500 miles an hour and there's not another ride like it.
00:27Pushing technology to the limit comes at a price.
00:31I looked over and saw a fireball.
00:35Yet the shuttle program will continue and leave a lasting legacy.
00:40We would never have the International Space Station today without the space shuttle.
00:43But there is also a secret side to the shuttle program.
00:48We had quite a few military missions with the shuttle and I can't tell you what we did with it.
00:53It will give the United States an edge over their Soviet rivals.
00:58The shuttles threatened to dramatically change the balance of power during the Cold War.
01:02Almost four decades since they first took flight, the shuttles remain the most iconic spaceships ever built.
01:10We get this into space and come back and land like an airplane.
01:14That's a heck of an accomplishment.
01:17Entering service in 1981, NASA's fleet of five space shuttles fly into orbit and come back to Earth again more than 130 times.
01:40It was the first winged vehicle to fly back from space hypersonically.
01:46It had carried more people than any other space vehicle.
01:49It was revolutionary in so many ways.
01:52Clocking over 537 million miles in space for three decades, the shuttles are the workhorses of the American space program.
02:02The shuttle is so capable of what it's designed to do. It really is. It's a fantastic achievement.
02:13The technology behind the shuttle's return trips to space is still one of man's greatest feats of engineering.
02:23T-minus one minute and counting.
02:27Bolted to a huge orange fuel tank and two of the largest solid rocket boosters ever built, the shuttle goes through its final checks before launch.
02:38Liquid hydrogen tank is at flight pressure.
02:41The only people within a three-mile radius of the shuttle are the astronauts inside.
02:48There's a lot of things that can go wrong during a launch.
02:53If sitting on top of a few million pounds of high explosives is going to cause you emotional stress, you're in the wrong profession.
03:0385% of the shuttle's 4.5 million pounds at takeoff is fuel, and it will use the explosive power of all of it to get into space.
03:19Rocketry is controlled explosions. You hope that it keeps you going in the right direction.
03:25T-minus 20 seconds and counting. Main engines prepare for ignition. T-minus 10, 9.
03:35We don't hear a countdown like the public do, but we can see on our computer monitor a little clock going tick, tick, tick.
03:428, 7.
03:446.
03:456.6 seconds before liftoff, we get ready to ignite the main engines.
03:51We've gone for main engine start.
03:54Out the window, you see this bright yellow glow.
04:013, 2, 1.
04:05And you go, oh, here we go.
04:08Liftoff of American Space Shuttle.
04:17All that explosive power shoves us in the back, and it's a very violent shove.
04:25It feels like someone has kind of taken their foot and kicked you in the hindquarters.
04:31With all its engines blazing, the shuttle produces about 37 million horsepower.
04:42It's a very visceral experience.
04:46You know you are going somewhere very, very fast, and you have very little control over it.
04:53Two minutes in, 28 miles high, the shuttle hits 3,000 miles per hour, and its reusable boosters are jettisoned.
05:03At the moment, we're going about Mark IV. That's four times the speed of sound.
05:08And the sky goes from clouds and blue sky to black sky.
05:14The shuttle's main engines push it even faster through the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
05:22We're going to use up all the fuel to get up to Mark 25, 25 times the speed of sound.
05:29And that's the speed we need to keep going around the earth and never actually come back to it.
05:37Once the shuttle reaches 17,500 miles per hour,
05:42explosive bolts detonate and release the empty fuel tank.
05:54That's it. We're weightless.
05:57Your pen floats, dust particles float.
06:01You're sort of looking around thinking, are we there yet?
06:05It takes just eight and a half minutes to get the shuttle into space.
06:11There's usually a cheer from the crew about that point because the most stressed part of the mission, the ascent, is over.
06:20In orbit, the versatility of the shuttle will allow it to do more than any other spaceship before or since.
06:31We could fit one and a half Greyhound buses inside the cargo bay.
06:36That's how big that vehicle is.
06:40It was capable of carrying huge satellites up into orbit, constructing the International Space Station,
06:46and that's what made it such a productive program.
06:51With room for eight astronauts, the shuttle can take more people into space than ever before.
06:58The shuttle has opened up space flight to a much wider variety of people, scientists, engineers, medical doctors.
07:11We really learned a lot about how to do science in space.
07:17But what makes the shuttle truly groundbreaking is that they come back to Earth.
07:23You are go or deorbit burn.
07:29Traveling ten times faster than a bullet, the shuttle hits Earth's atmosphere.
07:36We create a shock wave that has a temperature of 9,000 degrees.
07:41And so it makes the air look like it's on fire.
07:46You're flying into a blow torch.
07:49Friction from the air generates so much heat, the shuttle starts to glow.
07:54You look outside and it's red.
07:58It's just a terribly hot surface.
08:01The temperature of the shuttle's heat-proof skin reaches 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit,
08:07almost four times the melting point of its metal airframe.
08:11You see drips going along the windows.
08:15And it looks like rain.
08:16It looks like water.
08:17But it's something melted.
08:19Relying only on air friction to slow it down,
08:22it takes the shuttle 30 minutes flying time to reach its landing site.
08:27Columbia, you're going subsonic now.
08:30Looking good.
08:31Having used all its fuel in space,
08:34pilots depend on the shuttle's wings to glide at home.
08:38It was a great big 115-ton brick that doesn't have any engines.
08:46And so you get exactly one chance to land it.
08:50Five, four, three, two, one, down.
08:57Hitting the runway at 226 miles per hour, much faster than any plane,
09:04the shuttle's parachutes are deployed to bring it to a halt.
09:08I thought, oh, holy cow.
09:10We built this thing and we find a way to get this into space
09:13and come back and land like an airplane, wheels on a runway.
09:16That's a heck of an accomplishment.
09:19But this accomplishment comes at a price.
09:22Over their three decades in service,
09:25the shuttles cost taxpayers $209 billion.
09:29Yet, when they are first proposed in the late 1960s,
09:33the space shuttles are meant to be a cost-effective successor
09:37to the most expensive space program in history.
09:40At the start of the 1960s,
09:51NASA is challenged to invent new spacesuits, computers,
09:55and rockets for an audacious mission.
09:58We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things.
10:03Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
10:07With the Cold War raging, President Kennedy has another motive
10:11for sending men to the moon.
10:14Kennedy was not particularly interested in space or going to the moon.
10:18He was interested in beating the Russians or something.
10:26We pretty much had a blank check.
10:28You just said, this is what I need to get this job done,
10:32and you got it.
10:34On July 20, 1969, the U.S. wins the race to the moon.
10:41That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
10:49But getting men to the moon has a huge cost.
10:53The final bill is more than $25 billion.
10:57If you turn that into today's dollars, you're probably talking half a trillion.
11:04It was an extremely expensive program
11:06because we threw away the rocket every time we used it.
11:09The only thing that you got back was this little capsule on the very top,
11:13and even that was not reusable.
11:16NASA is told it has to find a more cost-effective way of getting into orbit.
11:22They decide a revolutionary, reusable spacecraft is the answer.
11:31Shuttle-borne payloads will be put in orbit for a tenth of what it cost in the 60s.
11:37The space shuttle was conceived as a vehicle like an airliner.
11:41You would build it once, fly it many times, and therefore reduce the cost of getting into space.
11:48NASA gets the go-ahead, but there's a hidden dimension to the shuttle's overall mission.
11:54We had quite a few military missions with the shuttle, and I can't tell you what we did with it.
12:00From the shuttle's inception, the Pentagon determines there'll be a Cold War asset.
12:07The final size and shape of the shuttle is determined very much by the military requirements.
12:13The shuttle's distinctive wide body is designed to deploy the biggest military spy satellites.
12:21They had satellites which were 60 feet long, and so the cargo bay had to be much bigger than NASA originally was planning.
12:29And they are given the wings of a jet fighter.
12:40Instead of having little stubby wings like NASA had originally planned, that led to the big delta wings.
12:47But traveling 13 times faster than the Concorde means the shuttle can't be flown like a normal airplane.
12:57You hit the atmosphere at 25 times the speed of sound. There's no way that a human being can keep up.
13:06So to help pilots fly them, NASA invents a revolutionary new computer system, surprisingly basic compared to today's standards.
13:24The general purpose computers had 257k memory. Your phone has like a gazillion times more memory than the shuttle computer.
13:33Next, NASA needs to see if their new computers work.
13:39In 1976, a prototype shuttle is rolled out for testing, and the American public gets to see one of their new spacecraft for the first time.
13:51It grabbed the attention of the American public, and it didn't look like any other rocket. It was the future.
13:58This is the world's first real spaceship. It was like Star Trek made real.
14:04NASA even names it Enterprise. But this shuttle won't be boldly going into space.
14:10To find out if their flight control computers are up to the job, NASA plans to launch Enterprise from the back of a 747.
14:19When I first heard about it, I said, you got to be kidding me. No way. What a wonderful concept. Genius.
14:34Charles Justice is one of the NASA pilots who flew the specially adapted Boeing 747.
14:40As a research pilot, that scared me to death. It's like somebody, I hope, did their math.
14:47Even with a 68-ton spaceship on top, the 747 can still take to the air.
14:58It was a challenge. When you're flying, the whole time, it's shaking.
15:05At 24,000 feet, the shuttle is released.
15:10Okay, good job. We're up.
15:12Okay, I got a computer light. It's number two.
15:15Using the new computer system, the pilots are able to fly and land the shuttle.
15:26Okay, the gear is coming down at 270.
15:29185.
15:33We'll see you, babe.
15:34Okay, that was too good a glider.
15:39It was just amazing. The fact that it worked as well as it did, to me, is still one of the great successes of NASA.
15:53The next challenge is building reusable rocket engines that can take the shuttle into orbit over and over.
16:01NASA had never had to reuse rocket engines before. They'd always been thrown away.
16:07It was like trying to build a Formula One car that was going to last as long as a Ford Cortina.
16:12The shuttle's main engines need to produce the same power as 200,000 family cars.
16:24But making them reliable isn't easy.
16:27We saw some explosions on the test stands.
16:30We saw some explosions on the test stands.
16:32Because you get so much power, you're pushing these systems to the limit.
16:36It takes NASA nearly 10 years to perfect the shuttle's engines.
16:46But the biggest challenge by far is making sure the shuttles don't melt when they return to Earth.
16:53The friction that's generated between that spacecraft and the Earth's atmosphere creates a very high temperature, somewhere around 3,000 degrees.
17:02Previously, NASA protected its astronauts by putting them inside small capsules with thick heat shields designed to burn away.
17:11It gradually melts, and that carries away a lot of the heat, sort of like when you perspire.
17:18And that works just fine, but it's a one-shot deal.
17:21But the shuttle has totally different requirements.
17:25The shuttle needed something that was light and reusable, which those previous heat shields weren't.
17:31So NASA decides to use a revolutionary new material.
17:36This is a silica tile.
17:39And let me make it really simple.
17:41Silica is nothing but pure sand.
17:44That's all it is.
17:45It's mostly air.
17:47The tiles are extremely good at dissipating heat.
17:51Even when baked at 1,300 degrees, they can be picked up with bare hands just seconds later.
17:57But there's one problem with them.
17:59They are incredibly fragile.
18:01I could take my finger right now and poke a hole in that.
18:04That's how fragile it is.
18:07At first, NASA can't get the delicate tiles to stick to the shuttle's metal skin.
18:13We went through a process of nearly two years of trying to confirm that we had properly bonded those tiles to the surface.
18:22In the end, they find the best way to glue the tiles is with bathroom sealant.
18:27We went to the hardware store and we bought bathtub caulk.
18:32So that's what we chose and it worked.
18:36Countless tubes of bathroom caulk later, the first of the shuttle fleet is ready.
18:46In early April 1981, Shuttle Columbia is rolled out to the launch pad to be prepped for its maiden flight.
18:55Commanding the mission is John Young.
18:58He is one of NASA's most experienced astronauts who has walked on the moon.
19:03Accompanying him is someone who has never even been into space.
19:08Former Navy test pilot Bob Crippen.
19:11I was 40 when I was asked if I wanted to fly.
19:16And to finally know that I might have a chance to do it was sort of the pinnacle of my life.
19:21It blew my mind. I was ready to turn handsprings.
19:26The two astronauts have waited a long time for this moment.
19:31We thought we'd be flying in about a year, but our main engines kept blowing up on the test stand and our thermal protection system kept falling off.
19:42Now, with the problem seemingly fixed, on April 12, 1981, Shuttle Columbia is ready for launch.
19:51Thousands show up to watch the event, but NASA is taking a big gamble.
19:57No one has ever test flown a brand new spacecraft with astronauts on board before.
20:03It was the boldest test flight in history. Everything was staked on the success of that mission.
20:08If something went wrong, that was the end of the program.
20:12TV cameras are broadcasting the event live to millions around the world.
20:18There's always going to be people taking your picture.
20:21It was a little bit surreal, but you don't really pay attention to all the cameras.
20:28I mean, my biggest thought was, don't screw up.
20:33In mission control, the tension is high.
20:37Everybody was anxious.
20:39The flight control team were thinking, we better be ready, because we're going to have some problems.
20:44Even though the shuttle was fitted with ejection seats, if there is a serious problem, there is little chance of survival.
20:53To me, there were more of a placebo than anything else.
20:56If you've ever seen that tail of flame coming out of the saddle rockets,
20:59if you ejected out of that, you'd be very crispy when you hit the ground.
21:03T-minus one minute, ten seconds, and counting.
21:09We got inside one minute, and I turned to John, and I said, I think we might do it.
21:13That's when my heart rate went up to about 130.
21:16John's only was about 90.
21:18He says he was too old to go any faster.
21:22It was an exciting moment.
21:24Three, two, one, one.
21:27Lift off the first phase shuttle.
21:31It was really awesome to see the shuttle rising above the trees.
21:36The beauty of it, as it climbed higher and higher.
21:47In mission control, more than 200 people are monitoring every aspect of the shuttle's performance.
21:54Columbia, Houston, you're going throttle up.
21:56You're going throttle up.
21:57A lot can go wrong early on.
22:02Once the solid rocket boosters separate in about four minutes, and you're just on the main engines,
22:09there's a certain amount of relief there.
22:11Standing by for a solid rocket booster, Sam.
22:14Roger on the set.
22:16Whoever said that space was black, what can you?
22:20It goes from being very loud and noisy to very quiet.
22:24Velocity now at 16,400 feet per second.
22:28Standing by now for main engine cutoff.
22:31Columbia now maneuvering to its orbit.
22:35It is a total, uh, big sigh of relief once the main engine's shut down and you're in orbit.
22:44I don't know how else to say, it's just a big sigh of relief.
22:48Eight and a half minutes, the vehicle was behaving beautifully.
22:52We knew we were successful.
22:54Going 17,500 miles an hour and there's not another ride like it.
23:05The inaugural launch of the space shuttle is a success.
23:09The Vice President calls in on live TV.
23:12Hello, Mr. Vice President.
23:14Hey, who's that, John?
23:15Yes, sir.
23:16How's it going up there?
23:17Everything rocking along all right?
23:18The ship is just performing beautifully.
23:20Listen, I'm glad to talk to both you and Crip.
23:23How's he behaving?
23:26Everything is going according to plan.
23:29But when the cargo bay doors are opened, the onboard cameras reveal an alarming sight.
23:35We do have a few tiles missing off of the starboard pod.
23:42It was very obvious to me that we were missing some of our tiles, our thermal protection system, on the rear end of the spacecraft.
23:50If those were missing, maybe some were missing off the bottom and that would have been disastrous.
23:57The underside of the shuttle is subjected to the highest temperatures during reentry.
24:02If a tile is missing, the shuttle will disintegrate before it even makes it back to Earth.
24:08The concern was we could lose the entire vehicle.
24:12Columbia, go for deorbit burn.
24:15Hitting Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speed, the shuttle is immediately engulfed in a layer of superheated plasma.
24:23Mission control temporarily loses all communication with the crew.
24:28We had loss of signal for about 30 minutes until they were to appear over the California coast.
24:38It was very tense and very quiet.
24:42There is no way for mission control to know if the heat shield is holding up.
24:47That was extremely anxious.
24:49There wasn't anything that we could do.
24:51Columbia, this is Houston through Yargety.
24:54We're standing by.
24:55Hello, Houston.
24:56Columbia's here.
24:57Hello, Columbia.
24:58Houston's here.
24:59How do you read?
25:00And then we came in contact with the ground and told them we were coming in.
25:16To hear the voice of the crew was such a good feeling.
25:25Columbia's fragile heat shield works.
25:29The real highlight was when I knew it and all those tiles did their job.
25:33That was a bigger highlight in my career than Apollo was, to tell you the truth.
25:38The last job for the crew is to fly Columbia to its landing strip in the Mojave Desert.
25:51And there were thousands, thousands of people.
25:55I think half the population of Los Angeles had bailed out to come see us land.
25:59And all I said to John was, look at all those people out there.
26:02I hope they don't get on the runway.
26:06After one million miles in space, Columbia touches down.
26:13I have never seen John that excited before.
26:17I was still excited when he got outside the spacecraft.
26:20I felt that way too.
26:22The fact that it worked as well as it did was something we were both extremely proud of.
26:28With the inaugural mission a success, the shuttle program gets the green light from the president.
26:38This versatility of the Columbia and her sister ships will serve the American people well
26:44by establishing a more permanent presence in space.
26:49Challenger, you are free to take off now.
26:53The shuttle fleet goes to work, promising to take everything and anything the U.S. wants into space, and at a much lower price.
27:03The promise of the shuttle in the early days was that the shuttle would be able to replace all expendable launches
27:12at a fraction of the cost that people had been paying previously.
27:16What a deal.
27:17It was supposed to replace all other American rockets and launch all American satellites into orbit for whatever reason.
27:24NASA is determined that the shuttles will grab the lion's share of the growing commercial satellite market, too.
27:33Whether it was satellite navigation, mobile phones, satellite television.
27:38The seeds of that were sown by the constellation of satellites that the shuttle helped put up.
27:43Okay, stand by.
27:52Determined the shuttle program should reflect modern America, NASA opens its doors to more women.
27:58Ray Seddon is one of the first to make the grade.
28:02I was the littlest astronaut that they had ever selected.
28:05I think they just felt like, well, all of the equipment will fit them.
28:09Well, it didn't.
28:10NASA not only has to order smaller space suits, they have to find a way to make them practical for women.
28:17How do you pee?
28:19The men wore condoms that were attached to a bag that wasn't going to work in women,
28:23so they eventually designed some diapers for us, which worked just great.
28:28The sight of women in space quickly captures the public's imagination.
28:33It was just revolutionary.
28:35The women astronauts were heroes.
28:37They were much sought after by the press, much sought after for interviews.
28:43I think we felt very much in the spotlight.
28:46And I was just completely taken aback.
28:49But we wanted to really, really do a good job.
28:52Away from the media spotlight, the shuttle astronauts are leading double lives, secretly working for the U.S. military.
29:07The space shuttle had a huge capability to do classified missions that would let us eavesdrop on the Russians.
29:17And I was an active participant in all this.
29:21Then, in 1983, President Reagan announces his plans to use the shuttles to do a lot more than just spy on the Russians.
29:30The Soviets have built up a massive arsenal of new strategic nuclear weapons.
29:35Weapons that can strike directly at the United States.
29:39I call upon the scientific community to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
29:47Immediately dubbed Star Wars by the press, Reagan's goal is to deploy NASA to build a missile defense shield in space.
29:56Chemical lasers fire beams that burn through the shell of the onrushing missile.
30:03The Star Wars initiative threatened to dramatically change the balance of power during the Cold War.
30:09If America would repel a Soviet nuclear attack, it meant the Cold War was over.
30:14It meant America would have won.
30:16But with so many military, civilian and scientific missions, the shuttle fleet is struggling to keep up with demand.
30:24This thing is really complex.
30:27The refurbishment between missions was far greater than what we had ever envisioned.
30:33After every flight, 740 critical components have to be replaced.
30:40It was reusable, but it was such a complex vehicle that they needed thousands of people to turn it around.
30:50Costing up to $1.5 billion a launch, the shuttles are a lot more expensive than NASA anticipated.
30:59To be cost effective, they need to fly a shuttle every two weeks, but they are only launching nine times a year.
31:06There were huge pressures on NASA to deliver 24 flights a year, and it wasn't just the politicians.
31:12The media kept hammering on NASA to achieve this.
31:17Worse still for NASA, the public is getting bored with the shuttle program.
31:22A lot of people had grown kind of uninterested in watching the space shuttle.
31:28It had become kind of ho-hum.
31:30If you put it against the lunar landings where, you know, you're going to a new world and planting the flag, what we were doing in orbit was not terribly exciting.
31:39NASA knows they have to win back public support to keep the cash flowing from Congress.
31:47So, they come up with a bold plan. Send a teacher into space to give a lesson that will be beamed live into classrooms across America.
31:58NASA wanted the other people of the world to understand that space was for everyone.
32:0411,000 teachers apply. Ten are shortlisted.
32:09New Hampshire teacher Krista McAuliffe is the one picked to go into space.
32:13When that shuttle goes, there might be one body.
32:19But there's going to be ten souls that I'm taking with me.
32:23Runner-up Barbara Morgan is her backup.
32:26The American public instantly falls in love with down-to-earth mother of two, Krista.
32:33Krista was really sweet, really kind, fun. She was the girl next door.
32:42Krista and Barbara undergo four months of astronaut training.
32:47It was wonderful. We broke the sound barrier and he let me fly for a while. It was great.
32:53Every minute was a learning experience for us. It was just absolutely tremendous.
32:57One of the highlights is zero-gravity training inside NASA's specially adapted airliner, dubbed the Vomit Comet.
33:06Experiencing weightlessness is very surreal. We had a lot of fun playing leapfrog.
33:11And the two of us, I don't think we stopped laughing the entire flight.
33:16But the real focus for Krista is perfecting her lesson from space.
33:20Krista was so excited. She was going to do a tour of the shuttle, do a tour of her crewmates.
33:29This is Krista McCullough. I'm going to start out introducing you to two very important members of the crew.
33:35I'll always remember Krista with her really cute little smile saying,
33:39I have never prepared so well for one single lesson as I have here at NASA.
33:46Whoops!
33:48On January 28th, 1986, Krista is ready for her flight.
33:54I am so excited and I just hope everybody tunes in to watch the teacher teaching from space.
34:00The next morning, Challenger will blast off.
34:03Overnight, the temperature drops to the low 20s. Ice has formed on the launch tower.
34:19I took a look at those icicles and thought to myself, well, they're not launching today, that's for sure.
34:24The big concern is the ice might damage the shuttle's fragile heat shield.
34:29Chief Engineer Tom Moser and his team are called in to assess the risk to the shuttle's thermal protection system.
34:38We did a quick analysis and we determined that based on where the ice was, we were safe to fly.
34:45But the shuttle's fragile heat shield isn't the only worry.
34:49There were engineers for the booster rockets that were very concerned with launching at those temperatures.
34:56The worry is that the cold could cause the shuttle's solid rocket boosters to leak highly explosive fuel during takeoff.
35:05If that happens, the shuttle could blow up like a bomb.
35:11NASA makes the decision to launch.
35:13We never got together for a flight readiness review where people said, well, we don't have anything to talk about because everything worked perfectly. That never happened.
35:2111.30 a.m. The world tunes in to watch Krista McAuliffe become the first ordinary citizen to go into space.
35:42We were really, really excited about the launch. So excited. I wanted to be with the crew and I was really happy for them.
35:49Krista's family are in Florida to see the big event.
35:53And in her hometown, her students are watching live.
35:56Dick Covey is the man charged with talking Krista and the crew through launch.
36:05I say if anybody's sitting on a rocket and isn't a little bit concerned or frightened, then they don't understand what's going on.
36:13T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, we have main engine start, 4, 3, 2, 1, and liftoff, liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission and it has cleared the tower.
36:33I had this huge smile on my face and I remember thinking that I wanted to be there.
36:37I was sitting watching my data on my screen because that was my job.
36:52Roger, roll, Challenger.
36:54Good roll, flight.
36:56The shuttle positions itself to pick up speed.
37:01Everything's looking like it should when we launch a space shuttle.
37:0730 seconds in, Challenger is two miles above Florida.
37:14The engines throttle back as they were supposed to as Challenger as it's going through the thickest part of the atmosphere.
37:22Engines throttling up, three engines now at 104%.
37:25The shuttle goes at maximum power to reach orbit.
37:29Three engines running normally, three good fuel cells.
37:32The guys on the ground that monitor the engines look at them and say, they're in good shape.
37:38And I made a call.
37:40Challenger, go with throttle up.
37:43Challenger, go with throttle up.
37:44Challenger, go with throttle up.
37:57There was some noise like static.
37:59And I looked over and saw the video of a fireball.
38:10I had no idea what I was looking at.
38:14It didn't make any sense to me at all.
38:17What I saw were the saw rocket boosters still continuing to fly.
38:36I mistakenly, I was hoping I was seeing the orbiter still flying.
38:41When things are flying everywhere, when you see the contrails that don't look like a normal launch, you know something's going on.
38:52Roger, are you getting any inputs?
38:55Stand by.
38:56The shuttle's data disappears from everyone's screens.
39:10Flight photo.
39:12Go ahead.
39:14RSO reports vehicle exploded.
39:18We quickly understood that we had had an explosion.
39:22Challenger was not flying.
39:23And it was then that we realized, I think individually, that we had lost the crew.
39:37The disaster unfolds in front of Krista's parents.
39:41And millions around the world watching on TV, including Krista's students.
39:47We're looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point.
39:53I think I knew pretty much right away that this was a major catastrophe.
40:02You know, these are my friends and they're dead.
40:07We lost seven dear people.
40:10It was horrible and it will always be horrible.
40:14It's a terrible, terrible tragedy.
40:15I hugged more than one person.
40:16I wiped tears off of more than one person.
40:21The Challenger disaster shakes the entire nation.
40:35All shuttle flights are grounded and a presidential inquiry is launched to figure out why six astronauts and a teacher lost their lives.
40:46The results are damning.
40:48Just as engineers had warned, the extreme cold caused the solid rocket boosters to fail.
40:55And NASA management at the Marshall Space Flight Center should have listened.
40:59For the astronauts, grief quickly turned to anger.
41:04It had failed in a way that people had been aware of and had anticipated and yet we went ahead.
41:14It was almost in a way like a betrayal.
41:22It was a huge mistake.
41:23It was a huge error.
41:25We paid very dearly for it.
41:29Our seven crew members paid everything for it.
41:31It's certainly disappointing that it occurred the way it did.
41:39It's hard.
41:41The future of the shuttle program is in doubt.
41:45And we realized that it had become a national tragedy.
41:49And we began to wonder whether the shuttle would ever fly again.
41:54But the Challenger disaster won't be the end for the shuttles.
42:02Soon, the U.S. is shocked to discover that the Russians have one of their own.
42:08When I saw it, I said, they copied it.
42:10And NASA's shuttles will be needed to defeat them.
42:13Hey, I'm the person who ended the Cold War.
42:17But for all the triumphs...
42:19There are smiles galore down here.
42:21Tragedy is never far away.
42:24And I said, John, what's happened?
42:26And I'll never forget this.
42:27He said, we lost them.
Comments