[sci.space.shuttle] Shuttle Astronauts.....Alive?!?!?!?!???

chguest@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov.arpa (Charles Guest RCE) (09/20/88)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I would like to thank everyone who responded to my previous
question about the challenger disaster.  I particularly want
to thankthose of you who e-mailed me some fairly detailed 
responses.

I have one followup question......Does yone on the net know 
where I can get a detailed written account of the Challenger
accident and the post accident investigation including details
and possibly photographs of the wreckage of the accident?
I am still interestd in the details of the crews last minutes
as well.

Thank you again for all of the previous responses.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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*      OVERAL AND ALL INCLUSIVE DISCLAIMER:                * 
*      (except for what I left out and meant to say)       *
*      The above reply/article is my opinion **only*       *
*      True and articulable facts had no bearing on        * 
*      the above statements.    8=)  :-)  :->              *
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greg@proxftl.UUCP (Gregory N. Hullender) (09/20/88)

In article <15152@ames.arc.nasa.gov> chguest@nike.UUCP (Charles Guest  RCE) writes:
>I have one followup question......Does yone on the net know 
>where I can get a detailed written account of the Challenger
>accident and the post accident investigation including details
>and possibly photographs of the wreckage of the accident?

I thought "Challenger: A Major Malfunction" by Malcom Boyd (I think that's
the author) was very complete.  Some reviewers complained that the author
speculated too much on possible corruption among the major contractors who
built the thing in the first place, but he always makes a clear distinction
between agreed facts and his own speculations, and those speculations are a
minority of the work anyway.
-- 
		Greg Hullender  uflorida!novavax!proxftl!greg
		3511 NE 22nd Ave / Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308

	    My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.

sproule@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Jr. William J. Sproule) (09/20/88)

There was some press coverage a couple of months ago about a possible court order to release the flight tapes of the Challenger.  Does anyone know if these were released, and if so, does anyone have a transcript of the tapes??


Bill Sproule
CIT - Systems
Princeton University
sproule@purt1.Princeton.EDU
sproule@pucc.bitnet
609-452-6089

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (09/21/88)

In article <794@proxftl.UUCP> greg@proxftl.UUCP (Gregory N. Hullender) writes:
>In article <15152@ames.arc.nasa.gov> chguest@nike.UUCP (Charles Guest  RCE) writes:
>>I have one followup question......Does yone on the net know 
>>where I can get a detailed written account of the Challenger
>>accident and the post accident investigation including details
>>and possibly photographs of the wreckage of the accident?
>
>I thought "Challenger: A Major Malfunction" by Malcom Boyd (I think that's
>the author) was very complete...

If you are seriously interested in the matter, one document you obviously
want to read, which contains a detailed account of the accident and the
investigation, complete with photos, is the report of the investigation!
The complete report may be fairly hard to find, but the first volume --
essentially the complete report minus a lot of supporting documentation --
should (I hope) be in any good public library.  Look for "Report of the
Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Accident".  (I'll post a
more detailed reference when I get home tonight.)

The report was a slightly hurried job, since the commission had a firm
deadline to meet, and some doubts have been raised about certain aspects
since, but it is definitely the right place to start.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (09/21/88)

In article <3704@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> sproule@purt1.Princeton.EDU writes:
>There was some press coverage a couple of months ago about a possible court
>order to release the flight tapes of the Challenger.  Does anyone know if
>these were released, and if so, does anyone have a transcript of the tapes??

The tapes in question were released.  They contained a bunch of general
pre-disaster chitchat, mostly.  They ran only a fraction of a second
beyond the communications-link tapes, and the only extra content was one
of the crew saying "uh-oh" as things started to go wrong.

Space shuttles, unlike airliners, do not carry crash recorders; don't
confuse these ordinary voice recordings with the sort of "flight tapes"
used to analyze air crashes.  NASA's reluctance to release them was mostly
because of a long-standing rule that on-board conversations are private
unless explicitly intended otherwise.

(Eugene, here's another you might want to consider...)
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (09/22/88)

As promised, here's the full reference:

Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger
Accident.  Volume I.  No other author, title, or ISBN given (really!).

Vol. I is the nicely-bound report that was published widely.  Volumes II-V
are a bunch more appendixes and great masses of testimony.  I'm not sure
whether Vol I is still in print -- probably -- but if so, it should be
available from

	United States Government Printing Office
	Superintendent of Documents
	Washington, DC 20402  USA

I don't remember how much my copy cost, but it was something like $10.
I think Aviation Week has also offered it, but the two issues I've got
on hand don't carry one of their in-house book ads -- I'll keep my eyes
open for one.  Any good library ought to have a copy of Vol I, and maybe
the other volumes if it's a really good library.

As I said before, do remember that the commission only had four months
to do its job, and there is room for criticism about some aspects of
the report.  It is not the last word on Challenger.  It is, however, the
*first* (authoritative) word, and anyone seriously interested in the
matter should read it.  In particular, please do not rant network-wide
about how wrong it was without reading it first!  Most of the popular
presentations of the material have oversimplified it; just Vol I is
200+ pages, including about 25 pages of color photos, and it does not
lend itself to being *accurately* summarized in a few paragraphs.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) (09/24/88)

In article <1988Sep22.052539.3202@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>As promised, here's the full reference:
>
>Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger
>Accident.  Volume I.  No other author, title, or ISBN given (really!).
>
>Vol. I is the nicely-bound report that was published widely.  Volumes II-V
>are a bunch more appendixes and great masses of testimony.  I'm not sure
>whether Vol I is still in print -- probably -- but if so, it should be
>available from
>
>	United States Government Printing Office
>	Superintendent of Documents
>	Washington, DC 20402  USA
>
>I don't remember how much my copy cost, but it was something like $10.

Here's the breakdown of the other 4 volumes :

   Volume II : Shuttle Reliability
	       Human Factors
	       Flight Readiness Review of O-Rings
	       NASA Pre-launch Activities Team Report
	       NASA Mission Planning and Operations Team Report
	       NASA Development and Production Team Report
	       NASA Accident Analysis Team Report
	       Comments by Morton-Thiokol


   Volume III: NASA Photo and TV Support Team Report
	       NASA Search Recovery and Reconstruction Task Force Report


   Volume IV : Transcripts of the hearings, Feb. 6, 1986 to Feb. 25

   Volume  V : Transcripts from Feb. 26, to May 2.

I can't find any prices on the volumes, but I recall that they were
around $15 to $20 each. Volume III is the best of the set (next to
volume I), full of photos.


Volumes IV and V may seem really boring, but they do contain reprints
of all of the viewgraphs and photos presented as evidence during the
hearings.


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"he's braindead Jim. . ."
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]

adamsd@crash.cts.com (Adams Douglas) (09/27/88)

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Unless I am recalling incorrectly, volumes IV and V are only available
on microfilm.

mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) (09/28/88)

In article <3473@crash.cts.com> adamsd@crash.cts.com (Adams Douglas) writes:
<
<
<
<Unless I am recalling incorrectly, volumes IV and V are only available
<on microfilm.

Nope, sorry Adams, volumes IV and V are in book form, I have the entire set.


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"he's braindead Jim. . ."
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]