Recon’s Black Ops

01/27/2006: I remember exactly where I was on January 28, 1986.

I was a second-semester freshman at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. I had turned 19 a week earlier.

Like the other 5,000 students, I was–and still am–crazy about all things aerospace. Like everyone else, I looked forward to Space Shuttle launches. The faculty often let us out of class early so we could watch the launches from campus: we were about 30 miles downrange from the launch pad. (Of course, night launches were the coolest to watch!)

Only this time we were very surprised that NASA would bother to launch the Challenger. You see, it had been the coldest night of the year. The temperature had dipped below freezing. In fact, at launch time, the temperature was 34 degrees (Fahrenheit).

Unfortunately, as we would find out, the O-rings on the solid rocket boosters were only designed for a minimum launch temperature of 40 degrees.

Because managers overrode engineers, astronauts Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Greg Jarvis, Judith Resnik, and Christa McAuliffe would die less than two minutes into their mission.

If you weren’t watching the close-up footage on television, things looked weird from 30 miles downrange. From our vantage point, an inexperienced watcher would not have immediately realized something had gone terribly wrong. The boosters appeared to have separated. But where was the shuttle????

Reality quickly sunk in among all of us: the Challenger exploded! At 73 seconds, the Shuttle was travelling at a hypersonic speed (about mach 9) when the O-ring failed on the right booster. In fact, the Shuttle was experiencing maximum dynamic pressure, commonly known as “max Q”. Even if the crew had an escape capsule, we figured there was almost no way they would have survived. (However, it was later determined–reported in Aviation Week and Space Technology–that at least one of the crew–Michael Smith–was alive when the crew compartment hit the ocean.)

Within minutes, the sky lit up with the contrails of search aircraft. We all filed into the University Center to watch the developments on television. Seeing the footage on television convinced us that this was a complete disaster.

That event would define the Spring 1986 semester for many of us at Embry-Riddle.

I still wear that mission pin on my jacket.