[knoegel]

Hopefully Lockheed Martin finishes up their fusion reactor as soon as they say they will.

Fusion reactors can be very compact (fits on a truck and power 100,000 homes), extremely safe, and produce ZERO emissions... all while producing 6-8 times more power than a fission reactor.

Can't wait to see spacecraft equipped with these so astronauts don't have to fly on the back of massive bombs that explode when something goes slightly wrong.

Here's their website/video if you're interested and/or have nothing better to do. They don't talk about how we are going to use it to kill people but I'm sure they're brewing up some way to militarize it.

[40043mo]

Originally Posted by Barberp ↗

They died as result of a lack of oxygen not from a blast or fire. There were safety measures abord the shuttle that kept these elements out of the cockpit. however the air pressure released upon the expolosion and they passed out from the sudden change.

According to reports, several of the Shuttle Challenger crew activated their emergency oxygen immediately after the main tank exploded and were alive, and maybe even conscious, until the crew cabin impacted the ocean surface after 2:45 minutes of free fall.

Here is a photo that includes the crew cabin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#/media/File:Challenger_breakup.jpg

And a close up of the crew cabin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#/media/File:Challenger_breakup_cabin.jpg

At least some of the crew were likely alive and at least briefly conscious after the breakup, as three of the four recovered Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAPs) on the flight deck were found to have been activated. Investigators found their remaining unused air supply roughly consistent with the expected consumption during the 2 minute 45 second post-breakup trajectory.
While analyzing the wreckage, investigators discovered that several electrical system switches on Pilot Mike Smith's right-hand panel had been moved from their usual launch positions. Fellow astronaut Richard Mullane wrote, "These switches were protected with lever locks that required them to be pulled outward against a spring force before they could be moved to a new position." Later tests established that neither force of the explosion nor the impact with the ocean could have moved them, indicating that Smith made the switch changes, presumably in a futile attempt to restore electrical power to the cockpit after the crew cabin detached from the rest of the orbiter.[25]
Whether the crew members remained conscious long after the breakup is unknown, and largely depends on whether the detached crew cabin maintained pressure integrity. If it did not, the time of useful consciousness at that altitude is just a few seconds; the PEAPs supplied only unpressurized air, and hence would not have helped the crew to retain consciousness. If, on the other hand, the cabin was not depressurized or only slowly depressurizing, the astronauts may have been conscious for the entire fall until impact.

[kasapin]

it was all NASAs fault... just because they couldn't postpone it any more .. too much live audience... too much pressure to launch that day. People need to remember that.

[jbecker]

I heard on the radio today that Sesame Street's Big Bird was also supposed to be on that flight, but the outfit was too large for the cabin. I just looked it up online and apparently it's true. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.2212240

[LuckiiDevil21]

I was in third grade when this happened. We were watching it on TV in the classroom and I knew what happened right away

[Swish1892]

The new documentary on Netflix is worth a watch

[techfreak76]

Go and Throttle up. That was the last Word from the Groundstation and then you hear Static Noises in the Radio.
I remember that Day. I came home from School and see this Picture on the Newspaper and i knew instantly "The Nasa Mission failes".

[Patriotpride16t]

St. John Neumann HS Junior going to my 6th period Biology class, Mr. D’Orazio

[mothmon]

The thing I most remember was how the jubilant crowd, including the schoolteacher's parents, were being taped by ABC cameras, then when the shuttle exploded, they're all still cheering and applauding because they had no idea it had exploded and thought it was just one of the boosters dropping off or something Then Peter Jennings gives a step-by-step commentary later that day showing the footage of Christa's parents looking up into the sky, ecstatically happy expressions on their faces (they didn't know it exploded), and Jennings mistakes those expressions for something else and says dramatically, "And then the horror on their faces as they realized what just happened!" and it was just their happy, oblivious, smiling faces that he mistook for grimaces of anguish. He was completely clueless

It's not funny about the tragedy but it was funny seeing ABC get it so wrong. It was like the famous prank call ("I see O-jay! and Baba booey to you all!") during the OJ Simpson chase with ABC and Peter Jennings being dumbasses.