Recently released is a home movie taken some 70 miles from the launch site.
Optometrist Dr. Jack Moss, however, was playing with his new Betamax camcorder that chilly January morning, and recorded the sad event from his front yard in Winter Haven, Florida, about 70 miles southwest of Cape Canaveral.
Moss had never shared the tape with the media or NASA, but a week before he died this past December, he fished it out of his attic and handed it over to the Space Exploration Archive, a non-profit organization in Louisville, Kentucky. The Archive transferred the video to digital formats and released it to the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the disaster this past week.
The distance gives it a perspective I’ve not seen before.
For those of you younguns to young to remember Challenger, it was… a hell of a thing. The Shuttle program was still young enough, and the whole Teacher In Space interesting enough, that many schoolkids across the nation were plopped in front of TVs to watch it. I, however, was not one of those… I was in history class. But when it happened, someone in the main office has the presence of mind to turn the PA system on and put the mike next to a TV. When we heard “the Shuttle has exploded,” the history teacher made no effort to stop three or four of us who bolted out the door, heading to the library (the one place where we knew there was a TV). As memory serves, I managed to maintain composure until I got home that afternoon, whereupon all pretence of emotional control failed me utterly.
History occasionally tosses those “You’ll always remember where you were when…” events at you. For me there are three… Challenger, Columbia, 9/11. Earlier generations had MLK/JFK/RFK assassinations, Pearl Harbor, the Moon landing, Hindenburg, VE and VJ Days. Seems like the majority of such events are Bad News, or, at best, the End Of Bad News. Few enough are Amazingly Good Events.
7 Responses to “Previously unseen Challenger explosion video”
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I still remember the Chicago Bears had won the Superbowl only a week before and everyone was excited about the game until the Challenger blew up a week later,which of course ruined the mood
Challenger (in aero structures lab at USU), Reagan getting shot (jr high english class), 9/11 (woke up to a ringing phone after sleeping off a late night of “crunch time” at work).
Sitting on the edge of bed, waiting to watch the launch before leaving for work. Shock. Called my boss and told him. “So?”
Totally blew my confidence in technology for years. Still skittish to fly. Lots of great people who do their jobs can be erased by one idiot who says, “Bend the rules.”
I was at work (data base for a power system control computer). The launches were always on at least one TV in every office, and that morning I got a call from Ken Rankin, a British engineer with whom I had worked years before. We were concerned about the freezing. I suggested that the fuel or the casing might crack, and the whole would explode. He agreed. We didn’t know to whom we might address our concerns, and in any case we trusted the engineers there to see the potential that was obvious to us. What happened “shook us to the core,” as the Brits say.
Michael – dear God, that’s awful.
9/11 in my high school band class. The TV wasn’t on and the rumor going around the room wasn’t too clear; all I remember hearing was that some buildings had been bombed or something. Then I went up to the library after class and got a look at the pictures. I lived in the city of Chicago at the time, so they were evacuating the Sears tower.
Columbia at home. I was at the top of the stairs and my mother said, “One of the shuttles just exploded.” Ran to the computer and started looking for news. A few days later, the principal called for a moment of silence, but used the wrong shuttle name. He came back on the intercom to correct himself a second later, but I was still mad.
July 20, 1969… I was 6 years old, I remember my Dad telling me to sit down in front of the television and watch history being made. I skipped school for every subsequent launch.
Reagan getting shot… was in the library at high school… a girl ran in while I was studying with some friends screaming the President has been shot.
Challenger… was in Wiesbaden Germany watching, of all things, the Today Show on NBC. Armed Forces Network was carrying it… I had just got home from work and Jane Pauley was starting an interview with Pat Benetar. The interview quit in mid-sentence… and NBC put up a picture of the sky… and I can remember the contrails. I thought what the hell and then remembered the Challenger was taking off that day.
9-11… had to go to the dentist that day. My wife got a call from one of her friends… the gal told her to turn on the TV. I turned on the TV and 15 seconds later I saw the plane that hit the south tower of the WTC. A ‘WTF’ moment if there ever was one.
Columbia… believe it was on a Saturday. Was watching the news… and they cut in with the unbelieveable shots over Texas… the Shuttle had broke apart. Couldn’t believe it.
Columbia—
sitting by Mono Lake in California. Had planned to get up and see it pass over just a few miles to the north, but it was cold and I was tired. 30 minutes later sitting in my car waiting for sunrise I turned on the radio and heard mission control and “contingency” uttered and the rest of the world ceased to matter as I listened for what had happened.