1
00:00:06,881 --> 00:00:08,883
[woman] There it goes.
I see it in between the trees.

2
00:00:08,967 --> 00:00:11,511
[man] There it goes. It's comin'
way over top the trees, isn't it?

3
00:00:11,594 --> 00:00:13,596
-[woman] Uh-huh.
-[man] That's brighter than usual.

4
00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:14,723
[woman] Yeah, it is.

5
00:00:14,806 --> 00:00:16,975
-[man] Well, that's it. Oh, yeah!
-[woman] Yeah!

6
00:00:17,058 --> 00:00:19,436
-Right over those trees!
-[man 2] Oh, yeah, there it is.

7
00:00:19,519 --> 00:00:21,980
[man] I don't remember it being
that bright and big.

8
00:00:22,063 --> 00:00:22,981
[woman] I don't either.

9
00:00:23,064 --> 00:00:26,109
[man] What was that part?
That must've been one of the boosters.

10
00:00:26,192 --> 00:00:29,529
[woman] Oh, look! There's two.
It's going off into two--

11
00:00:29,612 --> 00:00:31,698
[man] Hey, is that trouble, or not?

12
00:00:31,781 --> 00:00:32,615
[man 2] What?

13
00:00:32,699 --> 00:00:34,492
[man]
They're not having trouble, are they?

14
00:00:34,576 --> 00:00:37,370
[man 2] I don't know!
I ain't never seen anything like that.

15
00:00:37,454 --> 00:00:41,207
[man] That didn't look right.
That's trouble of some kind, George.

16
00:00:41,291 --> 00:00:42,959
[George] I don't know.

17
00:00:43,043 --> 00:00:44,586
[man] They got troubles!

18
00:00:51,968 --> 00:00:53,970
[theme music playing]

19
00:01:56,282 --> 00:01:58,284
[overlapping murmurs and chatter]

20
00:02:00,662 --> 00:02:05,083
[operator] Again, I repeat, we have
a report that the vehicle has exploded.

21
00:02:05,166 --> 00:02:07,168
[people sobbing and crying]

22
00:02:07,752 --> 00:02:10,296
[Lisa Bristol] Listening to the announcer,

23
00:02:10,380 --> 00:02:13,633
that's when we knew something
really horrible had happened.

24
00:02:15,009 --> 00:02:16,928
That there's no going back.

25
00:02:18,513 --> 00:02:19,472
That…

26
00:02:23,059 --> 00:02:25,103
That it probably wasn't survivable.

27
00:02:31,401 --> 00:02:34,320
[June Scobee Rodgers]
Christa's husband, Steve McAuliffe,

28
00:02:34,404 --> 00:02:35,947
his eyes met mine.

29
00:02:37,532 --> 00:02:38,825
I didn't have an answer.

30
00:02:39,868 --> 00:02:43,163
My son, who was
a pilot engineer himself…

31
00:02:44,998 --> 00:02:46,166
We didn't have answers.

32
00:02:48,418 --> 00:02:49,919
And I turned and kept looking.

33
00:02:50,003 --> 00:02:52,088
And I thought,
"This is not gonna be good."

34
00:02:52,547 --> 00:02:55,341
But, I said,
"They're okay, they're trained to land.

35
00:02:55,425 --> 00:03:00,513
They're trained for emergencies.
They'll go land over here. It'll be okay."

36
00:03:01,181 --> 00:03:03,224
[Marcia Jarvis]
I remember Rich Scobee said,

37
00:03:03,308 --> 00:03:06,519
"If there's any way my dad can
get everybody out of it, he will."

38
00:03:07,395 --> 00:03:10,565
He had total confidence
in Dick to do that.

39
00:03:11,816 --> 00:03:15,195
[Barbara Morgan] I remember coming down
and just running as quickly as I could

40
00:03:15,278 --> 00:03:18,907
'cause I wanted to reach the crew quarters
to help out the families.

41
00:03:21,034 --> 00:03:23,912
I was just saying, "Dick, Mike,

42
00:03:23,995 --> 00:03:28,625
El, Ron, Judy, Greg, Christa."

43
00:03:28,708 --> 00:03:31,044
That's-- that's what
was going through my mind.

44
00:03:31,127 --> 00:03:33,796
Fido, can we get any reports
from recovery forces?

45
00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:35,048
[operator] Stand by.

46
00:03:36,758 --> 00:03:41,638
We'd had no idea if the orbiter was
intact, we had no idea where it was,

47
00:03:42,430 --> 00:03:45,099
or what it might…
What kind of condition it might be in.

48
00:03:45,683 --> 00:03:48,811
I never even tried to make a call
to the Challenger crew.

49
00:03:49,771 --> 00:03:51,731
We had no way of helping.

50
00:03:55,902 --> 00:04:00,531
[operator] We are now looking
at all the contingency operations

51
00:04:01,324 --> 00:04:05,370
and awaiting word from any recovery forces
in the downrange field.

52
00:04:07,580 --> 00:04:09,958
[William Harwood]
Staring out at that contrail,

53
00:04:10,541 --> 00:04:13,336
I just felt tears start welling up.

54
00:04:14,337 --> 00:04:18,716
And I remember having to really
grip my legs hard

55
00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:21,302
and say, "Leave this.
Think about this later."

56
00:04:21,386 --> 00:04:24,013
And I, you know, kinda shook my head
and started typing again.

57
00:04:26,683 --> 00:04:31,062
[woman] When the Challenger exploded,
none of us knew.

58
00:04:31,145 --> 00:04:35,400
We weren't savvy in what
it was supposed to look like.

59
00:04:36,693 --> 00:04:40,238
A teacher started yelling,
"Stop! It exploded!"

60
00:04:40,947 --> 00:04:42,824
And then it was just, like, a hush.

61
00:04:50,456 --> 00:04:55,545
[Leslie Serna] We all just sat there
in awe about what had taken place.

62
00:04:56,337 --> 00:04:59,590
Dad put his hand in his face

63
00:04:59,674 --> 00:05:03,469
and sobbed, sobbed, and sobbed.

64
00:05:04,846 --> 00:05:08,850
[Russell] I noticed in front of the room,
that the senior engineer got up and left.

65
00:05:08,933 --> 00:05:14,188
And I left a little bit after him.
And I went down to his-- his, uh…

66
00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:22,613
I went down to his office,
and he was in tears.

67
00:05:22,697 --> 00:05:24,115
And I was in tears.

68
00:05:24,198 --> 00:05:29,203
And it seemed that there was no question
in either one of our minds that, uh…

69
00:05:29,287 --> 00:05:32,165
that what we had feared had come to pass.

70
00:05:32,248 --> 00:05:35,460
And we just felt terrible about it.

71
00:05:42,091 --> 00:05:44,844
[reporter] There's Larry Speakes
in the White House Briefing Room.

72
00:05:44,927 --> 00:05:48,639
The President is concerned.
He is saddened.

73
00:05:48,723 --> 00:05:52,935
{\an8}He is, uh, very anxious to have
more information on it.

74
00:05:53,019 --> 00:05:54,228
{\an8}At the moment, as I say,

75
00:05:54,312 --> 00:05:58,524
{\an8}we're learning most of our information
from what the public is getting.

76
00:05:58,608 --> 00:05:59,776
[crowd clamoring]

77
00:05:59,859 --> 00:06:02,362
[John Zarrella] In unison,
everybody takes off

78
00:06:02,445 --> 00:06:04,364
and runs towards the press dome,

79
00:06:04,947 --> 00:06:07,658
which is where
the NASA public affairs folks are.

80
00:06:10,328 --> 00:06:15,416
By the time I get there, I mean,
it's an absolute chaotic…

81
00:06:15,500 --> 00:06:19,629
event going on and nobody knowing
what to do or what to say.

82
00:06:19,712 --> 00:06:21,714
And NASA public affairs was, like…

83
00:06:23,383 --> 00:06:25,676
Nobody planned for anything like this.

84
00:06:33,935 --> 00:06:37,522
[June] They took us on a bus
to the crew quarters.

85
00:06:39,065 --> 00:06:44,404
And, sitting in that bus,
we stopped at a stop light.

86
00:06:46,572 --> 00:06:51,285
Around me, everywhere on the streets,
people were parked,

87
00:06:52,370 --> 00:06:55,748
out of their cars on major thoroughfares.

88
00:06:56,541 --> 00:06:59,669
Some people were
at the steering wheels, weeping.

89
00:07:00,128 --> 00:07:03,798
[voice trembling] Some people were out
banging on the hood of their cars.

90
00:07:04,590 --> 00:07:09,679
I knew-- I knew something really,
really bad had happened.

91
00:07:16,936 --> 00:07:21,399
[Tom Brokaw] There are rescue ships
and other vehicles now, other helicopters,

92
00:07:21,482 --> 00:07:24,527
other vessels are attempting
to find out what they can.

93
00:07:25,236 --> 00:07:27,447
The silence is deafening.

94
00:07:27,530 --> 00:07:31,367
There is no word from NASA,
no word from the rescue vehicles,

95
00:07:31,951 --> 00:07:35,413
no word whatsoever
on what may have happened.

96
00:07:35,496 --> 00:07:37,540
[indistinct clamoring]

97
00:07:37,623 --> 00:07:41,335
[Harwood] First thing everybody wanted
to  know was what caused the accident.

98
00:07:41,419 --> 00:07:46,174
So it was a mad rush to try to get experts
to tell you what could've gone wrong,

99
00:07:46,257 --> 00:07:47,800
what are some of the likely candidates.

100
00:07:48,468 --> 00:07:50,178
[Tom Brokaw] In slow-motion now.

101
00:07:52,054 --> 00:07:56,976
To my eye, at least, it appears that
the entire external tank just came apart.

102
00:07:57,477 --> 00:08:01,230
[man] Well, if I had to hazard a guess,
I'd say something with the main engine,

103
00:08:01,314 --> 00:08:04,150
{\an8}since that would be the high probability,
but that could be totally wrong,

104
00:08:04,233 --> 00:08:07,904
{\an8}and it'll take a lot of numbers crunching
and data analysis to really sort it out.

105
00:08:07,987 --> 00:08:11,199
It was what, uh, engineers call
a catastrophic failure.

106
00:08:11,282 --> 00:08:13,326
Several things had to go wrong at once,

107
00:08:13,409 --> 00:08:16,412
and from the looks of those tapes,
that was certainly the case.

108
00:08:16,496 --> 00:08:19,916
The shuttle had a telemetry stream
that was really unbelievable.

109
00:08:19,999 --> 00:08:22,627
I mean, they had enormous amounts of data

110
00:08:22,710 --> 00:08:25,296
all the way up to the moment
they lost the orbiter.

111
00:08:25,379 --> 00:08:28,925
So we were waiting for NASA to tell
because they must know

112
00:08:29,008 --> 00:08:31,219
what happened,
or have a pretty darn good idea.

113
00:08:31,969 --> 00:08:36,224
[operator] J.C., all operators,
contingency procedures in effect.

114
00:08:37,517 --> 00:08:40,353
[Frederick Gregory]
They locked the doors to keep people out.

115
00:08:40,436 --> 00:08:43,231
And then,
for the next four or five hours,

116
00:08:43,314 --> 00:08:47,818
we sat there and tried to go back
through everything we'd seen,

117
00:08:47,902 --> 00:08:50,321
just trying to figure out
if there had been

118
00:08:50,404 --> 00:08:52,865
anything that we could have seen
and prevented.

119
00:08:55,284 --> 00:08:57,620
[Covey]  We had to collect
all the documentation

120
00:08:57,703 --> 00:08:59,205
of everything that we had done, said,

121
00:08:59,288 --> 00:09:02,667
or thought, or knew before
we could leave the control center.

122
00:09:02,750 --> 00:09:05,670
[operator 2]
Okay, everybody, stay off the telephones,

123
00:09:05,753 --> 00:09:09,173
make sure you maintain all your data,
start pulling it together.

124
00:09:11,300 --> 00:09:15,596
{\an8}[Allan McDonald] The first comment came by
was that "anybody that's at a console

125
00:09:15,680 --> 00:09:19,350
must not change the screen.
It must be left where it's at."

126
00:09:19,433 --> 00:09:24,605
And that all of this data is
going to be treated as secret-level.

127
00:09:24,689 --> 00:09:28,818
No one can leave the room.
Not even to go to the bathroom.

128
00:09:29,777 --> 00:09:31,821
No one can use a telephone.

129
00:09:32,405 --> 00:09:34,115
And they made it very clear

130
00:09:34,198 --> 00:09:36,325
that no one should be talking
to the press.

131
00:09:39,704 --> 00:09:43,541
[June] We pulled up to crew quarters.
We all stepped into the lobby,

132
00:09:44,166 --> 00:09:49,505
and there was the announcers for NASA.
NASA reporting.

133
00:09:51,132 --> 00:09:55,636
And, you know, it's obvious… They were
saying it was an obvious disaster.

134
00:09:55,720 --> 00:10:00,391
Obvious total loss
of the orbiter, the crew.

135
00:10:01,267 --> 00:10:02,101
"Obvious."

136
00:10:02,810 --> 00:10:03,853
Um…

137
00:10:05,271 --> 00:10:06,731
[sniffles] And…

138
00:10:09,609 --> 00:10:11,110
that was confirming.

139
00:10:13,362 --> 00:10:16,449
I knew… they were all gone.

140
00:10:17,950 --> 00:10:21,245
Not all the crew members' families
really understood

141
00:10:21,329 --> 00:10:23,623
that their crew member
is not coming back,

142
00:10:23,706 --> 00:10:27,209
even though that was pretty obvious.
But not all of them understood that.

143
00:10:27,293 --> 00:10:31,422
I had seen Ron come through
difficult times before

144
00:10:31,505 --> 00:10:34,592
and I, for some reason, um…

145
00:10:36,093 --> 00:10:39,263
Yeah, I thought
he was gonna make it somehow.

146
00:10:41,015 --> 00:10:44,852
[June] The NASA official, George Abbey,

147
00:10:45,686 --> 00:10:48,481
came out and looked at all of us,

148
00:10:49,690 --> 00:10:54,028
including parents, and children,
all brought together in the same room…

149
00:10:57,198 --> 00:11:02,244
and he said, "No one could've survived.
No one could have survived."

150
00:11:04,205 --> 00:11:06,248
I had heard that and I remember just…

151
00:11:06,332 --> 00:11:10,169
[voice breaking] …like, hyperventilating,
'cause, up to that point, I thought,

152
00:11:10,252 --> 00:11:12,672
"Well, surely they're--" I mean,
here's me, like, optimi--

153
00:11:12,755 --> 00:11:14,840
"Surely, they're floating somewhere.

154
00:11:14,924 --> 00:11:17,927
Like, surely somebody figured out
how to get them out of there."

155
00:11:19,387 --> 00:11:21,806
[crying] This wasn't how
it was supposed to be.

156
00:11:22,848 --> 00:11:24,850
This wasn't the end of the story.

157
00:11:25,976 --> 00:11:28,646
Well, the doctor said, "Can I give you
something for your nerves?"

158
00:11:28,729 --> 00:11:32,108
And I told her, "I am not nervous.

159
00:11:32,191 --> 00:11:35,236
If you give me something for heartbreak,
I will take it.

160
00:11:36,487 --> 00:11:37,613
I will take it.

161
00:11:38,864 --> 00:11:40,825
But I'm not nervous."

162
00:11:40,908 --> 00:11:46,622
I went into Dick's room by myself,
so that they couldn't see me.

163
00:11:47,123 --> 00:11:51,752
And I reached over to his closet,
where his clothes were hanging,

164
00:11:53,713 --> 00:11:57,174
and hugged his clothes,
all hanging in that closet.

165
00:11:59,885 --> 00:12:02,638
And picked up his briefcase and opened it.

166
00:12:03,764 --> 00:12:06,892
I saw his astronomy maps

167
00:12:08,310 --> 00:12:10,104
and I saw a Valentine card,

168
00:12:11,731 --> 00:12:12,857
"To my wife."

169
00:12:16,068 --> 00:12:21,157
January the 28th, he was already prepared
to come home and give me a Valentine.

170
00:12:23,784 --> 00:12:25,786
[shuddered breathing]

171
00:12:35,421 --> 00:12:38,716
[reporter] Mr. Vice President, can you
tell us further details about the shuttle?

172
00:12:38,799 --> 00:12:42,845
-Were you briefed on this?
-No. No more than anyone else knows.

173
00:12:42,970 --> 00:12:45,389
-A terrible tragedy.
-[reporter] How would you react to this?

174
00:12:45,473 --> 00:12:49,852
[Bush] Great concern for the families.
I really don't have any detail on it.

175
00:12:49,935 --> 00:12:53,189
Vice President Bush flew down
to the Cape to meet with family members

176
00:12:53,272 --> 00:12:57,401
that same day, along with Jake Garn, who
had flown on the space shuttle earlier.

177
00:12:58,277 --> 00:13:04,200
[Marcia] Jake Garn was a senator from Utah
who bumped Greg from his first flight.

178
00:13:05,117 --> 00:13:08,621
So that was hard for me to see
Senator Garn there.

179
00:13:08,704 --> 00:13:12,416
At that time, I think…
I believe I walked out of the room.

180
00:13:13,542 --> 00:13:15,753
[Jesse Moore] I regret
that I have to report,

181
00:13:16,295 --> 00:13:21,133
{\an8}that based on very preliminary searches
of the ocean where the Challenger

182
00:13:21,217 --> 00:13:22,802
{\an8}impacted this morning…

183
00:13:23,886 --> 00:13:27,264
{\an8}these searches have not revealed
any evidence

184
00:13:27,348 --> 00:13:29,892
that the crew of Challenger survived.

185
00:13:41,612 --> 00:13:46,784
The American space shuttle Challenger
exploded 60 seconds into its flight.

186
00:13:46,867 --> 00:13:48,369
…obliterated the shuttle Challenger--

187
00:13:48,536 --> 00:13:50,079
[speaking French]

188
00:13:50,162 --> 00:13:51,455
[speaking Russian]

189
00:13:51,539 --> 00:13:53,249
{\an8}[speaking Japanese]

190
00:13:53,332 --> 00:13:55,042
[speaking Spanish]

191
00:13:55,125 --> 00:13:57,211
{\an8}[speaking German]

192
00:13:57,878 --> 00:14:00,881
[man] My heart sort of stopped beating,
you know, just feel for the families,

193
00:14:00,965 --> 00:14:04,051
you know, 'cause that school teacher,
you know, was involved in it and,

194
00:14:04,134 --> 00:14:06,846
you know, it's just a really,
you know, terrible thing to happen.

195
00:14:06,929 --> 00:14:10,307
Seven really brilliant and beautiful
people got killed.

196
00:14:10,391 --> 00:14:11,767
I was shocked.

197
00:14:11,851 --> 00:14:15,604
Reminded me a lot of
President Kennedy's death in '63.

198
00:14:15,688 --> 00:14:19,525
I don't know where the analogy comes,
but it was a national tragedy.

199
00:14:20,359 --> 00:14:23,279
[man 2]
Many schools had broadcast the launch,

200
00:14:23,362 --> 00:14:26,574
and it was horrible for the kids.

201
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:30,077
[Peter Billingsly]
We felt connected to it.

202
00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:33,664
Like, "That's us! That's a teacher!"
We were invested.

203
00:14:34,874 --> 00:14:37,167
And for many,
it was the first dealing of death.

204
00:14:38,002 --> 00:14:40,838
It was somewhat of a loss of innocence.

205
00:14:41,422 --> 00:14:43,591
[softly] Just…
She was just really special.

206
00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:45,801
It's hard.

207
00:14:45,885 --> 00:14:47,928
Well, I was really amazed to see it

208
00:14:48,012 --> 00:14:51,599
'cause I never thought an explosion
would really ever happen.

209
00:14:51,682 --> 00:14:53,559
{\an8}I felt as if, um,

210
00:14:53,642 --> 00:14:56,437
{\an8}my whole body blew up
inside when I saw that.

211
00:14:57,021 --> 00:15:00,524
And I can, just,
never be as shocked as I am now.

212
00:15:19,543 --> 00:15:22,588
[Brokaw] The real question that
remains to be answered, of course, is,

213
00:15:22,671 --> 00:15:26,008
was there some kind of incompetence
on the part of those people

214
00:15:26,091 --> 00:15:28,218
who are charged
with the Space Shuttle Program?

215
00:15:28,302 --> 00:15:31,680
The American public will
be demanding some difficult answers

216
00:15:31,764 --> 00:15:34,725
to some difficult questions,
and of course we'll all have to examine

217
00:15:34,808 --> 00:15:37,937
what it is that we want
from this era of high technology.

218
00:15:39,271 --> 00:15:42,191
[Ronald Reagan] Ladies and gentlemen,
I'd planned to speak to you tonight

219
00:15:42,274 --> 00:15:43,692
to report on the State of the Union.

220
00:15:44,860 --> 00:15:48,656
But the events of earlier today
have led me to change those plans.

221
00:15:49,281 --> 00:15:51,909
Today is a day for mourning
and remembering.

222
00:15:52,910 --> 00:15:54,161
Nancy and I are pained

223
00:15:54,244 --> 00:15:56,705
to the core over the tragedy
of the shuttle Challenger.

224
00:15:56,789 --> 00:16:01,001
We know we share this pain
with all of the people of our country.

225
00:16:01,085 --> 00:16:03,253
This is truly a national loss.

226
00:16:04,338 --> 00:16:06,090
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger

227
00:16:06,173 --> 00:16:08,801
honored us with the manner
in which they lived their lives.

228
00:16:09,468 --> 00:16:12,972
We will never forget them,
nor the last time we saw them,

229
00:16:13,055 --> 00:16:17,476
this morning, as they prepared
for their journey and waved goodbye,

230
00:16:18,018 --> 00:16:23,065
and slipped the surly bonds of Earth
to touch the face of God.

231
00:16:24,525 --> 00:16:25,651
Thank you.

232
00:16:33,909 --> 00:16:38,455
We set up a review board to talk
about what could've caused it.

233
00:16:39,123 --> 00:16:40,708
And nobody seemed to know.

234
00:16:41,375 --> 00:16:44,003
And finally some photography
became available.

235
00:16:45,004 --> 00:16:50,926
{\an8}NASA's STS-51L investigation board
today released photographic data

236
00:16:51,010 --> 00:16:54,221
of the STS-51L system during its ascent.

237
00:16:54,972 --> 00:16:58,350
They observed what appears
to be an unexpected change,

238
00:16:58,434 --> 00:17:04,648
seen as an unusual plume in the lower
part of the right SRB area of the system.

239
00:17:05,566 --> 00:17:07,484
The cause is still unknown,

240
00:17:07,568 --> 00:17:12,573
and neither the board nor NASA
will speculate as to the cause or effects

241
00:17:12,656 --> 00:17:18,704
of this observation until all data
has been carefully studied and evaluated.

242
00:17:18,787 --> 00:17:21,540
[reporter] By "unusual plume,"
do you mean to say "flame"?

243
00:17:21,623 --> 00:17:27,254
No… The, uh-- the board said
"an unusual plume," and the, uh…

244
00:17:27,337 --> 00:17:31,133
and that's what the,
you know, statement says.

245
00:17:31,216 --> 00:17:35,763
NASA was so tight-lipped
about it that the briefer that they put up

246
00:17:35,846 --> 00:17:38,390
wasn't allowed to call it "flame."

247
00:17:38,474 --> 00:17:40,225
It was an "anomalous plume."

248
00:17:41,143 --> 00:17:43,687
And I remember watching that video,

249
00:17:43,771 --> 00:17:46,398
in which there is a very clear
jet of flame.

250
00:17:47,149 --> 00:17:49,902
You could see it start small
and get bigger.

251
00:17:49,985 --> 00:17:52,237
It was clearly a burn-through
in the booster.

252
00:17:53,113 --> 00:17:54,990
[reporter 2] Can you elaborate at all

253
00:17:55,074 --> 00:17:57,618
on what was unusual
or abnormal about this plume?

254
00:17:57,701 --> 00:18:01,163
Its location or when it showed up,
or what is the unusual aspect?

255
00:18:01,246 --> 00:18:03,832
The statement of the board
is it's an "unusual plume."

256
00:18:03,916 --> 00:18:06,919
And that's, you know, all that I have.

257
00:18:08,545 --> 00:18:13,509
{\an8}NASA was issuing a lot
of extraordinarily general answers

258
00:18:13,592 --> 00:18:15,761
{\an8}to highly specific questions.

259
00:18:15,844 --> 00:18:18,764
And usually when that happens,
it means one of two things:

260
00:18:18,847 --> 00:18:22,392
either the people you're asking
the question to don't know,

261
00:18:22,476 --> 00:18:25,479
or the people you're asking
the question to do know,

262
00:18:25,562 --> 00:18:28,023
and they're trying to keep you away
from the specifics.

263
00:18:28,107 --> 00:18:30,192
[reporter 3]
Would it be logical for us to assume

264
00:18:30,275 --> 00:18:33,737
the focus of the investigation,
at this point, is trying to determine

265
00:18:33,821 --> 00:18:36,657
what caused that plume
and what effect it had on the explosion?

266
00:18:37,282 --> 00:18:38,617
Yes and no.

267
00:18:38,700 --> 00:18:41,662
The board is looking at that area,

268
00:18:41,745 --> 00:18:44,540
but they're also looking
at a lot of other areas.

269
00:18:45,290 --> 00:18:49,503
[David Sanger] It seemed to us that
there could well be deflection under way.

270
00:18:50,003 --> 00:18:54,383
NASA was zeroing in on there being
a problem with the solid boosters.

271
00:18:54,466 --> 00:18:57,970
But we were told
we couldn't offer something up

272
00:18:58,053 --> 00:18:59,888
that they didn't want to release.

273
00:18:59,972 --> 00:19:01,557
We were circling the wagons.

274
00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:04,643
Management was a little frightened,
and didn't want to deal with it.

275
00:19:05,227 --> 00:19:07,980
And, of course, when you blow up
a three billion dollar orbiter

276
00:19:08,063 --> 00:19:11,150
and kill seven people on live television,

277
00:19:11,233 --> 00:19:14,486
it's not gonna wait two or three months
for an investigation. It's just not.

278
00:19:14,570 --> 00:19:17,739
That's just human nature.
Everybody wanted to know what happened.

279
00:19:17,823 --> 00:19:21,201
-[program music playing]
-[announcer] From CBS News Washington,

280
00:19:21,285 --> 00:19:24,538
Face the Nation with White House
Correspondent Lesley Stahl.

281
00:19:24,621 --> 00:19:28,250
We spoke with the acting head of NASA,
Dr. William Graham, this morning

282
00:19:28,333 --> 00:19:31,545
{\an8}about that flame that appeared
in the right booster rocket

283
00:19:31,628 --> 00:19:33,672
15 seconds before the shuttle exploded.

284
00:19:33,755 --> 00:19:36,425
Can you just give us
a succinct explanation of

285
00:19:37,092 --> 00:19:41,805
how it was possible
that no one picked up this plume?

286
00:19:41,889 --> 00:19:47,186
[Graham] These very heavy steel casings
that constitute the, uh, structure

287
00:19:47,269 --> 00:19:50,981
of these solid rocket boosters
are considered primary structure

288
00:19:51,064 --> 00:19:52,733
and not susceptible to failure.

289
00:19:53,650 --> 00:19:55,402
Of course, we designed them that way.

290
00:19:55,485 --> 00:19:58,780
It wasn't just a chance
that they're not susceptible,

291
00:19:58,864 --> 00:20:00,324
or we thought them not susceptible,

292
00:20:00,407 --> 00:20:03,535
but they were designed
with great care and great thought

293
00:20:03,619 --> 00:20:06,496
and everything we could do
to keep them from having any--

294
00:20:06,580 --> 00:20:08,332
[coughs] Excuse me, any failure modes.

295
00:20:09,708 --> 00:20:13,045
[Richard Cook]
I saw William Graham on Face the Nation

296
00:20:13,587 --> 00:20:17,716
saying that the solid rocket boosters
were primary hardware

297
00:20:17,799 --> 00:20:19,343
not susceptible to failure.

298
00:20:20,844 --> 00:20:24,139
The same day, the photograph was
published in the press

299
00:20:24,223 --> 00:20:28,352
of a flame coming out the side
of the solid rocket booster.

300
00:20:31,855 --> 00:20:36,235
I was also told by one of the engineers,
whose memo I had gotten,

301
00:20:36,818 --> 00:20:38,570
not to show that to Graham.

302
00:20:39,404 --> 00:20:42,199
And it seemed to me
that people from NASA were keeping

303
00:20:42,282 --> 00:20:45,911
the knowledge of O-ring erosion
from the head of the agency.

304
00:20:50,666 --> 00:20:54,211
[Reagan] I am today announcing
the formation of a presidential commission

305
00:20:54,294 --> 00:20:56,380
on the space shuttle
Challenger's accident.

306
00:20:57,130 --> 00:21:01,176
William P. Rogers, former Secretary
of State and former Attorney General,

307
00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:03,095
will serve as chairman of the commission.

308
00:21:03,679 --> 00:21:05,973
[Sanger] Bill Rogers,
an interesting choice

309
00:21:06,056 --> 00:21:09,643
because he was a political figure,
not somebody with any technical knowledge 

310
00:21:09,726 --> 00:21:10,852
of the space program.

311
00:21:12,813 --> 00:21:14,690
He was such an establishment figure,

312
00:21:14,773 --> 00:21:18,568
and we later learned
that Reagan had said to him,

313
00:21:18,652 --> 00:21:22,572
{\an8}"Whatever you do, don't embarrass NASA.

314
00:21:22,656 --> 00:21:25,534
{\an8}They're national heroes.
We're going to need them.

315
00:21:25,617 --> 00:21:27,577
They're going to have to launch again."

316
00:21:28,245 --> 00:21:34,751
{\an8}Ladies and gentlemen, I now would
like to call this first meeting to order.

317
00:21:34,835 --> 00:21:37,462
[Keel] I was the Executive Director
of the Shuttle Commission.

318
00:21:37,546 --> 00:21:39,965
I had several positions
in government prior to that,

319
00:21:40,048 --> 00:21:43,468
{\an8}including Assistant Secretary to
Air Force for Research and Development.

320
00:21:43,552 --> 00:21:45,137
In addition, there were people

321
00:21:45,220 --> 00:21:47,848
like Dr. Sally Ride,
first American woman in space,

322
00:21:47,931 --> 00:21:50,809
Neil Armstrong, first man
to walk on the moon, of course,

323
00:21:50,892 --> 00:21:53,937
{\an8}and Dr. Richard Feynman,
who was a Nobel Laureate.

324
00:21:54,980 --> 00:21:57,983
{\an8}[Sanger] Feynman was
a fascinating addition to the commission.

325
00:22:00,944 --> 00:22:07,576
Here was a scientist who was
known not only as a brilliant lecturer,

326
00:22:07,659 --> 00:22:13,373
but as a man who had been involved
in the creation of the atomic bomb.

327
00:22:14,458 --> 00:22:18,670
He was deeply anti-authority.

328
00:22:19,171 --> 00:22:22,632
If the people in the Swedish Academy
decide that X, Y, or Z

329
00:22:22,716 --> 00:22:24,801
wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.

330
00:22:24,885 --> 00:22:28,221
I won't have anything to do with
the Nobel Prize. It's a pain in the…

331
00:22:28,305 --> 00:22:29,765
[chuckling quietly]

332
00:22:29,848 --> 00:22:33,435
I'm not sure that they understood
any of that when they appointed him.

333
00:22:33,518 --> 00:22:37,481
And it turned out that he had
one great ally on the commission,

334
00:22:37,564 --> 00:22:39,816
and that was General Don Kutyna.

335
00:22:41,777 --> 00:22:44,112
[Kutyna] Feynman and I kinda got close.

336
00:22:44,196 --> 00:22:47,616
{\an8}The first day of the commission,
for the VIPs,

337
00:22:47,699 --> 00:22:50,577
{\an8}everybody had a limo to pick them up.

338
00:22:51,161 --> 00:22:53,080
And he said, "Kutyna, where's your limo?"

339
00:22:53,622 --> 00:22:57,793
And I says,
"I'm just a two-star, I ride the subway."

340
00:22:57,876 --> 00:23:00,712
And he says, "Kutyna, you're all right,"
and patted me on the back.

341
00:23:01,296 --> 00:23:05,967
And from that day on,
he and I rode the subway to meetings

342
00:23:06,051 --> 00:23:08,345
instead of having a limo come pick us up.

343
00:23:09,262 --> 00:23:13,975
I don't think Rogers necessarily wanted
a military guy on the commission.

344
00:23:14,059 --> 00:23:17,729
State and military did not get along.

345
00:23:17,813 --> 00:23:21,358
I think he put up with me during
the commission, and after that,

346
00:23:22,234 --> 00:23:25,529
we did not call each other
or send Christmas cards.

347
00:23:25,612 --> 00:23:27,739
[Rogers] That is our purpose this morning

348
00:23:27,823 --> 00:23:31,410
to be brought up to date on the events
that occurred since the accident.

349
00:23:31,952 --> 00:23:34,704
We will call on NASA officials.

350
00:23:36,039 --> 00:23:40,669
[Sanger] At the beginning, Rogers was
extremely defensive of NASA.

351
00:23:40,752 --> 00:23:44,047
And he gave a lot
of leeway to NASA officials.

352
00:23:44,131 --> 00:23:46,466
{\an8}I had not planned to focus
on any particular area.

353
00:23:46,550 --> 00:23:48,301
{\an8}And that's why
I'm not prepared to do that.

354
00:23:48,385 --> 00:23:49,928
{\an8}[Rogers] Yeah. We can come back to that.

355
00:23:50,011 --> 00:23:54,850
We appreciate that we didn't give you
much notice of the meeting, so proceed.

356
00:23:54,933 --> 00:23:57,436
We'll be able to get that information.

357
00:23:57,978 --> 00:24:03,024
I saw NASA officials making statements
that were simply not true.

358
00:24:03,108 --> 00:24:05,777
[Judson] We have seen
some erosion of those seals.

359
00:24:06,528 --> 00:24:09,906
The primary seal. We've never seen
any erosion of the secondary seal.

360
00:24:09,990 --> 00:24:13,243
And when I saw this, I said,
"What am I gonna do?"

361
00:24:15,203 --> 00:24:18,373
[Phillip Boffey] I was handed a message
by the newsroom clerk,

362
00:24:18,457 --> 00:24:22,210
and it said some guy wants to talk
about the Challenger accident,

363
00:24:22,294 --> 00:24:24,504
and he wants to speak to our NASA writer.

364
00:24:24,588 --> 00:24:28,049
{\an8}I think he called himself
something-or-other Lee. Maybe Richard Lee.

365
00:24:28,133 --> 00:24:33,305
I get out the NASA phone book that we had
in the bureau, and I can't find any Lee.

366
00:24:34,055 --> 00:24:36,016
So I call this guy back and I said,

367
00:24:36,099 --> 00:24:40,020
"You know, Mr. Lee, I can't find you
in the NASA phone book."

368
00:24:40,103 --> 00:24:43,899
Well, he says, "Well, okay, I'll fess up.
My name's Richard Cook."

369
00:24:43,982 --> 00:24:48,653
I said, "I have some documents
about the NASA explosion."

370
00:24:48,737 --> 00:24:52,032
Then he said, "Well, can you come
down here tomorrow and see me?"

371
00:24:53,700 --> 00:24:55,994
I was feeling very nervous

372
00:24:56,077 --> 00:25:01,041
because I knew how far outside
official channels I was going.

373
00:25:01,124 --> 00:25:03,043
[Boffey] He said,
in that first conversation,

374
00:25:03,126 --> 00:25:05,795
"I don't want my name identified.
NASA could fire me."

375
00:25:05,879 --> 00:25:09,299
I told him I wanted to see everything
he had before I made a judgment.

376
00:25:10,050 --> 00:25:15,096
[Cook] He looked at the documents
and said, "This looks like good stuff."

377
00:25:15,889 --> 00:25:20,727
He said, "The publisher wants this
to be the lead story for Sunday."

378
00:25:20,810 --> 00:25:24,814
But we've got to use your name
on that memo.

379
00:25:24,898 --> 00:25:26,942
And I kinda gulped.

380
00:25:27,025 --> 00:25:30,487
It's one thing to have
an anonymous document leak,

381
00:25:30,570 --> 00:25:32,781
but if you can't attach it to somebody,

382
00:25:33,406 --> 00:25:34,449
it's just another…

383
00:25:35,700 --> 00:25:38,703
anonymous guy who may or may not
know what the hell he's talking about.

384
00:25:40,121 --> 00:25:43,667
And I said, "Okay."

385
00:25:45,210 --> 00:25:47,045
[Boffey] It was a major scoop.

386
00:25:48,922 --> 00:25:50,173
[reporter] Three years ago,

387
00:25:50,257 --> 00:25:53,593
NASA safety analysts
documented problems with the seals

388
00:25:53,677 --> 00:25:56,471
on the solid rocket boosters
on the shuttle flights.

389
00:25:57,806 --> 00:26:00,267
[Sanger] The story suggested,
 for the first time,

390
00:26:00,350 --> 00:26:05,188
{\an8}that there had been a past problem
with the solid rocket boosters.

391
00:26:05,272 --> 00:26:07,274
[Keel] This was explosion information.

392
00:26:08,650 --> 00:26:10,777
Secretary Rogers was not happy with that.

393
00:26:10,860 --> 00:26:13,071
He wanted to make sure,
in no uncertain terms,

394
00:26:13,154 --> 00:26:18,493
{\an8}that we're not happy with learning
things, uh, second-hand, if you will.

395
00:26:18,577 --> 00:26:21,997
So he and I concurred that
the next meeting should be closed-door.

396
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:26,126
And it was basically a "let's come
to terms here with NASA officials."

397
00:26:26,626 --> 00:26:29,879
[reporter] The presidential commission
investigating the Challenger tragedy

398
00:26:29,963 --> 00:26:32,090
now moves its hearings
into private session.

399
00:26:32,173 --> 00:26:36,386
{\an8}[McDonald] We met at the old executive
office building next to the White House.

400
00:26:36,469 --> 00:26:39,806
{\an8}Larry Mulloy made it very clear that
he's gonna make the whole presentation.

401
00:26:41,725 --> 00:26:43,268
Larry started talking.

402
00:26:43,351 --> 00:26:46,062
Sally Ride says, "Well,
before you start, here, you know,

403
00:26:46,146 --> 00:26:47,814
I answered a few of my phone calls,

404
00:26:47,897 --> 00:26:50,400
and one of them was from a reporter
here in Washington,

405
00:26:50,483 --> 00:26:53,612
said that they heard some rumor
that one of the contractors

406
00:26:53,695 --> 00:26:56,114
may have recommended not even launching.

407
00:26:56,781 --> 00:26:58,158
Is that really true?"

408
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,954
[Russell] Larry Mulloy was not gonna
mention that there was any big deal,

409
00:27:03,038 --> 00:27:06,291
that they had an O-ring issue.
They talked about it. They resolved it.

410
00:27:06,374 --> 00:27:09,085
And that was all that
he wanted to say about that.

411
00:27:09,669 --> 00:27:15,675
Sally Ride said,
"Well, do you have any documentation

412
00:27:16,384 --> 00:27:19,846
from the contractor saying
he was worried about cold temperatures?"

413
00:27:19,929 --> 00:27:21,598
Larry says, "I don't recall any."

414
00:27:22,182 --> 00:27:24,434
I thought,
"Well, that's a flat-ass-out lie."

415
00:27:25,727 --> 00:27:28,438
[Keel] And at that point,
Allan McDonald from Thiokol,

416
00:27:28,521 --> 00:27:31,775
on the back bench against the wall,
stood up and raised his hand.

417
00:27:31,858 --> 00:27:34,110
He was trembling,
and his voice was quivering.

418
00:27:34,194 --> 00:27:37,739
And he said, "Mr. Chairman,
we recommended not to launch

419
00:27:38,239 --> 00:27:40,533
{\an8}because of concern about the temperature."

420
00:27:40,617 --> 00:27:43,328
{\an8}And so that was a startling revelation.

421
00:27:44,829 --> 00:27:48,416
We already had scheduled
an open session for the very next day.

422
00:27:48,500 --> 00:27:52,212
Chairman Rogers said, "Let's not talk
about the weather at this next hearing.

423
00:27:52,295 --> 00:27:55,173
Let's give NASA a chance
to explain themselves."

424
00:27:57,133 --> 00:27:59,010
[footsteps approaching]

425
00:28:00,303 --> 00:28:02,472
[Kutyna] After the commission meeting,

426
00:28:03,515 --> 00:28:07,227
we were in the basement
of the State Department.

427
00:28:07,852 --> 00:28:10,397
Sally Ride was walking next to me.

428
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,609
And, without saying a word to me,
gave me a piece of paper.

429
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:18,863
It had two columns.

430
00:28:19,698 --> 00:28:22,450
One column was outside air temperature.

431
00:28:23,326 --> 00:28:26,705
The other was the resiliency of an O-ring.

432
00:28:27,414 --> 00:28:31,960
And, of course, the paper showed
that the ability to bounce back

433
00:28:32,043 --> 00:28:34,921
as it got colder got less and less.

434
00:28:36,131 --> 00:28:38,091
And NASA was withholding it.

435
00:28:38,883 --> 00:28:42,220
The thing was, how can I introduce
this into the commission

436
00:28:43,430 --> 00:28:45,098
without getting Sally in trouble?

437
00:28:49,352 --> 00:28:53,022
Feynman came to my house for dinner.

438
00:28:53,106 --> 00:28:56,901
I had an Opel GT in the garage
that I was very proud of.

439
00:28:56,985 --> 00:29:02,699
So I came out of the kitchen door,
walked him around the Opel GT,

440
00:29:02,782 --> 00:29:04,284
and the engine was open.

441
00:29:05,243 --> 00:29:06,327
It just hit me.

442
00:29:06,411 --> 00:29:10,999
"Professor, I have O-rings in this engine,

443
00:29:11,750 --> 00:29:14,294
and they leak when it is cold."

444
00:29:15,128 --> 00:29:17,464
On the counter I had an O-ring.

445
00:29:18,298 --> 00:29:22,260
He picked it up and he looked at it.
And he didn't say a word.

446
00:29:23,386 --> 00:29:25,972
Richard Feynman called me
right around midnight.

447
00:29:26,473 --> 00:29:29,559
And he said,
"David, I have to do something

448
00:29:29,642 --> 00:29:32,020
during the commission hearing tomorrow."

449
00:29:32,103 --> 00:29:33,813
He said, "I can't tell you what it is,

450
00:29:33,897 --> 00:29:36,691
but I need to get a little bit
of basic equipment for it.

451
00:29:36,775 --> 00:29:39,360
Where do I get a pliers?"
And I said, "Well, Dr. Feynman,

452
00:29:39,444 --> 00:29:41,780
it's midnight here in Washington.

453
00:29:42,322 --> 00:29:48,203
There's sort of nothing open,
except maybe a 24-hour drug store."

454
00:29:49,621 --> 00:29:51,790
He said,
"Well, take me to the drug store."

455
00:29:52,832 --> 00:29:55,376
{\an8}[Rogers] I'd like to call
the commission to order, please.

456
00:29:55,460 --> 00:30:01,800
This morning we will start the meeting
with officials from NASA,

457
00:30:02,300 --> 00:30:06,179
particularly dealing with the matter
of seals on the booster rockets.

458
00:30:07,472 --> 00:30:10,183
{\an8}[man] I'd like to introduce
Mr. Larry Mulloy,

459
00:30:10,266 --> 00:30:14,187
who is the project manager
at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

460
00:30:14,270 --> 00:30:19,150
[Keel] Larry Mulloy came up to talk about
the joints for the solid rocket motor.

461
00:30:19,234 --> 00:30:22,028
So let me go to chart, uh, five, please.

462
00:30:22,654 --> 00:30:25,448
[Kutyna] Richard Feynman
was a little bit of a showman.

463
00:30:25,532 --> 00:30:28,993
To get the microphone
to become a hot mic,

464
00:30:29,077 --> 00:30:31,120
you press the little red button.

465
00:30:31,204 --> 00:30:32,497
The button would light up,

466
00:30:32,580 --> 00:30:34,666
and then your mic was hot,
and you could talk.

467
00:30:35,667 --> 00:30:38,461
And so he started
reaching out for the mic.

468
00:30:39,212 --> 00:30:41,965
And I grabbed his hand,
and I said, "Not now."

469
00:30:42,048 --> 00:30:44,717
{\an8}He looked and he says, "When?"

470
00:30:44,801 --> 00:30:46,636
{\an8}And I says, "I'll tell you when."

471
00:30:46,719 --> 00:30:50,098
{\an8}And it was a proper break,
then I said, "Now."

472
00:30:51,349 --> 00:30:55,186
[Richard Feynman] Well, I took this stuff
that I got out of your seal,

473
00:30:55,270 --> 00:30:56,813
and I put it in ice water.

474
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:00,859
{\an8}And I discovered that, when you put
some pressure on it for a while

475
00:31:00,942 --> 00:31:04,445
{\an8}and then undo it, it maintains…
It doesn't stretch back.

476
00:31:04,529 --> 00:31:05,989
It stays the same dimension.

477
00:31:06,072 --> 00:31:10,827
In other words, for a few seconds,
at least, and more seconds than that,

478
00:31:10,910 --> 00:31:13,955
there's no resilience
in this particular material

479
00:31:14,038 --> 00:31:16,708
when it's at a temperature of 32 degrees.

480
00:31:17,250 --> 00:31:20,587
{\an8}I believe that has some significance
for our problem.

481
00:31:21,045 --> 00:31:24,215
[Sanger] If anybody other than
a Nobel Laureate in physics

482
00:31:24,299 --> 00:31:26,509
had conducted this experiment,

483
00:31:26,593 --> 00:31:30,597
they would've been laughed off the stage
and, you know, told,

484
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:32,348
"Sorry, we do real science here."

485
00:31:33,016 --> 00:31:34,767
And because it was Richard Feynman,

486
00:31:35,643 --> 00:31:38,521
all the NASA people could do
was sit there and fume.

487
00:31:38,605 --> 00:31:40,732
And that's all Rogers could do, too.

488
00:31:43,026 --> 00:31:45,069
[Kutyna] That night,
 on national television,

489
00:31:45,153 --> 00:31:49,782
every television channel had him doing
the O-ring experiment on there.

490
00:31:49,866 --> 00:31:52,368
[reporter] Commission member
and physicist Richard Feynman

491
00:31:52,452 --> 00:31:53,786
wanted to know what happened…

492
00:31:53,870 --> 00:31:56,456
[reporter 2] He even dunked
a piece of one ring into ice water

493
00:31:56,539 --> 00:31:57,874
to show that it becomes brittle.

494
00:31:57,957 --> 00:32:02,295
{\an8}[Boffey] That was all you saw or heard
for about 24 to 48 hours.

495
00:32:02,378 --> 00:32:08,509
{\an8}Sure affected public perceptions
and understanding of what had happened.

496
00:32:09,260 --> 00:32:13,598
[Sanger] Feynman and Kutyna basically
forced everyone to focus attention

497
00:32:13,681 --> 00:32:16,309
on the cold weather conditions.

498
00:32:16,392 --> 00:32:19,896
[reporter] It was 38 degrees
in Cape Canaveral at the moment of launch.

499
00:32:19,979 --> 00:32:23,441
[reporter 2] The rings become brittle
in cold weather. It was 38 degrees…

500
00:32:23,524 --> 00:32:28,279
{\an8}[Sanger] As bureaucratic jujitsu goes,
it was pretty brilliant on Kutyna's part.

501
00:32:30,281 --> 00:32:32,075
[phone ringing]

502
00:32:33,409 --> 00:32:36,079
{\an8}[McDonald] At about 11:00 at night,
I got a telephone call.

503
00:32:36,162 --> 00:32:39,457
{\an8}And it was a fellow
from the New York Times.

504
00:32:39,540 --> 00:32:44,671
He said, uh, "We have an issue
we're releasing in the morning

505
00:32:44,754 --> 00:32:47,507
about a discussion you had
with the presidential commission

506
00:32:47,590 --> 00:32:51,678
indicating concerns about launching
in the cold temperatures,

507
00:32:51,761 --> 00:32:54,722
and we wanted to verify
if the information we have is correct."

508
00:32:54,806 --> 00:32:58,643
He came to the conclusion
that we had the story already,

509
00:32:58,726 --> 00:33:02,647
and we were going to publish it
one way or the other.

510
00:33:04,774 --> 00:33:07,443
[reporter] There was an extraordinary
meeting at Cape Canaveral

511
00:33:07,527 --> 00:33:09,404
the night before the Challenger launched.

512
00:33:09,487 --> 00:33:13,074
Mulloy argued that the O-ring seals
would withstand the cold temperatures,

513
00:33:13,157 --> 00:33:15,118
despite Thiokol's objections.

514
00:33:15,201 --> 00:33:18,621
[Sanger] We established
there had been a very specific warning

515
00:33:18,705 --> 00:33:22,083
from the engineers,
who knew the solid rocket booster best,

516
00:33:22,166 --> 00:33:24,585
not to launch in those cold conditions.

517
00:33:26,295 --> 00:33:32,385
{\an8}It became impossible for Chairman Rogers
to observe the instructions

518
00:33:32,468 --> 00:33:36,973
from President Reagan to make NASA
come out of this not looking bad.

519
00:33:37,056 --> 00:33:41,978
The engineering people would not recommend
a launch below 53 degrees Fahrenheit.

520
00:33:42,061 --> 00:33:45,732
I found this conclusion without basis,
and I challenged its logic.

521
00:33:46,733 --> 00:33:50,570
They construed what you said to mean that
you wanted them to change their minds.

522
00:33:50,653 --> 00:33:54,615
So they were under a lot of pressure
to give you the answer you wanted.

523
00:33:55,199 --> 00:33:57,160
[Sanger] Why were they in such a rush?

524
00:33:57,243 --> 00:34:01,456
If it was too cold today,
you wait for the temperature to warm up.

525
00:34:02,165 --> 00:34:05,126
The answer was,
they were trying to stay on a schedule.

526
00:34:06,335 --> 00:34:09,589
Mulloy was operating
within the constraints of a system

527
00:34:10,173 --> 00:34:14,302
that required far more launches
than they could successfully make.

528
00:34:15,386 --> 00:34:17,680
Larry Mulloy was less a bad actor…

529
00:34:17,764 --> 00:34:21,100
It's a guy who acted badly
because his hand was forced

530
00:34:21,184 --> 00:34:23,311
by the constraints of the system.

531
00:34:23,895 --> 00:34:26,689
[McDonald] Larry Mulloy
was told by his boss, Dr. Lucas.

532
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:30,610
He made it very clear that NASA
needed to launch shuttles

533
00:34:30,693 --> 00:34:32,320
and launch them on schedule.

534
00:34:32,403 --> 00:34:34,989
[Rogers]
Were you familiar with the concerns

535
00:34:35,073 --> 00:34:37,950
that had been expressed
in the previous years, I guess?

536
00:34:38,534 --> 00:34:41,704
[Lucas] I have been aware
of the problem with the seals.

537
00:34:41,788 --> 00:34:46,793
My assessment was that
it was a reasonable risk to take.

538
00:34:46,876 --> 00:34:50,004
Thirty years have not changed
the way I think about it at all.

539
00:34:50,838 --> 00:34:55,009
Going into space is something
that great countries do.

540
00:34:55,093 --> 00:34:58,971
They want to advance technology.
They want to learn.

541
00:34:59,055 --> 00:35:00,598
It's also risky.

542
00:35:02,141 --> 00:35:04,018
You have to take some chances.

543
00:35:04,102 --> 00:35:06,187
[Rogers] Beginning in April 1985,

544
00:35:06,270 --> 00:35:10,108
did you then begin to think
it was a problem with flight safety?

545
00:35:10,691 --> 00:35:15,029
I did not think it was a problem
sufficient to, uh, ground the fleet.

546
00:35:15,113 --> 00:35:20,201
The waiver says, "Actual loss:
loss of mission, vehicle, and crew."

547
00:35:20,284 --> 00:35:23,371
I don't see how you could say
that didn't involve flight safety.

548
00:35:24,163 --> 00:35:28,042
[Sanger] We began to get a sense
of how much they knew.

549
00:35:28,126 --> 00:35:30,545
The thought rose
in the back of our minds

550
00:35:30,628 --> 00:35:33,422
that this wasn't really
an accident at all,

551
00:35:33,506 --> 00:35:35,716
that this was more like manslaughter.

552
00:35:39,137 --> 00:35:44,517
[June] To learn that there were managers
who allowed this spacecraft to take off,

553
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:50,439
knowing full well the risk,
I was tremendously angry.

554
00:35:50,523 --> 00:35:54,360
Unable to forgive people
who made such a bad decision.

555
00:35:56,070 --> 00:35:58,865
[Cheryl McNair] They knew
something was not right.

556
00:35:58,948 --> 00:36:01,242
They didn't consider human life,

557
00:36:01,325 --> 00:36:04,745
and the safety and the effects
that it could have on a family.

558
00:36:04,829 --> 00:36:09,083
There was a root of anger and bitterness
and sadness that was growing in me

559
00:36:09,167 --> 00:36:11,586
because how could they let this happen?

560
00:36:12,461 --> 00:36:16,924
[Sanger] The culture at NASA in that
period in time was, "we can do anything."

561
00:36:18,342 --> 00:36:21,387
[reporter] NASA projected the image
of a well-managed agency,

562
00:36:21,470 --> 00:36:24,473
accomplishing miracles in space
and keeping to its budget.

563
00:36:25,308 --> 00:36:28,269
[Harwood] NASA was always
the good guys, the "right stuff."

564
00:36:28,936 --> 00:36:33,107
[Billingsly] We were wired to believe.
We were filled with hope.

565
00:36:35,234 --> 00:36:39,488
[Sanger] By the time the shuttle
was flying, NASA was basically saying,

566
00:36:39,572 --> 00:36:42,783
"This is so safe,
we can put school teachers on it."

567
00:36:43,576 --> 00:36:46,829
Then you realize
they're really rolling the dice.

568
00:36:48,456 --> 00:36:52,084
[Lucas] There's no way
you can account for those seven lives,

569
00:36:52,168 --> 00:36:55,630
except to say that
that's the way development happened.

570
00:36:56,589 --> 00:37:00,468
My forebears came across
the Appalachian Mountains in a wagon

571
00:37:00,551 --> 00:37:03,137
with horses. Some of them didn't make it.

572
00:37:03,846 --> 00:37:08,309
It's regrettable,
but costs sometimes are very difficult.

573
00:37:09,143 --> 00:37:11,687
And those lives were-- were it.

574
00:37:18,194 --> 00:37:20,154
[reporter] Search teams have now recovered

575
00:37:20,238 --> 00:37:22,448
hundreds of pounds of debris
from the Challenger.

576
00:37:22,531 --> 00:37:27,286
[Rhea Seddon] After the 51-L accident,
I didn't know quite what to believe.

577
00:37:27,370 --> 00:37:32,541
I didn't know who to blame,
and so we all looked for what we could do.

578
00:37:34,543 --> 00:37:37,797
I had the task of helping
to identify things

579
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:39,840
that came out of the Atlantic Ocean.

580
00:37:42,969 --> 00:37:44,387
Scuba divers went down.

581
00:37:45,554 --> 00:37:47,431
It was in fairly shallow water.

582
00:37:48,516 --> 00:37:52,812
The crew members are there,
inside this intact compartment.

583
00:37:54,522 --> 00:37:56,691
And that just tore me to pieces.

584
00:37:58,651 --> 00:38:00,361
[reporter] Yesterday divers confirmed

585
00:38:00,444 --> 00:38:03,197
that they have located
the Challenger's cabin and its crew.

586
00:38:03,739 --> 00:38:05,533
Family members were notified Friday

587
00:38:05,616 --> 00:38:09,287
when the wreckage was found
by sonar in 100 feet of water.

588
00:38:09,870 --> 00:38:11,664
[June] It was several weeks later,

589
00:38:11,747 --> 00:38:15,459
they had retrieved
the remains of the astronauts.

590
00:38:16,085 --> 00:38:18,212
[inhales sharply]

591
00:38:18,296 --> 00:38:21,215
And I-- I-- I just started… crying.

592
00:38:22,091 --> 00:38:25,803
I was so devastated, I totally broke down.

593
00:38:33,185 --> 00:38:36,355
[Lisa] "I've had a long day preparing
for the memorial service.

594
00:38:38,899 --> 00:38:41,402
Today is the final ceremony to attend."

595
00:38:43,154 --> 00:38:46,115
[somber instrumental music playing]

596
00:39:27,782 --> 00:39:29,784
[jets whooshing]

597
00:39:39,293 --> 00:39:41,087
{\an8}[Russell] After the testimonies,

598
00:39:41,170 --> 00:39:45,091
{\an8}it was clear that it was going to be
a tough time for the company.

599
00:39:45,174 --> 00:39:48,135
We had, uh, accepted the, uh--

600
00:39:48,219 --> 00:39:51,764
the risk to fly and, therefore,
we're responsible for that acceptance.

601
00:39:53,140 --> 00:39:57,228
[Kilminster] I received a call
from my boss at that time

602
00:39:57,311 --> 00:40:00,439
to tell me that I was going to be removed.

603
00:40:00,523 --> 00:40:06,320
I was disappointed to hear that,
but I wasn't… totally surprised.

604
00:40:06,404 --> 00:40:08,739
[reporter] The company receptionist
made the announcement

605
00:40:08,823 --> 00:40:10,825
that 200 employees were being laid off.

606
00:40:11,575 --> 00:40:14,203
Fourteen hundred others
put on a part-time status,

607
00:40:14,286 --> 00:40:17,415
a four-day week,
pending resumption of operation.

608
00:40:18,165 --> 00:40:21,085
The last rocket motor sections
from the production line

609
00:40:21,168 --> 00:40:22,503
are being stored away.

610
00:40:23,671 --> 00:40:28,634
People from the town were filled
with tension and sadness,

611
00:40:29,218 --> 00:40:31,429
and everyone was talking about it.

612
00:40:31,512 --> 00:40:36,100
The town was disappointed
that we had failed the space program.

613
00:40:39,645 --> 00:40:45,151
There was graffiti on the bridge
that you take going into town.

614
00:40:46,318 --> 00:40:50,281
My dad's eyes got filled with tears.

615
00:40:51,282 --> 00:40:53,868
Big, white spray paint:

616
00:40:54,702 --> 00:40:56,829
"Thiokol Murderers."

617
00:40:59,290 --> 00:41:05,880
He spent 24/7 for nearly 30 years
feeling like he was to blame.

618
00:41:11,135 --> 00:41:13,929
[Russell] One night,
I went to Joe Kilminster's house.

619
00:41:14,847 --> 00:41:16,557
He broke down into tears.

620
00:41:17,558 --> 00:41:20,269
He was under the weight
of that decision that was made.

621
00:41:20,352 --> 00:41:25,983
There were seven wonderful,
wonderful, capable, dedicated people

622
00:41:26,066 --> 00:41:27,443
that lost their lives.

623
00:41:28,027 --> 00:41:31,822
And I was part
of a decision-making process

624
00:41:33,491 --> 00:41:35,367
that said it was okay to launch.

625
00:41:37,328 --> 00:41:39,038
That has…

626
00:41:40,289 --> 00:41:41,832
always been on my mind.

627
00:41:45,753 --> 00:41:48,422
The presidential commission
returned its verdict today

628
00:41:48,506 --> 00:41:50,758
on the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

629
00:41:50,841 --> 00:41:55,054
It found responsible a rubber seal
on a booster rocket that was faulty,

630
00:41:55,137 --> 00:41:58,307
and an attitude of NASA
that was equally faulty.

631
00:41:58,390 --> 00:42:00,935
It was a fatally flawed decision process.

632
00:42:01,018 --> 00:42:04,438
But the human failure
was centered on Marshall.

633
00:42:05,022 --> 00:42:08,025
And if I had to fix the responsibility,
I'd fix it in on Lucas.

634
00:42:08,108 --> 00:42:12,321
Marshall's director, William Lucas,
has just announced his early retirement.

635
00:42:12,404 --> 00:42:18,077
I did what I thought was right
in the light of the information I had,

636
00:42:18,786 --> 00:42:20,538
and if I were going over it

637
00:42:20,621 --> 00:42:22,790
with the same information
I had at the time,

638
00:42:22,873 --> 00:42:24,333
I'd make the same decision.

639
00:42:26,293 --> 00:42:27,962
'Cause I thought it was right.

640
00:42:29,463 --> 00:42:32,383
I didn't do anything that
I thought was wrong then,

641
00:42:33,050 --> 00:42:36,387
and I didn't do anything that
I think was wrong in retrospect.

642
00:42:38,472 --> 00:42:41,267
[reporter] The man who is most
heavily criticized in the report,

643
00:42:41,350 --> 00:42:43,894
Lawrence Mulloy,
has been moved into another job,

644
00:42:43,978 --> 00:42:46,564
and has indicated that he may leave NASA.

645
00:42:49,441 --> 00:42:51,026
I feel I was to blame.

646
00:42:52,278 --> 00:42:53,862
But I felt no guilt.

647
00:42:59,326 --> 00:43:01,537
[June] Forgiving him was difficult.

648
00:43:01,620 --> 00:43:03,247
You go through anger.

649
00:43:03,831 --> 00:43:07,835
You go through resolution. You go through,
"They're in a better place."

650
00:43:07,918 --> 00:43:09,878
You can think away anything.

651
00:43:11,213 --> 00:43:12,631
But it was…

652
00:43:15,217 --> 00:43:16,927
hard to forgive.

653
00:43:18,304 --> 00:43:24,018
There were still those times that I had
to stop and physically say to myself,

654
00:43:24,602 --> 00:43:26,145
"I forgive those people.

655
00:43:27,438 --> 00:43:30,649
We need to forgive those people.
We need to move on."

656
00:43:40,951 --> 00:43:44,705
[Marcia] After the accident,
on the 28th of January,

657
00:43:44,788 --> 00:43:48,083
I have always woken up at sunrise.

658
00:43:49,752 --> 00:43:54,131
I think Greg would be very upset
if I just spent my life being negative.

659
00:43:57,468 --> 00:43:59,345
A sunrise is a new beginning…

660
00:44:01,847 --> 00:44:05,517
and if we can make those new beginnings
beautiful in our lives,

661
00:44:05,601 --> 00:44:07,269
then I think that's important.

662
00:44:09,063 --> 00:44:13,651
[Reagan] In America, we learn from
our setbacks as well as our successes.

663
00:44:14,193 --> 00:44:16,487
And although
the lessons of failure are hard,

664
00:44:17,154 --> 00:44:20,240
they are often the most important
on the road to progress.

665
00:44:21,408 --> 00:44:25,412
We've learned in these past few
months that we're frail and fallible.

666
00:44:27,831 --> 00:44:31,710
But we have also learned that
we have the courage to face our faults

667
00:44:31,794 --> 00:44:34,713
and the strength to correct our errors.

668
00:44:37,091 --> 00:44:41,261
This has been a difficult passage
for America, but we will go on,

669
00:44:42,554 --> 00:44:46,183
just as the crew of the space shuttle
Challenger would have wanted us to.

670
00:44:47,226 --> 00:44:51,772
We'll simply do what has to be done
to make our space program safe

671
00:44:51,855 --> 00:44:55,901
and reliable and a renewed source
of pride to our nation.

672
00:44:56,485 --> 00:44:58,862
We've suffered a tragedy and a setback.

673
00:44:58,946 --> 00:45:03,075
But we'll forge ahead,
wiser this time and undaunted.

674
00:45:03,992 --> 00:45:08,080
As undaunted as the spirit
of the Challenger and her seven heroes.

675
00:45:25,931 --> 00:45:29,184
[Crippen] Dick Truly was given the job
of Associate Administrator.

676
00:45:31,019 --> 00:45:35,232
Dick called me up and said,
"Would you come up to Washington?"

677
00:45:36,316 --> 00:45:39,027
No doubt it was a tough job
because we had more people telling us

678
00:45:39,111 --> 00:45:41,655
why we couldn't go fly
than why we ever could.

679
00:45:43,824 --> 00:45:47,327
[McDonald] I got called in
by our new general manager, and he said,

680
00:45:47,411 --> 00:45:51,039
"We've been working with NASA on how
we're going to recover from this problem.

681
00:45:51,123 --> 00:45:53,751
So we're gonna do this in a task force.

682
00:45:53,834 --> 00:45:56,503
And we're gonna have the lead
of the task force.

683
00:45:56,587 --> 00:45:58,881
NASA is gonna be working for us.

684
00:45:58,964 --> 00:46:01,884
We want you to be the head of that.
Would you take that job?"

685
00:46:01,967 --> 00:46:04,261
{\an8}[reporter] Allan McDonald,
one of the engineers

686
00:46:04,344 --> 00:46:06,555
{\an8}who opposed the Challenger launch,

687
00:46:06,638 --> 00:46:09,641
is now in charge
of designing a new, safer booster.

688
00:46:13,270 --> 00:46:17,357
I mean, we ended up redesigning
everything in that to some degree.

689
00:46:19,109 --> 00:46:21,904
[reporter 2] A full test firing
of a solid rocket booster

690
00:46:21,987 --> 00:46:23,781
was conducted by Morton Thiokol,

691
00:46:23,864 --> 00:46:26,283
the maker of the SRB
that failed on Challenger.

692
00:46:26,867 --> 00:46:31,580
Morton Thiokol says initial data indicates
the rocket's O-rings performed flawlessly.

693
00:46:31,663 --> 00:46:35,709
It was a two-year process to do,
but the redesign was marvelous.

694
00:46:35,793 --> 00:46:39,046
{\an8}[crowd cheering and applauding]

695
00:46:39,129 --> 00:46:42,925
[reporter] Hundreds of NASA workers
cheered as Discovery was pulled along.

696
00:46:43,008 --> 00:46:46,553
It was like a ticker-tape parade
for a long-lost hero.

697
00:46:48,639 --> 00:46:52,518
[reporter 2] NASA officials insist that
this time they will not waive the rules,

698
00:46:52,601 --> 00:46:54,394
as they did many times in the past.

699
00:47:03,195 --> 00:47:05,739
{\an8}[Brokaw] Thirty-two months ago,
this was the site, of course,

700
00:47:05,823 --> 00:47:07,783
of a tragedy that none of us will forget.

701
00:47:07,866 --> 00:47:11,119
The loss of the shuttle Challenger
and seven astronauts.

702
00:47:11,203 --> 00:47:14,039
Now, for the first time
since that awful day,

703
00:47:14,122 --> 00:47:17,709
NASA is ready to launch another shuttle:
the shuttle Discovery.

704
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,968
[Aldrich] We got to fly again
after Challenger, and here's Discovery…

705
00:47:26,051 --> 00:47:28,262
[chuckling] …ready to go.

706
00:47:33,141 --> 00:47:38,689
Return to flight was so important
to prove that we could go forward.

707
00:47:40,065 --> 00:47:43,610
[Billingsly] The last image
of a launch, for me, was…

708
00:47:45,487 --> 00:47:47,281
a live explosion.

709
00:47:47,364 --> 00:47:51,827
I think it was important
to see something successful.

710
00:47:51,910 --> 00:47:53,787
[applause and whistling]

711
00:47:53,871 --> 00:47:56,999
[reporter] The launch team leaving
the suiting room now,

712
00:47:57,082 --> 00:48:01,461
and coming down
from their third-floor crew quarters area.

713
00:48:02,754 --> 00:48:05,799
[Covey] It was an honor
to be asked to be on that crew.

714
00:48:06,717 --> 00:48:09,553
I was committed to make sure
that the Challenger crew

715
00:48:09,636 --> 00:48:11,096
had not been lost in vain.

716
00:48:18,228 --> 00:48:21,315
[Harwood] Even though I had
total confidence in the redesign,

717
00:48:21,398 --> 00:48:24,067
I truly believed they'd fixed the problem…
I don't think

718
00:48:24,151 --> 00:48:28,113
you could ever be relaxed, watching
a shuttle launch after Challenger.

719
00:48:28,196 --> 00:48:29,698
[Brokaw] Here we go.

720
00:48:29,781 --> 00:48:32,784
{\an8}Remember the Challenger.
Godspeed, Discovery.

721
00:48:32,868 --> 00:48:35,120
{\an8}[mission control] …eleven, ten…

722
00:48:35,203 --> 00:48:38,248
We're a go for main engine start.
Seven, six…

723
00:48:39,166 --> 00:48:43,837
My daughter and I were hugging each other,
just so scared it was going to explode.

724
00:48:43,921 --> 00:48:45,923
[mission control] …zero, and liftoff!

725
00:48:46,006 --> 00:48:50,552
Liftoff. Americans return to space,
as Discovery clears the tower.

726
00:48:51,136 --> 00:48:52,721
[operator 2] Roger roll, Discovery.

727
00:48:54,973 --> 00:49:00,145
[June] I stood up as close
as I could be to the TV to say,

728
00:49:00,228 --> 00:49:02,439
"Godspeed. Godspeed."

729
00:49:02,522 --> 00:49:04,900
[mission control]
Discovery, go and throttle up.

730
00:49:06,777 --> 00:49:08,028
[operator 2] Roger, go.

731
00:49:09,488 --> 00:49:12,532
[operator 3] Discovery given a go
at throttle-up. Three engines at 104%.

732
00:49:12,616 --> 00:49:16,662
Velocity 3,200 feet per second,
altitude 10.8 nautical miles,

733
00:49:16,745 --> 00:49:19,081
standing by for solid rocket booster
separation.

734
00:49:23,001 --> 00:49:24,419
[man] There they go.

735
00:49:26,588 --> 00:49:28,048
That looks normal.

736
00:49:28,966 --> 00:49:30,175
Looks great.

737
00:49:30,717 --> 00:49:32,928
[Gregory]
I think all of us were holding our breath.

738
00:49:33,011 --> 00:49:38,225
And so we were all very excited
and thinking, "We're back on track again."

739
00:49:38,308 --> 00:49:40,811
[all cheering]

740
00:49:40,894 --> 00:49:44,773
I was thrilled. We had done it.

741
00:49:45,816 --> 00:49:48,193
[Aldrich]
I felt like we all had done our job.

742
00:49:48,986 --> 00:49:50,487
And that we could go on.

743
00:49:51,780 --> 00:49:52,739
And we did.

744
00:49:56,660 --> 00:49:58,662
[closing theme music playing]