1
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[male anchor] Meanwhile,
the crew is going through the routine

2
00:00:15,598 --> 00:00:18,435
of having breakfast
just before they take them out to the pad.

3
00:00:18,518 --> 00:00:19,978
This will be the second countdown

4
00:00:20,061 --> 00:00:22,480
for what's going to be known
as "The Teacher Flight"

5
00:00:22,564 --> 00:00:25,608
because it will feature lessons
to be taught a little bit later

6
00:00:25,692 --> 00:00:28,486
by Christa McAuliffe,
the schoolteacher from New Hampshire.

7
00:00:28,987 --> 00:00:31,406
And this is a departure for NASA

8
00:00:31,489 --> 00:00:35,035
because this will be the first time
that a real person, if you'll pardon me,

9
00:00:35,118 --> 00:00:38,038
will be allowed to participate
in one of these flights,

10
00:00:38,121 --> 00:00:43,334
and it portends more of availability
of flights for common ordinary citizens,

11
00:00:43,418 --> 00:00:46,379
and it kind of demystifies
and takes some of the mystique away

12
00:00:46,463 --> 00:00:47,922
from the old astronaut tradition.

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[man 1] This is Mission Control Houston
at the T-minus nine-minute mark.

14
00:00:53,428 --> 00:00:54,763
[man 2] Nine and counting.

15
00:00:55,555 --> 00:00:58,016
[man 1] All orbiter systems continue
to function normally,

16
00:00:58,099 --> 00:01:00,935
and Mission Control is ready
for the launch this morning.

17
00:01:01,603 --> 00:01:03,229
This is Mission Control Houston.

18
00:01:03,772 --> 00:01:04,856
[man 2] Roger Wilco.

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00:01:09,277 --> 00:01:12,280
[male anchor 1] Christa McAuliffe and
her six crewmates are preparing for a go.

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00:01:12,363 --> 00:01:14,115
[male anchor 2] Many people
around the country

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will think of it as the first flight
of a private citizen.

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{\an8}[male anchor 3] And because she is
a civilian, a private citizen,

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she's drawn a lot more attention
around here

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00:01:22,624 --> 00:01:24,834
than the astronaut members of the crew.

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00:01:27,378 --> 00:01:30,507
Good morning. I'll introduce
the commander of the flight, Dick Scobee,

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00:01:30,590 --> 00:01:32,592
and Dick will introduce
the rest of the crew.

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It's a pleasure being here
with y'all this morning.

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This good-looking group off to my right,
I'd like to introduce them one at a time.

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{\an8}Ellison Onizuka is our expert
on the tracking data relay satellite.

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00:01:43,978 --> 00:01:46,481
{\an8}[Onizuka] I've been looking forward
to this for a long time,

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and I hope to stay with the space program,
fly more missions.

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{\an8}[Scobee] Ron McNair is our expert
on the Spartan Halley,

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{\an8}the comet research satellite.

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[Ron McNair] My sense of anticipation
is greater this time than the first.

35
00:02:01,579 --> 00:02:05,458
I know how much fun it is and how
fascinating the entire experience is.

36
00:02:06,251 --> 00:02:08,920
-[man] T-minus three minutes and counting.
-[man 2] 3:30 and counting.

37
00:02:09,003 --> 00:02:11,464
{\an8}[Scobee] Judy Resnik,
who's our flight engineer.

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00:02:11,548 --> 00:02:14,342
{\an8}Probably one of the most knowledgeable
people in the Astronaut Office.

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00:02:14,926 --> 00:02:17,387
[Resnik] I've pursued my career
on my own merits,

40
00:02:17,470 --> 00:02:18,888
and this is my second flight,

41
00:02:18,972 --> 00:02:20,598
and I'd like to stay
with the space program

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00:02:20,682 --> 00:02:23,768
as long as they want me,
because I think it's very important.

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00:02:23,852 --> 00:02:26,020
[cheering]

44
00:02:26,104 --> 00:02:29,899
[female anchor] And we see the 51-L crew.
Big smiles today.

45
00:02:33,903 --> 00:02:36,614
{\an8}[Scobee] Greg Jarvis,
one of our payload specialists.

46
00:02:37,365 --> 00:02:39,325
{\an8}[Jarvis] I've been charged up
since last March,

47
00:02:39,409 --> 00:02:42,287
and so this is kind of a culmination
of a dream come true.

48
00:02:42,787 --> 00:02:44,747
{\an8}[Scobee] Mike Smith, our pilot.

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00:02:45,373 --> 00:02:48,710
{\an8}[Smith] What I'm really looking forward to
is the experience of seeing all the things

50
00:02:48,793 --> 00:02:51,963
that everyone comes back and talks
about while they're on orbit.

51
00:02:53,506 --> 00:02:55,258
[man] Just a couple of minutes,

52
00:02:55,341 --> 00:02:58,887
the closeout crew will be closing
the cabin door

53
00:02:58,970 --> 00:03:01,806
and preparing the white room for launch.

54
00:03:02,807 --> 00:03:05,310
{\an8}[Scobee] And, of course,
Christa McAuliffe, our teacher in space,

55
00:03:05,393 --> 00:03:07,770
{\an8}who will be doing teacher
activities the whole flight.

56
00:03:08,313 --> 00:03:10,398
[McAuliffe] As the first
Space Participant,

57
00:03:10,481 --> 00:03:12,734
I am very delighted
to be part of the program.

58
00:03:13,526 --> 00:03:16,571
I think it's gonna be very exciting
for kids to be able to turn on the TV

59
00:03:16,654 --> 00:03:18,406
and see that space is for everybody.

60
00:03:20,867 --> 00:03:22,744
[man 1] The ground launch sequencer

61
00:03:22,827 --> 00:03:25,371
has started retracting
the orbiter crew access arm.

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00:03:25,830 --> 00:03:27,999
{\an8}[man 2] The commander of the flight,
Dick Scobee.

63
00:03:28,082 --> 00:03:30,835
{\an8}[Scobee] If somebody's gonna light
a six-and-a-half-million-pound candle

64
00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:34,088
under you and send you off into space,
it's gotta be exciting.

65
00:03:35,757 --> 00:03:37,592
But there's some apprehension involved.

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00:03:38,509 --> 00:03:40,720
[male anchor] A crowd
of some 500 spectators,

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00:03:40,803 --> 00:03:42,722
including Christa McAuliffe's parents

68
00:03:42,805 --> 00:03:45,058
and 18 visiting schoolchildren

69
00:03:45,141 --> 00:03:48,895
from McAuliffe's hometown of Concord,
New Hampshire, wait anxiously.

70
00:03:51,189 --> 00:03:53,274
[man 1] T-minus 15 seconds.

71
00:03:56,277 --> 00:04:01,449
T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six…

72
00:04:01,532 --> 00:04:03,493
We have main engine start.

73
00:04:03,576 --> 00:04:06,621
…four, three, two, one…

74
00:04:10,500 --> 00:04:11,626
And liftoff.

75
00:04:12,335 --> 00:04:16,965
Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission,
and it has cleared the tower.

76
00:04:18,258 --> 00:04:20,134
[cheering]

77
00:04:20,218 --> 00:04:22,011
-Roll initiator.
-[man 2] Roger roll, Challenger.

78
00:04:23,346 --> 00:04:24,806
[man 3] Good roll. Program confirmed.

79
00:04:24,889 --> 00:04:26,266
[woman] Bye, Christa! Bye, Chris!

80
00:04:26,349 --> 00:04:28,184
[man 3] Challenger now heading downrange.

81
00:04:32,981 --> 00:04:37,485
Three engines are running normally.
Three good fuel cells. Three good APUs.

82
00:04:37,568 --> 00:04:39,028
[man 4] Three at 65.

83
00:04:39,112 --> 00:04:40,655
65 FIDO.

84
00:04:40,738 --> 00:04:42,532
-[man 3] 2257 feet per second.
-Thank you.

85
00:04:42,615 --> 00:04:46,035
[man 3] Altitude 4.3 nautical miles,
downrange distance three nautical miles.

86
00:04:46,869 --> 00:04:49,247
Engines throttling up.
Three engines now at 104%.

87
00:04:49,330 --> 00:04:52,000
{\an8}Challenger, go with throttle up.

88
00:04:52,083 --> 00:04:53,501
[Scobee] Roger, go with throttle up.

89
00:04:54,252 --> 00:04:56,921
[static crackling]

90
00:05:02,343 --> 00:05:04,429
[man 3] Obviously a major malfunction.

91
00:05:07,557 --> 00:05:09,767
[theme music playing]

92
00:06:08,409 --> 00:06:09,327
[static skipping]

93
00:06:09,410 --> 00:06:10,453
[beep]

94
00:06:10,536 --> 00:06:12,080
[static skipping]

95
00:06:12,622 --> 00:06:15,750
This is unheralded
in the history of the space program.

96
00:06:17,293 --> 00:06:20,838
Ladies and gentlemen, I have covered
the space shuttle launches

97
00:06:20,922 --> 00:06:25,927
since the very first launch,
since before the first launch itself,

98
00:06:26,010 --> 00:06:29,555
uh, going way back,
and nothing like this has ever happened.

99
00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:32,642
[screaming and crying]

100
00:06:33,351 --> 00:06:35,436
[male anchor] These are
the spectators watching.

101
00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:37,480
Families of the astronauts.

102
00:06:39,023 --> 00:06:40,817
Christa McAuliffe's parents.

103
00:06:44,112 --> 00:06:46,114
[man 1] I thought
the flight was going fine.

104
00:06:46,531 --> 00:06:49,409
And then I heard them say
"major malfunction,"

105
00:06:50,159 --> 00:06:53,538
and then the person beside
me said, "It's exploded." And it was…

106
00:06:55,498 --> 00:06:57,667
I couldn't speak. It was…

107
00:06:57,750 --> 00:06:59,127
[sighs]

108
00:07:01,212 --> 00:07:04,924
[man 2] Seven really brilliant
and beautiful people got killed.

109
00:07:07,635 --> 00:07:12,348
[man 3] I was shocked. Reminded me a lot
of President Kennedy's death in '63.

110
00:07:12,432 --> 00:07:16,519
I don't know where the analogy comes,
but it was a national tragedy.

111
00:07:17,353 --> 00:07:21,899
[Tom Brokaw] The silence is deafening.
There is no word from NASA,

112
00:07:21,983 --> 00:07:23,860
no word from the rescue vehicles.

113
00:07:24,277 --> 00:07:27,822
No-- No word whatsoever, uh,
on what may have happened.

114
00:07:27,905 --> 00:07:29,490
{\an8}If I had to speculate,

115
00:07:29,574 --> 00:07:33,202
{\an8}I'd say it's probably 90% probability
something with the main engines.

116
00:07:33,286 --> 00:07:36,038
It was what engineers call
a catastrophic failure,

117
00:07:36,122 --> 00:07:37,790
several things had to go wrong at once.

118
00:07:39,375 --> 00:07:41,127
[man] The shuttle had
an information stream

119
00:07:41,210 --> 00:07:42,587
that was really unbelievable.

120
00:07:42,670 --> 00:07:45,214
{\an8}I mean, they had enormous amounts of data

121
00:07:45,298 --> 00:07:47,967
{\an8}all the way up to the moment
they lost the orbiter.

122
00:07:48,050 --> 00:07:49,302
So we're all thinking,

123
00:07:49,385 --> 00:07:53,389
"They must know what happened,
or have a pretty darn good idea."

124
00:07:54,682 --> 00:07:58,519
[Jay Greene] GC, all operators,
contingency procedures in effect.

125
00:07:58,603 --> 00:08:02,273
Stay off the telephones.
Make sure you maintain all your data.

126
00:08:02,356 --> 00:08:03,816
Start pulling it together.

127
00:08:04,859 --> 00:08:08,779
{\an8}The space program experienced
a national tragedy

128
00:08:09,780 --> 00:08:12,241
{\an8}with the explosion
of the space shuttle Challenger

129
00:08:12,742 --> 00:08:14,452
approximately a minute and a half

130
00:08:14,535 --> 00:08:16,954
after launch from here
at the Kennedy Space Center.

131
00:08:17,288 --> 00:08:20,082
The real question that remains
to be answered of course is

132
00:08:20,166 --> 00:08:22,418
was there some kind of incompetence

133
00:08:22,502 --> 00:08:26,172
on the part of those people who are
charged with the space shuttle program?

134
00:08:26,255 --> 00:08:29,467
I'm only raising it as a question.
We do not know the answer to that yet.

135
00:08:29,550 --> 00:08:31,844
That will take a long
and meticulous investigation

136
00:08:31,928 --> 00:08:33,513
before we can determine that.

137
00:08:35,306 --> 00:08:38,059
[man] As I watched
the different newscasts,

138
00:08:38,142 --> 00:08:41,979
{\an8}I began to feel
that there was a cover-up in motion.

139
00:08:42,855 --> 00:08:47,401
There were people in NASA who said
a catastrophe would take place,

140
00:08:47,860 --> 00:08:51,656
and all of the important players
at NASA headquarters knew.

141
00:08:52,782 --> 00:08:55,826
{\an8}How could they live with themselves

142
00:08:55,910 --> 00:08:58,996
for making a decision like that?

143
00:09:17,890 --> 00:09:20,226
[triumphant music playing]

144
00:09:25,398 --> 00:09:28,442
[Crippen] There was this pretty
pink-colored glow out the windows.

145
00:09:30,736 --> 00:09:33,823
I always likened it
to riding down a neon tube.

146
00:09:36,409 --> 00:09:40,371
As soon as we hit daylight,
that pink color faded away.

147
00:09:43,916 --> 00:09:46,544
I got a sense of speed coming in on entry.

148
00:09:48,337 --> 00:09:50,923
The ocean and the clouds
were really whizzing by.

149
00:09:54,051 --> 00:09:57,096
Coming across the mountains
and seeing the dry lake beds there,

150
00:09:57,179 --> 00:09:59,181
it was very obvious where we were.

151
00:09:59,849 --> 00:10:02,393
-[static crackling]
-[man] What a way to come to California.

152
00:10:02,476 --> 00:10:04,061
[Crippen] We took a big left bank.

153
00:10:04,687 --> 00:10:06,188
I looked out the windows,

154
00:10:06,314 --> 00:10:09,775
and there were thousands of people
out there on the lake bed.

155
00:10:10,610 --> 00:10:13,154
And I thought, "Hope they're
not on the runway." [chuckles]

156
00:10:13,237 --> 00:10:15,281
[triumphant music continues]

157
00:10:29,211 --> 00:10:32,840
[man 1] Columbia, you're
really looking good. Right on the money.

158
00:10:32,923 --> 00:10:34,550
[cheering]

159
00:10:36,552 --> 00:10:37,720
Beautiful, beautiful.

160
00:10:38,387 --> 00:10:40,348
{\an8}-["America" by Neil Diamond plays]
-[man 2] Thirty.

161
00:10:40,431 --> 00:10:43,559
{\an8}[male anchor] Down it came from space,
98 tons of deadweight glider.

162
00:10:43,643 --> 00:10:45,770
Beginning of a new era in space.

163
00:10:46,270 --> 00:10:51,025
[man 3] Three, two, one… touchdown.

164
00:10:51,817 --> 00:10:52,777
[cheering]

165
00:10:52,860 --> 00:10:54,236
♪ Far ♪

166
00:10:54,987 --> 00:10:57,740
♪ We've been traveling far ♪

167
00:10:58,949 --> 00:11:01,160
♪ Without a home ♪

168
00:11:02,453 --> 00:11:05,039
[man] A triumphant return
for the space shuttle.

169
00:11:05,665 --> 00:11:08,125
A perfect landing here
in the California desert.

170
00:11:08,209 --> 00:11:10,544
-United States of America!
-♪ Free ♪

171
00:11:10,628 --> 00:11:12,380
♪ Only want to be free ♪

172
00:11:12,463 --> 00:11:14,757
[man] On the other side of the country,
there was jubilation

173
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:17,134
at the Kennedy Space Center
at Cape Canaveral.

174
00:11:18,177 --> 00:11:20,012
♪ Hang on to a dream ♪

175
00:11:20,096 --> 00:11:24,308
[man] John Young, Robert Crippen,
and their magical spacecraft did it today.

176
00:11:24,392 --> 00:11:27,645
The first flight of a reusable spacecraft
in history.

177
00:11:27,728 --> 00:11:29,897
♪ Coming to America ♪

178
00:11:30,648 --> 00:11:33,067
[Crippen] I'd never seen John that excited
after we landed,

179
00:11:33,150 --> 00:11:37,196
{\an8}and I was pretty excited myself.
It was actually the highlight of my life.

180
00:11:39,448 --> 00:11:41,701
There were tens of thousands of people
around at that time.

181
00:11:41,784 --> 00:11:43,285
Even Roy Rogers was there.

182
00:11:45,121 --> 00:11:46,997
{\an8}Stephen Spielberg was there as well.

183
00:11:48,582 --> 00:11:52,002
[Young] I think we've got a fantastic
and remarkable capability here.

184
00:11:52,837 --> 00:11:56,841
We're really not too far, the human race
isn't, from going to the stars.

185
00:11:58,217 --> 00:12:00,052
[Crippen] Myself and all my compatriots

186
00:12:00,177 --> 00:12:02,471
are gonna get many more
opportunities to fly.

187
00:12:03,347 --> 00:12:06,767
We are really in the space business
to stay. Thank you.

188
00:12:06,851 --> 00:12:08,018
[cheers and applause]

189
00:12:08,102 --> 00:12:10,896
[man] I think this epic flight of Columbia
proves once again

190
00:12:10,980 --> 00:12:14,066
{\an8}that the United States is number one.

191
00:12:14,150 --> 00:12:15,568
{\an8}[cheering]

192
00:12:18,112 --> 00:12:21,365
[Crippen] The country was very proud
because we were a success.

193
00:12:22,074 --> 00:12:24,034
And it was a truly unique vehicle.

194
00:12:26,287 --> 00:12:29,540
Nobody'd ever seen spacecraft come down
and land on a runway.

195
00:12:32,626 --> 00:12:35,254
[Neil Armstrong]
That's one small step for man.

196
00:12:36,172 --> 00:12:38,674
One giant leap for mankind.

197
00:12:39,675 --> 00:12:42,219
[man] Near the end of the '60s,

198
00:12:42,303 --> 00:12:48,058
it dawned on NASA that we'd been
so intense in our effort to go to the Moon

199
00:12:48,642 --> 00:12:51,979
{\an8}that we hadn't given adequate
consideration…

200
00:12:52,062 --> 00:12:54,231
{\an8}to what would be done next.

201
00:12:54,857 --> 00:12:59,487
I was the director of the Propulsion and
Vehicle Engineering Laboratory at NASA…

202
00:13:00,196 --> 00:13:03,407
so I was asked to organize this group.

203
00:13:03,491 --> 00:13:05,367
We devoted ourselves exclusively

204
00:13:05,451 --> 00:13:09,413
in laying out lower-cost means
of getting to and from space.

205
00:13:09,914 --> 00:13:12,082
[propellers clunking]

206
00:13:12,917 --> 00:13:16,212
[Lucas] When we developed
an expensive vehicle like the Apollo

207
00:13:16,295 --> 00:13:20,883
and used it one time, obviously
that's not economically attractive.

208
00:13:21,383 --> 00:13:24,178
So the idea was to do something reusable.

209
00:13:25,596 --> 00:13:27,890
[male anchor] The president today
authorized the development

210
00:13:27,973 --> 00:13:30,518
of a five-and-a-half
billion-dollar space shuttle.

211
00:13:30,601 --> 00:13:32,770
According to the president,
the shuttle will

212
00:13:32,853 --> 00:13:37,566
transform the space frontier of the '70s
into familiar territory.

213
00:13:37,650 --> 00:13:39,360
[male narrator 1] Launched like a rocket,

214
00:13:39,443 --> 00:13:41,028
orbiting like a satellite,

215
00:13:41,111 --> 00:13:44,323
and landing on a runway
like a plane to fly again.

216
00:13:44,406 --> 00:13:47,952
{\an8}[male anchor 2] In its 60-foot-long,
15-foot-diameter payload bay,

217
00:13:48,035 --> 00:13:52,540
{\an8}it will eventually carry cargo
weighing up to 65,000 pounds.

218
00:13:52,998 --> 00:13:55,543
{\an8}The shuttle was gonna carry
military payloads,

219
00:13:55,626 --> 00:13:57,753
{\an8}science payloads
like the Hubble Telescope,

220
00:13:57,837 --> 00:14:00,047
{\an8}and commercial communications satellites.

221
00:14:00,130 --> 00:14:03,926
{\an8}You can think about the shuttle
as being a space truck.

222
00:14:04,009 --> 00:14:10,015
We're really setting up to take anything
or anybody that wants to go to space.

223
00:14:10,099 --> 00:14:13,227
[Harwood] The shuttle is what opened
everybody's mind to the thought,

224
00:14:13,310 --> 00:14:16,522
"We're gonna open space up
to more average people."

225
00:14:16,605 --> 00:14:19,108
[male narrator 2] Space missions
will become routine,

226
00:14:19,191 --> 00:14:22,528
with everyday scientists,
not highly trained astronauts,

227
00:14:22,611 --> 00:14:24,905
and be comparatively inexpensive.

228
00:14:25,614 --> 00:14:28,075
[male anchor 3] Development
of the space shuttle will take six years,

229
00:14:28,158 --> 00:14:31,954
and the first should be in operation
by the end of this decade.

230
00:14:34,582 --> 00:14:38,168
[male narrator 3] We are on the threshold
of a new era in manned spaceflight.

231
00:14:38,252 --> 00:14:40,087
The era of the space shuttle.

232
00:14:41,547 --> 00:14:46,844
[man] In 1977, everything was
shifting focus to this new spacecraft,

233
00:14:46,927 --> 00:14:48,470
{\an8}so NASA came out and said,

234
00:14:48,554 --> 00:14:51,223
{\an8}"We're looking for our first group
of astronauts

235
00:14:51,307 --> 00:14:52,975
to specifically fly the space shuttle."

236
00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:59,523
[June Scobee Rogers]
When Dick Scobee was three years old,

237
00:14:59,607 --> 00:15:01,442
he wanted to fly airplanes.

238
00:15:01,942 --> 00:15:03,360
That was his dream.

239
00:15:04,236 --> 00:15:07,907
Dick was in the Air Force,
and I was a senior in high school.

240
00:15:08,574 --> 00:15:14,288
{\an8}And we married just before I was 17
and he was 19. [chuckles]

241
00:15:14,872 --> 00:15:19,126
Eventually, he became a test pilot.
He could've done that job forever.

242
00:15:19,209 --> 00:15:22,212
But when he saw that ad
in the Los Angeles Times…

243
00:15:23,547 --> 00:15:28,093
"Shuttle Astronauts Needed,"
it sparked a new interest for him.

244
00:15:28,636 --> 00:15:29,929
I said, "I think you can do it."

245
00:15:30,012 --> 00:15:33,599
And he said, "Oh, those guys,
there are so many brilliant people

246
00:15:33,682 --> 00:15:35,142
that would be accepted."

247
00:15:35,225 --> 00:15:37,811
He said, "We'll see.
Don't pack your bags yet."

248
00:15:37,895 --> 00:15:39,188
[laughs]

249
00:15:40,147 --> 00:15:42,858
So off he went for different interviews.

250
00:15:43,567 --> 00:15:45,736
Early one morning, the phone rang.

251
00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:49,198
He hopped out of the bed,
and he took it in his hand,

252
00:15:49,281 --> 00:15:52,785
and he said, uh, "Yes, sir. Yes, sir."

253
00:15:52,868 --> 00:15:55,829
And he started standing at attention.
"Yes, I'll be there."

254
00:15:55,913 --> 00:16:00,250
And he hung up, and he said,
"We're going to Houston!"

255
00:16:00,334 --> 00:16:02,378
[triumphant music playing]

256
00:16:02,461 --> 00:16:04,755
[male narrator 1] NASA's Manned
Spacecraft Center,

257
00:16:04,838 --> 00:16:07,383
22 miles southeast of Houston, Texas.

258
00:16:07,883 --> 00:16:10,636
Dedicated entirely
to manned space missions.

259
00:16:10,719 --> 00:16:13,430
Where flight crews
are selected and trained.

260
00:16:14,014 --> 00:16:19,311
From astronauts Shepard and Grissom
to Glenn, Carpenter, Schirra, and Cooper.

261
00:16:19,937 --> 00:16:24,149
[man] In the early days,
one of the obvious facts

262
00:16:24,233 --> 00:16:28,737
was that every one of the astronauts was
white Anglo-Saxon male.

263
00:16:29,613 --> 00:16:34,827
I think NASA decided that they were not
gonna maintain that tradition.

264
00:16:34,910 --> 00:16:36,829
[all] Hey! Hey! ERA!

265
00:16:36,912 --> 00:16:38,831
Hey! Hey! ERA!

266
00:16:38,914 --> 00:16:40,916
[Crippen] The '70s were such that

267
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,253
we realized we needed
to broaden our perspective.

268
00:16:45,713 --> 00:16:51,218
{\an8}They had a very positive
and strong campaign

269
00:16:51,301 --> 00:16:53,345
to encourage women and minorities.

270
00:16:53,429 --> 00:16:57,725
Hi. I'm Nichelle Nichols,
but I still feel a little bit like

271
00:16:57,808 --> 00:17:00,060
Lieutenant Uhura
on the Starship Enterprise.

272
00:17:00,144 --> 00:17:02,187
[Gregory] And I saw her on the TV one day,

273
00:17:02,271 --> 00:17:04,231
and she pointed directly at me
and she said,

274
00:17:04,314 --> 00:17:08,152
"I want you in the astronaut program."
And she was talking to me.

275
00:17:08,235 --> 00:17:11,071
This would require the services of people

276
00:17:11,155 --> 00:17:13,866
with a variety of skills
and qualifications.

277
00:17:13,949 --> 00:17:15,743
This is your NASA.

278
00:17:15,826 --> 00:17:19,455
The traditions and the legacies
no longer counted.

279
00:17:20,164 --> 00:17:24,626
The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration today chose the 35 persons

280
00:17:24,710 --> 00:17:28,881
who will ride the space shuttle
into orbit and back in the 1980s.

281
00:17:28,964 --> 00:17:32,843
Among them are three Blacks, one Oriental,
and six women.

282
00:17:33,927 --> 00:17:37,222
{\an8}To say that we're pleased
with the selection is an understatement.

283
00:17:37,723 --> 00:17:41,393
{\an8}And it's my pleasure to introduce
these people to you this morning,

284
00:17:41,477 --> 00:17:43,645
and I'll do so one at a time.

285
00:17:44,438 --> 00:17:48,984
Major in the United States Air Force,
Guy Bluford.

286
00:17:49,943 --> 00:17:54,698
Major Frederick Gregory
from United States Air Force, a pilot.

287
00:17:54,782 --> 00:17:59,286
[Gregory] We were the most diverse group
of any government hiring.

288
00:18:00,120 --> 00:18:02,206
No one had done this before.

289
00:18:02,289 --> 00:18:04,541
[moderator] Richard Covey, a pilot.

290
00:18:04,625 --> 00:18:11,131
{\an8}There clearly were those of us who came
from the military test pilot background,

291
00:18:11,215 --> 00:18:16,011
{\an8}and then there were those who really
had very limited aviation backgrounds

292
00:18:16,095 --> 00:18:20,724
and were engineers, scientists,
and medical doctors.

293
00:18:20,849 --> 00:18:23,644
[moderator] Margaret Rhea Seddon,
resident physician,

294
00:18:23,727 --> 00:18:27,272
Department of Surgery,
City of Memphis Hospital in Memphis.

295
00:18:27,356 --> 00:18:31,944
{\an8}I was one of the first women astronauts,
so that was an exciting time for me.

296
00:18:32,027 --> 00:18:35,197
And that's the first time that all of us
got to meet each other.

297
00:18:36,406 --> 00:18:38,784
We were about to start
an interesting journey together.

298
00:18:38,867 --> 00:18:42,746
-[moderator] That's the 35 new astronauts.
-[applause]

299
00:18:42,830 --> 00:18:46,458
[Covey] TFNG. That was the Class of 1978.

300
00:18:46,542 --> 00:18:48,794
Stands for "Thirty-Five New Guys."

301
00:18:49,294 --> 00:18:53,340
It was a direct takeoff
on a military term, FNG,

302
00:18:53,423 --> 00:18:56,051
which stands for "Fucking New Guy."

303
00:18:56,135 --> 00:18:58,470
[male anchor 1] This is the largest class
in the history

304
00:18:58,554 --> 00:19:00,139
of the American space program.

305
00:19:00,222 --> 00:19:04,268
Twenty-nine men and,
for the first time, six women.

306
00:19:04,351 --> 00:19:08,730
[male anchor 2] The 35 candidates begin
two years of unisex interracial training

307
00:19:08,814 --> 00:19:11,191
at the Johnson Space Center, July 1st.

308
00:19:11,775 --> 00:19:15,696
Those who pass will become astronauts,
ready for advanced instruction as members

309
00:19:15,779 --> 00:19:19,908
of the seven-person crews who will fly
the space shuttle in the 1980s.

310
00:19:20,492 --> 00:19:25,247
We're gonna show a bunch of slides
to get you all organizationally oriented.

311
00:19:25,330 --> 00:19:29,877
Four members of our 1978 class
ended up on the Challenger crew.

312
00:19:30,586 --> 00:19:36,592
There was Ellison Onizuka, Dick Scobee,
Ron McNair, and Judy.

313
00:19:37,718 --> 00:19:40,679
[Brokaw] Judy Resnik, a native of Akron.
The holder of a Doctorate

314
00:19:40,762 --> 00:19:43,223
in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Maryland.

315
00:19:43,307 --> 00:19:46,435
She is single, she plays the piano,
and she's a runner.

316
00:19:46,518 --> 00:19:48,562
When you were a little girl growing up
in Akron, Ohio,

317
00:19:48,645 --> 00:19:50,814
did you say, "Gee, I'd like to be an
astronaut some day"?

318
00:19:50,898 --> 00:19:52,566
No, I really didn't think about it until

319
00:19:52,649 --> 00:19:55,277
NASA announced that
they were looking for astronauts

320
00:19:55,360 --> 00:19:58,322
who would be engineers
and scientists on the space shuttle.

321
00:19:58,405 --> 00:20:01,617
It was accidental that I heard about it,
and I just took a chance and applied.

322
00:20:01,700 --> 00:20:05,078
[Covey] Here she was with this group
of astronauts

323
00:20:05,162 --> 00:20:07,539
and just fit in perfectly.

324
00:20:08,373 --> 00:20:12,169
[Seddon] When we went down on a trip
to the Kennedy Space Center,

325
00:20:12,252 --> 00:20:17,090
we were given a tour of the launch pads
and the assembly buildings and everything.

326
00:20:17,174 --> 00:20:19,635
And then they took us over
to the crew quarters.

327
00:20:20,260 --> 00:20:23,180
When Judy went through,
her name was on one of the doors.

328
00:20:23,764 --> 00:20:27,351
{\an8}And she was showed into the room,
and they had pink satin sheets.

329
00:20:27,893 --> 00:20:31,021
Well, Judy was not amused, shall we say.

330
00:20:35,609 --> 00:20:38,779
[Brokaw] What happens when you meet a man
who's not in the space program

331
00:20:38,862 --> 00:20:41,949
and doesn't know who you are,
and you say, "I'm an astronaut."

332
00:20:42,032 --> 00:20:44,409
Does he say, "Yeah,
you're too cute to be an astronaut.

333
00:20:44,493 --> 00:20:47,246
Come on, little lady!
You can't be an astronaut." [chuckles]

334
00:20:47,329 --> 00:20:50,582
-I just tell them I'm an engineer.
-You don't tell them you're an astronaut?

335
00:20:50,666 --> 00:20:52,000
Not unless he asks.

336
00:20:54,419 --> 00:20:57,005
[Brokaw] You expect to be
up there at some future time,

337
00:20:57,089 --> 00:21:00,133
and you'll be operating
something called an RMS.

338
00:21:00,217 --> 00:21:02,177
[Resnik] That's
a Remote Manipulator System.

339
00:21:02,261 --> 00:21:06,890
It's a fancy word for a very long arm,
which is as long as the cargo bay,

340
00:21:06,974 --> 00:21:10,936
it's 50 feet long, and it works just like
a human arm, it has a shoulder…

341
00:21:11,019 --> 00:21:13,522
[Seddon] She was very serious
about what she was gonna do,

342
00:21:13,605 --> 00:21:17,776
and she didn't want to be singled out
because she was a female.

343
00:21:17,859 --> 00:21:19,611
[RMS motor whirring]

344
00:21:19,695 --> 00:21:21,697
[Brokaw] When do you expect
to go up in the shuttle?

345
00:21:21,780 --> 00:21:25,993
It's gonna be a few years,
for us who are relatively new.

346
00:21:26,076 --> 00:21:27,327
But it's worth the wait.

347
00:21:27,411 --> 00:21:29,496
-You'll be patient enough.
-I'll try.

348
00:21:30,831 --> 00:21:33,625
{\an8}["Fly Like An Eagle"
by Steve Miller Band playing]

349
00:21:35,836 --> 00:21:37,754
{\an8}[Seddon] I think they tried to predict

350
00:21:37,838 --> 00:21:40,507
{\an8}anything that might happen
and train you for it.

351
00:21:42,551 --> 00:21:45,053
"Here's how you get out of the shuttle
if you need to.

352
00:21:45,137 --> 00:21:48,515
Here's how you run across the gantry way.
You jump into these baskets

353
00:21:48,598 --> 00:21:50,767
that are gonna take you down
to the ground."

354
00:21:50,851 --> 00:21:54,104
♪ Time keeps on slippin'
Slippin', slippin' ♪

355
00:21:54,187 --> 00:21:57,691
[Seddon] If something happened on orbit,
if there's a fire on the pad…

356
00:21:57,774 --> 00:21:59,568
We trained for all those things.

357
00:21:59,651 --> 00:22:03,322
♪ I want to fly like an eagle ♪

358
00:22:03,405 --> 00:22:05,115
♪ To the sea ♪

359
00:22:05,657 --> 00:22:07,576
♪ Fly like an eagle… ♪

360
00:22:07,659 --> 00:22:10,120
[male anchor] NASA hopes
the six women and 29 men

361
00:22:10,203 --> 00:22:12,122
will make it through
the two years of training.

362
00:22:13,623 --> 00:22:16,251
The space shuttle is scheduled
to begin in two years,

363
00:22:16,335 --> 00:22:18,795
and all 35 astronauts will be needed.

364
00:22:21,965 --> 00:22:26,261
{\an8}What we learned is that it was not
an individual sport. It was a team sport.

365
00:22:26,345 --> 00:22:29,264
[man] I think you'll find the operations
that you're gonna get involved in

366
00:22:29,348 --> 00:22:31,558
in the future to be very interesting
and very challenging.

367
00:22:31,641 --> 00:22:35,062
♪ I want to fly like an eagle ♪

368
00:22:35,145 --> 00:22:36,772
♪ To the sea ♪

369
00:22:36,855 --> 00:22:38,690
♪ Fly like an eagle ♪

370
00:22:38,774 --> 00:22:40,817
♪ Let my spirit carry me ♪

371
00:22:40,901 --> 00:22:43,904
♪ I want to fly like an eagle ♪

372
00:22:43,987 --> 00:22:48,200
[Gregory] We had to handle a lot
of challenges that, up to that point,

373
00:22:48,283 --> 00:22:51,244
we had never been exposed to.

374
00:22:51,953 --> 00:22:53,997
["Fly Like An Eagle" continues]

375
00:23:01,171 --> 00:23:04,299
♪ Time keeps on slippin'
Slippin', slippin' ♪

376
00:23:04,383 --> 00:23:07,302
-[indistinct chattering]
-♪ Into the future ♪

377
00:23:08,678 --> 00:23:12,140
People talk about a "trial by fire."
I think we had a trial by water.

378
00:23:13,975 --> 00:23:16,770
Because one of the first things
that we had to do

379
00:23:16,853 --> 00:23:19,231
was water survival down in Florida.

380
00:23:19,314 --> 00:23:20,732
[man] Get your heels in the water!

381
00:23:21,316 --> 00:23:24,486
[Seddon] We would be flying
in the backseat of the NASA jets,

382
00:23:24,569 --> 00:23:28,407
and if we ejected and came down in
the water, we had to know how to survive.

383
00:23:28,490 --> 00:23:29,658
[helicopter whirring]

384
00:23:29,741 --> 00:23:30,867
[man] Good job!

385
00:23:30,951 --> 00:23:32,619
[Seddon] I was kind of afraid of the water

386
00:23:32,702 --> 00:23:34,204
and was struggling.

387
00:23:35,497 --> 00:23:37,332
I noticed that Ron was too.

388
00:23:38,208 --> 00:23:40,043
He said, "I'm not much of a swimmer.

389
00:23:41,336 --> 00:23:43,839
They didn't have very many swimming pools

390
00:23:43,922 --> 00:23:46,550
for us folks back in South Carolina,
growing up."

391
00:23:48,593 --> 00:23:50,095
[McNair] Way back in high school,

392
00:23:50,178 --> 00:23:52,848
I had the thoughts of science
and space, astronauts, etc.

393
00:23:52,931 --> 00:23:56,726
But, you know, where I came from,
you know, that wasn't the kind of thing

394
00:23:56,810 --> 00:23:58,270
a Black kid thought about.

395
00:23:58,353 --> 00:24:01,273
You know, how do you get to do
something like that? What do you?

396
00:24:01,773 --> 00:24:05,110
[woman] Ron was from a rural part
of South Carolina.

397
00:24:07,112 --> 00:24:12,325
When he was in school, he went
to the city library to check out a book.

398
00:24:13,952 --> 00:24:18,331
{\an8}At that time, African Americans
were not allowed to check out books,

399
00:24:18,415 --> 00:24:20,417
but he didn't wanna leave.

400
00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:23,920
There was quite a disturbance,
and even the police came,

401
00:24:24,004 --> 00:24:26,381
and his parents were called,

402
00:24:26,465 --> 00:24:29,050
and he said,
"I just wanna check a book out."

403
00:24:30,635 --> 00:24:32,762
Well, he did finally get the book.

404
00:24:33,597 --> 00:24:38,643
He said, "Armed with preparation
and armed with determination,"

405
00:24:38,727 --> 00:24:40,729
he passed these obstacles.

406
00:24:43,190 --> 00:24:45,859
[Covey] Ron McNair was relatively quiet,

407
00:24:46,526 --> 00:24:50,614
but he was extraordinarily skilled
at karate.

408
00:24:51,323 --> 00:24:52,324
Hyah!

409
00:24:53,742 --> 00:24:56,286
He was an accomplished saxophonist.

410
00:24:58,079 --> 00:25:01,041
Those were the ways that Ron spoke out.

411
00:25:01,708 --> 00:25:04,461
[Cheryl McNair] Ron worked
in Hughes Research Laboratories.

412
00:25:04,544 --> 00:25:08,131
He came home one day and said,

413
00:25:08,215 --> 00:25:13,053
"This was in my mailbox, and it's
an application to become an astronaut.

414
00:25:13,136 --> 00:25:14,304
What do you think?"

415
00:25:14,387 --> 00:25:16,014
I said, "Well, what do you think?

416
00:25:16,097 --> 00:25:19,434
That sounds exciting to me.
I think you can do it."

417
00:25:22,729 --> 00:25:27,526
And he said, "Hmm… Yeah. I think I can."

418
00:25:50,215 --> 00:25:51,424
[cage whirring]

419
00:25:56,179 --> 00:26:01,142
[Covey] By 1980, the class of '78
was done with our training,

420
00:26:01,226 --> 00:26:05,146
and we were all waiting to fly.
The space shuttle was on the horizon.

421
00:26:08,108 --> 00:26:11,528
[male anchor] The shuttle is the result
of nine years of compromise, negotiation,

422
00:26:11,611 --> 00:26:12,821
and cost overruns.

423
00:26:12,904 --> 00:26:15,699
Soon, we'll begin to find out
if it was all worth it.

424
00:26:16,700 --> 00:26:19,536
It is the most complex space vehicle
man has ever built.

425
00:26:21,204 --> 00:26:23,623
[Harwood] I was always
both utterly impressed

426
00:26:23,707 --> 00:26:25,667
and scared to death of the space shuttle.

427
00:26:26,334 --> 00:26:28,253
{\an8}It's just a simple respect

428
00:26:28,336 --> 00:26:31,798
{\an8}for machines that are operating
at the very limit of human engineering.

429
00:26:32,757 --> 00:26:35,051
{\an8}[engine revving]

430
00:26:35,135 --> 00:26:37,053
{\an8}I don't think there's ever been a machine

431
00:26:37,137 --> 00:26:40,682
{\an8}that comes anywhere near the shuttle
in terms of sheer complexity.

432
00:26:43,435 --> 00:26:45,562
There were uncounted miles of wiring.

433
00:26:45,645 --> 00:26:48,940
Every sensor had a backup, and most
of those sensors had a backup.

434
00:26:50,483 --> 00:26:54,946
The heavier a spacecraft is, the more
energy's required to get to orbit…

435
00:26:55,947 --> 00:26:58,658
and the shuttle weighed
around 250,000 pounds.

436
00:27:00,410 --> 00:27:04,372
You've gotta get that going
more than 85 football fields a second.

437
00:27:05,332 --> 00:27:07,208
And it just turns out
that's really hard to do.

438
00:27:09,127 --> 00:27:10,337
One of those engines

439
00:27:10,420 --> 00:27:13,632
could drain a full-size swimming pool
in something like 20 seconds,

440
00:27:14,257 --> 00:27:16,009
so you had to have a huge tank.

441
00:27:16,968 --> 00:27:19,929
Now, the boosters that are
on the side, they provided

442
00:27:20,013 --> 00:27:22,974
the lion's share of the thrust
to get the thing off the pad.

443
00:27:24,434 --> 00:27:27,270
Russia never used solid propellant
boosters for any of their spacecraft

444
00:27:27,354 --> 00:27:30,357
'cause they thought they were too
dangerous, and the reason why is simple.

445
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:34,110
Once you light a solid propellant booster,
you cannot turn it off.

446
00:27:35,070 --> 00:27:36,821
You're going, one way or the other.

447
00:27:36,905 --> 00:27:39,199
And for two minutes,
they're gonna be firing.

448
00:27:41,159 --> 00:27:43,995
Any malfunction
is potentially catastrophic.

449
00:27:45,872 --> 00:27:49,501
{\an8}[indistinct radio chattering]

450
00:27:50,794 --> 00:27:53,546
{\an8}[male narrator] Sunday, April 12th, 1981.

451
00:27:54,047 --> 00:27:58,093
{\an8}At the Kennedy Launch Site, thousands
gather to witness this historic event.

452
00:27:58,927 --> 00:28:01,554
It'll be the first American spaceflight
in six years,

453
00:28:02,180 --> 00:28:05,767
the first manned flight
using solid rocket boosters,

454
00:28:05,850 --> 00:28:10,313
and the first time a U.S. space vehicle
had been manned on its maiden flight.

455
00:28:11,147 --> 00:28:16,194
Across the country and around the world,
all eyes were on pad 39.

456
00:28:16,277 --> 00:28:18,446
[tense music playing]

457
00:28:23,785 --> 00:28:27,288
[Ronald Reagan] We're on the cutting edge
of technology and discovery.

458
00:28:29,457 --> 00:28:32,669
We are the people who have thrown
the windows of our souls

459
00:28:32,752 --> 00:28:34,629
wide open to the sun.

460
00:28:35,505 --> 00:28:38,925
We will follow as we can where
our hearts have long since gone,

461
00:28:39,467 --> 00:28:43,138
and progress will be ours
for all mankind to share.

462
00:28:44,305 --> 00:28:46,099
Americans have shown the world…

463
00:28:48,143 --> 00:28:50,186
we not only dream great dreams…

464
00:28:52,230 --> 00:28:55,358
we dare to live those great dreams.

465
00:28:59,612 --> 00:29:04,325
[man 1] T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven,

466
00:29:04,409 --> 00:29:08,079
six, five, four…
We've gone for main engine start.

467
00:29:10,039 --> 00:29:12,041
[triumphant music playing]

468
00:29:22,343 --> 00:29:24,095
[Crippen] When the solid rockets lit,

469
00:29:24,179 --> 00:29:26,723
it's kind of like getting shot off
an aircraft carrier.

470
00:29:27,348 --> 00:29:28,975
There's no other ride like it.

471
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,689
[man 2] We have liftoff. Liftoff
of America's first space shuttle.

472
00:29:38,943 --> 00:29:41,070
[cheering]

473
00:29:41,154 --> 00:29:43,448
And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

474
00:29:48,703 --> 00:29:51,372
[Gregory] If you watch the audience,
some were laughing.

475
00:29:52,081 --> 00:29:54,959
Some were quiet. Some were screaming.

476
00:29:55,543 --> 00:29:59,839
Some were praying,
but they were experiencing this thing,

477
00:29:59,923 --> 00:30:01,466
all of them realizing that

478
00:30:01,549 --> 00:30:05,345
this was not like any experience
they had ever had before.

479
00:30:09,015 --> 00:30:10,225
[man 1] Roger, roll.

480
00:30:16,231 --> 00:30:21,444
[Seddon] For all of us in the '78 class,
it was our future.

481
00:30:22,821 --> 00:30:24,614
[cheering and applause]

482
00:30:27,659 --> 00:30:30,787
[man 3] Columbia, Houston. You guys did
so good, we're gonna let you stay up there

483
00:30:30,870 --> 00:30:32,747
for a couple days. You're go for on orbit.

484
00:30:32,831 --> 00:30:36,417
["Hold On Tight"
by Electric Light Orchestra playing]

485
00:30:36,501 --> 00:30:40,004
♪ Hold on tight to your dream ♪

486
00:30:40,547 --> 00:30:44,759
[Crippen] If you lived through the '70s,
we had the Vietnam War going on.

487
00:30:45,510 --> 00:30:47,428
Inflation was pretty darn high.

488
00:30:47,971 --> 00:30:49,848
We had all kinds of race rioting.

489
00:30:50,473 --> 00:30:52,684
{\an8}So the country needed something
to feel good about.

490
00:30:53,810 --> 00:30:55,603
The space shuttle gave 'em that.

491
00:30:55,687 --> 00:30:57,981
♪ Hold on tight ♪

492
00:30:58,064 --> 00:31:00,733
Half a million people turned out
to say "thank you"

493
00:31:00,817 --> 00:31:03,987
to the space shuttle astronauts
with a ticker-tape parade.

494
00:31:04,070 --> 00:31:04,904
[cheering]

495
00:31:04,988 --> 00:31:07,240
♪ It's a long time to be gone ♪

496
00:31:07,323 --> 00:31:12,078
{\an8}[man 1] We have ignition. We have ignition
of the solid rocket boosters, and liftoff.

497
00:31:12,161 --> 00:31:14,539
{\an8}[cheering and applause]

498
00:31:14,622 --> 00:31:17,000
[man 2] The shuttle was really iconic.

499
00:31:17,500 --> 00:31:22,213
[male narrator] Taster's Choice,
enjoy it 157 miles above Earth.

500
00:31:22,297 --> 00:31:23,923
It brought national pride.

501
00:31:24,841 --> 00:31:28,094
NASA made it about as sexy
as humanly possible.

502
00:31:30,471 --> 00:31:33,016
{\an8}That captivated people
as much as anything.

503
00:31:33,099 --> 00:31:36,936
John Zarella, CNN,
at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

504
00:31:37,020 --> 00:31:41,024
{\an8}For a young reporter like myself,
it was a parallel to Apollo.

505
00:31:41,107 --> 00:31:42,901
[male anchor]
For the first time in nine years,

506
00:31:42,984 --> 00:31:45,194
American astronauts
are taking a walk in space.

507
00:31:45,278 --> 00:31:49,157
{\an8}[Covey] The shuttle program showed
that the United States

508
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,994
{\an8}was continuing to lead
technologically in space.

509
00:31:54,203 --> 00:31:57,582
[female anchor] We're looking at
a great picture of the arm and the Earth.

510
00:31:58,333 --> 00:32:02,253
[Seddon] The satellites that we launched
ended up providing communications,

511
00:32:02,337 --> 00:32:07,717
providing, eventually, the GPS
that we can now tap into to go places.

512
00:32:08,635 --> 00:32:10,887
[man 1] Okay, Dick,
good picture of you there.

513
00:32:11,346 --> 00:32:14,015
Being assigned to a space flight
was a big deal.

514
00:32:14,974 --> 00:32:20,313
Everybody in the class of '78
all wanted to fly.

515
00:32:20,813 --> 00:32:24,484
♪ Hold on tight to your dream ♪

516
00:32:25,735 --> 00:32:27,070
♪ Yeah ♪

517
00:32:27,153 --> 00:32:33,785
♪ Hold on tight ♪

518
00:32:34,452 --> 00:32:35,995
♪ To your dream ♪

519
00:32:42,085 --> 00:32:45,421
[man 2] It's just indescribable to see
the world go by this way.

520
00:32:47,048 --> 00:32:48,841
[Zarella] NASA had the fleet of shuttles.

521
00:32:48,925 --> 00:32:51,427
You had Columbia,
which was the very first one,

522
00:32:51,511 --> 00:32:53,471
and then you had Discovery.

523
00:32:53,554 --> 00:32:56,683
Atlantis came on, and you had Challenger.

524
00:32:58,685 --> 00:33:01,521
[male narrator] The newest orbiter
in NASA's fleet, Challenger,

525
00:33:01,604 --> 00:33:03,523
would fly on shuttle flight six.

526
00:33:04,232 --> 00:33:06,567
Many weight saving improvements
had been made.

527
00:33:07,568 --> 00:33:11,114
The orbiter itself
was almost 2,500 pounds lighter

528
00:33:11,197 --> 00:33:12,657
because of structural changes.

529
00:33:13,533 --> 00:33:18,037
This stack could carry over 17,000 pounds
more into orbit than Columbia.

530
00:33:19,122 --> 00:33:22,083
Challenger, you are free to take off now.

531
00:33:22,166 --> 00:33:26,462
{\an8}[man] Liftoff of the orbiter Challenger,
and the sixth flight of the space shuttle.

532
00:33:26,546 --> 00:33:28,840
{\an8}Sally Ride is scheduled to join
four other astronauts

533
00:33:28,923 --> 00:33:30,174
in the cockpit of the Challenger

534
00:33:30,258 --> 00:33:32,051
for the seventh flight
of the space shuttle,

535
00:33:32,135 --> 00:33:35,513
and as they say, Ride's ride
will be one for the books,

536
00:33:35,596 --> 00:33:37,640
{\an8}the first American woman to fly in space.

537
00:33:37,724 --> 00:33:40,143
{\an8}[man] Ignition, and liftoff.

538
00:33:40,226 --> 00:33:44,856
{\an8}Liftoff of STS-7
and America's first woman astronaut…

539
00:33:45,648 --> 00:33:48,401
[woman] We finally have an inclusion
of half the human race,

540
00:33:48,484 --> 00:33:52,113
{\an8}and that's maybe almost as
tough as conquering space.

541
00:33:52,697 --> 00:33:55,575
[man] NASA made a big deal
out of what the firsts were,

542
00:33:55,658 --> 00:34:00,121
and Challenger was involved
in a lot of the firsts.

543
00:34:00,204 --> 00:34:02,790
{\an8}You know, the first woman,
the first African American…

544
00:34:02,874 --> 00:34:05,918
[Bryant Gumbel] History-making flight
of the space shuttle Challenger.

545
00:34:06,002 --> 00:34:09,297
History-making because on board
will be America's first Black astronaut,

546
00:34:09,380 --> 00:34:12,133
Air Force Lieutenant
Colonel Guion "Guy" Bluford.

547
00:34:12,216 --> 00:34:16,345
{\an8}[man] We have liftoff. Liftoff,
32 minutes after the hour…

548
00:34:16,429 --> 00:34:18,848
[Ronald Reagan] Every one
of these launches of the shuttle

549
00:34:18,931 --> 00:34:20,558
is a noteworthy event,

550
00:34:20,641 --> 00:34:22,643
but Guy, congratulations.

551
00:34:22,727 --> 00:34:27,315
You are paving the way for many others,
and you're making it plain

552
00:34:27,398 --> 00:34:31,486
that we are in an era
of brotherhood here in our land.

553
00:34:37,158 --> 00:34:40,369
[Onizuka] There are a lot of outcomes
from these projects which will affect

554
00:34:40,453 --> 00:34:43,706
{\an8}both our society
and the rest of the world.

555
00:34:44,707 --> 00:34:48,002
[Gregory] El Onizuka was
the first Asian American to fly,

556
00:34:48,628 --> 00:34:51,089
but that was not important for him.

557
00:34:51,172 --> 00:34:54,550
{\an8}He was just an American flying
on an American program,

558
00:34:55,218 --> 00:34:58,221
{\an8}and that someone said,
"You're the first Asian American to fly,"

559
00:34:58,304 --> 00:35:00,848
and he would probably have said,
"Oh, really?"

560
00:35:00,932 --> 00:35:02,558
[laughs]

561
00:35:03,226 --> 00:35:07,021
[male anchor] This is
32-year-old astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka.

562
00:35:07,105 --> 00:35:11,734
Onizuka was a staff flight test engineer
at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

563
00:35:12,944 --> 00:35:16,656
[Covey] Ellison was
a Japanese American from Hawaii.

564
00:35:17,323 --> 00:35:24,080
He prided himself on Hawaiian food,
and, specifically, uh, roasting a pig.

565
00:35:24,664 --> 00:35:28,793
[Covey] That was his big deal, digging
the pit, getting all the banana leaves.

566
00:35:28,876 --> 00:35:32,296
[Crippen] We'd get it up on the table,
and we just pulled it apart.

567
00:35:32,380 --> 00:35:34,590
{\an8}It was pretty hot,
you would burn your hands,

568
00:35:34,674 --> 00:35:37,468
{\an8}but there was always a cold beer there
to cool 'em off.

569
00:35:38,094 --> 00:35:40,012
Ellis was a fun kind of a guy.

570
00:35:40,471 --> 00:35:42,265
[Covey] He found humor in everything.

571
00:35:42,598 --> 00:35:44,767
My wife and I, Cathy,
had just put in a swimming pool,

572
00:35:44,851 --> 00:35:46,727
and we were having a party.

573
00:35:47,812 --> 00:35:50,857
El and I actually flew to Florida
in a NASA T-38

574
00:35:50,940 --> 00:35:55,027
and put two bushels of Florida
oysters in the travel pod,

575
00:35:55,111 --> 00:35:56,362
brought 'em back to Houston.

576
00:35:56,445 --> 00:35:58,197
And so, he was shucking oysters,

577
00:35:58,281 --> 00:36:00,908
and we included people
other than the Astronaut Office.

578
00:36:01,617 --> 00:36:04,662
And one of them went over to El.
And El shucks him some oysters,

579
00:36:04,745 --> 00:36:09,167
and he says,
"So, did Mrs. Covey hire you to do this?"

580
00:36:09,250 --> 00:36:13,796
El, just straight-faced, looked at him
and said, "I'm Mrs. Covey's houseboy.

581
00:36:14,297 --> 00:36:18,301
I just stay over to shuck oysters."
And he goes, "Oh, okay."

582
00:36:18,384 --> 00:36:21,929
Somebody says,
"You dummy, that's an astronaut!" [laughs]

583
00:36:22,847 --> 00:36:25,683
[male anchor] Local residents and friends
and neighbors of Ellison

584
00:36:25,766 --> 00:36:28,311
salute Hawaii's very first astronaut.

585
00:36:39,780 --> 00:36:42,325
[June Scobee Rodgers]
NASA's public affairs office…

586
00:36:42,408 --> 00:36:45,244
was on top of making stories.

587
00:36:46,370 --> 00:36:51,751
They were very smart about what
they wanted the public to know.

588
00:36:52,668 --> 00:36:56,297
Managers were trying to convey

589
00:36:56,923 --> 00:37:03,638
{\an8}that the shuttle is a safe vehicle
that flies like a commercial aircraft.

590
00:37:05,139 --> 00:37:08,184
Even though they knew
that there were tremendous risks.

591
00:37:09,435 --> 00:37:12,146
[male anchor] We have joined
the flight crew for the 41-D mission,

592
00:37:12,230 --> 00:37:13,439
now having breakfast.

593
00:37:13,522 --> 00:37:17,109
{\an8}Judy Resnik will become
America's second woman in space.

594
00:37:18,152 --> 00:37:21,030
{\an8}She'll also operate
the Canadian-built robot arm.

595
00:37:22,615 --> 00:37:25,660
[Harwood] Before every launch, I used to
write profiles of the astronauts.

596
00:37:26,244 --> 00:37:29,538
These were detailed,
1,500-word stories about their lives.

597
00:37:30,623 --> 00:37:33,709
I didn't write 'em because I thought
people would print them in the newspaper.

598
00:37:33,793 --> 00:37:35,753
I wrote 'em because if something happened,

599
00:37:35,836 --> 00:37:38,256
if you make it past tense,
it's an obituary.

600
00:37:38,339 --> 00:37:42,969
[man 1] This is Mission Control Houston.
All positions have given a go for launch.

601
00:37:43,052 --> 00:37:47,181
[man 2] Seven, six, five…
We have main engine start.

602
00:37:47,598 --> 00:37:49,475
-[woman] Cut off.
-[man 2] We have a cut-off.

603
00:37:50,685 --> 00:37:52,270
[male anchor] Engines have been shut off.

604
00:37:52,353 --> 00:37:54,939
[Harwood] In 1984,
on Discovery's maiden flight,

605
00:37:55,022 --> 00:37:58,401
you could see paint on the body flap
of the orbiter. It was on fire.

606
00:37:58,484 --> 00:38:00,903
[male anchor] A major problem,
this has never happened before.

607
00:38:00,987 --> 00:38:04,365
You're realizing that that external tank,
just a few feet away has got

608
00:38:04,448 --> 00:38:07,827
a half-million gallons of, you know,
hydrogen and oxygen on board.

609
00:38:07,910 --> 00:38:08,828
It is a bomb.

610
00:38:09,829 --> 00:38:12,665
So the fire extinguisher system
on the pad came on,

611
00:38:12,748 --> 00:38:15,293
and you know, bathing the aft
of the orbiter in water,

612
00:38:15,376 --> 00:38:17,837
and there were no problems.
Crew got out just fine,

613
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:19,839
but it was a very, very scary moment.

614
00:38:21,299 --> 00:38:22,842
"Close calls," NASA calls those.

615
00:38:23,592 --> 00:38:27,263
Well, NASA had quite a few close calls
before the Challenger accident.

616
00:38:27,346 --> 00:38:32,393
{\an8}[male anchor] So the STS-8 flight crew
will be making its way to launch pad 39-A.

617
00:38:32,476 --> 00:38:37,356
We are having a thunderstorm in the area
of the launch pad at this time.

618
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:39,358
What would be the effect
of a lightning strike

619
00:38:39,442 --> 00:38:40,818
on the vehicle in flight?

620
00:38:41,319 --> 00:38:44,655
We don't intend to launch if there's
any possibility of that happening.

621
00:38:44,739 --> 00:38:47,033
That's just out of the question.

622
00:38:47,116 --> 00:38:48,659
[thunder rumbling]

623
00:38:49,869 --> 00:38:53,331
In fact, lightning actually hit the pad,
but they went ahead and launched that day.

624
00:38:53,414 --> 00:38:55,416
[man] We have liftoff, liftoff.

625
00:38:55,499 --> 00:38:59,086
Thirty-two minutes after the hour,
and the shuttle has cleared the tower.

626
00:39:00,671 --> 00:39:05,092
[Seddon] My husband had a flight
that had a lot of tile damage.

627
00:39:05,176 --> 00:39:08,179
{\an8}Hoot knew it was there. He thought
he was gonna die, coming home,

628
00:39:08,262 --> 00:39:12,183
but NASA did not want
to admit that it was there.

629
00:39:15,353 --> 00:39:17,563
{\an8}My view is we had a few

630
00:39:17,646 --> 00:39:20,649
{\an8}close calls along the way,
not that we had a lot of them.

631
00:39:21,567 --> 00:39:24,195
I was in charge of most
of the space shuttle flights.

632
00:39:25,154 --> 00:39:29,700
Every flight, one after the other,
was fine, and it built our confidence.

633
00:39:29,784 --> 00:39:30,785
We're standing by.

634
00:39:31,494 --> 00:39:33,245
-[man] Touchdown.
-[tires squealing]

635
00:39:33,329 --> 00:39:35,289
[cheering and applause]

636
00:39:38,334 --> 00:39:40,336
{\an8}Congratulations to everyone in the room,

637
00:39:40,419 --> 00:39:42,880
{\an8}and anyone that had anything
to do with the program.

638
00:39:43,547 --> 00:39:47,426
[Zarella] I don't think anybody would ever
deny that NASA had a streak of arrogance.

639
00:39:47,510 --> 00:39:48,636
"We can do anything.

640
00:39:49,261 --> 00:39:52,723
{\an8}We've proved we can do anything.
We put humans on the moon."

641
00:39:52,807 --> 00:39:57,019
[male anchor] Neil Armstrong,
standing on the surface of the moon.

642
00:39:57,728 --> 00:40:03,109
NASA's success breeded arrogance,
and they'd been extremely successful.

643
00:40:03,776 --> 00:40:05,444
{\an8}[man 1] Apollo 13 is go.

644
00:40:05,528 --> 00:40:10,741
{\an8}[man 2] Back in the early '70s, they had
a spacecraft halfway to the moon

645
00:40:11,367 --> 00:40:13,619
blow up and lose part of the spacecraft.

646
00:40:14,328 --> 00:40:18,457
[man 3] Houston, we've had a problem.
We've had a main B bus undervolt.

647
00:40:18,541 --> 00:40:20,209
[man 4] That's number five engine down.

648
00:40:20,292 --> 00:40:21,168
[man 5] Roger.

649
00:40:21,252 --> 00:40:22,920
[man 2] But they got 'em home safely.

650
00:40:23,462 --> 00:40:25,464
[man 6] Splashdown, at this time.

651
00:40:27,091 --> 00:40:31,637
[man 2] NASA had been launching people
into space for a quarter of a century.

652
00:40:31,720 --> 00:40:36,308
{\an8}There hadn't been a single person killed
on their way to space in that time.

653
00:40:38,185 --> 00:40:42,273
[Aldrich] Bringing the astronauts back
was the number one purpose,

654
00:40:42,356 --> 00:40:44,900
and we felt well-qualified to do that.

655
00:40:44,984 --> 00:40:48,446
{\an8}I didn't feel we were doing something
that's so threatening

656
00:40:48,529 --> 00:40:49,947
{\an8}we shouldn't have been doing it.

657
00:40:50,781 --> 00:40:54,410
We generally had things that
had to be corrected between each flight,

658
00:40:54,493 --> 00:40:57,746
but they were things that
just needed to be worked.

659
00:40:57,830 --> 00:40:59,707
[indistinct chattering]

660
00:41:00,416 --> 00:41:03,752
{\an8}We have a space craft up there
that we are coming within two miles of.

661
00:41:05,337 --> 00:41:06,505
{\an8}How big is it?

662
00:41:07,298 --> 00:41:10,551
{\an8}-[man 1] If it hits you, it's big enough.
-[man 2] If it hits you, it's big enough.

663
00:41:12,845 --> 00:41:15,598
It's hard to look at any one
of the close calls NASA had

664
00:41:16,265 --> 00:41:18,851
and say, "That shows that they should have
slowed down and stopped."

665
00:41:19,518 --> 00:41:22,771
The problems that we had
running up to Challenger were one-offs,

666
00:41:23,439 --> 00:41:27,818
but there was an ongoing problem
that had been happening for years.

667
00:41:28,819 --> 00:41:30,321
[explosion]

668
00:41:30,863 --> 00:41:32,615
{\an8}Morton Thiokol was based in Utah,

669
00:41:32,698 --> 00:41:34,992
{\an8}and they were responsible
for the solid rocket boosters.

670
00:41:36,577 --> 00:41:39,455
The shock wave from those boosters,
it was like a mini-earthquake.

671
00:41:39,955 --> 00:41:41,207
[explosion]

672
00:41:42,750 --> 00:41:46,253
At the time, I certainly didn't realize
they had a history of problems with them.

673
00:41:48,672 --> 00:41:52,551
[woman] My dad was an engineer,
working on the boosters.

674
00:41:52,635 --> 00:41:56,472
He knew that there was a major problem.

675
00:41:58,933 --> 00:42:04,522
{\an8}I just know my dad and that,
you know, he was visibly distraught.

676
00:42:05,814 --> 00:42:09,485
One day, he started shouting profanities,

677
00:42:10,152 --> 00:42:13,155
and he kept saying
that nobody would listen.

678
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:19,328
And he said, "I don't care who you tell.
The shuttle is going to explode."

679
00:42:25,459 --> 00:42:28,546
[closing theme music playing]