messpread from the far left-hand corner of the spacecraft toward the porthole(Murray 192). The crew struggled for about 30 seconds after their suits failed,and then died of asphyxiation, not the heat. To get out of the capsuleastronauts had to remove three separate hatches, atleast 90 seconds was requiredto open all three hatches.The IB Saturn rocket contained no fuel, so no chance of fire was reallythought of, so there were no fire crews or doctors standing by. Many peoplewere listening to the crew's radio channel, and would have responded, but werecaught off guard and the first mention of fire was not clearly heard by anyone.ChallengerOn January 28, 1986 the space shuttle Challenger was ready to launch.The lead up to the launch had not been without its share of problems. The talkof cold weather, icicles, and brittle and faulty o-rings were the main problems.It was revealed that deep doubts of some engineers had not been passed on bytheir superiors to the shuttle director, Mr. Moore.Something was unusual about that morning in Florida: it was uncommonlycold. The night before, the temperature had dropped to twenty-two degreesfahrenheit. Icicles hung from the launch pad, it was said that the iciclescould have broken off and damaged the space shuttle's heat tiles. It had beenthe coldest day on which a shuttle launch had ever been attempted.Cold weather had made the rubber O-ring seals so brittle that they nolonger sealed the joint properly. People feared a reduction in the efficiencyof the O-ring seals on the solid rocket boosters. Level 1 authorities at NASAhad received enough information about faulty O-rings by August 1985 that theyshould have ordered discontinuation of flights.The shuttle rocketed away from the icicle laden launch pad, carrying aNew Hampshire school teacher, NASA's first citizen in space. It was the worstaccident in the history of NASA in nearly 25 years. 11:38 a.m. cape time, themain engine ignition followed b...
