New Super 8 Footage of Challenger Shuttle Disaster Surfaces
- Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:18am by
Madeleine Morgenstern
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Image source: YouTube
More than 25 years after the space shuttle Challenger exploded after take-off, an extremely rare amateur recording of the disaster has been uncovered.
According to the Huffington Post, 19-year-old Jeffrey Ault attended the launch with his parents and friend during a visit to Florida in January 1986. He captured the events with his Chinon Super 8 film camera:
The video begins with the countdown to launch, and as the Challenger lifts off, cheers and applause can be heard in the background. The camera follows the shuttle as it climbs, reaching a height of more than nine nautical miles. At 73 seconds, a fireball appears and a woman screams. It‘s not until 39 seconds later that Steve Nesbitt’s chilling words can be heard from the Mission Control Center: “Flight control is here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction.”
As the giant smoke plumes spread across the sky, a woman says “Oh my God!”
“‘Major malfunction?’” a man asks in disbelief.
When Nesbitt comes back to confirm “the vehicle has exploded,” there are stunned, disbelieving gasps as his words are repeated.
“Oh please, don’t say that,” a woman says. The footage ends moments later.
Ault told the Huffington Post the footage sat untouched in a box in his house for 26 years until he watched it again last week.
Reflecting on the day, he told the site in an email: “I was hoping to see an event that I would remember for the rest of my life….I did. Just not the way I would have liked to.”
Despite the incredible rareness of the footage, it is in fact the second home video of the explosion to surface in the last month. In February, The Blaze reported on another amateur video that had turned up from the father of a current NASA employee.
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Comments (55)
thegreatcarnac
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 5:10pmI had forgotten how sad it was.
Report Post »FreedomPurveyor
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 8:31pm“More than 25 years after the space shuttle Challenger exploded after take-off…”
A common misconception is that the shuttle “exploded” and the crew was killed instantly. The crew cabin remained intact, and the astronauts were still alive and strapped in their seats for another 2 minutes after the fireball. They were killed by the impact with the water, not an explosion, though they were likely unconscious due to pressure loss.
Report Post »tradexpertbuysell
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:06pmI gained new insight to this. Study carefully the delayed reaction of the crowd. Not happy to realize that as it happened most witnesses did not understand what they were seeing. That they were seeing a heroic crew dying. The status quo like in 9-11 didn’t comprehend the danger and clung to the illusion of safety until way after the danger had turned to historic tragedy.
How unbelievably sad!
Report Post »Restored One
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 12:04amI wonder why it has taken so many years for all of these videos to start miraculously start appearing. Hmmmm. I guess it takes the Govt 25+ years to make sure that they did not have anything to do with it, the right hand never knows what the left hand is doing, historically speaking. Just askin …..BUT…..Of all of the coverage that I have seen over the years, this is the best (and most devasting). I was a Jr in HS and we watched it live. It was terrible, but at that age many did not see the significance, and then the 7 up jokes came, dumb youth.
Report Post »PaxInVeritate
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 3:36am@FREEDOMPURVEYOR
Report Post »Indeed. The Titanium hull performed as it was designed to. I can’t fathom the what they experienced those two minutes knowing the impact was going to kill them and nothing they could do to prevent it.
jaylew
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 2:15pm@freedompurveyor ….not a post to disagree or argue as we were both deeply saddened by this horrible event…..but I am not sure a human being can survive the “vector shift” that occurred when the shuttles human cargo area was forced off form its original trajectory. Even an instant shift of a few degrees at these awesome speeds would mean a near instant death for the inhabitants. The change in trajectory brought about by the separation event would create a G force equivalent sufficient enough to rip the human brain stem right from its proper place. I think many scientists might agree that the astronauts did not suffer at all and were more than likely killed instantly from the forces that occur with instant changes in trajectories at these speeds. We all know what happens going around a sharp corner at 70 miles an hour…..multiply that by literally hundreds and hundreds of times. Eyeballs would be ripped from their sockets and brain damage would be completely fatal.
Report Post »Bloody Sam
Posted on March 12, 2012 at 1:41pm“most witnesses did not understand what they were seeing. ”
I have seen a great many lift-offs of various vehicles and platforms.
Report Post »If I were on site witnessing that launch, its impact and meaning would have been clear to me immediately…the mission was over.
Those two SRBs trailing away before the External Tank separation would have sent me reeling.
I would have lost it right then and there seeing something so horrific.
@leftfighter
Posted on March 12, 2012 at 2:18pm@tradexpertbuysell
You’re only partially correct. At Nine years old, I was a vereran of watching twenty four previous flights.
The people you‘re referring to who didn’t immediately know something was wrong were likely tourists and people who hadn’t seen the previous 24 launches, as I postulated in the last Blaze article on Challenger.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/isnt-that-amazing-rare-home-video-of-challenger-shuttle-disaster-surfaces/
I still remember that day vividly. My Fourth Grade classroom was out in the courtyard, watching the shuttle, as we had all done many times before. When I saw the explosion, I knew what happened and ran into the classroom to see the close-up just in time to hear mission control confirm that the vehicle had exploded, and I ran out of the room in tears and yelled to everyone in the courtyard, “The Shuttle blew up!”
Recalling the event brings me to tears every time- recalling Ronnie’s speech that night brings me comfort and hope every time.
God bless Challengers crew and Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Report Post »ronnotherealtor
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 5:07pmI was home sick from school that day. I get sick to my stomach every time I see this video.
God Bless all of the families that had to (and still have to) witness this tragedy over and over.
It is also sad that the US doesn’t have a space program anymore…it made us all very proud as citizens of the US and the world!
Report Post »Itsjusttim
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 4:51pmThey are trying to replace memories of 9/11 with memories of the Challenger disaster.
Report Post »DoomsdayProphet
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 5:22pmI was 9 at the time watching in school. They sent everyone home. Back when they let parents handle the emotional support of children still.
If we had a space program anymore I would wish against such a disaster again. Since we haven’t one what does it really matter.
ABO 12.
Report Post »Phantom II
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 3:00pmI was flying at 10 000′ westbound over Freeport Bahamas enroute to FXE in my Baron at the time of the explosion. That makes it about 200 miles SE of the Cape. I had heard the whole countdown and launch from a Miami AM radio station on my ADF. I saw the cloud immediately. I turned to about 300 for about 10 minutes and saw the cloud heading south. I turned toward FXE and landed about half an hour later. We pulled into customs and as we got out the plane, the cloud drift directly over the airport in good definition in an otherwise clear blue sky. Must have been about 30 to 50 thousand feet above us. I’m 66 now and can remember it as though it was yesterday.
Report Post »Here is a time line of the event. http://spaceflightnow.com/challenger/timeline/
Temporal
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 2:24pmTragic day indeed, but where does the HP and The Blaze get the idea that these videos are rare? Thousands of folks lined the highways and parks to watch each shuttle launch and that day was particularly clear. VHS recorders weren’t as common as cell phone cameras today, but there were lots of them and there’s probably hundreds of videos of the event.
Report Post »mensaman62
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 8:40pmThey are rare because the others have not been released. When hundreds are released…no longer rare.
Report Post »skypilot77
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:46pmOn 01 Jan 86 I had moved out of my parents house to start working.
In my apartment I had a clock radio and no television.
When I heard about the accident on the radio I drove to the local mall to watch the events at Sears.
I grew up watching the Apollo missions. This was devastating to watch.
Report Post »babylonvi
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:18pmThis hit the news circuits weeks ago! Why is this article here? Old news, been on TV and internet, but not much on Blaze any more about they way our freedoms and liberties are being stripped away or the Sessions-Panetta row in Senate hearing about how congress is irrelevant in going to war. Are you all running scared since Breitbart?
Report Post »CatB
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:37pmIt was also on The Blaze .. I think this is a different one.
Report Post »The Gooch
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:13pmAt some point, the law of probability catches up with us all. We are often at the mercy of screws, gaskets, and the general work of others. Of course these people were in disbelief. How many times in your life do you see people launched into space, let alone blown to bits in the process? Cut folks a break… I’ve seen big, burly men stand and stare at a person injured right in front of them.
Report Post »“Other people are stupid and sound like idiots! But, me… NEVER!!!” Right….
LetsBeSmartAboutThis
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:00pmEven all these years later, just like the falling towers of 9/11, it’s all so sad. God bless them all.
Report Post »hcartexas
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 12:54pmThese stupid fools dont even know what they were filming….. morons were still oogling over the pretty smoke 30 seconds after the explosion………
Report Post »BurntHills
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:02pmthe brain of a good decent human being cannot quite comprehend the horror they just witnessed. these people watching the explosion could not grip what was unimaginable: they had just seen the horrible death of several astronauts. these are good decent Americans.
Report Post »SHOOTnCRASH
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:02pmwhat a pleasure you are.
Report Post »RinkyDink34
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:21pm“morons” not nice HCARTEXAS!
Report Post »proliance
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 4:09pmIts called denial, and its a natural self-defense mechanism. People with brains experience it in traumatic situations, and people without brains…well I guess your post is a good example.
Report Post »think1st
Posted on March 11, 2012 at 3:07pmHCART – I’m still “oogling” over your stupidity 30 seconds after reading your post! Maybe you shouldn‘t use the term ’moron’ when your own IQ dips into the low teens… Anyone else agree?
Report Post »Annie Fields
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 12:39pmWhen a crew costing thousands of $$ an hour stops work to watch TV, you know something serious has happened. – Coming in from the freezing cold sidewalk of a boxing ring in Dorchester where I was a college-intern “doorman” for a Boston ad agency called “Duck Productions” (You can’t make this stuff up) I saw a crowd of people standing around the side of the ring – DOING NOTHING. If you’ve ever been on an ad shoot, you know that never EVER happens. Time is big BIG money. We stood and watched, in horror, what happened for about 20 minutes, then back to work. I’ll never forget it. I‘ll also never forget Reagan’s beautiful ref to “touching the face of God.” (If you just Google “touch the face of God” in quotes, it’s the first one, and tells the touching story of the young aviator who wrote the poem.) Here it is:
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
Report Post »I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and t
Annie Fields
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 12:32pmWhen a crew costing thousands of dollars an hour stops work to watch t.v., you know something serious has happened.
Coming in from the freezing cold sidewalk of a boxing ring in Dorchester where I was “doorman” for a Boston advertising agency called “Duck Productions” (You can’t make this stuff up) I saw a crowd of people standing around the side of the ring – DOING NOTHING. If you’ve ever been on an ad shoot, you know that never EVER happens. Time is big BIG money.
We stood and watched, in horror, what happened for about 20 minutes, then back to work. I’ll never forget it. I‘ll also never forget Reagan’s beautiful poem about “touching the face of God.” Here it is:
(If you just Google “touch the face of God” in quotes, it’s the first one, and tells the touching story of the young aviator who wrote it.)
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
Report Post »I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand,
RinkyDink34
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 12:26pmVery Sad, my heart goes out to the family’s; but the question will always remain:.
Report Post »Was the reason for the mishap as I believe “Familiarity breeds contempt”
or the more comforting explanation “Providence”
NewLife56
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 12:18pmThat was a very sad day. I was 30 at the time, a day I will never forget. I’ll also never forget the day Pres Obama pretty much killed our Space program.
Report Post »SHOOTnCRASH
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 1:00pmPretty much? He murdered it. It’ll be back in 2013..we’ll all be back in 2013.
Report Post »Joyzee
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 12:10pmI Lived in Kissimmee i was taking pictures outside my condo while it exploded and had the tv on at same time. still have the photos haven’t really showed them much!…
Report Post »momsense
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:59amMy husband died the same year as they had the Challenger accident.Iit was 26 years ago yesterday. Anything aobut the Challenger is always so hard for me to watch for that reason.
Report Post »JBaer
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:49amEvery time I see footage of the space shuttle disaster or 9/11, I always get tears in my eyes. My heart goes out to those that were lost.
Report Post »IMCHRISTIAN
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:44amI remember where I was when the Challenger explosion happen. I was in the hospital with my spouse who was fighting cancer. The room had a couple of other patients and when it came on tv screen we all just froze in horror. It is one of those times no one forgets what they were doing that day. God Bless America for our great people here and beyond,
Report Post »marthasusan40
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:42amIts like watching a movie that you have already seen and still hope for a different ending. This is one of the saddest days in America. It still hurts my heart to watch it. God Bless them for their courage and God Bless their families, because they had to carry on.
Report Post »Black_Dynamite
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:41amGod Bless Them All!
http://www.squidoo.com/5linx-from-a-to-z
Report Post »wdittgasn
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:41amThose people had no clue that the shuttle exploded, and that the launch had gone completely wrong.
Report Post »GumRock
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:40amThe Onlookers didnt seem to know it blew up, till the guy on the radio said so.
Report Post »what did they think they were looking at ?
TRONINTHEMORNING
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:40amWho doesn’t remember where they were that day, that moment. A terrible, sad moment.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:33amWe know… it was an APEX O-Ring… and since it was little & cheap… they did pay same attention to it, as the big & expensive parts!
Report Post »BurntHills
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:30amwe can’t watch it either.
as we were listening to it happen on a car radio, we hit a patch of ice and [slowly] hit a tree. Unhurt, we just sat there and listened in horror and tears as we lost our astronauts. heck with the stupid car, those were OUR astronauts. everyone in the car was crying for THEM, not because we just hit a dumb tree. we saw the footage once on tv back at the house and no one spoke. personally, we never watched it again either. as Americans, OUR people died at that moment.
when obama ‘gave’ NASA and our secrets to the muslims and killed our space programs and The FL Space Coast, we were horrified amd ouraged. then when gabby giffords got shot, we lost that lifelong awe and respect for US Astronauts when her astronaut husband came out swinging in such obamademocrat sheer hatred against “Republicans” before he even knew who =what= had shot her .
Report Post »martinez012577
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 11:42amI was a kid when it happened but I remember it clearly. I am also pissed how our space program that has given us so much and been turned inside out. The only thing I disagree with is blaming all of the astronauts for Giffords dumb comments. It could have been a NASA test on people with no understanding of the Constitution in space.
Report Post »BurntHills
Posted on March 10, 2012 at 12:58pmwe were the children of WWII vets, we had that good old American hero worship for our astronauts.. until the giffords astronaut husband opened his mouth — and that blind hatred for half of America blew that shimmering veil “these are America’s Best!’ away. —— we know, they are ”just people”, too. how sad, we spent our lives in the 60s on the docks along southeast FL watching the missles and astronauts go up —and imagining what heroes they were.
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