Apollo And Challenger Disasters Essay, Research Paper

Introduction

This paper is going to compare the Apollo 1 and the Challenger disasters. Both space

programs were unfortunate disasters, caused by a series of oversights and misjudgments.

How did this lost of life occur in such a high tech environment?

Apollo 4

On January 27, 1967, the three astronauts of the Apollo 4, were doing a test

countdown on the launch pad. Gus Grissom was in charge. His crew were Edward H.

White, the first American to walk in space, and Roger B. Chaffee, a naval officer going up

for the first time. 182 feet below, R.C.A technician Gary Propst was seated in front of a

bank of television monitors, listening to the crew radio channel and watching various

televisions for important activity.

Inside the Apollo 4 there was a metal door with a sharp edge. Each time the door

was open and shut, it scraped against an environmental control unit wire. The repeated

abrasion had exposed two tiny sections of wire. A spark alone would not cause a fire, but

just below the cuts in the cable was a length of aluminum tubing, which took a ninety-

degree turn. There were hundreds of these turns in the whole capsule. The aluminum

tubing carried a glycol cooling fluid, which is not flammable, but when exposed to air it

turns to flammable fumes. The capsule was filled with pure oxygen in an effort to allow

the astronauts to work more efficiently. It also turns normally not so flammable items to

highly flammable items. Raschel netting that was highly flammable in the pure oxygen

environment was near the exposed section of the wires.

At 6:31:04 p.m. the Raschel netting burst into an open flame. A second after the

netting burst into flames, the first message came over the crew’s radio channel: “Fire,”

Grissom said. Two Seconds later, Chaffee said clearly, “We’ve got a fire in the cockpit.”

His tone was businesslike (Murray 191).

There was no camera in the cabin, but a remote control camera, if zoomed in on

the porthole could provide a partial, shadowy view of the interior of the space craft. There

was a lot of motion, Propst explained, as White seemed to fumble with something and

then quickly pull his arms back, then reach out again. Another pair of arms came into

view from the left, Grissom’s, as the flames spread 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

capsule astronauts had to remove three separate hatches, atleast 90 seconds was required

to open all three hatches.

The IB Saturn rocket contained no fuel, so no chance of fire was really thought of,

so there were no fire crews or doctors standing by. Many people were listening to the

crew’s radio channel, and would have responded, but were caught off guard and the first

mention of fire was not clearly heard by anyone.

Challenger

On 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 talk of 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 by their superiors to the shuttle director,

Mr. Moore.

Something was unusual about that morning in Florida: it was uncommonly cold.

The night before, the temperature had dropped to twenty-two degrees fahrenheit. Icicles

hung from the launch pad, it was said that the icicles could have broken off and damaged

the space shuttle’s heat tiles. It had been the coldest day on which a shuttle launch had

ever been attempted.

Cold weather had made the rubber O-ring seals so brittle that they no longer sealed

the joint properly. People feared a reduction in the efficiency of the O-ring seals on the

solid rocket boosters. Level 1 authorities at NASA had received enough information

about faulty O-rings by August 1985 that they should have ordered discontinuation of

flights.

The shuttle rocketed away from the icicle laden launch pad, carrying a New

Hampshire school teacher, NASA’s first citizen in space. It was the worst accident in the

history of NASA in nearly 25 years. 11:38 a.m. cape time, the main engine ignition

followed by clouds of smoke and flame came from the solid fuel rocket boosters.

Unknown to anyone in the cabin or on the ground, there was a jet of flame around the

giant orange fuel tank coming from the right-hand booster rocket. Seventy-three seconds

after lift-off the Challenger suddenly disappeared amid a cataclysmic explosion which

ripped the fuel tank from nose to tail (Timothy 441). The explosion occured as Challenger

was 10.35 miles high and 8.05 miles downrange from the cape, speeding toward space at

1,977 mph. Lost along with the $1.2 billion spacecraft were a $100 million satellite that

was to have becooome an important part of NASA’s communications network (Associated

Press 217). Pictures taken revealed that even after the enormous explosion occurred the

cockpit remained somewhat intact. Aerodynamic pressure exerted on the human

passengers would have killed anyone who survived the explosion. The remains of the

shuttle were spread over miles of ocean. Over half were recovered.

In comparison, both disasters were preventable. Both disasters had a main

explosion or malfunction, but even if there were survivors they would have died because

there was no escape. The Challenger disaster was mainly a lot of people wanting to get

better jobs and more money, or simply to get on the good side of someone. The Apollo 4

had many problems which should have been caught.

Conclusion

Apollo 4 had many deficiencies: loose, shoddy wiring, excessive use of

combustible materials in spite of a 100 percent oxygen atmosphere, inadequate provisions

for rescue, and a three layer, ninety plus second hatch. The Challenger had faulty O-rings,

icicles, and bad management which threatened to bring the entire american astronaut

program to an end. Over a billion dollars was lost all together.

Both disasters could have been prevented if the time, effort, and funding was

spent. Many people involved in both disasters were either lazy or greedy.

Biel, Timothy L. The Challenger. San Diego: Lucent Books, Inc. 1990.

Murray, Charles A. Apollo, the Race to the Moon. New York: Simon and Schuster,

1989.

Appel, Fred and Wolleck, James. The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of

Discovery and Expedition. Vol. 16. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1990.

Bond, Peter. Heroes in Space. New York: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1987.

Associated Press. Moments in Space. New York: Gallery Books, 1986.

Encarta. Challenger Disaster. Encyclopedia Cd-rom. Funk and Wagnell’s

Corporation, 1983.

Burton, Jonathon “The Haunting Legacy of the Challenger.” Scholastic Update.

December 4, 1992: 10,11