What happened to the astronauts after the Challenger explosion? Everyone assumes they were blown to pieces, but about six months after the accident I saw an article saying the emergency oxygen systems for the astronauts had been manually activated, meaning some or all of them had survived the explosion. I also remember the tanks had 3-5 minutes of usage, meaning they were breathing for at least as long as it took to fall. I recall something about government interference with the autopsy results and (this is the X-Files-type detail) warnings to fishermen to stay away from some mysterious green vials that might be floating in the wreckage. Is there more to the story? –Fox M., Oakland, California
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More facts? No. More weirdness? You betcha. Recently what purports to be a radio transcript of the Challenger crew’s last minutes has been showing up on computer bulletin boards. Here are some of the more melodramatic lines, with M or F indicating the sex of the speaker:
F: Don’t let me die like this. Not now. Not here …
F: Goodbye (sobs) … I love you, I love you …
If the cabin depressurized immediately, the crew would have survived 6 to 15 seconds; if not, they might have lived two and a half minutes as their ruined vessel arced through the upper atmosphere, reaching a height of 65,000 feet before falling to earth. If the astronauts were still alive when they struck the water they weren’t afterward. The impact pulverized both cabin and crew, and that plus long immersion in salt water made it impossible to tell what really happened. Millions of eyes and billions of dollars in technology were trained on them, yet nobody was watching when they died.
