The Space Shuttle: 7. Teacher in space

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Before we start, don't forget there are two previous seasons of 13 Minutes, the home of epic space stories.

They're available right now and are waiting for you once you've finished this episode.

This episode contains scenes some listeners might find upsetting, and some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

Some succeed by what they know, some by what they do, and few by what they are.

A large, high-ceiling room hung with paintings.

At one end of it, two doors flank an imposing fireplace.

This is the Roosevelt Room at the White House.

Clearly, our ten finalists have succeeded in all three categories.

NASA Administrator James Beggs stands at a podium addressing the invited guests and media.

To his right is the United States Vice President George Bush Sr.

To his left is a group of six women and four men.

They've demonstrated that they're winners and we're very proud of these 10 young men and women.

It's July 1985.

and one of these ten is about to make history.

When the shuttle programme was first announced 15 years earlier, it promised to make spaceflight routine.

So far, 18 shuttle missions have flown and the schedule is ramping up.

There have already been four launches this year and another five are scheduled before 1985 is out.

But there's a downside to the perception that spaceflight is routine.

The public and the media are losing interest in the shuttle programme.

The excitement around the early missions has gone and TV networks aren't even showing launches, never mind the rest of the missions.

The space shuttle simply isn't news anymore.

And that's a worry for NASA.

This lack of public immediate interest could undermine political and financial support for the program.

Well, we're here today to announce the first

private citizen passenger in the history of spaceflight.

In the Roosevelt room, Vice President George Bush is addressing the audience.

The president said last August that this passenger would be one of America's finest, a teacher.

Well, since then, as we've heard, NASA, with the help of the heads of our state school systems, has searched the nation for a teacher with the right stuff.

By sending a teacher into space, NASA hopes to get the public behind the shuttle program once again.

So let me tell you now who our teacher in space will be and let me say I thought I was a world traveler but this tops anything I've tried.

And for the White House it's a chance to show their support for an education system under strain.

And the winner, the teacher who will be going into space, Krista McAuliffe.

Where is that you?

36-year-old Krista McAuliffe teaches social studies at Concord High School in New Hampshire.

She radiates enthusiasm and energy.

She is a star teacher.

She shakes the hand of the vice president and steps up to the podium.

It's not often that a teacher is at a loss for words.

I know my students wouldn't think so.

I've made nine wonderful friends over the last two weeks.

When that shuttle goes, there might be one body.

But there's going to be ten souls that I'm taking with me.

Thank you, Miss Gray.

From the BBC World Service, 13 Minutes presents the Space Shuttle.

I'm space scientist Maggie Adarin-Pocock.

Episode 7 of 10.

Teacher in Space.

Challenger, Houston.

We have good

Teachers TV.

Go ahead with the lesson, Krista.

Okay.

Good morning.

This is Krista McAuliffe.

Live from The Challenger.

McAuliffe is standing in a small cabin surrounded by consoles and controls.

She's dressed casually, wearing a sleeveless sweater with orange and blue stripes.

And I'm going to be taking you through a field trip.

And she's holding a microphone.

I'm going to start out introducing you to two very important members of the crew.

The first one is Commander Scobie, who is sitting to my left.

And the second one is Michael Smith.

But right now, The seats are empty.

It's just McAuliffe.

She's in the Crew Compartment Trainer, a recreation of the space shuttle's flight deck and mid-deck at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Now, Commander Scobie is going to tell you a little bit about flying the orbiter, and Commander Smith, or excuse me, Pilot Smith is going to be telling you a little bit about the SPAC, which is the computer that is used on board.

She's rehearsing a video presentation that she'll be doing from the shuttle during the mission.

She's expected to do in space what she does so brilliantly on Earth.

Alright, now when I go downstairs that's gonna move.

When she gives the guided tour of Challenger for Real, when in space,

the hope is she'll be watched by hundreds of thousands of school students across the US.

We're gonna talk about the bathroom first, is that when we decided

they were gonna move.

Okay.

That other voice you can hear in the background helping McAuliffe plan the presentation is Barbara Morgan.

People ask

why did you apply?

She has been selected as the backup for the Teacher in Space program.

If McAuliffe isn't able to fly for any reason, Morgan will step in.

I applied because I'm a teacher and as teachers we're always looking for ways to further our own education, to make the classroom a more interesting, engaging, exciting place and to bring the world into our classroom and to knock those four walls down and take our students out into the world.

NASA is a very different environment to the school in Idaho where Morgan works.

The two teachers have an intensive schedule over several months.

They need to learn as much as they can about the shuttle.

They need to work together to prepare the lessons that McAuliffe will teach in space.

And they need to get to know the rest of the crew, sometimes in the back of a high-performance aircraft.

So our commander Dick Scobie and our pilot Mike Smith took Kristen and me out flying for the very first time on the most exciting flights that either of us had ever had in our lives.

The two teachers are each sitting in the back of a T-38 jet.

The T-38s are Air Force jet trainers.

They go about 500 miles an hour.

They're dual cockpit, so you've got the front seater and the back seater.

And it was to have some experience in high-performance jet aircraft before Krista would fly in the most high-performing technological flying machine that we have, our space shuttles.

And also for us to learn to trust and understand our commander and pilot.

and for our commander and pilot to trust and understand that in a high-performance aircraft that we would be able to be trusted to do the the right things.

Krista McCorniff is in Dick Scaby's T-38 jet, the commander of their mission.

And Morgan is flying with Mike Smith, who will be Challenger's pilot.

Scabie and Smith settle into formation, with their aircraft almost wingtip to wingtip.

I could literally see Krista's eyes in the plane next to me, and that gave me a great appreciation for just how talented our pilots are who fly these kinds of planes.

Then we split apart.

Dick and Krista went off flying their way and Mike and I went flying off our way.

This is over the Gulf of Mexico.

As they're flying over the ocean, Mike Smith shows her how to do barrel rolls.

Take the stick and you either push it all the way to the right or push it all the way to the left so that the airplane is rolling.

And lazy eights.

You actually take the plane and you fly upwards and so you draw with your airplane an eight, a figure eight.

Performing acrobatics and pulling Gs in fighter jets over the Gulf of Mexico, it's a very different day at work for the two teachers.

Then I heard Mike say to me, okay Barb, it's your turn, push the stick.

And I said, which way?

And he said, well, any way you want.

Just push the stick and see what happens.

And I was really shocked.

I had not expected to do anything like that.

And I didn't know how to fly.

I didn't have any confidence in myself.

But Mike had the confidence in me, and he was able to instill that confidence by saying, take it, push it yourself, go for it, see what happens.

And so I pushed the stick and did a bunch of barrel rolls and flew in long sweeping arcs high over the Gulf of Mexico.

And Mike opened up a whole, you know, whole new door of opportunities for me by doing that.

It was just a beautiful, bright blue, clear sky.

I remember saying something like, gosh, Mike, this is an incredible view.

He said,

here's a better view for you.

And before he even finished getting those words out, we were flying upside down.

And here, the whole earth, the whole green and brown of Texas was filling my canopy.

And here I was looking up, up out of the canopy at our Earth and it flipped that whole perspective for me.

There are other opportunities for McAuliffe and Morgan to fly and they're just as exhilarating.

NASA's KC-135 aircraft gives trainee astronauts the experience of weightlessness.

It's known as the Vomit Comet.

It performs a series of parabolas, flying up and then down in a U-shaped curve.

Very much like going over the top of the hill in a roller coaster.

And for anybody that's been on a roller coaster, when you go over the top of that hill and you feel like your stomach maybe jumps up a little bit, you are actually experiencing a teeny, teeny, tiny split second of microgravity or a weightlessness.

And that's what happens when you fly in this aircraft.

As you go into that first parabola, you don't have to do anything.

Just sit there and enjoy it, and then you will slowly lift off the floor.

That's what we were told.

So that's what I was expecting and we went into that first parabola over the top and I literally shot to the ceiling and just started laughing.

And I don't think Kristen and I quit laughing the entire flight.

McAuliffe and Morgan are relishing the experience of simulated weightlessness.

They try dancing in mid-air and leapfrogging over each other.

First leapfrog in zero for footer belly.

One leapfrog,

two leapfrogs!

Dreaming.

In the air, in the classroom, and in the simulators, McAuliffe and Morgan are living and working alongside each other day after day.

They form a bond.

Krista was wonderful.

She was like the girl next door.

She had a very engaging smile.

She was quiet and friendly, and

just

soaking it all in.

But behind the scenes, amongst the astronaut corps, not everybody is comfortable with the idea of a private citizen going into space.

I was not a fan of passengers flying on the space shuttle.

I felt that the vehicle wasn't an airliner.

I understood and thought it was a good thing to try to fly different people in space, but I thought it was a little bit early to be doing that.

Mike Mullane and Anna Fisher joined NASA as part of the 35 new guys.

I understood why that was important to show the young people that, hey,

think big, think of going into space someday.

Here's a teacher that's up there in space.

I can understand that.

But space is a hostile environment and the shuttle is a hugely complex machine.

Astronauts like Anna Fisher and Mike Mullain put their lives on the line when they fly.

They understand

and accept the risk.

I didn't know Krista McAuliffe, the teacher, but I passed her many times in the hallways and whenever I saw her, she had an incandescent smile on her face.

And I wore that smile too.

But I knew the risks and the other people that were flying knew the risks.

And I thought to myself, has anybody sat down with that woman and told her that this is not as safe as an airliner?

I know Dick Scoby was concerned about Krista McAuliffe because he wasn't certain that she really understood that from

the selection process and all of that for the teacher in space.

As commander of the mission that will take her into space, Dick Scobie is determined to support McAuliffe, and that includes making sure she understands what she's getting herself into.

He told me that he made certain that she understood the risks she was taking.

So I know he told her.

Now, you know, sometimes you only hear what you want to hear, so I don't know, but I am sure that he tried to make her aware of the risks.

On the 30th of October 1985, the space shuttle launches from Kennedy on mission STS-61A.

The two teachers watch from the viewing area.

The orbiter for this mission is Challenger, the vehicle that will take McAuliffe and her crew into space in less than three months' time.

But before that happens, Challenger will undergo a lot more than just its return from space.

The shuttle was designed to be reused, yes, but because of how complex it is, it needs to be dismantled and then rebuilt before it can be sent back into space.

It's a demanding schedule with no room for errors.

We'll stop.

Roger, we'll stop, Challenger.

Welcome home and congratulations on a beautiful flight.

Seven days after its launch, the orbiter lands successfully at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

After a few days, it's flown back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to an orbiter processing facility.

This is when the turnaround for the next mission begins.

So we would dismantle the vehicle, you know, fairly extensively.

The main engines went back into the engine shop.

That was a big, big challenge.

Shuttle processing engineer John Tribe has been with the program since the very beginning.

All the stuff that comes back from the previous mission has to be brought off.

Every subsystem has to be tested completely on the vehicle.

All the vehicle has to be configured for the next mission.

All the relevant equipment has to be put into the payload bay.

The payload itself has to be installed.

After more than a month, Challenger is transported to the Vehicle Vehicle Assembly Building, the VAB,

a structure so tall it has its own weather.

On humid days, rain clouds can form near its ceiling.

Very much big time history here in this building.

I mean, built in the early 60s, I think at that time beside Sears Tower, it was the largest volume building in the world.

Bill Carr joined the shuttle program as a technician.

Now, in late 1985, he's pad pad leader, preparing Launch Pad 39B for its first shuttle launch, the Teacher in Space mission.

If you're ever on the roof, you've never been that high before in any building.

I've been up there several times, but a lot of history here.

When Challenger arrives, the other elements of the shuttle are already here.

The huge orange external tank has been flown in from Louisiana and the two powerful solid rocket boosters have arrived from their manufacturer in Utah.

Together, these components form the whole space shuttle, also called the Shuttle Stack.

So the external tank would be mated to the boosters, and now it's ready for the orbiter.

Now it's Challenger's turn to get connected using a very large crane.

And it's probably one of the most sophisticated computerized cranes of its time.

Imagine Challenger hanging vertically in a sort of metal sling held only by long cables from the crane's arm far far above it.

The Orbiter weighs 100 tons and it's worth around $2 billion.

So as it's moved towards the rest of the shuttle stack, it's really important it doesn't start to swing.

So if you look at where the crane cab is, if you can look up

and when you make one movement of the stick up at the very top of that crane cab,

the movement on the pendulum down here can be significant.

So the amount of training that goes in for the crane crew guys, these guys are super specialized.

Challenger is moving at a snail's pace until it's right above the external tank and the solid rocket boosters.

Now the job of the crane operator is to lower it very carefully, making sure it's in exactly the right position.

As the orbiter slowly descends, it passes several platforms with additional workers.

We had guys with push pads on each platform to make sure that if you had to make any nudges against that thermal protection, that you would make small incremental moves.

Everyone's communicating via radio.

If anybody at any point notices something wrong, they can call a stop immediately.

So if anybody called a halt, you had any problem with any kind of movement, you hit the stop and the crane automatically stops and then we would talk about it.

But it all goes well.

Challenger is successfully attached to the external tank.

Now the complete shuttle stack is powered up.

and checked over.

Then, a crawler transporter moves the shuttle to the launch pad.

It inches forward along caterpillar tracks, twice the height of a person.

The crawler then starts a slow three-quarters up to one mile an hour out to the launch pad.

I think that took the better part of the day.

I think when we'd roll out at midnight, it would be hard down at noon or whatever out there at the pad.

It's taken a month and a half to get it ready.

But finally, the job is done.

Challenger sits waiting on Launch Pad 39B.

The early visions of the shuttle compared it to a commercial airliner.

You know, the original goal was,

I remember back in the early 70s, 160-hour turnaround.

Shuttle processing engineer John Tribe.

In other words, we should get the vehicle back, land, roll it into the hangar and have it out ready to launch again in 160 hours.

I mean, launch 40 times a year.

Well, even us old-timers then said, we ain't ever going to do that.

And so, you know, it took, I think, on the first couple of flights, six months basically, to get the vehicle back from the flight and ready for the next flight, ready to roll out again.

The shuttle team has become faster since those early flights.

But the turnaround is clearly far more complex than a simple clean and refuel.

And now, a few years into the program, the flight rate is ramping up.

85 and 86 were busy years

and we were starting to

really get a lot of pressure on increasing the launch rate.

Probably

one of the worst times of our lives.

The flight rate was pushing us pretty hard.

Since the first shuttle mission, STS-1, Bob Clippin has commanded three more.

We had proved the basics of what we wanted the space shuttle to be able to do, and we were proud of the way it was behaving.

But we also had some issues with the vehicle that we were continuing to work with.

The vehicle didn't always come back clean.

We had various times we came back in, we had landing gear problems, brakes, tires.

We did have some heat damage on various tiles.

So, trying to correct all of those at the same time, trying to push the flight rate was a challenge.

As 1985 draws to a close, the teams working on the space shuttle have managed to launch more missions than any year so far, a total of nine.

It's an unrelenting schedule, and in 1986, there are 15 flights planned.

That means there's very little time for the teams to get on top of the issues they can see.

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In early 1986, seven astronauts arrive at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Once they're on the ground, each member of the crew says a few words to the waiting media.

Commander Dick Scobie speaks first.

As usual, it's a real pleasure to be at the Cape to come down here and participate in something that the Cape does better than anybody in the world, and that's launching space vehicles.

Then he introduces pilot Mike Smith.

Thanks, Dick.

And it'll be my first time to fly.

We're just all looking forward to getting on over and getting the secret handshake.

Next up is mission specialist Judy Resnick.

Well, I too am glad to be here one more time.

She is one of the six women recruited as part of the 35 new guys.

And I will now introduce El Onizuka.

Ellison Onizuka is from the same astronaut class and the first Asian American astronaut.

Let me say that it's really a pleasure to be back.

I'm looking forward to going to fly this one.

Next is Ron McNair.

Again, I'd like to echo the opinions of my crew members that...

He's also part of the 35 New Guys and one of NASA's first African-American astronauts.

His first mission was the one that released the two satellites that were stranded in space.

It's a great pleasure finally to get this far.

Greg Jarvis was due to fly on the shuttle mission which launched two weeks earlier.

But his place on that flight was taken by a US congressman and he was bumped to this mission.

I'm very proud to be part of the program that NASA and Hughes have put together.

But the nation's attention today is focused on Krista McAuliffe, the teacher in space.

Wearing her blue NASA flight suit, she steps forward to the microphone.

Well, I am so excited to be here.

I don't think any teacher has ever been more ready to have two lessons in my life.

I've been preparing these since September, and I just hope everybody tunes in on day four now to watch the teacher teaching from space.

This is Shuttle Launch Control.

Commander Dick Scobie now is getting into the orbiter,

followed by pilot Mike Smith.

In the four days since the press conference, Challenger's crew have been in final preparations for the mission and said goodbye to their families and loved ones.

Launch was originally scheduled yesterday, but was delayed due to unfavourable weather conditions.

Mission Specialist Judy Resnick now in the orbiter and about to start her communications checks, while teacher payload specialist Krista McAuliffe has put on her egress harness and will be just about to put on her launch and entry helmet.

One by one, each member of the crew gets ready, then enters through the round hatch at the side of the orbiter.

I was out at the pad as an ops guy as they closed the hatch.

It was a beautiful day.

Pad leader Bill Carr is looking forward to a successful first launch from Pad 39B.

We're having a little difficulty with that also.

But there's a problem.

A piece of equipment known as the milk stool is attached to the hatch.

It's not to go fly, it's so you can grab it and close the hatch and you don't touch the flight hardware.

Once the hatch is shut, the Klozak crew have to remove the nuts holding the milk stool.

But the thread on one of the nuts is stripped.

They can't get it off.

Okay, do we have the proper tools up there to do that job?

Test the negative.

I do not have the drill.

They asked me to send some extra drills and motors out, so I sent a bunch of drill motors and batteries out to the pad.

The close-out crew up in the white room have requested additional tools, which will be brought out to the pad.

Unfortunately, the batteries have been sitting for a while, so when he snapped the battery and the drill when it was under a load, these batteries were failing, which we didn't know.

They've been sitting on charge for too long.

So the close-out crew leader, running out of options, asks if he can use a hacksaw to literally saw the nut plate off.

Well naturally they said no hacksaws on national TV.

I've got the cameras and imagine them sawing something off the space shuttle before it launches.

While the closeout crew wrestle with the handle, the countdown has stayed paused at the T-9 minute hold.

But to extend the window for launch, the team in the control room make the decision to go back to the previous hold at T-minus 20 minutes.

They reset the ground launch sequencer, or GLS, the computer that controls the final phase leading to launch.

I remember Roberta Weirich was the test conductor, and she had said, you know, on my mark, you know, we're going to reset GLS ground launch sequencer on my mark, 3, 2, 1, mark.

And just seconds later, Junior says we've got the milk still off.

The Kozak crew have solved the problem, but it's too late.

For hours there's been good weather, but now the crosswinds have increased, and they're too strong to launch.

We are going to scrub for today.

The people will be coming out to the pad to let the crew out of the orbiter shortly as we recycle the vehicle back to a safe condition.

The initial recycle will be back to T-minus 20.

And that always haunted me because that was a very nice day.

The crew was all strapped in and

I'm sure we would have had a successful mission.

Good morning.

This is Shuttle Launch Control at T minus three hours and holding.

It's the next day.

Early morning on the 28th of January, 1986.

The countdown of launching Mission 51L is proceeding smoothly.

The crew is still sleeping at this time.

They'll be awakened in just a short while at 6.20 a.m.

And they will then have breakfast and don their flight clothing.

That night, the weather was just abysmal.

Shuttle processing engineer John Tribe.

You know, it was one of the coldest nights I've ever experienced in Florida.

It was down in the low 20s.

That's in Fahrenheit, around minus seven degrees Celsius.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

You know, it could be very cold.

I'd never seen anything like this.

I mean,

I went in and

I didn't even have the kind of jacket that I would need to wear in Florida, so I borrowed a jacket from my dad and I bundled up because it was so cold.

Spectators usually gather many hours ahead of a launch.

The roads near Kennedy Space Center would be crowded with cars and families, even before dawn, as they wait excitedly for liftoff.

But not this morning.

The roads are quiet.

It's just too cold to stand waiting.

Those who have arrived are sitting in their vehicles with engines running, doing their best to stay warm.

I came in at three or four o'clock in the morning and we go to do the final walkdown and there's ice everywhere.

Launch Pad 39B resembles an eerie winter scene.

The pad is covered in long icicles.

Great, great sheets of ice everywhere.

And if you ever look at any photographs, it looks like something out of the ice house in Dr.

Chavago.

It was, you know, it was just awful.

Ice everywhere.

The evening before, John Tribe had been keeping an eye on the conditions when it was clear it would be an an incredibly cold night.

And I remember walking back across to the office and I passed a group of my guys that were going over there and they said, what's the status?

I said, we're not flying.

I said, no way we can fly with that condition out there.

There wasn't any question in my mind.

But not everyone shares Tribe's certainty.

We had analysts at Downey, analysts at Houston trying to figure out where will the ice go when it lifts off?

Is there any damage?

Is there any threat to the vehicle?

And they finally convinced themselves that there would be no threat.

And we go for launch.

Filling of the Shuttle Challenger's external tank with its flight load of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen was delayed this morning and was started at about 4 a.m.

The tanking delay while the shuttle's external tank is being filled.

An ice team looks at conditions on the launch pad.

The concern is that icicles could break off during launch and damage the fragile tiles of Challenger's heat shield.

I went over to a point-to-point phone.

I went straight to the control room.

I talked to the backup test conductor and I said this pad is, I mean, has anybody been out here?

And I describe all the ice.

So the backup test conductor said, okay, we'll notify the crew office to let them know to be extra careful.

And I thought to myself, this isn't the desired result I'm looking for.

For Bill Carr, this isn't about slipping on the ice.

It's about whether Challenger should be launching at all.

There was a lot of tension to STS-51L because of folks that were flying on it more than anything, most notably to Chris McAuliffe, a teacher in space.

The long-awaited Ballyhood

presidential involvement.

it was a big deal.

In mission control, astronaut Dick Covey is at his console.

He is the Capcom during the Challengers are sent into orbit.

He's the only member of the team who communicates directly with the crew during launch.

Over the last few months, he's been working very closely with them.

We went through the launch stuff time and time again, as all crews do and all Capcoms do.

So they know me, they know my voice, they know I'm the guy talking to them, have that level of,

I say, comfort with who's talking to them and what they're saying from the control center.

Launch has been delayed by a couple of hours to allow the ICE team to assess the situation and remove more icicles from the pad.

It's now set for 11.38.

Challenger Houston, good morning.

On Launch Pad 39B, the astronauts are strapped in.

They're all wearing gloves.

Even inside the shuttle, it's difficult to keep warm.

Challenger Houston, for all crew members, how do you read Simo voice check?

Dick Scobey is in the commander's seat, on the left of the Challenger's flight deck.

Mike Smith, the pilot, is on the right.

Behind them sit mission specialists Ellison Onizuka

and Judy Resnick.

They lie on their backs, looking through Challenger's windows into a clear blue sky.

Below them, on the windowless mid-deck, are Ron McNair,

Greg Jarvis,

and of course, Krista McAuliffe.

Roger Challenger Houston has all crew members lounge clear.

All the air-to-voice, our air-to-ground voice checks are complete.

Yeah, I mean, they were ready to fly.

They'd been training and training and training, and everybody was ready to fly.

Barbara Morgan, the backup teacher in space, is at the Cape to watch the launch.

Macaulay's parents are also there, alongside students from her school in Concord, New Hampshire.

And more than two million children are tuning in live.

from classrooms across North America.

The crew was excited and ready to go and all of us were.

T-minus, two minutes and 20 seconds and we've had the pilot Mike Smith has cleared the caution and memory system.

And in the control center we were good with launch.

At his console of mission control in Houston, Dick Covey is focused and ready.

You know, when you're at the ASCII Capcom, there's specific calls that you make during the launch, and

you're focused on the timing of those and what precipitates the call that you make.

There were not a lot of monitors in the control center for video of the launch.

T minus 30 seconds.

And we've had a goal for auto-sequence start.

It's less than half a minute until Challenger's crew will begin their journey into orbit.

T minus 15 seconds.

T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6.

We have main engine start.

4, 3, 2, 1.

And lift off.

Lift off of the Sunny Fifth Space Shuttle Mission, and it has cleared the tower.

The shuttle stack rises skyward on a pillar of flame.

Barbara Morgan is watching.

from the roof of the launch control center.

Bye, Krista, bye crew!

And I remember saying bye, Krista, bye crew

and waving and godspeed.

And I'm so excited for you.

I remember thinking, gosh, I wish I were with you.

But I was just really happy for them.

Almost immediately, Challenger performs a roll maneuver, putting it on the right trajectory for its climb into orbit.

Here's a challenger, roll program.

Roger a roll, Challenger.

That's Dick Covey confirming the maneuver.

The shuttle stack is now tilted vertically, with Challenger underneath the external fuel tank.

During the launch, all the calls are going normally.

Engines beginning throttling down now at 94%.

Normal throttles for most of the flight, 104%.

When going through the thickest part of the atmosphere, in order to minimize accelerations, the main engines throttle down.

We'll throttle down to 65%

shortly.

Engines at 65%, three engines running normally.

Then once the space shuttle stack is through that part of the atmosphere, then the engines throttle back up.

Velocity 2,257 feet per second.

Altitude 4.3 nautical miles, downrange distance 3 nautical miles.

The main engine guys are watching.

They see the engines come back up.

Engines throttling up, three engines now at 104%.

When they're back up at 104% and looking good, then they give me the information I need to be able to say, you know, Challenger, you're go at throttle up.

Challenger, go at throttle up.

Challenger, go at drop-up.

I hear some crackle, and I notice that the data, but that's not unusual, data dropout, you know, or something.

But Fred kind of hits me and says, look.

And

I looked at that monitor over there and I did not know what I was looking at because by then it was just this

fireball.

This has been episode 7 of 10.

Thank you for listening to 13 Minutes Presents The Space Shuttle from the BBC World Service.

It's a BBC audio science production.

I'm Maggie Adarin Pocock.

13 Minutes wouldn't be 13 minutes without the people who made these space stories happen and then shared them with us.

Thanks to every single one of them.

We'd like to thank NASA for its archive sound.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

I hope you enjoyed listening to this extraordinary story.

If you can, please post about 13 minutes on social media and tell people you know.

Most people discover podcasts through recommendations, so if you can help us with that, we'd be very grateful.

The 13 Minutes series producers are Florin Bohr and Jeremy Grange.

The assistant producer is Robbie Wojciechowski with additional research by Fabrie Smoorhart.

Technical production is by Jackie Marjoram.

Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg.

And produced by Russell Emmanuel for Bleeding Fingers Music.

The sound design is by Richard Gould from Skywalker Sound.

Our story editor is Jessica Lindsay.

The senior podcast producer for the BBC World Service is Anne Dixie.

The podcast commissioning editor is John Mannell.

And the series editor is Martin Smith.

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The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We the man to be home!

Winner, best score!

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Winner, best book!

We the man to be quality!

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

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Playing the Orpheum Theater October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.