{"id":1554,"date":"2011-01-28T23:00:06","date_gmt":"2011-01-29T05:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asylumeclectica.com\/grim\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2011-01-28T23:00:06","modified_gmt":"2011-01-29T05:00:06","slug":"morbid-fact-du-jour-for-january-28-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=1554","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Fact Du Jour For January 28, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Challenger<\/a>

The Beginning Of The End<\/p><\/div>\n

It was 25 years ago today that the space shuttle Challenger exploded exactly 73 seconds after launch. Where were you when you heard about it? I was in a college algebra class. (Yes, the Comtesse is a product of the Catatonian higher education system.) I remember arriving back at The Castle DeSpair to watch the footage and finding the tragedy both fascinating and appalling to witness. Specifically, it was the footage of Christa McAuliffe’s mother watching the launch that disturbed me. The abrupt change in her face from joy to despair as the realization of what just happened sank in – it still causes pain to my withered black heart to think of it now.<\/p>\n

Anyway, without further ado, let’s revisit a favorite object of morbid fascination for…<\/p>\n

Today’s Explosive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The flight of the space shuttle Challenger, and the astronauts\u2019 lives, did not end at the point of exposion, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then. What’s less clear is whether they were conscious. If the cabin depressurized (as seems likely), the crew would have had difficulty breathing. In the words of the final report by fellow astronauts, the crew \u201cpossibly but not certainly lost consciousness,\u201d even though a few of the emergency air bottles (designed for escape from a smoking vehicle on the ground) had been activated. The cabin hit the water at a speed greater than 200 mph, resulting in a force of about 200 G\u2019s \u2014 crushing the structure and destroying everything inside. If the crew did lose consciousness (and the cabin may have been sufficiently intact to hold enough air long enough to prevent this), it\u2019s unknown if they would have regained it as the air thickened during the last seconds of the fall. Official NASA commemorations of \u201cChallenger\u2019s 73-second flight\u201d subtly deflect attention from what was happened in the almost three minutes of flight (and life) remaining AFTER the breakup.<\/p>\n

Culled from: MSNBC.Com<\/a><\/p>\n

Can you imagine if they were conscious all the way down? What would they have been thinking and saying? Can you imagine knowing that you’re going to die soon and not being able to do anything about it? Yes, thoughts like this keep me up at night…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was 25 years ago today that the space shuttle Challenger exploded exactly 73 seconds after launch. Where were you when you heard about it? I was in a college algebra class. (Yes, the Comtesse is a product of the Catatonian higher education system.) I remember arriving back at The Castle DeSpair to watch the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}