The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster And The Accident Investigation With Hoot Gibson

Watch all Hoot Gibson's episodes at: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBI4gRjPKfnO5CF3r1r0FHX…

My step father was on recovery duty for Challenger and Columbia. He said after Columbia he couldn’t do it anymore because he worked with the astronauts for mission planning and training, primarily payload deployment and recovery and got to know the payload specialists. He been on since Apollo.

I think Hoot Gibson is a true American hero!👍

One of the big things I took away from everything I've read and watched on the Challenger disaster, was Allan McDonald's part in ensuring safer space travel afterwards. For those who don't know, he was an engineer at Morton-Thiokol, the manufacturer of the solid rocket boosters used on the space shuttles, and one of the few people who recommended not launching Challenger because of low temperatures, which some engineers worried would lead the infamous O-rings to become brittle and leak fuel, which in the end was what led to the accident. The engineers were eventually forced by their employer (Morton-Thiokol) to green light the launch, which M-T tried to deny during the investigation. Allan McDonald testified against his employer, saying that he had warned them of the potential danger of launching in cold temperatures, which essentially cost him his career at Morton, but only after being one of the chief designers of the new SRB's used on all subsequent STS-missions. I have a huge amount of admiration for integrity like that.  Allan McDonald sadly passed away a few years ago at the age of 83.

Challenge was NOT an accident....... It was a "Shut up, we're going." Criminal disregard of the engineers opinion.

Had the great and unexpected pleasure of meeting Hoot Gibson on a visit to NASA in 2009. A true gentleman, generous with his time and happy to talk all things Shuttle. Something I'll always remember.

I can listen to Hoot all day long

Soon as I saw this was Hoot I knew I would watch to the end! Not disappointed, terrible incident but Hoot is a treasure.

I appreciate Gibson's honesty in wanting to go back to the big black again. He's grateful for his turns as he called it. Of course he's like a kid in wanting to go again and again. I know I would.

This videos are fanfreakingtastick! It still saddens me seeing these tragedies. Even the ones before I was born.

STS-27 was a symptom that NASA didn't learned the lessons of the Challenger disaster, it kept a "business as usual" attitude. On STS-27 the engineers' findings were not communicated to the astronauts and the same thing happened on STS-107, except that this time the crew got killed.

I was sitting at a red light in Tampa and saw it happening live..it was a shock..

The shuttle orbiter had a couple thousand buttons, switches, and circuit breakers. The guys who actually flew the shuttle, the CDR and Pilot, are a special breed. I bet Hoot could dive into real detail on those systems if he had the time, and inclination.

Hoot is amazing. A great American!

Making space travel routine is a challenge by itself. Breaking free from Earth's gravitation was already a monumental accomplishment.

His comment about watching the ailerons makes me wonder if the Columbia crew did the same thing knowing they had potential wing damage.

Fascinating stuff! Thanks, gentlemen!

Hoot Gibson is such a cool dude!

I was a senior in high school, and was in my electronics vocational class, watching the launch live when this happened. We just happened to be recording it on a VHS recorder, that I repaired the day before. This was a half day class, and we spent the rest of the time we had left, watching the footage over and over then discussing it. We all agreed that an O-ring blew out, and caused this horrific accident. Everyone was very somber during this whole time, and discussing what happened, helped us thru the days after.

Excellent video. Thank you so much for sharing this. May God Bless you.