STS-51I Launch Space Shuttle Discovery

I read something funny about this flight. I guess it got down to about 1:30 or so in the count and the commander hears "What the hell is going on?" from the mid deck. Then they hear a lot of moving around. Seems the guys on the mid deck were sure the thing would NOT go with the rain in the area. They had lossened some of their straps :)

The commander was also suprised, at about that time they saw rain drops on the windows.

That cloud is black.

to rjy4356, im pretty sure, but am not certian that nasa's launch commit criteria was a liittle moree relaxed until challenger 51L. after challenger they put more constraints on launching. if you can find the launch abort from sts-41d they were about to launch in rather thick fog but obviously the launch was aborted.

yup...

i'd say it is bad management on nasa's part.

if they were inforemd of damages to the o-rings on the SRB field joints, maybe thiokol would have modified SRBs at the time, and challenger would still be flying missions to the ISS, sporting the NASA "meatball" insignia on its right wing along with its sister ships.

you're thinking of 51-C in Janaury 1985 when it was 53 degrees which was the ocldest launch until Challenger. When Challeneger launched it was barely 36 degreess. There was O-riong damage found on many of the shuttle flgihts in all kinds of weather but the cold temps wre definitely a major factor in that tragedy.