_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [96]
Challenger came to life.
Searing orange light appeared in a swift rippling of unleashed power. This was the moment of the Shuttle’s savage fire birth. The light was so intense it forced tears to the eyes of many of the onlookers. Three engine bells, now lost in the controlled tornado of burning rocket fuel, cascaded their violent fire down the curving flame tubes. White clouds snapped into being as fire and water begat shrieking steam. Challenger shook, vibrating its flanks. A blizzard appeared about the huge fuel tank as thunderous vibration ejected the ice storm that had gathered on the outer-skin of the fifteen-story-tall external tank.
The main engines screamed in a hoarse bellow, waiting for the computers to sense that all three engines were running properly and had built to the required liftoff thrust.
They had. Relays clicked. Computers gave the signal to ignite and release the hold-down bolts of the two giant solid rocket boosters.
Two enormous fire plumes snapped into existence, gushed downward, and spattered away in every direction, raging, uncontainable.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” the words rolled strongly from the voice of Hugh Harris.
The giant spaceship kicked free of its launch pad and spread its flame in a visible blast, burning ever brighter, ever fiercer.
“Liftoff! We have a liftoff of the twenty-fifth Space Shuttle mission, and it has cleared the tower.”
Hugh Harris’s words were now barely audible over Challenger’s thunder, over the screams and shouts of the thousands of onlookers crying the prayer of the astronauts, “GO, GO! GO, GO!”
Almost at the same instant Harris spoke those words, the shock wave from the running engines arrived at the press site and the VIP bleachers three miles distant. The deck trembled and astronaut family slammed against family on the roof observation deck. Sound crashed and rolled, tumbling and shaking ground and water and air…
On board Challenger, the seven astronauts felt the Space Shuttle come alive as its three main engines swiveled in a final pre-ignition check and then erupted in fire. Crew commander Dick Scobee shouted, “There they go, guys!”
“Allll riiight!” came the shout from veteran astronaut Judy Resnik.
“Here we go!” laughed pilot Mike Smith.
Christa McAuliffe shouted personal words into her tape recorder for her students. She gripped her seat tightly, heard the booster rockets roar to life, and felt Challenger leap from its pad.
While back on the roof deck of the Launch Control Center, the astronauts’ spouses and children stood stunned and awed, their bones vibrating from the mighty energy of Challenger. Sound engulfed and embraced them, a sonic juggernaut heralding a magnificent birth. They reached out, faces wet with tears, and sought each other’s hands. Fingers gripped tightly, unknowingly watching their loved ones permanently leave this Earth.
At the moment of solid rocket ignition, something sinister happened. Barely apparent beside the opening fiery blast, a puff of black smoke spat forth from the lower joint of the right booster. Almost as quickly as it appeared, it was gone. Much later, examination of every frame of film and every inch of videotape would reveal that the smoke spewed forth from a sudden, tiny gap. It was a death warrant.
The freeze had robbed the critical O-ring of its ability to flex, to expand and seal, and when the joint of the booster rotated, it created that tiny but critical gap. Searing gases rammed through and rushed past the breach. For two-and-a-half seconds, black smoke jetted out. Then, instantly, it vanished. For within the curving flanks of the rocket, aluminum oxide particles created by the burning fuel miraculously plugged the leak. Flame no longer escaped.
Unaware they were in mortal danger the astronauts waxed enthusiastic, shouting with excitement as Challenger hammered its way higher and higher.
“Go, you mother!” Mike Smith shouted as the Shuttle charged ahead, heading faster into space.
“LVLH,” Judy Resnik announced, reminding the two pilots to check Challenger’s ADI (attitude determination