Public domain image provided by NASA
Challenger disaster
On 28th January 1986, during flight STS-51-L, the space shuttle Challenger and the seven crew members on board were lost when a ruptured O-ring in one of the solid rocket boosters caused an explosion soon after launch.
The photo above was taken mere seconds after the accident. It shows the exhaust plumes from the main engines and boosters intertwined with a ball of gas from the external fuel tank.
The O-ring was not designed to fly under the unusually cold conditions of this particular launch, and its rupture allowed pressurized burning gas from the rocket motor to reach the outside and weaken the joint where the opposite rocket booster was attached. This led eventually to the structural failure of the external tank, and aerodynamic forces broke up the craft.
Public domain image provided by NASA
Many fragments of the shuttle were recovered after a lengthy recovery operation, including the crew compartment. Several crew members are known to have survived the initial explosion and breakup of the vehicle, but the shuttle had no escape system and the impact of the compartment with the ocean surface would have been too violent to have been survivable.
'Space maybe the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement' - Red Hot Chillie Peppers.
"All in all, we have four Challenger astronauts who looked somewhat like persons with similar names who are living today, two Challenger astronauts who looked like their siblings, and one Challenger astronaut who apparently didn't look like anyone else bearing the same name. This conspiracy rumor about still-living "dead" Challenger astronauts is some good tongue-in-cheek fun, but as an actual theory it's sorely lacking in evidence and cohesiveness."
http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/challenger.asp
Similar names you say! In some cases identical first and second name, what are the odds.
Well some of them are siblings, so it's not surprising they both look similar and share the same second name.
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