posted 11-06-2015 07:32 AM               

"Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes" will re-examine the tragedy using national and local news reports, as well as NASA archival footage. Hamish Mykura, executive vice president and head of international content for NGC said:

"As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, the opportunity to go behind the scenes in a way never seen before and put the event into the context of its time, is a rare privilege. With leaps and bounds being made in space exploration, it is vital that we fully understand the trajectory that led us to this point and acknowledge those who sacrificed their lives in our quest to better understand the solar system."

posted 01-05-2016 03:35 PM               

The teaser opens with the 37-year-old McAuliffe, who had beaten out thousands of other applicants for the chance to become the first American civilian in space, practicing a lesson she planned to beam down to schoolkids from orbit.

..."Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes" proceeds in this fashion, relying on contemporary audio and rarely seen footage rather than voice-over narration to tell the story of the doomed shuttle mission. For example, the documentary features, among other things, NASA interviews with McAuliffe, candid video of the teacher touring Challenger with her husband and two children, and behind-the-scenes footage of Vice President George H.W. Bush and Ohio Senator (and former Mercury mission astronaut) John Glenn talking to members of the Challenger launch team just hours after the tragedy.

posted 01-25-2016 07:20 AM               

'Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes' recounts space shuttle tragedy 30 years later

"I kept asking everyone who was old enough to remember, 'Do you remember this footage? Do you remember seeing this?' and no one could remember it," executive producer and director Tom Jennings recalled. "We watched a bunch of documentaries on Challenger and nobody had used this before."

"Unless we had bothered to ask, nobody would have ever seen that," he said.

posted 01-25-2016 07:46 AM               

Overall it was very well done. There is no voice narration at all — it is 100% archival footage with narrative titles interspersed. It is done chronologically starting with footage of when Christa McAuliffe was announced as the chosen teacher by Vice President Bush and rare footage of her rehearsing her on-orbit lessons.

For me, this special brought back very vivid memories, because unlike most specials on the Challenger disaster it doesn't only show television footage but uses audio from radio coverage.

I was a freshman aerospace engineering student at USC here in Los Angeles on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986. My roommate was still asleep at 8:35 that morning, so I was listening to launch coverage on headphones through my radio. I was listening to "AP radio" and a reporter named Dick Guliano describing the launch and the sudden "plumes of smoke" that he saw. This audio that I haven't heard in 30 years is replayed in the special.

The only "lost video" in this special that I personally have never seen before is a clip of Vice President Bush and Senator John Glenn addressing the launch control center team at KSC the afternoon of launch day. President Reagan had dispatched them there to meet with the families of the crew. John Glenn's words to the launch team were very emotional — espousing the fact that for 25 years the U.S. enjoyed many successes in human space flight but we always knew this day would arrive.

posted 01-27-2016 09:26 AM               

I worked the P.A. so it was my job to inform the passengers the reason for the deviation. I decided to tune the ADF to pick up a local radio station carrying the launch. Upon learning the news it was my distasteful job, since I had brought it up, to tell the folks the rest of the story.

posted 01-28-2016 11:45 AM            

I noticed that shuttle commanders Brewster Shaw, Michael Coats and Steven Nagel were visible in still photos in the LCC where then U.S. vice president Bush addressed the personnel.

Obviously John Young was already there that day along with Challenger's next scheduled crew, STS-61F, and Sonny Carter, the ASP who helped strap in the STS-51L astronauts.