NASA’s intensive, meticulous studies of every facet of that explosion, comparing what happened to other blowups of aircraft and spacecraft, and the knowledge of the forces of the blast and the excellent shape and construction of the crew cabin, finally led some investigators to a mind-numbing conclusion. Mike Smith uttered his final words for history, preserved on a crew cabin recorder. Something awful, something that had never before happened to a shuttle, was upon them like a great beast.
They learned that at the instant of ignition of the main fuel tank, when a sheet of flame swept up past the window of pilot Mike Smith, there could be no question Smith knew - even in that single moment - that disaster had engulfed them. They studied all the crew cabin’s systems - even the smallest, most insignificant piece of wreckage.
Veteran astronauts Robert Crippen and Bob Overmyer, along with other top experts, sifted through every bit of tracking data. A 2-year-long investigation into how the crew cabin, and possibly its occupants, had survived was begun. On first inspection, it was obvious that the shuttle Challenger’s crew vessel had survived the explosion during ascent. The divers began their grim task of recovering the slashed and twisted remains of Challenger’s crew cabin and the remains of its seven occupants. Early the next morning, the USS Preserver recovery ship put to sea.
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