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pope_hilarious t1_j6apg2g wrote

Reply to comment by dubaria in In the event of a fatal manned mission (example Artemis 2), would exploration stop in this period? by damarisu

Well I mean technically the challenger astronauts died when they hit the ground.

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AAlwaysopen t1_j6bohbx wrote

Pretty sure they died when they hit the water, technically speaking

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SuchASoul t1_j6cfhp7 wrote

Wouldn’t it be more like they died at the time the spacecraft immediately exploded?

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pope_hilarious t1_j6ctwik wrote

Nope. The crew compartment was separated from the vehicle in the explosion. In the wreckage investigation, it was found that some of their emergency oxygen were used, and the amount of oxygen found missing in those tanks is consistent with the amount of time until the compartment landed.

You can draw your own conclusions from this carefully worded article but it seems pretty clear that at least some of the crew had a bad last couple of minutes.

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