Started watching this last night. First impression that it's very well made. Great balance of interviews and archival footage. Only a couple of episodes in, but pretty hooked.

Here's a Ringer article on the series:
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2020/9/17/21439985/challenger-final-flight-netflix-documentary-review

I really enjoyed it.

Didn't know about this. Will definitely check it out.

#JJlensflare

i watched the first two episodes last night. so far, meh.

it's well done, but it's not really drawing me in.

hopefully the last two episodes are more gripping.

I thought it was good. Inside story of the investigative commission was interesting.

The genuine emotions of the friends and families throughout was moving. We tend to lose sight of the personal stories behind this event.

Will probably watch.
Growing up in Tampa, we could see night launches, they were part of our lives. Some folks come my high school claimed to have seen the aftermath of the explosion. So it was something we all felt.

If if you have ESPN plus, Bonds of Earth (an E:60 piece) is my favorite story from that flight, hopefully the story (of the soccer ball that survived, was lot to history and eventually fulfilled its destiny) is in the series. This is the written story for those interested. Big Houston connection too.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/23902766/nasa-astronaut-ellison-onizuka-soccer-ball-survived-challenger-explosion

Watched all four episodes the day it was released.
Agree with the "meh" comment above.
Didn't bring anything new to the table that we didn't already know.
I'm sure those who weren't aware of the background will enjoy it but for folks my age this was akin to the History Channel showing version number 4,327 of "Hitler".

I had no idea that Sally Ride was involved in the Kutyna/Feynman collaboration. I thought it was just those two.

The last two episodes were better. But it wasn't "great".

It's good streaming content...

From NASA actually listening to the forecast and cancelling to the delay resulting from Lockheed's clear incompetence to the "go at all costs" even if the engineers where screaming.

What a sad cluster.

I guess I missed something. What Lockheed incompetence are you referring to on the Challenger disaster?

West Point Aggie said:

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aTmAg said:

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I guess I missed something. What Lockheed incompetence are you referring to on the Challenger disaster?

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On the second attempt when the hatch would not close and they had to bring the Lockheed team who could only use battery powered tools...and the batteries were dead. So they resort to sawing it off by hand wasting the entire launch window. Had they launched then, the pad would not have been covered with ice.

That's incompetence...

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Did they talk about the opposing contractor to the SRBs ( not Thiokol) thats design would not have allowed the disaster to happen? it is akin to avoiding the disaster as this one above.

West Point Aggie said:

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aTmAg said:

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I guess I missed something. What Lockheed incompetence are you referring to on the Challenger disaster?

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On the second attempt when the hatch would not close and they had to bring the Lockheed team who could only use battery powered tools...and the batteries were dead. So they resort to sawing it off by hand wasting the entire launch window. Had they launched then, the pad would not have been covered with ice.

That's incompetence...

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Geeze.. that? There were likely 100 things prior that pushed the launch to that day. You focus on that one?

Bregxit said:

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aTmAg said:

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West Point Aggie said:

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aTmAg said:

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I guess I missed something. What Lockheed incompetence are you referring to on the Challenger disaster?

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On the second attempt when the hatch would not close and they had to bring the Lockheed team who could only use battery powered tools...and the batteries were dead. So they resort to sawing it off by hand wasting the entire launch window. Had they launched then, the pad would not have been covered with ice.

That's incompetence...

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Geeze.. that? There were likely 100 things prior that pushed the launch to that day. You focus on that one?

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No, he listed several things. You, the Lockheed employee, focused on that one. /laughcry

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The "go at all costs" complaint is legit. And he didn't say the weather thing was incompetence. So there is nothing to call out on either of those.

The notion that the drill thing was "incompetence" or worthy of blame for the death of 7 people is prosperous.

And I criticise Lockheed all the time when it's a legit complaint.

Duckhook said:

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We tend to lose sight of the personal stories behind this event.

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The crew is usually the first thing I think about when hearing Challenger. It's the main reason I haven't watched it yet. Heart wrenching to this day.

oragator said:

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Will probably watch.
Growing up in Tampa, we could see night launches, they were part of our lives. Some folks come my high school claimed to have seen the aftermath of the explosion. So it was something we all felt.

If if you have ESPN plus, Bonds of Earth (an E:60 piece) is my favorite story from that flight, hopefully the story (of the soccer ball that survived, was lot to history and eventually fulfilled its destiny) is in the series. This is the written story for those interested. Big Houston connection too.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/23902766/nasa-astronaut-ellison-onizuka-soccer-ball-survived-challenger-explosion

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Wow! I'd never heard about the soccer ball until now. Incredible.

oragator said:

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Will probably watch.
Growing up in Tampa, we could see night launches, they were part of our lives. Some folks come my high school claimed to have seen the aftermath of the explosion. So it was something we all felt.

If if you have ESPN plus, Bonds of Earth (an E:60 piece) is my favorite story from that flight, hopefully the story (of the soccer ball that survived, was lot to history and eventually fulfilled its destiny) is in the series. This is the written story for those interested. Big Houston connection too.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/23902766/nasa-astronaut-ellison-onizuka-soccer-ball-survived-challenger-explosion

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Grew up in Clear Lake and know several people in this story, it's still really surreal. Will have to check out the doc, thanks.

I don't think I learned anything new about the failure and path to it. The accident was a case study back in the mid-90s in Management 363 as far as bad management and communication. That conference call in particular was a focus

One thing that was interesting being was constantly reminded how many of these guys' careers with the space program ended in 1986, rightly so.

PatAg said:

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Yelnick McWawa said:

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Watched all four episodes the day it was released.
Agree with the "meh" comment above.
Didn't bring anything new to the table that we didn't already know.
I'm sure those who weren't aware of the background will enjoy it but for folks my age this was akin to the History Channel showing version number 4,327 of "Hitler".

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It was so meh that you watched all 4 episodes the day it relesed?

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Zzzzzzzzz.
I know you're another one of the guys around here whose shtick is to be the "too cool for school a-hole" but what about my comment is so unbelievable?
It's a topic I'm interested in and was eager for the release. It was only 4 episodes and I watched them. It's not like I binged a 20 episode season or anything.
Or watched 7 seasons of a show and griped about how bad it was since season 3.
Regardless, I didn't say it was bad, just that I didn't think it was anything special.
But you keep doing you, Billy.

I thought it was great. But then again it happened a year before I was born and I only had basic knowledge of what happened through growing up as a kid and for whatever reason never went to research the event more as I got older.

Did you follow the odyssey of it all later in life?
Seems it was kind of forgotten about for a long while even on display. But when it went back to space, all of that? However sad much of the history is, it is pretty remarkable to have a tie to it all.

I thought it moved slowly but it was good. I didn't binge watch it, though. I watched it as time allowed over the course of the weekend.

I was in 5th grade when it happened and remember the incident vividly. I also remembered vaguely the investigation, only recalling the o-ring failure. I don't remember the recovery of the astronauts bodies nor do I remember the specifics of the committee.

I too found it interesting/fitting that many of these peoples' careers/employment ended in 1986.

I don't take an issue with them trying to humanize the astronauts by giving more personal background, but I do think that contributed to some of the boredom factor some are citing. But June Scobee in particular helped make the emotion pretty powerful once they got to the accident

Just finished it up, I thought it was well done, enjoyed it, definitely emotional. Not perfect, but certainly not meh. I can remember watching that on TV at my house when I was 6 years old. It's definitely hard to swallow that the launch took place with so many indications that it shouldn't, specifically from engineers. It definitely looked like the pressure on the managers was crushing, that's the only reason to sign off on going forward. The only one I saw that was completely incredulous was the guy who was in charge of NASA in Alabama, equating the deaths to his ancestors that died coming through Appalachia. He just seemed to be devoid of emotion, where others you can tell have carried this burden every day since, and will continue to do so. I feel so bad for the families that lost people on a mission that could have been avoided completely.

It's worth a watch, lots of things I didn't know happened I was enlightened about considering this was when I was in elementary school, hadn't thought about it in a while.

I remember watching the shuttle blow up on live TV in school. I also remember all of the bad NASA jokes. Kids are *******s. I was a kid.

Yeah, I was in 6th grade and while we didn't see it live (in the theme of how shuttle launches were routine at that point), we were told that it blew up and I remember jokes already starting during recess that afternoon. I still feel bad about that. Seeing the video that evening really made it sink in for me though. Kids are indeed ****heads.