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From: lhb6v@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Laura Hayes Burchard)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Recent Newsstand Magazine Articles
Message-ID: <1991Jan1.195102.7391@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 1 Jan 91 19:51:02 GMT
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In article <4280@mindlink.UUCP> a143@mindlink.UUCP (Ed Meyer) writes:
>Laura, I agree with your question.  If NASA doesn't have sworn statements from
>families and/or authorized representatives then I don't know how they can make
>specific claims.  On a more general scope, secrecy is usually the tip of an
>"iceberg" associated with fear(s).  If so, wonder what the fear(s) may be.

It's a small article, so I'll reprint it all.  On rereading it, I note
that it doesn't actually specify privacy of families, but that was NASA's
line last I heard, and I can't imagine who else's privacy would be involved.


From the Grapevine section of Time, December 24, 1990
"Challenger:  The Final Words"

Nearly five years after the event, the legal wrangling continues over
audiotapes of the space shuttle Challenger's final moments.  Several
news organizations (including Time) sued NASA under the Freedom of 
Information Act to disclose certain aspects of its investigation into
the accident.  Most eventually withdrew their actions, but the New York
Times has continued to petition for tapes to back up a NASA transcript
of cabin conversation.  In the official version, the final comment is 
pilot Michael Smith's "uh-oh," indicating he might have been aware of
impending danger.  A federal appeals court agreed with NASA that 
releasing the voice material would constitute an invasion of privacy.
George Freeman, a Times lawyer, says the paper has not decided if it 
will appeal.  But a NASA investigator has confirmed suspicions that the 
astronauts were conscious of their fate, and that among the last words
from the craft were those of one astronaut saying to another, "Give me
your hand."



Now, just because someone leaked it doesn't mean it's true, but it
wouldn't be inconsistent with the evidence of the breathing packs that
they were alive and at least briefly conscious.

As to what NASA might be afraid of;  they don't want people to be 
any madder at them then they are now, and this would certainly put
them in a poor light, particularly because of their decision not to
install an escape system.  Not that I think that almost certainly injured
astronauts would have much chance to escape from a badly damaged, 
tumbling cabin with the current system.  Still, I would prefer to
have the chance to try, even if only for the distraction.  Two and half
minutes is a long, long time to helplessly wait to die.


--
Laura Burchard    lhb6v@virginia.edu    lhb6v@virginia.bitnet
October 3:  After 45 bitter years of separation, East and West Germany
unite to form a single nation, chastened by the past, hopeful for the future.
October 4:  Germany invades Poland.      --Dave Barry's Year in Review 1990