doc_id int32 0 2.25M | text stringlengths 101 8.13k | source stringlengths 38 44 |
|---|---|---|
5,700 | The cause of the disaster was the failure of the two redundant O-ring seals in a joint in the shuttle's right solid rocket booster (SRB). The record-low temperatures of the launch had stiffened the rubber O-rings, reducing their ability to seal the joints. Shortly after liftoff, the seals were breached, and hot pressurized gas from within the SRB leaked through the joint and burned through the aft attachment strut connecting it to the external propellant tank (ET), and later the tank itself. The collapse of the ET's internal structures and the rotation of the SRB that followed threw the shuttle stack, traveling at a speed of Mach 1.92, into a direction which allowed aerodynamic forces to tear the orbiter apart. Both SRBs detached from the now-destroyed ET and continued to fly uncontrolled until the range safety officer destroyed them. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,701 | The crew compartment and many other fragments from the shuttle were recovered from the ocean floor after a three-month search-and-recovery operation. The exact timing of the deaths of the crew is unknown, but several crew members are thought to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. The orbiter had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment at terminal velocity with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,702 | The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the Space Shuttle program. President Ronald Reagan created the Rogers Commission to investigate the accident. The commission criticized NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes that had contributed to the accident. Test data since 1977 had revealed a potentially catastrophic flaw in the SRBs' O-rings. Neither NASA nor SRB manufacturer Morton Thiokol addressed the issue. NASA managers also disregarded engineers' warnings about the dangers of launching in cold temperatures and did not report these technical concerns to their superiors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,703 | As a result of the disaster, NASA established the Office of Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance, and arranged for deployment of commercial satellites from expendable launch vehicles rather than from a crewed orbiter. To replace "Challenger", construction of a new Space Shuttle orbiter, was approved in 1987, and the new orbiter first flew in 1992. Subsequent missions were launched with redesigned SRBs and their crews wore pressurized suits during ascent and reentry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,704 | The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable spacecraft operated by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It flew for the first time in April 1981, and was used to conduct in-orbit research, and deploy commercial, military, and scientific payloads. At launch, it consisted of the orbiter, which contained the crew and payload, the external tank (ET), and the two solid rocket boosters (SRBs). The orbiter was a reusable, winged vehicle that launched vertically and landed as a glider. Five orbiters were built during the Space Shuttle program. "Challenger" (OV-099) was the second orbiter constructed after its conversion from a structural test article. The orbiter contained the crew compartment, where the crew predominantly lived and worked throughout a mission. Three Space Shuttle main engines (SSMEs) were mounted at the aft end of the orbiter and provided thrust during launch. Once in space, the crew maneuvered using the two smaller, aft-mounted Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,705 | When it launched, the orbiter was connected to the ET, which held the fuel for the SSMEs. The ET consisted of a larger tank for liquid hydrogen (LH2) and a smaller tank for liquid oxygen (LOX), both of which were required for the SSMEs to operate. After its fuel had been expended, the ET separated from the orbiter and reentered the atmosphere, where it would break apart during reentry and its pieces would land in the Indian or Pacific Ocean. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,706 | Two solid rocket boosters (SRBs), built by Morton Thiokol at the time of the disaster, provided the majority of thrust at liftoff. They were connected to the external tank, and burned for the first two minutes of flight. The SRBs separated from the orbiter once they had expended their fuel and fell into the Atlantic Ocean under a parachute. NASA retrieval teams recovered the SRBs and returned them to the Kennedy Space Center, where they were disassembled and their components were reused on future flights. Each SRB was constructed in four main sections at the factory in Utah and transported to Kennedy Space Center (KSC), then assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC with three tang-and-clevis field joints, each joint consisting of a tang from the upper segment fitting into the clevis of the lower segment. Each field joint was sealed with two rubber O-rings around the circumference of the SRB and had a cross-section diameter of . The O-rings were required to contain the hot, high-pressure gases produced by the burning solid propellant and allowed for the SRBs to be rated for crewed missions. The two O-rings were configured to create a double bore seal, and the gap between segments was filled with putty. When the motor was running, this configuration was designed to compress air in the gap against the upper O-ring, pressing it against the sealing surfaces of its seat. On the SRB Critical Items List, the O-rings were listed as Criticality 1R, which indicated that an O-ring failure could result in the destruction of the vehicle and loss of life, but it was considered a redundant system due to the secondary O-ring. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,707 | Evaluations of the proposed SRB design in the early 1970s and field joint testing showed that the wide tolerances between the mated parts allowed the O-rings to be extruded from their seats rather than compressed. This extrusion was judged to be acceptable by NASA and Morton Thiokol despite concerns of NASA's engineers. A 1977 test showed that up to of joint rotation occurred during the simulated internal pressure of a launch. Joint rotation, which occurred when the tang and clevis bent away from each other, reduced the pressure on the O-rings which weakened their seals and made it possible for combustion gases to erode the O-rings. NASA engineers suggested that the field joints should be redesigned to include shims around the O-rings, but they received no response. In 1980, the NASA Verification/Certification Committee requested further tests on joint integrity to include testing in the temperature range of and with only a single O-ring installed. The NASA program managers decided that their current level of testing was sufficient and further testing was not required. In December1982, the Critical Items List was updated to indicate that the secondary O-ring could not provide a backup to the primary O-ring, as it would not necessarily form a seal in the event of joint rotation. The O-rings were redesignated as Criticality1, removing the "R" to indicate it was no longer considered a redundant system. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,708 | The first occurrence of in-flight O-ring erosion occurred on the right SRB on in November1981. In August1984, a post-flight inspection of the left SRB on revealed that soot had blown past the primary O-ring and was found in between the O-rings. Although there was no damage to the secondary O-ring, this indicated that the primary O-ring was not creating a reliable seal and was allowing hot gas to pass. The amount of O-ring erosion was insufficient to prevent the O-ring from sealing, and investigators concluded that the soot between the O-rings resulted from non-uniform pressure at the time of ignition. The January1985 launch of was the coldest Space Shuttle launch to date. The air temperature was at the time of launch, and the calculated O-ring temperature was . Post-flight analysis revealed erosion in primary O-rings in both SRBs. Morton Thiokol engineers determined that the cold temperatures caused a loss of flexibility in the O-rings that decreased their ability to seal the field joints, which allowed hot gas and soot to flow past the primary O-ring. O-ring erosion occurred on all but one () of the Space Shuttle flights in 1985, and erosion of both the primary and secondary O-rings occurred on . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,709 | To correct the issues with O-ring erosion, engineers at Morton Thiokol, led by Allan McDonald and Roger Boisjoly, proposed a redesigned field joint that introduced a metal lip to limit movement in the joint. They also recommended adding a spacer to provide additional thermal protection and using an O-ring with a larger cross section. In July1985, Morton Thiokol ordered redesigned SRB casings, with the intention of using already-manufactured casings for the upcoming launches until the redesigned cases were available the following year. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,710 | The Space Shuttle mission, named , was the twenty-fifth Space Shuttle flight and the tenth flight of. The crew was announced on January27,1985, and was commanded by Dick Scobee. Michael Smith was assigned as the pilot, and the mission specialists were Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, and Ronald McNair. The two payload specialists were Gregory Jarvis, who was assigned to conduct research for the Hughes Aircraft Company, and Christa McAuliffe, who flew as part of the Teacher in Space Project. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,711 | The primary mission of the "Challenger" crew was to use an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) to deploy a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), named TDRS-B, that would have been part of a constellation to enable constant communication with orbiting spacecraft. The crew also planned to study Halley's Comet as it passed near the sun, and deploy and retrieve a SPARTAN satellite. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,712 | The mission was originally scheduled for July1985, but was delayed to November and then to January1986. The mission was scheduled to launch on January22, but was delayed until January 28. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,713 | The air temperature on January 28 was predicted to be a record-low for a Space Shuttle launch. The air temperature was forecast to drop to overnight before rising to at 6:00 a.m. and at the scheduled launch time of 9:38 am. Based upon O-ring erosion that had occurred in warmer launches, Morton Thiokol engineers were concerned over the effect the record-cold temperatures would have on the seal provided by the SRB O-rings for the launch. Cecil Houston, the manager of the KSC office of the Marshall Space Flight Center, set up a conference call on the evening of January 27 to discuss the safety of the launch. Morton Thiokol engineers expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings. As the colder temperatures lowered the elasticity of the rubber O-rings, the engineers feared that the O-rings would not be extruded to form a seal at the time of launch. The engineers argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the O-rings would seal at temperatures colder than , the coldest launch of the Space Shuttle to date. Morton Thiokol employees Robert Lund, the Vice President of Engineering, and Joe Kilminster, the Vice President of the Space Booster Programs, recommended against launching until the temperature was above . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,714 | The teleconference held a recess to allow for private discussion amongst Morton Thiokol management. When it resumed, Morton Thiokol leadership had changed their opinion and stated that the evidence presented on the failure of the O-rings was inconclusive and that there was a substantial margin in the event of a failure or erosion. They stated that their decision was to proceed with the launch. Morton Thiokol leadership submitted a recommendation for launch, and the teleconference ended. Lawrence Mulloy, the NASA SRB project manager, called Arnold Aldrich, the NASA Mission Management Team Leader, to discuss the launch decision and weather concerns, but did not mention the O-ring discussion; the two agreed to proceed with the launch. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,715 | An overnight measurement taken by the KSC Ice Team recorded the left SRB was and the right SRB was . These measurements were recorded for engineering data and not reported, because the temperature of the SRBs was not part of the Launch Commit Criteria. In addition to its effect on the O-rings, the cold temperatures caused ice to form on the fixed service structure. To keep pipes from freezing, water was slowly run from the system; it could not be entirely drained because of the upcoming launch. As a result, ice formed from down in the freezing temperatures. Engineers at Rockwell International, which manufactured the orbiter, were concerned that ice would be violently thrown during launch and could potentially damage the orbiter's thermal protection system or be aspirated into one of the engines. Rocco Petrone, the head of Rockwell's space transportation division, and his team determined that the potential damage from ice made the mission unsafe to fly. Arnold Aldrich consulted with engineers at KSC and the Johnson Space Center (JSC) who advised him that ice did not threaten the safety of the orbiter, and he decided to proceed with the launch. The launch was delayed for an additional hour to allow more ice to melt. The ice team performed an inspection at T–20 minutes which indicated that the ice was melting, and "Challenger" was cleared to launch at 11:38 am. EST, with an air temperature of . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,716 | At T+0, "Challenger" launched from the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B) at 11:38:00a.m. Beginning at T+0.678 until T+3.375 seconds, nine puffs of dark gray smoke were recorded escaping from the right-hand SRB near the aft strut that attached the booster to the ET. It was later determined that these smoke puffs were caused by joint rotation in the aft field joint of the right-hand SRB at ignition. The cold temperature in the joint had prevented the O-rings from creating a seal. Rainfall from the preceding time on the launchpad had likely accumulated within the field joint, further compromising the sealing capability of the O-rings. As a result, hot gas was able to travel past the O-rings and erode them. Molten aluminum oxides from the burned propellant resealed the joint and created a temporary barrier against further hot gas and flame escaping through the field joint. The Space Shuttle main engines (SSMEs) were throttled down as scheduled for maximum dynamic pressure (max q). During its ascent, the Space Shuttle encountered wind shear conditions beginning at , but they were within design limits of the vehicle and were countered by the guidance system. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,717 | At , a tracking film camera captured the beginnings of a plume near the aft attach strut on the right SRB, right before the vehicle passed through max q at . The high aerodynamic forces and wind shear likely broke the aluminum oxide seal that had replaced eroded O-rings, allowing the flame to burn through the joint. Within 1 second from when it was first recorded, the plume became well-defined, and the enlarging hole caused a drop in internal pressure in the right SRB. A leak had begun in the liquid hydrogen (LH2) tank of the ET at , as indicated by the changing shape of the plume. The SSMEs pivoted to compensate for the booster burn-through, which was creating an unexpected thrust on the vehicle. The pressure in the external LH tank began to drop at indicating that the flame had burned from the SRB into the tank. The crew and flight controllers made no indication they were aware of the vehicle and flight anomalies. At , the CAPCOM, Richard O. Covey, told the crew that the SSMEs had throttled up to 104% thrust. In response to Covey, Scobee said, "Roger, go at throttle up"; this was the last communication from "Challenger" on the air-to-ground loop. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,718 | At , the right SRB pulled away from the aft strut that attached it to the ET, causing lateral acceleration that was felt by the crew. At the same time, pressure in the LH2 tank began dropping, accompanied by a large fireball on the side of the ET. Pilot Mike Smith said "Uh-oh," which was the last speech recorded of the crew. At , white vapor was seen flowing away from the ET, after which the aft dome of the LH2 tank fell off. The resulting release of all liquid hydrogen in the tank pushed the LH2 tank forward into the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank with a force equating to roughly , while the right SRB collided with the intertank structure. This resulted in an abrupt change to the shuttle stack's attitude and direction, which was shrouded from view by the vaporized contents of the now-destroyed ET. As it traveled at Mach 1.92, "Challenger" took aerodynamic forces it was not designed to withstand and broke into several large pieces: a wing, the (still firing) main engines, the crew cabin and hypergolic fuel leaking from the ruptured reaction control system were among the parts identified exiting the vapor cloud. The disaster unfolded at an altitude of . The two SRBs separated from the ET and continued in uncontrolled powered flight until the range safety officer (RSO) on the ground initiated their self-destruct charges at . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,719 | At , there was a burst of static on the air-to-ground loop as the vehicle broke up, which was later attributed to ground-based radios searching for a signal from the destroyed spacecraft. NASA Public Affairs Officer Steve Nesbitt was initially unaware of the explosion and continued to read out flight information. At , after video of the explosion was seen in Mission Control, the Ground Control Officer reported "negative contact (and) loss of downlink" as they were no longer receiving transmissions from "Challenger". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,720 | Nesbitt stated, "Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction. We have no downlink." Soon afterwards, he said, "We have a report from the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded. The flight director confirms that. We are looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,721 | In Mission Control, flight director Jay Greene ordered that contingency procedures be put into effect, which included locking the doors, shutting down telephone communications, and freezing computer terminals to collect data from them. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,722 | The crew cabin, which was made of reinforced aluminum, separated in one piece from the rest of the orbiter. It then traveled in a ballistic arc, reaching the apogee of approximately 25 seconds after the explosion. At the time of separation, the maximum acceleration is estimated to have been between 12 and 20 times that of gravity (g). Within two seconds it had dropped below 4g, and within ten seconds the cabin was in free fall. The forces involved at this stage were probably insufficient to cause major injury to the crew. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,723 | At least some of the crew were alive and at least briefly conscious after the breakup, as the Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAPs) were activated for Smith and two unidentified crewmembers, but not for Scobee. The PEAPs were not intended for in-flight use, and the astronauts never trained with them for an in-flight emergency. The location of Smith's activation switch, on the back side of his seat, indicated that either Resnik or Onizuka likely activated it for him. Investigators found their remaining unused air supply consistent with the expected consumption during the post-breakup trajectory. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,724 | While analyzing the wreckage, investigators discovered that several electrical system switches on Smith's right-hand panel had been moved from their usual launch positions. The switches had lever locks on top of them that must be pulled out before the switch could be moved. Later tests established that neither the force of the explosion nor the impact with the ocean could have moved them, indicating that Smith made the switch changes, presumably in a futile attempt to restore electrical power to the cockpit after the crew cabin detached from the rest of the orbiter. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,725 | On July 28, 1986, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Flight, former astronaut Richard H. Truly, released a report on the deaths of the crew from physician and Skylab 2 astronaut Joseph P. Kerwin. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,726 | Pressurization could have enabled consciousness for the entire fall until impact. The crew cabin hit the ocean surface at approximately two minutes and 45 seconds after breakup. The estimated deceleration was , far exceeding structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels. The mid-deck floor had not suffered buckling or tearing, as would result from a rapid decompression, but stowed equipment showed damage consistent with decompression, and debris was embedded between the two forward windows that may have caused a loss of pressure. Impact damage to the crew cabin was severe enough that it could not be determined whether the crew cabin had previously been damaged enough to lose pressurization. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,727 | Unlike other spacecraft, crew escape was not possible during powered flight of a Space Shuttle. Launch escape systems had been considered during development, but NASA's conclusion was that the Space Shuttle's expected high reliability would preclude the need for one. Modified SR-71 Blackbird ejection seats and full pressure suits were used for the two-person crews on the first four Space Shuttle orbital test flights, but they were disabled and later removed for the operational flights. Escape options for the operational flights were considered, but a decision was made not to implement them because of their complexity, high cost, and heavy weight. After the disaster, a system was implemented to allow the crew to escape in gliding flight, but this system would not have been usable to escape an explosion during ascent. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,728 | Immediately after the disaster, the NASA Launch Recovery Director launched the two SRB recovery ships, MV "Freedom Star" and MV "Liberty Star", to proceed to the impact area to recover debris, and requested the support of US military aircraft and ships. Owing to falling debris from the explosion, the RSO kept recovery forces from the impact area until 12:37p.m. The size of the recovery operations increased to 12 aircraft and 8 ships by 7:00p.m. Surface operations recovered debris from the orbiter and ET. The surface recovery operations ended on February7. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,729 | On January31, the US Navy was tasked with submarine recovery operations. The search efforts prioritized the recovery of the right SRB, followed by the crew compartment, and then the remaining payload, orbiter pieces, and ET. The search for debris formally began on February8 with the rescue and salvage ship , and eventually grew to sixteen ships, of which three were managed by NASA, four by the US Navy, one by the US Air Force and eight by independent contractors. The surface ships used side-scan sonar to make the initial search for debris and covered at water depths between and . The sonar operations discovered 881 potential locations for debris, of which 187 pieces were later confirmed to be from the orbiter. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,730 | The debris from the SRBs was widely distributed due to the detonation of their linear shaped charges. The identification of SRB material was primarily conducted by crewed submarines and submersibles. The vehicles were dispatched to investigate potential debris located during the search phase. Surface ships lifted the SRB debris with the help of technical divers and underwater remotely operated vehicles to attach the necessary slings to raise the debris with cranes. The solid propellant in the SRBs posed a risk, as it became more volatile after being submerged. Recovered portions of the SRBs were kept wet during recovery, and their unused propellant was ignited once they were brought ashore. The failed joint on the right SRB was first located on sonar on March1. Subsequent dives to by the NR-1 submarine on April5 and the SEA-LINK I submersible on April12 confirmed that it was the damaged field joint, and it was successfully recovered on April13. Of the of both SRB shells, was recovered, another was found but not recovered, and was never found. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,731 | On March 7, Air Force divers identified potential crew compartment debris, which was confirmed the next day by divers from the USS "Preserver". The damage to the crew compartment indicated that it had remained largely intact during the initial explosion but was extensively damaged when it impacted the ocean. The remains of the crew were badly damaged from impact and submersion, and were not intact bodies. The USS "Preserver" made multiple trips to return debris and remains to port, and continued crew compartment recovery until April4. During the recovery of the remains of the crew, Jarvis's body floated away and was not located until April15, several weeks after the other remains had been positively identified. Once remains were brought to port, pathologists from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology worked to identify the human remains, but could not determine the exact cause of death for any of them. Medical examiners in Brevard County disputed the legality of transferring human remains to US military officials to conduct autopsies and refused to issue the death certificates; NASA officials ultimately released the death certificates of the crew members. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,732 | The IUS that would have been used to boost the orbit of the TDRS-B satellite was one of the first pieces of debris recovered. There was no indication that there had been premature ignition of the IUS, which had been one of the suspected causes for the disaster. Debris from the three SSMEs was recovered from February14 to28, and post-recovery analysis produced results consistent with functional engines suddenly losing their LH2 fuel supply. Deepwater recovery operations continued until April29, with smaller scale, shallow recovery operations continuing until August29. On December 17, 1996, two pieces of the orbiter were found at Cocoa Beach. On November 10, 2022, NASA announced that a 20-foot piece of the shuttle had been found near the site of a destroyed World War II-era aircraft off the coast of Florida. The discovery will be aired on the History Channel on November 22, 2022. Almost all recovered non-organic debris from "Challenger" is buried in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station missile silos at LC-31 and LC-32. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,733 | On April 29, 1986, the astronauts' remains were transferred on a C-141 Starlifter aircraft from Kennedy Space Center to the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Their caskets were each draped with an American flag and carried past an honor guard and followed by an astronaut escort. After the remains arrived at Dover Air Force Base, they were transferred to the families of the crew members. Scobee and Smith were buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Onizuka was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. McNair was buried in Rest Lawn Memorial Park in Lake City, South Carolina, but his remains were later moved within the town to the Dr. Ronald E. McNair Memorial Park. McAuliffe was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire. Jarvis was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean. Unidentified crew remains were buried at the Space Shuttle "Challenger" Memorial in Arlington on May 20, 1986. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,734 | President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give the 1986 State of the Union Address on January28,1986, the evening of the "Challenger" disaster. After a discussion with his aides, Reagan postponed the State of the Union, and instead addressed the nation about the disaster from the Oval Office. On January31, Ronald and Nancy Reagan traveled to the Johnson Space Center to speak at a memorial service honoring the crew members. During the ceremony, an Air Force band sang "God Bless America" as NASA T-38 Talon jets flew directly over the scene in the traditional missing-man formation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,735 | Soon after the disaster, US politicians expressed concern that White House officials, including Chief of Staff Donald Regan and Communications Director Pat Buchanan, had pressured NASA to launch "Challenger" before the scheduled January 28 State of the Union address, because Reagan had planned to mention the launch in his remarks. In March 1986, the White House released a copy of the original State of the Union speech. In that speech, Reagan had intended to mention an X-ray experiment launched on "Challenger" and designed by a guest he had invited to the address, but he did not further discuss the "Challenger" launch. In the rescheduled State of the Union address on February 4, Reagan mentioned the deceased "Challenger" crew members and modified his remarks about the X-ray experiment as "launched and lost". In April1986, the White House released a report that concluded there had been no pressure from the White House for NASA to launch "Challenger" prior to the State of the Union. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,736 | Nationally televised coverage of the launch and explosion was provided by CNN. To promote the Teacher in Space program with McAuliffe as a crewmember, NASA had arranged for many students in the US to view the launch live at school with their teachers. Press interest in the disaster increased in the following days; the number of reporters at KSC increased from 535 on the day of the launch to 1,467 reporters three days later. In the aftermath of the accident, NASA was criticized for not making key personnel available to the press. In the absence of information, the press published articles suggesting the external tank was the cause of the explosion. Until 2010, CNN's live broadcast of the launch and disaster was the only known on-location video footage from within range of the launch site. Additional amateur and professional recordings have since become publicly available. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,737 | The "Challenger" accident has been used as a case study for subjects such as engineering safety, the ethics of whistleblowing, communications and group decision-making, and the dangers of groupthink. Roger Boisjoly and Allan McDonald became speakers who advocated for responsible workplace decision making and engineering ethics. Information designer Edward Tufte has argued that the "Challenger" accident was the result of poor communications and overly complicated explanations on the part of engineers, and stated that showing the correlation of ambient air temperature and O-ring erosion amounts would have been sufficient to communicate the potential dangers of the cold-weather launch. Boisjoly contested this assertion and stated that the data presented by Tufte were not as simple or available as Tufte stated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,738 | The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle "Challenger" Accident, also known as the Rogers Commission after its chairman, was formed on February6. Its members were Chairman William P. Rogers, Vice Chairman Neil Armstrong, David Acheson, Eugene Covert, Richard Feynman, Robert Hotz, Donald Kutyna, Sally Ride, Robert Rummel, Joseph Sutter, Arthur Walker, Albert Wheelon, and Chuck Yeager. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,739 | The commission held hearings that discussed the NASA accident investigation, the Space Shuttle program, and the Morton Thiokol recommendation to launch despite O-ring safety issues. On February15, Rogers released a statement that established the commission's changing role to investigate the accident independent of NASA due to concerns of the failures of the internal processes at NASA. The commission created four investigative panels to research the different aspects of the mission. The Accident Analysis Panel, chaired by Kutyna, used data from salvage operations and testing to determine the exact cause behind the accident. The Development and Production Panel, chaired by Sutter, investigated the hardware contractors and how they interacted with NASA. The Pre-Launch Activities Panel, chaired by Acheson, focused on the final assembly processes and pre-launch activities conducted at KSC. The Mission Planning and Operations Panel, chaired by Ride, investigated the planning that went into mission development, along with potential concerns over crew safety and pressure to adhere to a schedule. Over a period of four months, the commission interviewed over 160 individuals, held at least 35 investigative sessions, and involved more than 6,000 NASA employees, contractors, and support personnel. The commission published its report on June 6, 1986. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,740 | The commission determined that the cause of the accident was hot gas blowing past the O-rings in the field joint on the right SRB, and found no other potential causes for the disaster. It attributed the accident to a faulty design of the field joint that was unacceptably sensitive to changes in temperature, dynamic loading, and the character of its materials. The report was critical of NASA and Morton Thiokol, and emphasized that both organizations had overlooked evidence that indicated the potential danger with the SRB field joints. It noted that NASA accepted the risk of O-ring erosion without evaluating how it could potentially affect the safety of a mission. The commission concluded that the safety culture and management structure at NASA were insufficient to properly report, analyze, and prevent flight issues. It stated that the pressure to increase the rate of flights negatively affected the amount of training, quality control, and repair work that was available for each mission. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,741 | The commission published a series of recommendations to improve the safety of the Space Shuttle program. It proposed a redesign of the joints in the SRB that would prevent gas from blowing past the O-rings. It also recommended that the program's management be restructured to keep project managers from being pressured to adhere to unsafe organizational deadlines, and should include astronauts to address crew safety concerns better. It proposed that an office for safety be established reporting directly to the NASA administrator to oversee all safety, reliability, and quality assurance functions in NASA programs. Additionally, the commission addressed issues with overall safety and maintenance for the orbiter, and it recommended the addition of the means for the crew to escape during controlled gliding flight. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,742 | During a televised hearing on February11, Feynman demonstrated the loss of rubber's elasticity in cold temperatures using a glass of cold water and a piece of rubber, for which he received media attention. Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, advocated for harsher criticism towards NASA in the report and repeatedly disagreed with Rogers. He threatened to remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations on reliability, which appeared as Appendix F. In the appendix, he lauded the engineering and software accomplishments in the program's development, but he argued that multiple components, including the avionics and SSMEs in addition to the SRBs, were more dangerous and accident-prone than original NASA estimates had indicated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,743 | The US House Committee on Science and Technology conducted an investigation of the "Challenger" disaster and released a report on October29, 1986. The committee, which had authorized the funding for the Space Shuttle program, reviewed the findings of the Rogers Commission as part of its investigation. The committee agreed with the Rogers Commission that the failed SRB field joint was the cause of the accident, and that NASA and Morton Thiokol failed to act despite numerous warnings of the potential dangers of the SRB. The committee's report further emphasized safety considerations of other components and recommended a risk management review for all critical systems. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,744 | In response to the commission's recommendation, NASA initiated a redesign of the SRB, later named the redesigned solid rocket motor (RSRM), which was supervised by an independent oversight group. The redesigned joint included a capture feature on the tang around the interior wall of the clevis to prevent joint rotation. The space between the capture feature and the clevis was sealed with another O-ring. The capture feature reduced the potential of joint rotation to 15% of that which had occurred during the disaster. Should joint rotation occur, any rotation that reduced the O-ring seal on one side of the clevis wall would increase it on the other side. Additionally, heaters were installed to maintain consistent, higher temperatures of the O-rings. The RSRM was first tested on August 30, 1987. In April and August 1988, the RSRM was tested with intentional flaws that allowed hot gas to penetrate the field joint. These tests permitted the engineers to evaluate whether the improved field joint prevented joint rotation. Following the successful tests, the RSRM was certified to fly on the Space Shuttle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,745 | In addition to the SRBs, NASA increased the safety standards on other Space Shuttle program components. The critical items lists and failure modes for the SSMEs were updated, along with 18 hardware changes. The maximum thrust of the SSMEs was limited to 104%, with 109% only allowed in an abort scenario. The landing gear was updated to improve its steering and handling abilities while the Space Shuttle was landing. NASA implemented an escape option in which the astronauts would jettison the side hatch and extend a pole out of the orbiter; they would slide down the pole to avoid hitting the orbiter as bailed out before they activated their parachutes. The orbiter's software was modified to maintain stable flight while all of the flight crew left the controls to escape. This escape method would not have saved the crew in the "Challenger" disaster, but was added in the event of another emergency. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,746 | NASA also created a new Office of Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance, headed as the commission had specified by a NASA associate administrator who reported directly to the NASA administrator. Former "Challenger" flight director Greene became chief of the Safety Division of the directorate. After the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster in 2003, the "Columbia" Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) concluded that NASA had not effectively set up an independent office for safety oversight. The CAIB concluded that the ineffective safety culture that had resulted in the "Challenger" accident was also responsible for the subsequent disaster. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,747 | The Teacher in Space program, which McAuliffe had been selected for, was canceled in 1990 as a result of the "Challenger" disaster. In 1998, NASA replaced Teacher in Space with the Educator Astronaut Project, which differed in that it required the teachers to become professional astronauts trained as mission specialists, rather than short-term payload specialists who would return to their classrooms following their spaceflight. Barbara Morgan, who had been the backup teacher for McAuliffe, was selected to be part of NASA Astronaut Group 17 and flew on STS-118. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,748 | The projected launch schedule of 24 per year was criticized by the Rogers Commission as an unrealistic goal that created unnecessary pressure on NASA to launch missions. In August 1986, President Reagan approved the construction of an orbiter, which would later be named , to replace "Challenger". Construction of "Endeavour" began in 1987 and was completed in 1990, and it first flew on STS-49 in May 1992. He also announced that the program would no longer carry commercial satellite payloads, and that these would be launched using commercial expendable launch vehicles. These commercial payloads were reallocated from the Space Shuttle program to end the dependence on a single launch vehicle and limit the pressure on NASA to launch crewed missions to satisfy its customers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,749 | The Space Shuttle fleet was grounded for two years and eight months while the program underwent investigation, redesign, and restructuring. On September 29, 1988, "Discovery" launched on STS-26 mission from LC-39B with a crew of five veteran astronauts. Its payload was TDRS-3, which was a substitute for the satellite lost with "Challenger". The launch tested the redesigned boosters, and the crew wore pressure suits during the ascent and reentry. The mission was a success, and the program resumed flying. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,750 | In 2004, President George W. Bush conferred posthumous Congressional Space Medals of Honor to all 14 crew members killed in the "Challenger" and "Columbia" accidents. An unpainted decorative oval in the Brumidi Corridors of the United States Capitol was finished with a portrait depicting the crew by Charles Schmidt in 1987. The scene was painted on canvas and then applied to the wall. The "Forever Remembered" exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex opened in July 2015 and includes a display of a section of "Challenger"s recovered fuselage. The exhibit was opened by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden along with family members of the crew. A tree for each astronaut was planted in NASA's Astronaut Memorial Grove at the Johnson Space Center, along with trees for each astronaut from the "Apollo 1" and "Columbia" disasters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,751 | Seven asteroids were named after the crew members: , , , , , , and . The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on March 26, 1986 (). In 1988, seven craters on the far side of the Moon, within the Apollo Basin, were named after the astronauts by the IAU. The Soviet Union named two craters on Venus after McAuliffe and Resnik. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,752 | Several memorials have been established in honor of the "Challenger" disaster. The public Peers Park in Palo Alto, California, features the "Challenger" Memorial Grove including redwood trees grown from seeds carried aboard "Challenger" in 1985. Schools and streets have been renamed to include the names of the crew or "Challenger". In 1990, a 1/10 scale replica of "Challenger" in liftoff position was erected in Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles, California. Challenger Point is a mountain peak of the Sangre de Cristo Range. The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, a science museum and planetarium in Concord, New Hampshire, is named in honor of McAuliffe, a Concord High School teacher, and Alan Shepard, who was from Derry, New Hampshire. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,753 | The crew's families established the Challenger Center for Space Science Education as educational non-profit organization. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,754 | An American flag, later named the "Challenger" flag, was carried aboard the "Challenger". It was sponsored by Boy Scout Troop 514 of Monument, Colorado, and was recovered intact, still sealed in its plastic container. Onizuka had included a soccer ball with his personal effects that was recovered and later flown to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz Expedition 49 by American astronaut Shane Kimbrough. It is on display at Clear Lake High School in Houston, which was attended by Onizuka's children. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,755 | The 1986 motion picture "" was dedicated to the crew of the "Challenger" with an opening message which stated "The cast and crew of "Star Trek" wish to dedicate this film to the men and women of the spaceship "Challenger" whose courageous spirit shall live to the 23rd century and beyond..." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,756 | In the years immediately after the "Challenger" disaster, several books were published describing the factors and causes of the accidents and the subsequent investigation and changes. In 1987, Malcolm McConnell, a journalist and a witness of the disaster, published "Challenger–A Major Malfunction: A True Story of Politics, Greed, and the Wrong Stuff". McConnell's book was criticized for arguing for a conspiracy involving NASA Administrator Fletcher awarding the contract to Morton Thiokol because it was from his home state of Utah. The book "Prescription for Disaster: From the Glory of Apollo to the Betrayal of the Shuttle" by Joseph Trento was also published in 1987, arguing that the Space Shuttle program had been a flawed and politicized program from its inception. In 1988, Feynman's memoir, ""What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character", was published. The latter half of the book discusses his involvement in the Rogers Commission and his relationship with Kutyna. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,757 | Books were published long after the disaster. In 1996, Diane Vaughan published "The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA", which argues that NASA's structure and mission, rather than just Space Shuttle program management, created a climate of risk acceptance that resulted in the disaster. Also in 1996, Claus Jensen published "No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time" that primarily discusses the development of rocketry prior to the disaster, and was criticized for its reliance on secondary sources with little original research conducted for the book. In 2009, Allan McDonald published his memoir written with space historian James Hansen, "Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster", which focuses on his personal involvement in the launch, disaster, investigation, and return to flight, and is critical of NASA and Morton Thiokol leadership for agreeing to launch "Challenger" despite engineers' warnings about the O-rings. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,758 | The ABC television movie titled "Challenger" was broadcast on February 25, 1990. It stars Barry Bostwick as Scobee and Karen Allen as McAuliffe. The movie is critical of NASA and positively portrays the engineers who argued against launching. The movie was criticized by the widows of Smith, McNair, and Onizuka as an inaccurate portrayal of events. A BBC docudrama titled "The Challenger Disaster" was broadcast on March 18, 2013. It starred William Hurt as Feynman and portrayed the investigation into the causes of the disaster. A film directed by Nathan VonMinden, "The Challenger Disaster", was released on January 25, 2019, depicts fictional characters participating in the decision process to launch. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,759 | The four-part docuseries "", created by Steven Leckart and Glen Zipper, was released by Netflix on September 16, 2020. It uses interviews with NASA and Morton Thiokol personnel to argue against their flawed decision-making which produced a preventable disaster. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,760 | The first episode of the Australian television drama "The Newsreader", broadcast on August 15, 2021, depicts the disaster from the perspective of the television industry, specifically the journalists and crew within, and of, an Australian television newsroom at the time; a co-lead character's hosting of a newsflash weaving in with an overarching background storyline about the shift in news presentation from serious to that of allowing emotion into its delivery. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=403717 |
5,761 | Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre. Contradictory accounts of Socrates make a reconstruction of his philosophy nearly impossible, a situation known as the Socratic problem. Socrates was a polarizing figure in Athenian society. In 399 BC, he was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. After a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death. He spent his last day in prison, refusing offers to help him escape. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,762 | Plato's dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity. They demonstrate the Socratic approach to areas of philosophy including rationalism and ethics. The Platonic Socrates lends his name to the concept of the Socratic method, and also to Socratic irony. The Socratic method of questioning, or elenchus, takes shape in dialogue using short questions and answers, epitomized by those Platonic texts in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine various aspects of an issue or an abstract meaning, usually relating to one of the virtues, and find themselves at an impasse, completely unable to define what they thought they understood. Socrates is known for proclaiming his total ignorance; he used to say that the only thing he was aware of was his ignorance, seeking to imply that the realization of our ignorance is the first step in philosophizing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,763 | Socrates exerted a strong influence on philosophers in later antiquity and has continued to do so in the modern era. Socrates was studied by medieval and Islamic scholars and played an important role in the thought of the Italian Renaissance, particularly within the humanist movement. Interest in Socrates continued unabated, as reflected in the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Depictions of Socrates in art, literature, and popular culture have made him a widely known figure in the Western philosophical tradition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,764 | Socrates did not document his teachings. All that is known about him comes from the accounts of others: mainly the philosopher Plato and the historian Xenophon, who were both his pupils; the Athenian comic dramatist Aristophanes (Socrates's contemporary); and Plato's pupil Aristotle, who was born after Socrates's death. The often contradictory stories from these ancient accounts only serve to complicate scholars' ability to reconstruct Socrates's true thoughts reliably, a predicament known as the Socratic problem. The works of Plato, Xenophon, and other authors who use the character of Socrates as an investigative tool, are written in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and his interlocutors and provide the main source of information on Socrates's life and thought. Socratic dialogues ("logos sokratikos") was a term coined by Aristotle to describe this newly formed literary genre. While the exact dates of their composition are unknown, some were probably written after Socrates's death. As Aristotle first noted, the extent to which the dialogues portray Socrates authentically is a matter of some debate. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,765 | An honest man, Xenophon was no trained philosopher. He could neither fully conceptualize nor articulate Socrates's arguments. He admired Socrates for his intelligence, patriotism, and courage on the battlefield. He discusses Socrates in four works: the "Memorabilia", the "Oeconomicus", the "Symposium", and the "Apology of Socrates". He also mentions a story featuring Socrates in his "Anabasis". "Oeconomicus" recounts a discussion on practical agricultural issues. Like Plato's "Apology", Xenophon's "Apologia" describes the trial of Socrates, but the works diverge substantially and, according to W. K. C. Guthrie, Xenophon's account portrays a Socrates of "intolerable smugness and complacency". "Symposium" is a dialogue of Socrates with other prominent Athenians during an after-dinner discussion, but is quite different from Plato's "Symposium": there is no overlap in the guest list. In "Memorabilia", he defends Socrates from the accusations of corrupting the youth and being against the gods; essentially, it is a collection of various stories gathered together to construct a new apology for Socrates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,766 | Plato's representation of Socrates is not straightforward. Plato was a pupil of Socrates and outlived him by five decades. How trustworthy Plato is in representing the attributes of Socrates is a matter of debate; the view that he did not represent views other than Socrates's own is not shared by many contemporary scholars. A driver of this doubt is the inconsistency of the character of Socrates that he presents. One common explanation of this inconsistency is that Plato initially tried to accurately represent the historical Socrates, while later in his writings he was happy to insert his own views into Socrates's words. Under this understanding, there is a distinction between the "Socratic" Socrates of Plato's earlier works and the "Platonic" Socrates of Plato's later writings, although the boundary between the two seems blurred. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,767 | Xenophon's and Plato's accounts differ in their presentations of Socrates as a person. Xenophon's Socrates is duller, less humorous and less ironic than Plato's. Xenophon's Socrates also lacks the philosophical features of Plato's Socrates—ignorance, the Socratic method or "elenchus"—and thinks "enkrateia" (self-control) is of pivotal importance, which is not the case with Plato's Socrates. Generally, "logoi Sokratikoi" cannot help us to reconstruct the historical Socrates even in cases where their narratives overlap, as authors may have influenced each other's accounts. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,768 | Writers of Athenian comedy, including Aristophanes, also commented on Socrates. Aristophanes's most important comedy with respect to Socrates is "The Clouds", in which Socrates is a central character. In this drama, Aristophanes presents a caricature of Socrates that leans towards sophism, ridiculing Socrates as an absurd atheist. Socrates in "Clouds" is interested in natural philosophy, which conforms to Plato's depiction of him in "Phaedo". What is certain is that by the age of 45, Socrates had already captured the interest of Athenians as a philosopher. It is not clear whether Aristophanes's work is useful in reconstructing the historical Socrates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,769 | Other ancient authors who wrote about Socrates were Aeschines of Sphettus, Antisthenes, Aristippus, Bryson, Cebes, Crito, Euclid of Megara, Phaedo and Aristotle, all of whom wrote after Socrates's death. Aristotle was not a contemporary of Socrates; he studied under Plato at the latter's Academy for twenty years. Aristotle treats Socrates without the bias of Xenophon and Plato, who had an emotional tie with Socrates, and he scrutinizes Socrates's doctrines as a philosopher. Aristotle was familiar with the various written and unwritten stories of Socrates. His role in understanding Socrates is limited. He does not write extensively on Socrates; and, when he does, he is mainly preoccupied with the early dialogues of Plato. There are also general doubts on his reliability on the history of philosophy. Still, his testimony is vital in understanding Socrates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,770 | In a seminal work titled "The Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher" (1818), the philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher attacked Xenophon's accounts; his attack was widely accepted and gave rise to the Socratic problem. Schleiermacher criticized Xenophon for his naïve representation of Socrates. Xenophon was a soldier, argued Schleiermacher, and was therefore not well placed to articulate Socratic ideas. Furthermore, Xenophon was biased in his depiction of his former friend and teacher: he believed Socrates was treated unfairly by Athens, and sought to prove his point of view rather than to provide an impartial account. The result, said Schleiermacher, was that Xenophon portrayed Socrates as an uninspiring philosopher. By the early 20th century, Xenophon's account was largely rejected. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,771 | The philosopher Karl Joel, basing his arguments on Aristotle's interpretation of "logos sokratikos", suggested that the Socratic dialogues are mostly fictional: according to Joel, the dialogues' authors were just mimicking some Socratic traits of dialogue. In the mid-20th century, philosophers such as Olof Gigon and Eugène Dupréel, based on Joel's arguments, proposed that the study of Socrates should focus on the various versions of his character and beliefs rather than aiming to reconstruct a historical Socrates. Later, ancient philosophy scholar Gregory Vlastos suggested that the early Socratic dialogues of Plato were more compatible with other evidence for a historical Socrates than his later writings, an argument that is based on inconsistencies in Plato's own evolving depiction of Socrates. Vlastos totally disregarded Xenophon's account except when it agreed with Plato's. More recently, Charles H. Kahn has reinforced the skeptical stance on the unsolvable Socratic problem, suggesting that only Plato's "Apology" has any historical significance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,772 | Socrates was born in 470 or 469 BC to Sophroniscus and Phaenarete, a stoneworker and a midwife, respectively, in the Athenian deme of Alopece; therefore, he was an Athenian citizen, having been born to relatively affluent Athenians. He lived close to his father's relatives and inherited, as was customary, part of his father's estate, securing a life reasonably free of financial concerns. His education followed the laws and customs of Athens. He learned the basic skills of reading and writing and, like most wealthy Athenians, received extra lessons in various other fields such as gymnastics, poetry and music. He was married twice (which came first is not clear): his marriage to Xanthippe took place when Socrates was in his fifties, and another marriage was with a daughter of Aristides, an Athenian statesman. He had three sons with Xanthippe. Socrates fulfilled his military service during the Peloponnesian War and distinguished himself in three campaigns, according to Plato. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,773 | Another incident that reflects Socrates's respect for the law is the arrest of Leon the Salaminian. As Plato describes in his "Apology", Socrates and four others were summoned to the Tholos and told by representatives of the Thirty Tyrants (which began ruling in 404 BC) to arrest Leon for execution. Again Socrates was the sole abstainer, choosing to risk the tyrants' wrath and retribution rather than to participate in what he considered to be a crime. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,774 | Socrates attracted great interest from the Athenian public and especially the Athenian youth. He was notoriously ugly, having a flat turned-up nose, bulging eyes and a large belly; his friends joked about his appearance. Socrates was indifferent to material pleasures, including his own appearance and personal comfort. He neglected personal hygiene, bathed rarely, walked barefoot, and owned only one ragged coat. He moderated his eating, drinking, and sex, although he did not practice full abstention. Although Socrates was attracted to youth, as was common and accepted in ancient Greece, he resisted his passion for young men because, as Plato describes, he was more interested in educating their souls. Socrates did not seek sex from his disciples, as was often the case between older and younger men in Athens. Politically, he did not take sides in the rivalry between the democrats and the oligarchs in Athens; he criticized both. The character of Socrates as exhibited in "Apology", "Crito", "Phaedo" and "Symposium" concurs with other sources to an extent that gives confidence in Plato's depiction of Socrates in these works as being representative of the real Socrates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,775 | Socrates died in Athens in 399 BC after a trial for impiety and the corruption of the young that lasted for only a day. He spent his last day in prison among friends and followers who offered him a route to escape, which he refused. He died the next morning, in accordance with his sentence, after drinking poison hemlock. He had never left Athens, except during the military campaigns which he had participated in. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,776 | In 399 BC, Socrates went on trial for corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, and for impiety. Socrates defended himself unsuccessfully. He was found guilty by a majority vote cast by a jury of hundreds of male Athenian citizens and, according to the custom, proposed his own penalty: that "he" should be given free food and housing by the state, for the services he rendered to the city. In the alternative, he proposed that he be fined one mina of silver (according to him, all he had). The jurors declined his offer and ordered the death penalty. The official charges were: (1) corrupting youth; (2) worshipping false gods; and (3) not worshipping the state religion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,777 | Socrates was charged in a politically tense climate. In 404 BC, the Athenians had been crushed by Spartans at the decisive naval Battle of Aegospotami, and subsequently, the Spartans laid siege to Athens. They replaced the democratic government with a new, pro-oligarchic government, named the Thirty Tyrants. Because of their tyrannical measures, some Athenians organized to overthrow the Tyrants—and, indeed, they managed to do so briefly—until a Spartan request for aid from the Thirty arrived and a compromise was sought. When the Spartans left again, however, democrats seized the opportunity to kill the oligarchs and reclaim the government of Athens. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,778 | The accusations against Socrates were initiated by a poet, Meletus, who asked for the death penalty in accordance with the charge of "asebeia". Other accusers were Anytus and Lycon. After a month or two, in late spring or early summer, the trial started and likely went on for most of one day. There were two main sources for the religion-based accusations. First, Socrates had rejected the anthropomorphism of traditional Greek religion by denying that the gods did bad things like humans do. Second, he seemed to believe in a "daimonion"—an inner voice with, as his accusers suggested, divine origin. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,779 | Plato's "Apology" starts with Socrates answering the various rumours against him that have given rise to the indictment. First, Socrates defends himself against the rumour that he is an atheist naturalist philosopher, as portrayed in Aristophanes's "The Clouds"; or a sophist. Against the allegations of corrupting the youth, Socrates answers that he has never corrupted anyone intentionally, since corrupting someone would carry the risk of being corrupted back in return, and that would be illogical, since corruption is undesirable. On the second charge, Socrates asks for clarification. Meletus responds by repeating the accusation that Socrates is an atheist. Socrates notes the contradiction between atheism and worshipping false gods. He then claims that he is "God's gift" to the Athenians, since his activities ultimately benefit Athens; thus, in condemning him to death, Athens itself will be the greatest loser. After that, he says that even though no human can reach wisdom, seeking it is the best thing someone can do, implying money and prestige are not as precious as commonly thought. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,780 | Socrates was given the chance to offer alternative punishments for himself after being found guilty. He could have requested permission to flee Athens and live in exile, but he did not do so. Instead, according to Plato, he requested that a fine should be imposed on him and also suggested that free meals should be provided for him daily in recognition of his worth to Athens. According to Xenophon, however, Socrates made no proposals. The jurors favoured the death penalty by making him drink a cup of hemlock (a poisonous liquid). In return, Socrates warned jurors and Athenians that criticism of them by his many disciples was inescapable, unless they became good men. After a delay caused by Athenian religious ceremonies, Socrates spent his last day in prison. His friends visited him and offered him an opportunity to escape, which he declined. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,781 | The question of what motivated Athenians to convict Socrates remains controversial among scholars. There are two theories. The first is that Socrates was convicted on religious grounds; the second, that he was accused and convicted for political reasons. Another, more recent, interpretation synthesizes the religious and political theories, arguing that religion and state were not separate in ancient Athens. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,782 | The argument for religious persecution is supported by the fact that Plato's and Xenophon's accounts of the trial mostly focus on the charges of impiety. In those accounts, Socrates is portrayed as making no effort to dispute the fact that he did not believe in the Athenian gods. Against this argument stands the fact that many skeptics and atheist philosophers during this time were not prosecuted. According to the argument for political persecution, Socrates was targeted because he was perceived as a threat to democracy. It was true that Socrates did not stand for democracy during the reign of the Thirty Tyrants and that most of his pupils were against the democrats. The case for it being a political persecution is usually challenged by the existence of an amnesty that was granted to Athenian citizens in 403 BC to prevent escalation to civil war after the fall of the Thirty. However, as the text from Socrates's trial and other texts reveal, the accusers could have fuelled their rhetoric using events prior to 403 BC. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,783 | A fundamental characteristic of Plato's Socrates is the Socratic method, or the method of refutation ("elenchus"). It is most prominent in the early works of Plato, such as "Apology", "Crito", "Gorgias", "Republic I", and others. The typical "elenchus" proceeds as follows. Socrates initiates a discussion about a topic with a known expert on the subject, usually in the company of some young men and boys, and by dialogue proves the expert's beliefs and arguments to be contradictory. Socrates initiates the dialogue by asking his interlocutor for a definition of the subject. As he asks more questions, the interlocutor's answers eventually contradict the first definition. The conclusion is that the expert did not really know the definition in the first place. The interlocutor may come up with a different definition. That new definition, in turn, comes under the scrutiny of Socratic questioning. With each round of question and answer, Socrates and his interlocutor hope to approach the truth. More often, they continue to reveal their ignorance. Since the interlocutors' definitions most commonly represent the mainstream opinion on a matter, the discussion places doubt on the common opinion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,784 | Socrates also tests his own opinions through the Socratic method. Thus Socrates does not teach a fixed philosophical doctrine. Rather, he acknowledges his own ignorance while searching for truth with his pupils and interlocutors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,785 | Scholars have questioned the validity and the exact nature of the Socratic method, or indeed if there even "was" a Socratic method. In 1982, the scholar of ancient philosophy Gregory Vlastos claimed that the Socratic method could not be used to establish the truth or falsehood of a proposition. Rather, Vlastos argued, it was a way to show that an interlocutor's beliefs were inconsistent. There have been two main lines of thought regarding this view, depending on whether it is accepted that Socrates is seeking to prove a claim wrong. According to the first line of thought, known as the constructivist approach, Socrates indeed seeks to refute a claim by this method, and the method helps in reaching affirmative statements. The non-constructivist approach holds that Socrates merely wants to establish the inconsistency between the premises and conclusion of the initial argument. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,786 | Socrates starts his discussions by prioritizing the search for definitions. In most cases, Socrates initiates his discourse with an expert on a subject by seeking a definition—by asking, for example, what virtue, goodness, justice, or courage is. To establish a definition, Socrates first gathers clear examples of a virtue and then seeks to establish what they had in common. According to Guthrie, Socrates lived in an era when sophists had challenged the meaning of various virtues, questioning their substance; Socrates's quest for a definition was an attempt to clear the atmosphere from their radical skepticism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,787 | Some scholars have argued that Socrates does not endorse the priority of definition as a principle, because they have identified cases where he does not do so. Some have argued that this priority of definition comes from Plato rather than Socrates. Philosopher Peter Geach, accepting that Socrates endorses the priority of definition, finds the technique fallacious. Αccording to Geach, one may know a proposition even if one cannot define the terms in which the proposition is stated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,788 | Plato's Socrates often claims that he is aware of his own lack of knowledge, especially when discussing ethical concepts such as arete (i.e., goodness, courage) since he does not know the nature of such concepts. For example, during his trial, with his life at stake, Socrates says: "I thought Evenus a happy man, if he really possesses this art ("technē"), and teaches for so moderate a fee. Certainly I would pride and preen myself if I knew ("epistamai") these things, but I do not know ("epistamai") them, gentlemen". In some of Plato's dialogues, Socrates appears to credit himself with some knowledge, and can even seem strongly opinionated for a man who professes his own ignorance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,789 | There are varying explanations of the Socratic inconsistency (other than that Socrates is simply being inconsistent). One explanation is that Socrates is being either ironic or modest for pedagogical purposes: he aims to let his interlocutor to think for himself rather than guide him to a prefixed answer to his philosophical questions. Another explanation is that Socrates holds different interpretations of the meaning of "knowledge". Knowledge, for him, might mean systematic understanding of an ethical subject, on which Socrates firmly rejects any kind of mastery; or might refer to lower-level cognition, which Socrates may accept that he possesses. In any case, there is consensus that Socrates accepts that acknowledging one's lack of knowledge is the first step towards wisdom. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,790 | Socrates is known for disavowing knowledge, a claim encapsulated in the saying "I know that I know nothing". This is often attributed to Socrates on the basis of a statement in Plato's "Apology", though the same view is repeatedly found elsewhere in Plato's early writings on Socrates. In other statements, though, he implies or even claims that he does have knowledge. For example, in Plato's "Apology" Socrates says: "...but that to do injustice and disobey my superior, god or man, this I "know" to be evil and base..." ("Apology", 29b6–7). In his debate with Callicles, he says: "...I "know" well that if you will agree with me on those things which my soul believes, those things will be the very truth..." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,791 | Whether Socrates genuinely thought he lacked knowledge or merely feigned a belief in his own ignorance remains a matter of debate. A common interpretation is that he was indeed feigning modesty. According to Norman Gulley, Socrates did this to entice his interlocutors to speak with him. On the other hand, Terence Irwin claims that Socrates's words should be taken literally. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,792 | Gregory Vlastos argues that there is enough evidence to refute both claims. On his view, for Socrates, there are two separate meanings of "knowledge": Knowledge-C and Knowledge-E (C stands for "certain", and E stands for "elenchus", i.e. the Socratic method). Knowledge-C is something unquestionable whereas Knowledge-E is the knowledge derived from Socrates's "elenchus". Thus, Socrates speaks the truth when he says he knows-C something, and he is also truthful when saying he knows-E, for example that it is evil for someone to disobey his superiors, as he claims in "Apology". Not all scholars have agreed with this semantic dualism. James H. Lesher has argued that Socrates claimed in various dialogues that one word is linked to one meaning (i.e. in "Hippias Major", "Meno", and "Laches"). Lesher suggests that although Socrates claimed that he had no knowledge about the nature of virtues, he thought that in some cases, people can know some ethical propositions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,793 | There is a widespread assumption that Socrates was an ironist, mostly based on the depiction of Socrates by Plato and Aristotle. Socrates's irony is so subtle and slightly humorous that it often leaves the reader wondering if Socrates is making an intentional pun. Plato's "Euthyphro" is filled with Socratic irony. The story begins when Socrates is meeting with Euthyphro, a man who has accused his own father of murder. When Socrates first hears the details of the story, he comments, "It is not, I think, any random person who could do this [prosecute one's father] correctly, but surely one who is already far progressed in wisdom". When Euthyphro boasts about his understanding of divinity, Socrates responds that it is "most important that I become your student". Socrates is commonly seen as ironic when using praise to flatter or when addressing his interlocutors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,794 | Scholars are divided on why Socrates uses irony. According to an opinion advanced since the Hellenistic period, Socratic irony is a playful way to get the audience's attention. Another line of thought holds that Socrates conceals his philosophical message with irony, making it accessible only to those who can separate the parts of his statements which are ironic from those which are not. Gregory Vlastos has identified a more complex pattern of irony in Socrates. On Vlastos's view, Socrates's words have a double meaning, both ironic and not. One example is when he denies having knowledge. Vlastos suggests that Socrates is being ironic when he says he has no knowledge (where "knowledge" means a lower form of cognition); while, according to another sense of "knowledge", Socrates is serious when he says he has no knowledge of ethical matters. This opinion is not shared by many other scholars. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,795 | For Socrates, the pursuit of "eudaimonia" motivates all human action, directly or indirectly. Virtue and knowledge are linked, in Socrates's view, to "eudaimonia", but how closely he considered them to be connected is still debated. Some argue that Socrates thought that virtue and "eudaimonia" are identical. According to another view, virtue serves as a means to "eudaimonia" (the "identical" and "sufficiency" theses, respectively). Another point of debate is whether, according to Socrates, people desire what is in fact good—or, rather, simply what they "perceive" as good. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,796 | Moral intellectualism refers to the prominent role Socrates gave to knowledge. He believed that all virtue was based on knowledge (hence Socrates is characterized as a "virtue" intellectualist). He also believed that humans were guided by the cognitive power to comprehend what they desire, while diminishing the role of impulses (a view termed "motivational" intellectualism). In Plato's "Protagoras" (345c4–e6), Socrates implies that "no one errs willingly", which has become the hallmark of Socratic virtue intellectualism. In Socratic moral philosophy, priority is given to the intellect as being the way to live a good life; Socrates deemphasizes irrational beliefs or passions. Plato's dialogues that support Socrates's "intellectual motivism"—as this thesis is named—are mainly the "Gorgias" (467c–8e, where Socrates discusses the actions of a tyrant that do not benefit him) and "Meno" (77d–8b, where Socrates explains to Meno his view that no one wants bad things, unless they do not know what is good and bad in the first place). Scholars have been puzzled by Socrates's view that "akrasia" (acting because of one's irrational passions, contrary to one's knowledge or beliefs) is impossible. Most believe that Socrates left no space for irrational desires, although some claim that Socrates acknowledged the existence of irrational motivations, but denied they play a primary role in decision-making. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,797 | Socrates's religious nonconformity challenged the views of his times and his critique reshaped religious discourse for the coming centuries. In Ancient Greece, organized religion was fragmented, celebrated in a number of festivals for specific gods, such as the City Dionysia, or in domestic rituals, and there were no sacred texts. Religion intermingled with the daily life of citizens, who performed their personal religious duties mainly with sacrifices to various gods. Whether Socrates was a practicing man of religion or a 'provocateur atheist' has been a point of debate since ancient times; his trial included impiety accusations, and the controversy hasn't yet ceased. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,798 | Socrates discusses divinity and the soul mostly in "Alcibiades", "Euthyphro", and "Apology". In "Alcibiades" Socrates links the human soul to divinity, concluding "Then this part of her resembles God, and whoever looks at this, and comes to know all that is divine, will gain thereby the best knowledge of himself." His discussions on religion always fall under the lens of his rationalism. Socrates, in "Euthyphro", reaches a conclusion which takes him far from the age's usual practice: he considers sacrifices to the gods to be useless, especially when they are driven by the hope of receiving a reward in return. Instead he calls for philosophy and the pursuit of knowledge to be the principal way of worshipping the gods. His rejection of traditional forms of piety, connecting them to self-interest, implied that Athenians should seek religious experience by self-examination. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
5,799 | Socrates argued that the gods were inherently wise and just, a perception far from traditional religion at that time. In "Euthyphro", the Euthyphro dilemma arises. Socrates questions his interlocutor about the relationship between piety and the will of a powerful god: Is something good because it is the will of this god, or is it the will of this god because it is good? In other words, does piety follow the good, or the god? The trajectory of Socratic thought contrasts with traditional Greek theology, which took "lex talionis" (the eye for an eye principle) for granted. Socrates thought that goodness is independent from gods, and gods must themselves be pious. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25664190 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.