pope_hilarious
pope_hilarious t1_j6apg2g wrote
Reply to comment by dubaria in In the event of a fatal manned mission (example Artemis 2), would exploration stop in this period? by damarisu
Well I mean technically the challenger astronauts died when they hit the ground.
pope_hilarious t1_j6ctwik wrote
Reply to comment by SuchASoul in In the event of a fatal manned mission (example Artemis 2), would exploration stop in this period? by damarisu
Nope. The crew compartment was separated from the vehicle in the explosion. In the wreckage investigation, it was found that some of their emergency oxygen were used, and the amount of oxygen found missing in those tanks is consistent with the amount of time until the compartment landed.
You can draw your own conclusions from this carefully worded article but it seems pretty clear that at least some of the crew had a bad last couple of minutes.