| This photograph was taken 79.261 seconds after launch, 6.048 seconds after the breakup started and 1.9 seconds after the previous image. |
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Just barely visible as a faint triangular outline in this image, the left wing of the shuttle continues cartwheeling away from the expanding vapor cloud as the main engine cluster trails thick smoke in the thinness of the upper atmosphere. Little more than six seconds after the breakup, the crew cabin is nearing the apex of its ascent at around 65,000 feet and for a few brief moments the crew will experience the weightlessness of free fall before gravity, aerodynamics and the mass of cables trailing behind the cabin halt its ascent and the crew begin their long fall back to earth, striking the surface of the ocean eighteen miles downrange at more than 200 miles per hour two minutes and forty-five seconds after the breakup. Any crew members still alive died instantly upon impact with the ocean's surface. If the cabin did not lose pressure during the breakup and fall, then it's possible that at least some of the crew were not only alive but also conscious all the way down. |
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