I missed this yesterday, anyone else see this? The Challenger astronauts were alive after the explosion and during the fall back to earth. That’s just a horrific thought.

msnbc.msn.com

They learned that at the instant of ignition of the main fuel tank, when a sheet of flame swept up past the window of pilot Mike Smith, there could be no question Smith knew — even in that single moment — that disaster had engulfed them. Something awful, something that had never before happened to a shuttle, was upon them like a great beast.

Mike Smith uttered his final words for history, preserved on a crew cabin recorder.

“Uh-oh!”

An ultimate epitaph.

Immediately after, all communications between the shuttle and the ground were lost. At first, many people watching the blast, and others in mission control, believed the astronauts had died instantly — a blessing in its own right.

But they were wrong.