Super 8 Home Movie Of Challenger Disaster Surfaces

Some things happen in our lives that we will all remember forever. One of those things for many of us that grew up in the 80s is the space shuttle Challenger explosion. That was the first shuttle launch to be shown on TV in schools around the country. Little did the schools know that the children watching would see all members of the crew die on live TV as the shuttle exploded shortly after take off.

After all these years, a new video has surfaced of the 1986 Challenger explosion that was shot using a Super 8 camera. After the explosion, then 19-year-old Jeffrey Ault who shot the video took his film home, put it into a box where so many home movies end up, and forgot about it. Recently, Ault ran across the video sitting in the box and allowed it to be shown online for the first time ever.

Considering how old the film is, it's surprisingly high-quality. It's rather surreal to hear the people in mission control talking and hearing people watching excitedly talking about the shuttle as things seemed normal. Then the confusion among people watching lift off and in mission control set in as a huge cloud of smoke erupted around the Challenger and the smaller side boosters shot in different directions. As debris was still falling from the sky, mission control announced that the Challenger had exploded, and we later found out that the entire crew died in the explosion.

[via Huffington Post]