Why Did NASA Buried Challenger in Missile Silos?

Описание: More than a hundred tons of Space Shuttle Challenger still lie under concrete at Cape Canaveral, in old silos dug for nuclear missiles. No sign marks the spot, and nobody is allowed to visit.

Seventeen years later, NASA lost Columbia and did the exact opposite: every piece was logged, kept above ground and lent to scientists. So why would NASA bury one shuttle and keep the other? This is the story of the search for Challenger on the sea floor, a hangar floor marked out in yellow squares, an Air Force colonel with a low-cost idea, ten-ton concrete caps, a wing that washed up on Cocoa Beach, a heat tile sold on eBay, and the one time NASA secretly opened the silos to bring a piece of Challenger out for everyone to see.

Chapters
0:00 Still under concrete
0:30 Columbia: the exact opposite
0:43 Why bury one and keep the other?
1:25 January 28, 1986
1:47 Every piece was evidence
1:59 The search
2:35 A sailor's words
2:57 Contact 131
3:26 The yellow squares
3:49 The cause is named
4:03 A hundred tons with nowhere to go
4:37 The colonel's idea
4:57 Why missile silos?
5:22 Eighty feet deep
5:39 The burial, January 1987
6:04 Ten-ton caps
6:17 No sign, no names
6:28 Why didn't it stay buried?
6:51 Cocoa Beach, 1996
7:35 The eBay tile
7:56 Columbia, 2003
8:17 This time, the opposite
8:45 The 16th floor
9:15 "A place of learning"
9:43 What changed
10:05 The secret project
10:32 The flag panel comes out
11:46 2022: the sea gives up one more
12:43 Still down there
12:53 So why the silos?

Sources and credits
Facts: Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (1986); NASA and US Navy salvage records; UPI (William Harwood, 1986–87); collectSPACE; NASA Kennedy Space Center releases (2004, 2015, 2022); Columbia Accident Investigation Board; Reuters.
Real voices: Col. Edward O'Connor, NASA/DoD salvage briefing, Feb 19, 1986 (NARA); NASA launch commentary, Jan 28, 1986; Petty Officer James Crim, 1986 Jacksonville TV report; Fox News Update, Dec 17, 1996; Scott Thurston, NASA, 2003; Charles Bolden, June Scobee Rodgers and Bob Cabana, NASA Kennedy Space Center, 2015; the 2022 divers (HISTORY, via Reuters); Mike Ciannilli, NASA, 2022, and NASA EDGE.
Film: NASA; US Navy and Department of Defense (NARA, Combat Camera Archive); US Air Force Missile Test Center film report, 1962 (Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum); NASA "Return to Space: STS-26" (A/V Geeks transfer); NASA Kennedy Space Center; HISTORY / A+E Networks dive footage as released in news reports; WFAA Dallas; Silopedia (USAF and NASA photos).
Photos: NASA (Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center, Great Images in NASA); US Navy (All Hands, 1986; Naval History and Heritage Command); National Science Foundation; Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
Pages: Rogers Commission report (1986); UPI, Oct 3, 1986; collectSPACE, Aug 23, 2000; NASA, Nov 10, 2022.
Maps: NASA DSCOVR EPIC; NASA Worldview / GIBS (VIIRS); USDA NAIP aerial imagery; Natural Earth.
Made for this video: the marks on the film and photos, the maps, the lifted pages and quote cards, reconstructed pictures and short moving reconstructions of moments no camera filmed, and the music.