Is that trouble or what?

Amateur video of Challenger explosion

By Grace Schneider From Louisville Courier Journal

On a chilly January morning 24 years ago, Corydon optometrist Jack Moss raised his new video camera to the sky over central Florida and captured one of the darkest moments in American space exploration – the explosion of the shuttle Challenger.

In the videotape, a stream of white smoke behind the climbing shuttle shoots into view – but Moss, his wife and a neighbor noticed immediately that something was amiss when the channel separated into two streams.

“That’s trouble of some kind,” Moss can be heard saying. “That didn’t look right.”

Moments later, someone is heard telling Moss that the Challenger had blown up.

“It exploded?” Moss asks.

The four-minute film, shot at Moss’ second home in Winter Haven, Fla., might have remained stuffed away in a basement box, lost among the many 8-millimeter tapes he filmed of his family over the years. But shortly before the 88-year-old Moss died in December, he donated the tape to the Space Exploration Archive, a non-profit, educational organization in Louisville.

It’s not slick or polished, which makes it all the more a chilling, poignant snapshot of a tragedy, Marc Wessels, the archive’s executive director, said Thursday on the 24th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. The explosion killed the shuttle’s seven crew members, including science teacher Christa McAuliffe who had been chosen by NASA to become the first civilian in space.

“It’s just a totally different angle” from the many videos and photos shot of the Challenger that day from beside the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Wessels said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

What happened to the Challenger temporarily halted the space shuttle program. An investigation revealed that faulty O-rings on a rocket booster caused the spacecraft to explode 73 seconds into its flight. Investigators blamed NASA engineers for failing to heed warnings about potential problems posed by sub-freezing temperatures and for not alerting top officials.

Wessels, of Prospect, Ky., met Moss last summer while serving as interim pastor at the family’s Corydon Christian Church. Moss’ wife, Mildred, had become ill, and Wessels spent time with the couple – eventually officiating at Mildred Moss’ funeral in September. Moss soon learned he had cancer, and Wessels continued to visit him.

In their talks, Wessels told Moss about his passion for outer space and the archive, and Moss mentioned the Challenger film he had shot years earlier.

“You can have it,” Wessels said Moss told him. He dug it out and handed it over a week before he died on Dec. 2.

Wessels said he was thrilled when saw the quality of the BETA tape, which he arranged to get transferred to digital video. He released it to the media this week to coincide with the anniversary of the disaster.

“My idea is to get it out there in the public domain,” he said. Moss “donated it so we could educate people about space.”

Moss, a World War II veteran, practiced in downtown Corydon for decades. He also enjoyed shooting videos and left a huge pile of 8-mm films in canisters, said his son Bryan Moss, 65, a retired newspaper photographer.

While the younger Moss and his two siblings knew about the Challenger video, “I’d forgotten about it,” Bryan Moss said. “I always just figured (the Challenger) was a speck” on the film. “It was way more impressive than I thought.”

Jack Moss’ film shows the easy pace of life in his neighborhood that morning, moments before the launch. A mail carrier drives by and a neighbor across the street is seen opening his mailbox.

Other people are heard talking about how soon the shuttle would appear. Then Moss’ wife Mildred is heard telling her husband to shoot over the treetops nearby.

The camera gently pans over a cluster of trees across the street. Seconds later, the shuttle and its smoking trail streak into view.

When the trail separates, “That’s trouble,” Moss says several times, keeping the camera trained on the sky. Someone out of view is heard telling about news reports that the craft had exploded. The viewer still sees the smoke drifting in the sky.

“Boy, I know it didn’t look right.” Moss comments. “It’s an historical moment we got here on tape.”

The final image is a grapefruit tree in the yard, shrouded in a white sheet to protect it from the previous night’s unusually cold temperatures.

Wessels said he intends to pass a copy of the recording to NASA historians.

Stephen Garber, acting director of NASA’s History Division in Washington, said he was unfamiliar with the tape, but “I’d personally be interested in seeing it.”

Garber said educators and organizations usually contact the agency to request film of space missions, but not many people do so to donate footage.

Bryan Moss said his father would be proud to know something he videotaped is noteworthy.

“He’d be pleased.”