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The root cause
of the disaster was when a O-Ring that was located at a connecting joint to
the main external fuel tank (the large orange tank the shuttle is attached
to, burned through to the outside of the SRB casing, burning a hole directly
into the External Tank and when this hole created a structural failure of the
tank at great aerodynamic stress during the launch phase, it basically caused
the tank to crush inwards and release the oxidizer and fuel inside. When this
large of amount of flammable mixture then reached the ignition source of the
burning rocket engines, it exploded.
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All 7 crew
members died during the disaster.
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The Shuttle did
not explode itself, rather it broke up due to aerodynamic instability when
srb’s seperated.
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Crew was
believed to be alive, but unconscious when crew cabin impacted water at over
200mph.
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Crew was
unconscious due to sudden loss of cabin pressure at high altitude, like when
the oxygen masks deploy on airliners, for that very reason.
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