The soccer ball that survived the Challenger explosion
&gt; The failure allowed heated, pressurized propellants to leak out onto the external fuel tank, causing catastrophic structural failure. Seventy-three seconds into its 10th flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart, killing all seven members of its crew. It was 11:39 a.m.<p>Sigh.  It&#x27;s perhaps silly of me in an age of Bush, Obama, and Trump, but I&#x27;m saddened to see this line repeated yet again, 30 years on.  Perhaps Malinowski is just echoing old reporting.  But a journalist of her caliber seems likely to have run this by NASA.  Which suggests NASA PR is still prioritizing spin over integrity, even all these years later.<p>For those who haven&#x27;t seen this line before, the template is &quot;&lt;explosion&gt; &lt;fast&gt; &lt;dead&gt;&quot;.  As in &#x27;the explosion ripped apart the shuttle faster than the blink of an eye, killing the astronauts&#x27;.  By such word-smithed sleigh-of-hand, NASA would leave readers with the impression that the crew was killed immediately, a quick non-lingering death, without flat-out lying.<p>One thing we&#x27;re sure of is that some of the seven were <i>not</i> killed in the breakup at 11:39.  I don&#x27;t recall whether Onizuka&#x27;s air pack was one of those found, and found to be manually activated.  Nor whether there ended up being any evidence of cabin depressurization.  But my understanding is that now, as then, there&#x27;s no reason to believe that some of the seven didn&#x27;t survive until cabin ocean impact minutes later.<p>&gt; On the roof of the launch control tower, the families of the crew desperately searched the twin trails of smoke that twisted skyward for signs of the crew cabin.<p>:&#x2F;  Perhaps it doesn&#x27;t matter.  It&#x27;s not <i>that</i> different a story.  And there&#x27;s the &quot;little white lies are fine&quot; interpretation of integrity.  Why <i>shouldn&#x27;t</i> popular history get a prettified version?  And given how NASA is funded, embracing integrity might be quite unhealthy.  And yet... I&#x27;d have been happier if Malinowski wrote this paragraph a bit differently.