Never-before-seen video of the Challenger space shuttle disaster has surfaced after almost a quarter-century locked away in a Florida basement. The chilling amateur footage was recorded by retired optometrist Jack Moss on his new home video camera on the morning of 28 January 1986. The four-minute film captures the moment the shuttle exploded, 73 seconds after launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre, killing all seven astronauts on board and setting Nasa’s manned spaceflight programme back years. It is believed to be the only amateur film in existence of the world’s worst space disaster, recorded in an era before mobile phone cameras, when even home camcorders were rare. “I don’t think Mr Moss thought it was anything significant. He put it down in his basement with other tapes he had and just forgot about it,” said Marc Wessels, executive director of the Space Exploration Archive, a Kentucky-based group that collects space memorabilia for educational purposes.
more from Richard Luscombe at The Guardian here.