NASA Told to Make Public Tape of Last Words From Challenger

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered NASA to make public the tape-recording of the last words spoken by the shuttle Challenger’s crew before the spaceship exploded on takeoff 16 months ago.

U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson rejected arguments by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that release of the tape would violate the privacy of the families of the seven dead crew members and would subject the survivors again to the news media’s “morbid fascination” with their grief.

Johnson instead agreed with arguments made by attorneys for the New York Times that the tape “contains no information about the astronauts or any of their family members” and should be released. She ordered that the tape be given to the newspaper within 30 days.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed by the newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the tape found in the shuttle’s voice-recorder device.

The device was found in the Atlantic Ocean during a search for shuttle debris following the Jan. 28, 1986, Challenger explosion.

A transcript of the tape was released last year, but the New York Times contended that the tape may contain more information than was included in the transcript.

The newspaper’s attorneys had argued that the poor condition of the tape and the fact that several voices were talking at once indicated that the NASA-prepared transcript was an interpretation.

The newspaper also argued that the voice inflections may help the public determine if the crew was aware of any problems.

Barbara Selby, a NASA spokeswoman, said the agency has not decided whether it will file an appeal of Johnson’s ruling. She said NASA officials had not received a copy of the ruling.