MovieChat Forums > Challenger (1990) Discussion > Champagne bottle history question

Champagne bottle history question


I recently received a copy of this film on DVD this Christmas and was curious about something that maybe only NASA history buffs would know the answer to.

In the movie, the night before their mission, McNair brought out an unopened bottle of champagne & a diamond stylus and then requested that his fellow Challenger crew members write their names into the side of the bottle, saying that they'd open the bottle once they returned to earth after a successful mission. Obviously their mission wasn't successful, so the bottle was never opened.

That said, whatever happened to the bottle? Did they take it on the shuttle w/them? (Thus forever lost.) Did it remain on earth & end up at the Smithsonian or a NASA museum? Was that just a plot device written into the TV movie, so it never existed in real life? If it did exist, did last Columbia crew have a similar tradition & did their bottle end up in the same place/museum?

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