Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

On the phone with Lisa, I couldn't tell her what had happened without crying. “I feel like it's my fault that seven American astronauts have just been killed, because I was unsuccessful in stopping the launch and my gut feeling had been that it was too risky to fly in such cold temperatures.” Beginning to cry herself, Lisa said, “Don't blame yourse

underestimated the man's psychopathic reaction to dissent. In my own case, I have played the game. I have learned not to debate with him. Not to argue, but to compliment and flatter him. We have learned that we must tell him he is right even though he is wrong in order to survive. Lucas is a classic godfather mentality who corrupts the merit promot

Sitting down, Commissioner Feynman commented that he held us both in high regard and that we were kind of like him in a way, a sort of maverick willing to “say it like it is.” Such a statement coming from a former Nobel Prize winner in physics, who was held in very high esteem by his students and peers, was a high compliment, indeed. Feynman then t

It was the first time in my two-year career in the Shuttle program that we were experiencing a last-minute crisis of this magnitude just before a launch.

Reinartz asked if there were any disagreements with the Thiokol recommendation. Hearing none, he considered the matter “properly dispositioned.” No one from NASA had asked any questions about the validity of the data used to change the recommendation from “don't launch” to “launch,” whereas they had challenged nearly all the data Thiokol had presen

I was surprised that ASAP's agenda only included a review of the FWC-SRM program and not any discussions of the O-ring or even the pocketing erosion noted in the nozzle of the SRMs currently flying on the Shuttle. As the new kid on the block, I assumed that NASA had reviewed these potential safety problems with ASAP at meetings before I came on the

which resulted in a “qualitative” conclusion that the cold temperature of that launch was a major contributor to the heavy soot blowby that was observed.

“Truth in Space” was the ironic headline that ran that same day in the Washington Post. The night before the launch of Challenger, the story said, Engineers at Morton Thiokol begged officials not to go ahead. They feared precisely what appears to have occurred: that cold weather at the launch site would stiffen troublesome O-rings used as seals in

We tell our kids in this society not to lie. We encourage them to believe that if they tell the truth they'll be supported. We owe them the example of practicing what we preach. The most important thing at issue in this case is no longer how well the space program has been managed or even whether Challenger should have gone up that day. It is the m