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

Roger Boisjoly stood fast, saying he believed the data indicated that the cold temperatures were going away from the direction of goodness.

Dear Dr. Fletcher: We are greatly disturbed by testimony of May 2 to the Rogers Commission that strongly suggests that Morton Thiokol, Inc., and at least one NASA official, have attempted to control the flow of information to the Commission through acts of intimidation and punishment. In evaluating that testimony, it appears that a Morton Thiokol e

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

Then something happened that was completely unexpected. An engineer from the Thiokol Company, a Mr. MacDonald, wanted to tell us something. He had come to our meeting on his own, uninvited. Mr. MacDonald reported that the Thiokol engineers had come to the conclusions that low temperatures had something to do with the seals problem, and they were ve

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

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

“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

In a reliability assessment of the Shuttle that he had personally conducted with various NASA personnel, he discovered that some NASA officials were short in technical ability as well as honesty and integrity. Feynman thought that the Commission's report, as written, did not deal directly with these concerns.

A request to provide a signed recommendation to launch after an L-1 FRR had never happened before in the history of the Shuttle program. I didn't feel good about any recommendation that could lead to a launch at a temperature below 53° just because our engineers felt forced to concede after a three-hour discussion that their data was “inconclusive.