problems, Al. You really shouldn't concern yourself with them.” To which I replied, “You know all three of these together should be more than sufficient to cancel the launch, if the matter of the O-rings that we discussed earlier isn't.” The NASA people could tell I was disturbed and tried half-heartedly to reassure me, “We will pass these on as co

committee, and I assume in the legal process that may follow, you are going to suggest to a court that you were engaged in a conversation and a decision to launch a $4 billion vehicle with seven lives aboard, and although one of your engineers was on the site and on the phone with you, you never really questioned his contrary judgment. You did so w

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

It took a while for the fax to arrive, so all the parties in the meeting room stayed around the conference table. I told them I didn't feel very good about this launch recommendation. In fact, I soon made the direct statement, “If anything happens to this launch, I wouldn't want to be the person that has to stand in front of a Board of Inquiry to e

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

They say ignorance is bliss. In retrospect, there is no way for me to feel good about the year 1984, because flying in those four Space Shuttle flights that year were three astronauts who were scheduled to fly again in 1986, aboard STS-51L, the Challenger.

On the screen, I saw President Reagan shake hands with several members of the Presidential Commission, congratulating them for a job well done. The newscaster reported that the Commission had concluded that the Challenger accident had been caused by the failure of an O-ring in a joint of the right solid rocket booster, which had been precipitated b

gap. Nonetheless, the point was made: cold temperatures can dramatically reduce the ability of O-rings to seal on surfaces that were moving away from each other, as in our field-joint.

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