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When o-rings go wrong....very wrong

SAMUEL.D.RYAN

one.man.band
Mar 17, 2007
1,513
76
73
Cambridge/Huntingdon
im wondering if nasa were more bothered with the loss or life or the loss of their expensive bit of kit? obviously to cameras it would be life but behind closed doors ... i wonder!
It's a blot on their record either way. The money spent on training would play a significant part in the cost, and the widow and orphan payments etc.

But then again, if you are going to try to ride a bomb into space, you gotta be prepared for things to go wrong
 

Robin Hood

Formerly Jermy
Feb 6, 2002
2,545
30
73
An island in the rain
DeepPyro said:
The shocking thing is, several of the engineers expressed fears that some of the o rings could be damaged due to the unusual cold temperatures preceding the launch.

When they said it should be delayed to allow for checks, NASA didn't want to lose any more time and overuled them, losing 7 lives instead.

im wondering if nasa were more bothered with the loss or life or the loss of their expensive bit of kit? obviously to cameras it would be life but behind closed doors ... i wonder!
Indeed.

There was a ton of political pressure for NASA to launch due to competition from the Russians and European Space Agency. It seems that the management shifted from a 'prove it's safe' to a 'prove it's not safe' attitude, and as no data was available below 53 degrees F the engineers could not prove it was unsafe! There was even a teleconference with the chap who was contracted to build the solid rocket booster the night before launch duscussing the effects of the cold temps on performance of the o rings. He knew about the problems and discussed it with some people, yet the NASA engineers were not aware of this conversation at take off.

Whoops.

The Management's decision to lauch overuled the engineering one not to launch and kerblamo.

Interesting timeline explains how the o-rings had been giving them problems for years too! What a mess.

1974 - Morton-Thiokol awarded contract to build solid rocket boosters.
1976 - NASA accepts Morton-Thiokol's booster design.
1977 - Morton-Thiokol discovers joint rotation problem.
November 1981 - O-ring erosion discovered after second shuttle flight.
January 24, 1985 - shuttle flight that exhibited the worst O-ring blow-by.
July 1985 - Thiokol orders new steel billets for new field joint design.
August 19, 1985 - NASA Level I management briefed on booster problem.
January 27, 1986 - night teleconference to discuss effects of cold temperature on booster performance.
January 28, 1986 - Challenger explodes 72 seconds after liftoff.