Word: boosterism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Much of the public quizzing focused on the Challenger's two solid-fuel rocket boosters, each 149 ft. tall and 12.2 ft. in diameter. Photographs released by NASA left no doubt that an abnormal plume of flame had appeared on the right-hand booster just before a huge fireball engulfed the entire space vehicle. Although NASA's acting administrator, William Graham, said the flame's location had not been pinpointed, it appeared to be about 36 ft. above the bottom of the rocket's nozzle, near an attachment ring where the lower part of the booster was connected...
...that seemingly fatal plume developed on the booster's side? The panelists kept asking about the unusually cold weather at the launch site. The temperature had dropped to 24 degrees F early that morning and had risen to only 38 degrees at the 11:38 a.m. lift-off. Buffeted by overnight winds of up to 35 m.p.h., the shuttle had gone through what meteorologists call a "cold soak," conditions more severe than those at any of the previous 24 shuttle launches. NASA manuals say that the solid fuel in a booster should be ignited only when the rubber-like mixture...
...with the cold affecting the O rings that seal the rocket joints. After these talks, Lovingood told the commission, "Thiokol recommended to proceed" with the flight. Privately, experts explained that gaps in the seals or cracks in the fuel mixture could allow the hot exhaust gases within the booster to reach the rocket's outer steel casing and burn through it. Another possibility was that the flame-retarding material between the booster sections could have loosened under the wide variations in temperature, providing another route for a burnthrough. Most analysts assume that once the flame sliced through the rocket casing...
...seven crew members of the Challenger were killed when it exploded shortly after lift-off Jan. 28, and a possible leak in the right booster is considered a possible cause...
...potentially hazardous failures that could lead to a catastrophic loss of a shuttle, failure of a solid rocket booster was the most likely to occur, according to the Air Force report...