Word: boosterism
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...gusts up to 35 m.p.h. began sweeping across the Kennedy Space Center. Any malfunction immediately after lift-off would call for an "RTLS," return to launch site. Either Scobee or Smith could fire bolts that would release the orbiter from its external fuel tank and two booster rockets. Challenger could then loop swiftly back to Kennedy's landing strip. Nonetheless, the crosswinds were too strong for a sure landing. No such emergency had ever been encountered, but once again NASA took the prudent course: yet another delay...
Although attention at week's end was focusing on a possible burn-through of the casing on one of the shuttle's two solid-fuel booster rockets, Space Flight Director Jesse Moore warned against premature speculation, saying "it will take all the data and a careful review of those data before we can draw any conclusions...
...Challenger. A fleet of 13 vessels, four planes and nine helicopters began searching an area that eventually grew to 6,000 sq. mi. of Atlantic coastal waters, picking up thousands of pounds of wreckage, including a large section of the shuttle's fuselage and the nose of a booster rocket...
...J.P.L. experts interpret the tape as showing a bright sphere of flame appearing well above one of the boosters' lower skirts. It is on the interior side, facing the external tank and pointing away from the orbiter. A fraction of a second later, the sphere of flame becomes a cone-shaped jet of fire. The pointed end of the cone emerges from the booster, and its rounded end seems to aim at the fuel tank, apparently burning a hole in its side. The next thing to be seen is the huge fireball, engulfing everything...
Indeed, a near burnthrough at a different site on a booster occurred on an earlier Challenger flight, during the summer of 1983. In that case, the insulating material on the interior of the nozzle's throat was scorched away to within half an inch of the nozzle's outer skin...