Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...July 1985 NASA Budget Analyst Richard Cook had warned in an internal memo that unless the O rings were improved, a "catastrophic" failure might follow. Three weeks ago, he revealed that during every shuttle launch, some engineers had "held their breath" in fear of an O-ring failure. Last week Engineer Roger Boisjoly, Thiokol's top expert on the rings, testified that he had sent a similar memo to his superiors only days after Cook sent his. On any one flight, his memo warned, it was "a jump ball" as to whether the seal would hold...
Mulloy and Hardy led the NASA challenge to this conclusion. Hardy said that he was "appalled" by the reasoning behind the no-fly stance of Thiokol, $ while Mulloy insisted that there was no demonstrable link between temperature and O-ring erosion. He contended that despite NASA's placing the booster seals on the criticality-1 list because of a lack of redundancy, the backup ring would certainly seat in the critical early-ignition phase of the launch and provide a seal even if gases got by the first ring. Since NASA had not established a minimum launch temperature...
After some two hours of debate, Kilminster, who had supported Thiokol's no- go position, asked for a five-minute recess to consider NASA's objections. The break stretched on for half an hour. Caucusing in Utah, the engineers remained unanimous against the launch. Nonetheless, Mason declared that "we have to make a management decision," then turned to Lund and asked him to 'take off his engineering hat and put on his management hat." In front of the surprised engineers, Mason polled only the management officials, getting Lund, Wiggins and Kilminster to join him in giving NASA a recommendation from...
...commissioners also zeroed in on the icy pad conditions that prompted Rockwell to oppose the launch. While the ice was apparently unrelated to the cause of the tragedy, the commissioners regarded NASA's reaction to that opposition as more evidence of the space agency's failure to heed warnings. Viewing the pad by television from his company's launch-support center in Downey, Calif., Rocco Petrone, president of Rockwell's space transportation and systems group, had been alarmed about the ice-encrusted gantry. He telephoned Robert Glaysher, a Rockwell vice president at the Cape, and told him that Rockwell could...
...major contractors had warned that Challenger should not fly that day. One, apparently under pressure from NASA's middle managers, had changed its mind. The other had not. But NASA's highest decision makers had either not heard about the contractors' fears or ignored them. So Challenger blasted into the Florida sky on its brief, one-way flight to oblivion...