Word: thiokol
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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McDonald and Judson Lovingood, deputy manager of the shuttle projects office at Marshall, set up a teleconference among engineers and managers at * the Cape, Huntsville and in Utah to discuss the O-ring problem. Before it began, Lovingood got the impression that Thiokol was concerned enough to seek a flight delay. He asked his boss, Stanley Reinartz, shuttle projects manager at Marshall who was then at the Cape, to tell Arnold Aldrich, the overall shuttle manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, who was also in Florida, that a flight delay was likely. But Reinartz decided to wait until...
...program at Marshall, had joined Reinartz and McDonald at the Cape end of the network. Lovingood and Hardy were at Huntsville. In Utah, Lund was joined by Joe Kilminster, vice president for booster programs; Jerald Mason, senior vice president, and Calvin Wiggins, vice president for space projects. A dozen Thiokol engineers in Utah were also participating. Boisjoly presented six charts that had been transmitted to the others and argued that "lower temperature was a factor" in O-ring performance. Lund, the highest engineering officer, said flatly that unless the temperature reached at least 53 degrees , "I don't want...
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...
When the teleconference resumed and Kilminster announced the startling turnabout, Marshall's shuttle manager Reinartz asked if anyone on the network had any comment on the decision. There was no response. Thiokol was now on record as no longer opposing the launch, and the telephone hookup was ended. Kilminster telefaxed a memo to the Cape and Huntsville formalizing the change...