Word: thiokol
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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What did NASA do about its problem? Not much, even though boosters recovered after several flights showed O-ring erosion, indicating that the hot gases were reaching them and threatening to burn through the seal. NASA did ask its booster contractor, Morton Thiokol, to seek a solution. Thiokol set up a seal task force at its plant in Utah. This work received more attention after a shuttle was launched on Jan. 24, 1985, following the coldest overnight cape temperature of any flight to date: in the 20s. This launch produced the most extensive ring damage. Morton Thiokol concluded...
While the search for a fix proceeded, Bob Ebeling, manager of the booster- ignition system at Morton Thiokol, wrote a plaintive interoffice memo on Oct. 1, 1985, saying, "HELP! The seal task force is constantly being delayed by every possible means . . . The allegiance to the O-ring investigation task force is very limited to a group of engineers numbering 8-10 . . . We wish we could get action by verbal request, but such is not the case. This is a red flag...
...evidence suggests that Rockwell's drug situation had anything to do with the Challenger tragedy. The solid rocket booster that is suspected of causing the explosion was made by Chicago-based Morton Thiokol, and no reports of drug use among its employees have surfaced. Nonetheless, any drug abuse among production workers in the space program or the defense industry carries grave risks. Says Frankel: "In this kind of ultra-high-tech work, the guy who makes the little adjustments, the screwer-on of parts, the bolter of nuts, is just as important as the project's chief engineer...
Understandably, the Rogers commission wanted to know what had caused the switch at Thiokol. Testified Lund: "We got ourselves into the thought process that we were trying to find some way to prove to them it (the booster) wouldn't work. We couldn't prove absolutely that it wouldn't work." When Mason was asked whether telling Lund to put on his management hat did not amount to pressuring his subordinate to change his mind, he replied, "Well, I hope not, but it could be interpreted that way." Both Hardy and Mulloy insisted that they had exerted no pressure...
Reinartz testified that he had never told Aldrich, his launch-command superior, about the discussion with Thiokol or about that firm's original opposition to the flight. He argued that since the issue had been resolved, there was no need to do so. When Mulloy took the same position, a commissioner, Air Force Major General Donald Kutyna, observed bitingly, "If this was an airplane and I just had a fight with Boeing over whether the wing could fall off, I think I'd tell the pilot." Reinartz explained that he had informed his boss, William Lucas, director of the Marshall...