Challenger Tragedy - In Depth, and Deeply Felt

Patchw0rk F0g writes "On this, the anniversary of the Challenger disaster, Jay Barbree has a moving and in-depth piece on this international disaster." From the article: "During several earlier shuttle missions, disaster did everything it could to crawl into the shuttle launch system and turn it into tumbling flaming wreckage. The primary O-rings on those flights suffered severe erosion from superheated gases, sometimes accompanied by lesser erosion. And the erosion had occurred after launch temperatures much higher than on this freezing Florida day -- 53 degrees was the lowest launch-time temperature up to that time. The booster engineers felt helpless. For months, they had been studying the O-ring seal problem. They knew a disaster was coming, but no one stepped forward and said, 'Stop this train until it's fixed.'"

Comments

"international disaster"

[orangeguru]

Aha. Very international.

Re:"international disaster"

[Anonymous Coward]

Space ship blows up with schoolteacher and first civilian on board, I'd call it pretty international even if it's an American ship.

I like the ever-so-impartial wording implying that they should have been able to see it coming. It's easy to talk like that afterwards but obviously they did not know or it wouldn't have happened. People who write this kind of journalistic sensationalism by exploiting human tragedy disgust me.

This is one of the problems.....

[ezratrumpet]

in making purchases based on the lowest possible price. Sooner or later, it all catches up at once. I'm reminded of the phrase, "Pay now, or pay later. Either way, sooner or later, payment is necessary."

Re:This is one of the problems.....

[darklordyoda]

So when NASA tries to keep costs down, people say they're cutting too many corners and endangering lives, and when they spend extra for the quality, people say they're too bloated and need to run things more like a business.

People will complain no matter how NASA runs things, I say give them a bigger budget than the measly amount they get now and see what they can do with it.

And yes, 16 billion is measly when you consider that it seems sometimes like they're our NIH for everything not health-related; that is, they have a finger in every stewing "pot" of research.

I remember exactly where I was...

[voss]

I was in class, when they announced it over the intercom. For the Generation X'ers this was our 9/11. The moment that replayed in our minds for years to come.

I suppose I'll remember those last words

"Go at throttle up"

Re:I remember exactly where I was...

[mtaht]

I was sitting at the top of a flight of stairs when I saw Challenger explode. I slowly slid down the stairs, and then watched the video again and again, again, until every frame was burned into my memory.

And although the last words on the black box might have been "uh, oh", the last words heard over the air were: "Go for 104 percent".

Then there was this horrible "Snick!" as the radio went dead.

There's a sample of the last sounds from the shuttle on this song.

I saw Richard Feynman's eloquent demonstration of why the boosters failed, and watched him be ignored by the other members of the commission. I learned of the group of engineers at Thiokol that were overrulled by their management to give the "Go" to this mission...

I visualize these moments in time every time I am given management directives that attempt to contravene physical law, and to this day I stay true to my profession as an engineer, and do the right thing by the physics. It's the only way I can sleep at night.

Still, I remain haunted.

Re:I remember exactly where I was...

[Anonymous Coward]

For the Generation X'ers this was our 9/11.

That is asinine.

-Gen X

Re:I remember exactly where I was...

[thesandtiger]

9/11 was our 9/11.

Challenger was Challenger.

The two aren't similar in any way, shape or form, except that people who shouldn't have died, did.

Re:I remember exactly where I was...

[Discopete]

I was at home, getting ready for school. I had stopped for a moment to watch the launch with my parents.

When the shuttle came apart the first words that my father said were "It was too cold, the rings didn't seal right."
It was a haunting utterance, sort of under his breath as if he were talking to himself.

Dad's an Aero Engineer with a company that makes some of the analysis software that NASA and the manufacturers of the shuttle parts use to determine what happens to various objects under various stresses. He said rubber couldn't be properly analyzed as there are too many different variables going on with it at any given time. And as it chills all of it's properties change from fluid to solid or somewhere in between.

For my generation (I'm 34), I won't say this was our 9/11, but that this was our Kennedy.
9/11 belongs to my childrens generation.

Re:I remember exactly where I was...

[isomeme]

I once managed to deflect a corporate decision that seemed certain to lead to disaster by saying in a meeting with the CEO and other bigwigs "Guys, I'm having a Morton Thiokol moment, here." Enough of them got the reference (and saw that I meant it) that they actually started listening to me.

The Launch Escape System.

[reality-bytes]

A fact often missed by the popular media when dealing with the Challenger accident is emergency egress provision.

The 'big step' taken moving from the Saturn V launcher to the Shuttle for manned flight was not just moving from expendable to [partially] re-usable vehicles but the total reliance in the new vehicle for launch safety.

If practically *anything* were to go wrong during the launch of a Shuttle, it would be curtains for the vehicle and crew whereas the Saturn V had the 'option' of the Launch Escape Tower which could (in theory) give the crew one last chance of getting clear of the failed vehicle using it's relatively small solid rockets.

I've often imagined what could go wrong with a shuttle launch, there are possibilities such as:

*Catastrophic multiple SME failure just after SRB ignition leading to an over-rotation heads-down
*A Mis-light of an SRB on the pad (prior to launch) - Apparently NASA takes huge precautions with their SRBs due to volatility of the solid fuel.
*A Mis-light of an SRB on launch causing over-rotation of the vehicle away from the lit SRB(NASA *says* this is of infinitely small chance tho)
*Failure of the SRB release system on the pad (the tie-downs which hold the vehicle in place prior to launch)
*A simple bird-strike causing damage to the orbiter's pressure hull.

And of course, there is the failure of components leading to rapid combustion of the LOX/Hydrogen fuels.

Perhaps none of the above could realistically happen, perhaps some could. (I'm no expert, just a fan of manned spaceflight).

What I do know is that I'll be happier about people sitting on top of massive potential energies when they give them a Launch Escape System again. It's not a certainty but it's nice to know that the Astronauts get one last chance if the rest of the vehicle falls to bits.


Disclaimer: I am not one of these people who thinks that spaceflight is, should be, or can be as safe as say civillian aviation.

Re:The Launch Escape System.

[darkmeridian]

The entire problem with the Shuttle was that it abandoned the vertical stack design of previous spacecraft in favor of a "paralllel" stack. The Apollo program had the escape tower because the humans were on top. Ice and debris from the stack could not hit the heat shield and cause injury. The Shuttle is right next to the rocket and cryogenic fuel tank. No escape systems, no protection of the heat shield against debris strikes. The next generation of planned manned craft will revert to the entire vertical stack concept.

Re:Motivation

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you forgetting that NASA, and Morton Thiokol management is solely responsible for the disaster, the engineers protested the launch.

It bears repeating.

[Corf]

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew--
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

High Flight
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
June 9, 1922 - December 11, 1941 (age 19)

Re:Motivation

[pallmall1]

Obviously this wasn't a big enough motivation and it should be a wake up call for anyone who trusts that a contractor or engineer will tell you that there is something wrong with a product on their own.

Spoken like a true non-engineer. It was at the urging of Nasa officials that the launch was approved to take place. Here's a quote from the Nasa website relating the facts that you have conveniently overlooked in your rush to condemn engineers and manufacturers:

However, in a closed meeting at the Kennedy Space Center on February 14, Commission members were "visibly disturbed" to learn that engineers from the firm that manufactured the SRM, Morton Thiokol Inc., had the night before recommended against launching Challenger in the cold temperatures predicted for the next morning; that their managers, at the apparent urging of NASA officials from the Marshall Space Flight Center, had overruled their recommendation; and that more senior NASA managers responsible for the launch commit decision were unaware of this contentious interaction. --bold added

There's nothing insightful about the parent post, except for the insight gained into the readiness of some to unfairly accuse an entire profession they know nothing about of what basically amounts to murder. I'd like to know what the parent poster's motivations are, other than to try to sound cool on slashdot.

Feynman

[Errandboy of Doom]

The Challenger disaster sparked a lot of insightful commentary about the shuttle program from Richard Feynman.

The Rogers Commission relegated the bulk of his thoughts to an "Appendix" because no one wanted to release a report that was too critical of the space program (even though that's exactly what they were appointed to do). It almost wasn't included at all, but for Feynman's dogged insistence.

He deals with his role in the Rogers commission in No Ordinary Genius (that's a link to the beginning of the Chapter from Google Print).

That chapter is filled with funny anecdotes, and enraging stories about the bullheadedness of beaurocracy, told by one of the most charismatic geniuses of our time about one of the most important events from my childhood.

Highly recommended.

"tragedy"

[bcrowell]

"Tragedy" is one of those words that gets thrown around too lightly. These were people who knowingly took a risk in order to do something they believed in. They wound up losing the bet, and getting killed. That's not a tragedy. A tragedy is Romeo and Juliet, or a 10-year-old factory worker in Thailand getting killed while working to pay for medicine for his sick mother. A tragedy is not astronauts getting killed in an explosion, or mountain climbers getting killed by bad weather, or a volunteer soldier getting killed in a war he believed in.

Re:"tragedy"

[pjt48108]

You are correct, even though people are flaming you. 'Tragedy' IS a word too freely used, as is 'hero.'

You correctly note that they were aware of the risks, they took the risks, and lost. It's not technically 'tragic' or 'tragedy,' but that doesn't at all dismiss the deeply sad, unfortunate nature of the accident, despite the binary view some are ascribing to your comments.

The accident itself is just one in a larger series of events which might collectively be considered 'tragic." As someone noted in comments, there is usually a tragic flaw--such as hubris--giving rise to the tragic events, collectively known in literature as 'tragedy.' In this case, the tragedy is the larger story of humans defying nature and assuming nature had been conquered. This is hubris, on the part of American administration officials, members of Congress, engineers, management officials, and contractors, etc., across decades, culminating in the Challenger disaster.

The 'Challenger Tragedy' is what you could call the story leading from the end of Apollo to the loss of Challenger, and its immediate aftermath, such as the hearings, etc.

Likewise, the 'Columbia Tragedy' would have a similar narrative background, with its own tragic flaw: management deciding to eschew on-orbit imaging because there was "nothing we can do," if damage was found, anyhow."

Both are sad, dramatic events, but not tragedy. I take a contrary view to what yet another commenter wrote, that it was offensive for you to compare real loss of life to fictional loss of life. To be more accurate, people calling the loss of either shuttle a tragedy are themselves using literary terminology to oversimplify a complex series of decisions and actions into a cable news soundbite, and this oversimplification ("The astronauts' deaths were tragic") cheapens, in my view, the loss of seven Americans engaged in the noble pursuit of knowledge and understanding.

And with that, I shall adorn myself with aerogel pants and await the flaming...

Am I callous?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in preschool or something when the disaster happened. I had no awareness of it until many years later.

But when I think of the disaster now, I have the somewhat odd reaction that I don't really feel that the real tragedy was the loss of Challenger and its crew.

When I think about the 20th anniversiary of Challenger, the tragedy I feel is that it seems like NASA has done almost nothing of note since then.

It seems like somewhere around the Challenger disaster, the pioneering attitude of NASA that had been its hallmark up until then took something of a backseat. Somewhere around 20 years ago, probably not at Challenger or because of it but certainly sometime around then, NASA changed from being a truly important thing of importance to the public to just being something the government does. 20 years later, the manned space program has not progressed one single step beyond where it was when Challenger blew up; we're still stuck using the exact same shuttle fleet, and the manned program has been entirely preoccupied with the maintenence of a couple of space stations that aren't really that far beyond SkyLab and whose crews are preoccupied just keeping the things in the sky. NASA has had a small handful of true triumphs with its unmanned probes since that time, but the successes have been far between and have tended to receive only a fraction of the attention given in the public eye to NASA's failures.

And when I think about this, and realize that it represents, essentially, the loss of the nation's manned space program sometime about 20 years ago, it tends to overshadow entirely in my mind the tragedy of the loss of Challenger's intrepid crew sometime about 20 years ago.

Is this a callous response, or a reasonable one?

What a bunch of....

[mswope]

Crap. This is still taught as an ethics lesson. An engineering manager (Roger Boisjoly) was told to think like a manager rather than an engineer (I believe the term was "take off your engineering hat and put on your manager hat") and the process was approved. I feel for the guy that had to make this decision, because it occurs on the knife-edge that most of us engineers are taught about, but never experience. However, he came to that point, and history will record that he MADE THE WRONG DECISION.

"The booster engineers felt helpless ...'No one stepped forward and said, "Stop this train until it's fixed,"'" IS CRAP. Someone said "Stop." Then, he said, "okay," after he switched hats and the world has never been the same since.

The reason I'm so harsh about this is that it could've been any one of us that call ourselves "engineers." We should NEVER forget the lesson from this. Someone went against his training AND his instincts and, as a result, PEOPLE DIED.

no one stepped forward

[llZENll]

"but no one stepped forward and said, 'Stop this train until it's fixed.'"

And if anyone had, we would have never known about it, and they probably would have been fired.

Boy, the timing is perfect for me

[StressGuy]

First off, I actually read the article - all eight pages of it. I was also a college student attending Purdue the day of the crash studying, oddly enough, aeronautical engineering and taking a class in propulsion with a proffessor who was a consultant for Morton-Thiokol (just Thiokol soon after). I remember a few things about this in particular.

It seemed that, almost as soon as the camera crew realized what had happened, they zeroed in on McCauliff's family. It took a while for the cameraman to get his payoff though, she didn't really react for quite some time. No doubt not fully able to comprehend what just happened.

When I got to my class that morning (psychology), I found the professor had also just seen the footage, he cancelled the class. None of us were really into it at that point.

The local news was all over the propulsion professor asking him for theories/insight. At that point though, nobody really knew what had happened and speculation is foolish.

By the end of that day, I was hearing "Need Another Seven Astronauts". In contrast, I've yet to hear any such wise-assed remarks about the Columbia reentry disaster.

===

It's easy to second guess NASA's decision making but, when you are in that moment, it's a hard trigger to pull. I've no doubt that engineers were concerned about the integrity of the O-ring seal. However, when they launched, they were within published spec. Sadly, the spec was wrong. In that situation, it becomes your (expert) opinion vs. established data. You might be right, but it's hard to push through.

I say all of this because I'm right in the middle of something similar. I see a situation that management characterizes as "agressive" and I would call "reckless" - but it's just my opinion. I can't go to the appropriate regulating agencies with anything that would stick. All I can really do is what I've done, I resigned. On paper, I said the recent benefits change was not meeting my needs. Behind close doors, however, I went into very frank detail about how I felt their current philosophies could put people at risk, and how I could no longer represent them in good faith.

I looked for a way to compel the needed changes from my position, but was unsuccessful. I was well respected there, perhaps by resigning and making sure they understood why, they will be motivated to re-evalute. I don't really know.

What about the other one?

[EBFoxbat]

Am I the only one that thinks that Columbia was the worse of the 2 shuttle crashes? I mean really, Challenger was catostrophic but was unsurvivable once the SRB ignited. Columbia was in orbit for weeks with its fatal problem in view of the entire planet had anbody thought to look. They say nothing could have been done had they found the damaged in orbit, but I have this funny feeling that we, as a planet, probabaly would have come up with something and not let them run out of O2.

Re:Did it explode or didn't it?

[MurphyZero]

The Shuttle is expensive to launch. When we lost the Titan IV in 1998, the rocket itself was valued at 400 million (by far the most expensive expendable rocket) and the satellite was estimated at around 800 million. Shuttle costs probably would exceed 1 billion per ignoring all the return to flight issues.

This is why whenever I hear space advocates and astronomers whining about trying to get the Hubble fixed using the shuttle, I want to grab them by the throat and throttle them. It would be much cheaper and would stop diverting valuable resources to focus their energies on getting the next generation Hubble replacement into space on an expendable rocket. With the savings they could get ITS replacement into space. An expendable launch on an Atlas V or Delta IV would run less than 200 million, possibly less than 100. Plus, now they would have a presumably better satellite in space. Also, the satellite would not have to be designed so that an astronaut could fix it.

Re:Did it explode or didn't it?

[Deadstick]

Hot gas from the leaking O-ring burned through a structural member,which caused a partial structural collapse, which caused the spacecraft to yaw violently, which caused it to disintegrate under aerodynamic loads. The main fuel tank ruptured and the contents burned, while the solid rocket boosters continued to climb by themselves. The orbiter, with crew inside, fell to the surface mostly in one piece.

It was not an explosion in the literal sense of the word...it would have been merciful for the crew if it were.

rj

OK, one correction is needed here...

[JetScootr]

It was a tragedy, an accident, a misfortune.
A tsunami that kills 125000 people and makes millions homeless is a disaster. A hurricane and weak levees that kill hundreds, combined with a helpless Department of Homeland Security that unhomes 1.3 million, that's a disaster.
An earthquakeor volcanic explosion that kills hundreds or thousands and destroys entire towns, that's a disaster.
A vehicle accident that kills 7 people is not a disaster, no matter how expensive the vehicle is or how famous the people are.
It is the "Challenger Accident", not the "Challenger Disaster".
Keep some perspective.

Re:It bears repeating. But with government addenda

[srmalloy]

High Flight
  John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth(1),
And danced(2) the skies on laughter silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed(3) and joined the tumbling mirth(4)
Of sun-split clouds(5) and done a hundred things(6)
You have not dreamed of -- Wheeled and soared and swung(7)
High in the sunlit silence(8). Hov'ring there(9)
I've chased the shouting wind(10) along and flung(10)
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious(12), burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights(13) with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle(14) flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space(15),
Put out my hand(16), and touched the face of God.

FAA Supplement to "High Flight"
  (1) Pilots must ensure that all surly bonds have been slipped entirely before aircraft taxi or flight is attempted.
  (2) During periods of severe sky dancing, crew and passengers must keep seatbelts fastened. Crew should wear shoulder belts as provided.
  (3) Sunward climbs must not exceed the maximum permitted aircraft ceiling.
  (4) Passenger aircraft are prohibited from joining the tumbling mirth.
  (5) Pilots flying through sun-split clouds under VFR conditions must comply with all applicable minimum clearances.
  (6) Do not perform these hundred things in front of Federal Aviation Administration inspectors.
  (7) Wheeling, soaring, and swinging will not be attempted except in aircraft rated for such activities and within utility class weight limits.
  (8) Be advised that sunlit silence will occur only when a major engine malfunction has occurred.
  (9) "Hov'ring there" will constitute a highly reliable signal that a flight emergency is imminent.
  (10) Forecasts of shouting winds are available from the local FSS. Encounters with unexpected shouting winds should be reported by pilots.
  (11) Pilots flinging eager craft through footless halls of air are reminded that they alone are responsible for maintaining separation from other eager craft.
  (12) Should any crewmember or passenger experience delirium while in the burning blue, submit an irregularity report upon flight termination.
  (13) Windswept heights will be topped by a minimum of 1,000 feet to maintain VFR minimum separations.
  (14) Aircraft engine ingestion of, or impact with, larks or eagles should be reported to the FAA and the appropriate aircraft maintenance facility.
  (15) Aircraft operating in the high untrespassed sanctity of space must remain in IFR flight regardless of meteorological conditions and visibility.
  (16) Pilots and passengers are reminded that opening doors or windows in order to touch the face of God may result in loss of cabin pressure.