Slashdot Mirror
Bob Ebeling, Challenger Engineer Who Forewarned of Shuttle Disaster, Dead At 89 (huffingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from HuffingtonPost: For three decades, retired NASA engineer Bob Ebeling blamed himself for being unable to stop the 1986 launch of space shuttle Challenger. He had warned that the shuttle might explode, and it did shortly after liftoff, killing seven crew members. Ebeling was one of five engineers at a NASA contractor then called Morton Thiokol who warned the space agency that cold temperatures predicated at the time of the launch could prove disastrous. The warning was ignored. The night before the launch, Ebeling reportedly told his wife, Darlene, "It's going to blow up." He told another daughter, Kathy Ebeling, that he had toyed with the idea of bringing his hunting rifle to work to threaten NASA not to launch, according to an article last month in The Washington Post. In the final weeks of his life, however, thanks to an outpouring of support following a National Public Radio story in January on the 30th anniversary of the disaster, Ebeling, 89, finally found peace. Ebeling died Monday in his home in Brigham City, Utah, after a prolonged illness with prostate cancer, NPR reported.
There was a a "product" and a "sale".
The product was the first teacher in space. The sale was the State of the Union address by President Ronald Reagan. According to various reports, Reagan wanted to chat with her while she was in orbit on national television. NASA and the administration categorically denied that the launch was tied to the speech.
Note also that the exact same causes were also listed as contributing factors in the loss of the Columbia.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." ... Richard Feynman
They were shipped long distance by train so that they could be manufactured in the district of someone important to funding.
That "someone" was Senator Jake Garn of Utah, who chaired the appropriation committee for NASA's funding. He not only had the SRBs made in Utah, but he also got himself a ride on the Space Shuttle at a cost of tens of million to the taxpayers, despite being completely unqualified and spending near all his time in space puking from motion sickness.
Make the SRBs on-site and avoid the need for O-rings entirely.
They did not have to be made on-site. They could have been made in a single piece anywhere on the east or gulf coast and moved to the launch site by barge using the Intercoastal Waterway. That was the original plan, before Senator Garn used his chairmanship to have construction shifted to Utah, increasing the cost, and decreasing the structural integrity.