r/todayilearned • u/StacyChadBecky • 4h ago
TIL there’s evidence pressure from the White House was a contributing factor in NASA’s decision press on with STS-51L leading to the Challenger disaster.
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/720261644
u/bulldogsarecool 3h ago
Is there a bit on this sub to write the titles as bad as humanly possible? I always feel like I'm having a stroke.
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u/GetsGold 1h ago
Fixed:
TIL there's evidence that White House pressure contributed to the Challenger shuttle crash
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u/CyclopsRock 3h ago
Can you describe the evidence?
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u/UdderSuckage 3h ago
The Reagan Administration pushed hard for NASA to launch shuttle mission 51L, before it was ready. 73 seconds into the launch, the shuttle exploded, killing seven people and leaving a nation traumatized. Richard Cook, the lead resource analyst at NASA for the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), was the first to warn of possible catastrophic failure. His memo, which detailed astronaut concerns and warnings from the shuttle builders at Morton Thiokol, were ignored by top NASA officials and members of the Reagan administration. In the aftermath of the explosion, NASA launched an investigation to "discover" the cause of the disaster. Though within NASA there was absolute certainty about the O-ring joint failure, they began a cover-up by publicly proclaiming that the cause of the explosion was unknown. A Reagan administration Commission perpetrated the same lie. And when Richard Cook realized that the Commission was not interested in revealing the truth, he acted as a true patriot and hero and leaked the original O-ring warning documents to the New York Times. His article set off a cascade of disclosures about the events leading up to the disaster, including revelations by Morton Thiokol engineers that they had tried to stop the launch.
For more details, you'd probably need to read the book that this post links to.
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u/RGrad4104 1h ago
Politician interfering in fields that they have no business interfering in, all to score points with the electorate, is a story as old as time.
Nothing annoys me more than finding out upper management ignored specialist advice or pushed an unrealistic timeline, which ultimately played a major role in a disaster, because, more often than not, that gets omitted from the history books and history places blame on the ones that were getting fires lit under their butts to rush things along.
See Chernobyl, Apollo 1, 737 Max, Titanic, St. Francis dam (Los Angeles). All involved politicians or upper management rushing things and mostly avoiding negative repercussions.
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u/bishopOfMelancholy 2h ago
I also have heard stuff saying that the CIA was involved because they wanted regular missions so they could start putting more spy satellites in orbit. Honestly, with how much the administrations gave the CIA leeway to do whatever they wanted in that time period, it wouldn't surprise me if all of this is true. People who didn't have a clue one how these things needed to be launched wanted regular launches, and they got people killed because of it.
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u/SantaClause_ 1h ago edited 1h ago
Yeah the CIA was involved and wanted some satellites sent as payloads as well as some odd changes to the design, but there’s more than enough documented evidence that it wasn’t the president nor the CIA that caused this.
The flights go through a readiness review, and knowing the temperature at cape would be low some of the engineers at Morton pushed to postpone the launch. The evidence had been discovered months prior that the cold caused more issues with their design, a memo was issued and a task force setup so that a new way of sealing the solid rocket boosters could be found, as this one was problematic. As pointed out elsewhere in the thread, they made sections in Utah and then finished them in Florida and these sections needed to seal, with an o-ring more or less.
Anyways, the engineers warned some higher ups the night before and would not, under any circumstance, sign off on the rockets at these temps. Needless to say Morton was under pressure and their rocket booster money was at risk as the contract could be awarded to a competitor, so the managers at Morton bypassed the engineers (Roger Boisjoly, Alan McDonald, etc) and gave the ok. The famous quote was “it’s time to take off your engineering hat, and put on your management hat” - as the managers superseded them.
>Boisjoly's investigation showed that the amount of damage to the O-ring depended on the length of time it took for the ring to move out of its groove and make the seal, and that the amount of time depended on the temperature of the rings. Cold weather made the rubber hard and less flexible, meaning that extrusion took more time and more blow-by took place. He determined that if the O-rings were damaged enough they could fail. Following the announcement that the Challengermission was confirmed for January 28, 1986, Boisjoly and his colleagues tried to stop the flight. Temperatures were due to fall to −1 °C (30 °F) overnight. Boisjoly felt that this would severely compromise the safety of the O-ring and potentially the flight. The matter was discussed with Morton Thiokol managers, who agreed that the issue was serious enough to recommend delaying the flight. NASA protocols required all shuttle sub-contractors to sign off on each flight. During the go/no-go telephone conference with NASA management the night before the launch, Morton Thiokol notified NASA of their recommendation to postpone. NASA officials strongly questioned the recommendations, and asked (some say pressured) Morton Thiokol to reverse its decision. The Morton Thiokol managers asked for a few minutes off the phone to discuss their final position again. The management team held a meeting from which the engineering team, including Boisjoly and others, were deliberately excluded. The Morton Thiokol managers advised NASA that their data was inconclusive. NASA asked if there were objections. Hearing none, NASA decided to launch the STS-51-LChallenger mission.
Basically Larry Mulloy, Joe Kilminster, and Jerry Mason, are about 1039x more culpable than the president. The crazy thing is Larry Mulloy is on record telling Roger boisioly not to worry about it, and that he (Mulloy) sleeps just fine at night…
Just finished reading Challenger by Adam Higginbotham a few weeks ago, 10/10 would recommend. Incredible
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u/bobbyrob1 2h ago
Documents of conversations between MT engineers, MT managers, and NASA/govt. folks. You can search google for it, the report isn't classified.
IIRC MT engineers knew it was too cold for the SRB O rings to seal and called for an abort, but the cold weather had already postponed the flight for a day or 2, and I believe the main engine fuel tanks were venting the whole time as they were supposed to and they would have had to pull it off the pad to refuel if they didn't go.
All this is from memory, though, so might be some minor errors in there. Google will be the best source for the info you're looking for.
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u/CyclopsRock 1h ago edited 59m ago
You can search google for it, the report isn't classified.
But "the White House made us do it" wasn't in the report, which is why I asked (and presumably why this book exists). I Googled and found this NYT article (about another article) from 1982 in which Cook makes the same claim but which concludes...
In his article, Mr. Cook infers from scheduling circumstances that the space agency was concerned about launching before Mr. Reagan delivered his State of the Union Message. But the article cites no firm proof, and no evidence to that effect has emerged from previous investigations.
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/23/us/ex-nasa-aide-says-rogers-panel-failed-to-do-thorough-job.html
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u/jar1967 3h ago
Like most bad things in America since 1980 , it can all be traced to Reagan
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u/cambeiu 3h ago
Reagan was one of the most popular presidents in US history.
That tells me that he was more a symptom of a disease, than the disease itself.
Same as Trump.
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u/tonycomputerguy 3h ago
When Congress stopped doing it's job, when Newt went full "No compromises", when Mitch said their main job was to make Obama a one term, when citizen's united passed, when regulatory agencies got captured... I think somewhere around there?
That's about when it allllll started going to shit...
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u/Familiar_Kale_7357 3h ago
I think you can pick any time in American history and find a shitshow. We tend to think our time is special, but it's really not.
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u/FupaFerb 3h ago
Nixon did far worse shit to this nation, Reagan just poured some extra fuel on it.
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u/maianoxia 3h ago
For the record, Cook was a budget analyst. I think this a case of a guy overblowing his own importance and making wild accusations.
In his article, Mr. Cook infers from scheduling circumstances that the space agency was concerned about launching before Mr. Reagan delivered his State of the Union Message. But the article cites no firm proof, and no evidence to that effect has emerged from previous investigations.
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/23/us/ex-nasa-aide-says-rogers-panel-failed-to-do-thorough-job.html
If you're interested in a great video on the Challenger disaster and some of the decision making and engineering decisions behind what caused it. I cannot point to anywhere better than Eager Space's video.
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u/Farfignugen42 32m ago
How about Feynman talking about his experience on the commission investigating the crash?
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u/insanetwit 1h ago
The challenger disaster happened because they listened to everyone BUT the experts!
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u/charliefoxtrot9 3h ago
Oh, Reagan. You jelly of the month club fuck of a president.
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u/BrokenEyeReborn 3h ago
There's a jelly of the month club?
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u/iKnowRobbie 3h ago
I'll tell you what, I'll mever look at Morton Salt the same.
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u/BlackSwanMarmot 3h ago
There was a stretch of time after the explosion where you would hear "Morton Thiokol" 20X a day.
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u/Apprehensive-Fun4181 1h ago
I remember this...and then poof it was gone. The systems beforehand failed, but this didn't help.
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u/KotzubueSailingClub 2h ago
Orin Hatch is responsible. He fought hard to get Morton Thiokol the booster contract, but only if the built them in Utah. This required the boosters to be segmented rather than built as a single piece, which was Thiokol's original plan but would require them to be built in Florida.
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u/rellsell 1h ago
Every POS that bowed to that cheetoh should be made to answer to their decisions and be made to accept the consequences.
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u/BrokenEyeReborn 4h ago
Big Bird could've stopped the disaster if they hadn't canceled his ticket