[chaosagent]

Ironically, the actual destruction of Challenger was just sheer bad luck.

The burn-thru at the SRB joint was completely random and only by bad luck occurred in the roughly 90 degree arc facing the External Tank (ET).

If it had been somewhere along the other 270 degrees, the slight loss of thrust would have been offset by a small gimbaling of the Main Engines (ME) and the Shuttle could have made orbit with little or no change. In fact at the time of the explosion, the ME’s were already moving to offset the loss of thrust.

Instead the flame from the joint cut into the ET and severed one of the lower struts mounting the SRB, resulting in explosion that destroyed the Shuttle.

[Campion]

NASA knew they had an O-ring leakage problem, and they knew it was worse in cold weather. Instead of fixing it, they flew a mission in the coldest launch-day weather in the program's history.

They rolled the dice that day -- 1 in 4 chance that a leak would burn through a strut -- and lost.

But if the leak had been on the outside of the booster, would they have just continued to fly until some future mission failed in the same way Challenger did?

[cherry]

its posters like you that make FR a treasure....knowledgeable about so many things....