Posted on 01/28/2016 8:38:04 PM PST by WhiskeyX
A Lone Morton Thiokol Engineer tried to convince NASA and Thiokol management that their booster rocket is flawed. Both NASA and Thiokol ignore his warnings.The next day The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes over Florida and the Rogers Commission is formed to find out what exactly happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
HEY TRUMP AND CRUZ STAFF:
We all know some of you lurk here.
One of the reasons the Challenger went down was related to use of politically correct “green” materials. Don’t trust me. Research it. Then use that knowledge to expose the literally deadly consequences of such policies. Relate that to what is currently going on with our military.
And also one of you get elected then crush those type of policies so fewer die on the altar of the “green” movement.
Didn’t help it was freezing and the o-rings couldn’t take cold.
And a teacher was on board and it was a media frenzy after delays and they succumbed to that circus. Safety wasn’t first.
Many bad decisions.
Later
One of the reasons the Challenger went down was related to use of politically correct “green†materials. Don’t trust me. Research it.
...
Don’t need to. I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of the foam on the external tank that led to the loss of Columbia. I also think that’s been debunked.
The bottom line is the Shuttle was a bad design from a safety standpoint.
You are correct. I conflated the two. Sigh.
And I did not know the Columbia part was debunked. Sigh again.
Frozen and shrunk 0 rings that provided the seal between fuel areas— result— fuel blew by the O ring and burn it away with red- hot jet of oxidizer/fuel causing explosion of the large tank. They never had a chance. Eerily, the crew capsule fell on it’s own to the water at high speed to break apart— the astronauts inside were already dead (that is- it is hoped they were). A helmet with part of Onizuka’s skull inside was found on sea floor, from breakup of the crew capsule. A terrible loss of great people. Saw it happen from 25 miles to the West, and will never forget it.
“the astronauts inside were already dead (that is- it is hoped they were).”
Astronaut Dr. Story Musgrave says the evidence shows they were still alive until the crew cabin impacted the sea.
Astronauts Likely Survived Challenger Explosion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqcd_3daPQ8
What a terrible horrific thing to happen to them—trapped inside for the over 1 minute fall at terminal velocity to hit the ocean surface like a sheet of steel.
There has gone around for some time, a story of current Sen. Bill Nelson (was in the house then, think) having spirited the remains from the cabin which were on the recovery ship, placed in garbage bags, away from the hangar in the back of a damn pickup truck— to the AirForce morgue at Patrick AFB— from reliable military EMS people. An embarrassment that Nelson— who loves obamaumao and Wasserman-Shulz, and is a greedy litle nitpicker.
Didn’t help it was freezing and the o-rings couldn’t take cold.
From Wikipedia [Columbia accident], which agrees with other reports I studied:
What the Rogers Commission report did not highlight was that the vehicle was never certified to operate in temperatures that low (below freezing). The O-rings, as well as many other critical components, had no test data to support any expectation of a successful launch in such conditions. Bob Ebeling from Thiokol delivered a biting analysis: “[W]e’re only qualified to 40 degrees ...’what business does anyone even have thinking about 18 degrees, we’re in no man’s land.’”[2] Ken Iliff, a former NASA Chief Scientist who had worked the Space Shuttle Program since its first mission (and the X-15 program before that) stated in an official 2004 NASA publication, “Violating a couple of mission rules was the primary cause of the Challenger accident.”[3]
Actually there was no explosion. The SRB leak burned through an aft SRB support arm. That allowed the SRB to pivot on the forward support, crushing the intertank area. The whole thing was an aerodynamic breakup with a rapid burn of dispersed propellants. Its just easier to say ‘exploded’ rather than go through this explanation every time.
I always thought Nelson flew one mission too soon.
We saw icicles on the pad cctv feeds that morning. A lot of us thought they would scrub the launch.
Watched the show last night 30 years later. Worked on the shuttle system from 1975-2011. Some awesome years and a few horrible years. I remember exactly where I was for Challenger and Columbia.
Same issue with the foam on the external tank and foam loss issues. An exemption was in place for years for the method for spraying the foam but eventually eco regs caused a change. I don’t think the foam was as stable after that.
Another thing about the foam is that most of it was applied by machine. But there were some areas that had to be hand-sprayed, and these areas were where the application was less uniform, and the foam was more likely to fall off.
Yup. Very familiar with the entire tank and systems.
Yeah, in 1971 we were working on getting the Congressional funding for the Space Shuttle, the LEO space station, and the manned mission to Mars in the latter half of the 1980s. Later, the Air Force was to have their own Space Shuttles, with some of them launching into Polar orbits from Vandenberg AFB.
LOL! Yup. Vandy until the eco’s managed to whine about some threatened birds or something. Unloading the external tanks at Vandy was a real treat.
I was TDY as WX on the launch team for a Minuteman III launch. Would have paid for the privilege, especially when they gave us the Grand Tour of mission control and the vehicle assembly operations.
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