Posted on 01/28/2016 8:50:30 AM PST by bigbob
Images from Jan. 28, 1986, are seared into the memories of former schoolchildren, teachers, parents, and pretty much any American now older than 30 - the Challenger space shuttle, meant to carry school teacher Christa McAuliffe into orbit, reduced to a snaky tunnel of smoke in the sky near Cape Canaveral.
In the years that followed, a lot would come out about a disaster watched in countless classrooms across the nation: about faulty O-rings, about dangerously cold temperatures, and about how five crewmen, an engineer and a New Hampshire teacher meant to represent NASA in its finest hour became the space agency's first in-flight fatalities.
But even before the smoke cleared 30 years ago Thursday, one man just as shocked as everyone else by the tragedy - President Ronald Reagan - had the unenviable job of explaining it to the country. On a day, no less, that he was to be the center of a ritual marked on every commander-in-chief's calendar since the Woodrow Wilson administration: the State of the Union address.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
This article tells the backstory of Reagan's emotional and heartfelt speech that soothed a nation on the verge of tears. Say what you will about Peggy Noonan's politics, but she had a gift for finding just the right words...
I’m sure it’s a nice story but I’m not registering with a fish wrapper like the Chicago Tribune in order to read it.
huh...just came up on a Google search for me.
But yes, it is.
BTTT
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
- Ronald Reagan
do you remember where you were?
At work.
I was at a staff meeting at HQ AFMPC at Randolph AFB, Texas that morning when the explosion occurred. We emerged to see replays of the explosion and the components flying aimlessly into the atmosphere before descending into the ocean.
Sad and surreal.
I remember. There are certain events that happened that one always remembers where they were and this is one of them. Hard to believe it’s been thirty years.
At work, making a VAX 11/780 obey me ... heard about it all on the radio.
For 15 1/2 years, it was the worst thing many of us had ever seen....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/28/how-ronald-reagan-explained-the-challenger-disaster-to-the-world-its-all-part-of-taking-a-chance/ available without registration or pay.
NASA wanted to check with all of its contractors to determine if there would be any problems with launching in the cold temperatures. Alan McDonald, director of the Solid Rocket Motor Project at Morton-Thiokol, was convinced that there were cold-weather problems with the solid rocket motors and contacted two of the engineers working on the project, Robert Ebeling and Roger Boisjoly. Thiokol knew there was a problem with the boosters as early as 1977, and had initiated a redesign effort in 1985. NASA Level I management had been briefed on the problem on August 19, 1985. Almost half of the shuttle flights had experienced O-ring erosion in the booster field joints. Ebeling and Boisjoly had complained to Thiokol that management was not supporting the redesign task force.
Temperatures for the next launch date were predicted to be in the low 20°s. This prompted Alan McDonald to ask his engineers at Thiokol to prepare a presentation on the effects of cold temperature on booster performance.
A teleconference was held between engineers and management from Kennedy Space Center, Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, and Morton-Thiokol in Utah. Boisjoly and another engineer, Arnie Thompson, knew this would be another opportunity to express their concerns about the boosters, but they had only a short time to prepare their data for the presentation.
Thiokol’s engineers gave an hour-long presentation, presenting a convincing argument that the cold weather would exaggerate the problems of joint rotation and delayed O-ring seating. The lowest temperature experienced by the O-rings in any previous mission was 53°F, on the January 24, 1985 flight. With a predicted ambient temperature of 26°F at launch, the O-rings were estimated to be at 29°F.
After the technical presentation, Thiokol’s Engineering Vice President Bob Lund presented the conclusions and recommendations. His main conclusion was that 53°F was the only low-temperature data Thiokol had for the effects of cold on the operational boosters. The boosters had experienced O-ring erosion at this temperature. Since his engineers had no low-temperature data below 53°F, they could not prove that it was unsafe to launch at lower temperatures. He read his recommendations and commented that the predicted temperatures for the morning’s launch was outside the database and NASA should delay the launch, so the ambient temperature could rise until the O-ring temperature was at least 53°F. This confused NASA managers because the booster design specifications called for booster operation as low as 31°F. (It later came out in the investigation that Thiokol understood that the 31°F limit temperature was for storage of the booster, and that the launch temperature limit was 40°F. Because of this, dynamic tests of the boosters had never been performed below 40°F.)
Marshall’s Solid Rocket Booster Project Manager, Larry Mulloy, commented that the data was inconclusive and challenged the engineers’ logic. A heated debate went on for several minutes before Mulloy bypassed Lund and asked Joe Kilminster for his opinion. Kilminster was in management, although he had an extensive engineering background. By bypassing the engineers, Mulloy was calling for a middle-management decision, but Kilminster stood by his engineers. Several other managers at Marshall expressed their doubts about the recommendations, and finally Kilminster asked for a meeting off of the net, so Thiokol could review its data. Boisjoly and Thompson tried to convince their senior managers to stay with their original decision not to launch.
A senior executive at Thiokol, Jerald Mason, commented that a management decision was required. The managers seemed to believe the O-rings could be eroded up to one-third of their diameter and still seal properly, regardless of the temperature. The data presented to them showed no correlation between temperature and the blowby gasses which eroded the O-rings in previous missions. According to testimony by Kilminster and Boisjoly, Mason finally turned to Bob Lund and said, “Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.”
Joe Kilminster wrote out the new recommendation and went back online with the teleconference. The new recommendation stated that the cold was still a safety concern, but their people had found that the original data was indeed inconclusive and their “engineering assessment” was that launch was recommended, even though the engineers had no part in writing the new recommendation and refused to sign it.
Alan McDonald, who was present with NASA management in Florida, was surprised to see the recommendation to launch and appealed to NASA management not to launch. NASA managers decided to approve the boosters for launch despite the fact that the predicted launch temperature was outside of their operational specifications.
More at link:
http://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/ArticleID/170/categoryId/7/The-Space-Shuttle-Challenger-Disaster.aspx
do you remember where you were?
I was in college. Someone had spliced the taping of the launch up to the explosion. It ran continuously, over and over with the tape player and TV in the Electrical Engineering main lobby. There was a crowd of us standing shoulder to shoulder watching in stunned silence. I had to have stood there through at least a dozen runs before I moved or spoke.
I was watching it on the TV in the first class cabin of a UAL DC-10 parked at the gate in EWR on our turnaround from ORD. Never forget it or the expression on one of the victims wives face as the camera focused on her just after the event. It was abject ????!
I was in training at a new job. Some racist black guy came into the room and said “seven more white people died.”
I didn’t stay at that job too long.
I know a guy who saw it live
Thanks for the better link.
I too was at work, in the process of leaving a job I really liked in favor of one I hoped would be even better (as it turned out to be). And emotion-filled day.
I was in school and watched Reagan’s speech live. That speech remains one of my favourite Reagan speeches.
I was a freshman in college, my roommate and I had just ordered a pizza and we were flipping channels to see if anything was on TV. There wasn't much on, so we just left it on the Challenger launch. 73 seconds after launch it just exploded, then the TV coverage switched to the studio as they trued to figure out what had happened.
I remember it very very well. It was 2 days before my 11th birthday and it was a huge event in my elementary school (4th grade maybe) as you can imagine;the first teacher in space! We watched it live in our classroom. It launched and we were at our desks in Mr. Circle’s classroom. Then boom. He strode for maybe a few seconds tops rushed to the TV and turned it off. Rushed out of the classroom and the teachers convened outside in the hall on how best to explain to the children what was just witnessed.
I will never in my life forget this day.
We rushed over to the Space Systems Division building and watched the NASA live feed, unedited and unnarrated. One co-worker who had worked for Gates rubber in Carlsbad saw the feed once and said "It's the seals". He knew right off and showed us the puff of smoke at the interstage on the next playback.
Hour or so before I was heading out for work a friend called to tell me “the shuttle just blew up”...BTW, at that time he and I were working for the company(well, a division of)that designed/mfg. the o-rings....remember getting a company letter advising us as such later on that week(still have it, along with keepsakes from attending first landing of Columbia and Challenger).
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