7 Myths About The Challenger Disaster 629
Lester67 writes "James Oberg at MSNBC has put together an excellent recap of the 7 myths surrounding the Challenger shuttle disaster. I remember that day clearly, but as the author points out, I didn't see it live, nor did a large chunk of the people said they did (Myth #1). Although there are no surprises on the list, regression may have caused you to forget a few of them (#3)."
Feynman's report (Score:5, Informative)
The Challenger disaster was quite shocking, even more so when I realised that the crew were probably alive (if not conscious) all the way until their capsule hit the ground. It's incredible that something could survive that disintegration but very sad that there was no way to get the capsule safely back to earth.
Richard Feynman's report is a fantastically clear and lucid account of his opinions. The man was one of the greatest communicators of science, and after reading this, you will see why. The most astonishing bit is that he discusses some less than simple things in such a way as to make them easily understood. It's a model of clarity, and I recommend it.
Most interesting report (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Spaceflight is dangerous, so what (Score:1, Informative)
Out of curiosity did you actually read the article?
Quoth the article:
"Claims that the disaster was the unavoidable price to be paid for pioneering a new frontier were self-serving rationalizations on the part of those responsible for incompetent engineering management -- the disaster should have been avoidable. NASA managers made a bad call for the launch decision, and engineers who had qualms about the O-rings were bullied or bamboozled into acquiescence. The skeptics' argument that launching with record cold temperatures is valid, but it probably was not argued as persuasively as it might have been, in hindsight. If launched on a warmer day, with gentler high-altitude winds, there's every reason to suppose the flight would have been successful and the troublesome seal design (which already had the attention of designers) would have been modified at a pace that turned out to have been far too leisurely."
Re:No explosion? (Score:5, Informative)
A (low) explosion is basically an over-pressure of the inside of a sealed container to the point that it breaks catestrophically. (High explosives are obviously different). That's not what happened here - the fuel tank ruptured (not caused by an explosion) and the resulting fuel spill just burnt in the air. That's really no different to if your car fuel tank ruptures and the petrol catches fire, it doesn't explode it just burns. Similarly if you set fire to gun powder in an unconfined space it just burns (quickly), it doesn't explode.
The craft then broke apart due to overpressure on the *outside* of the craft (caused by it turning broad-side in a supersonic airstream). If anything that probably constitutes an implosion, certainly not an explosion.
Re:Copied straight from Wikipedia! (Score:5, Informative)
Obligatory Tufte-Link (Score:3, Informative)
Edward Tufte wrote an excellent analysis [edwardtufte.com] on how crucial information about possible problems was buried in incompetently presented data.
Re:Sorry, but almost every point .... (Score:5, Informative)
We don't know if everyone eventually passed out; the emergency air packs they had might have kept them conscious, and some of those were turned on. And they all might have woken back up on the way down as air pressure increased again. But we really don't know. The flight recorder stopped when the power went off in the breakup.
We know the breakup didn't kill them all, or knock them all unconscious, because if it had then they couldn't have turned on the air packs.
The LOX tank didn't kill anyone. And you don't light the LOX tank.Jim was referring to the solid rocket boosters.
The putty seal problems existed before the change in materials was made. The problem was unrelated to that change happening. It is a myth that the problems appeared after the change.Please read more carefully.
Claims were repeatedly made that the White House pushed on NASA to get them to launch in time for Reagan to do a live linkup chat as part of the State of the Union.Phone logs, extensive interviews both with the White House staff and the NASA staff, repeated inquiries have shown that there is no factual evidence or ancedotal claim by anyone inside either the WH or the NASA program or its contractors that there was any such WH pressure.
If it happened, they erased all the evidence.
Things which are alledged and have no evidence are at best a myth or conspiracy theory. Calling it a myth, when it's been specifically repeatedly proven to have no factual evidence on the record anywhere, is a prefectly fair claim.
Your entire response seems to boil down to I believe these myths so they must be true!. The irony is astounding.
Quite a bit left completely unsaid... (Score:2, Informative)
occurred. Specifically within the contractor that produced them.
Anyone who has taken an engineering ethics course should have seen this material already:
google's cache of onlineethics.org
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:QhdMxzQaNpoJ:
Slightly more damning is that the engineers from the contractor attempted to have the launch delayed and were overturned by the management.
another google cache.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:1AGp_WgV7w8J:
Of course there was politcal interference (Score:5, Informative)
There were pressures on the flight schedule, but none of any recognizable political origin.
BS. I worked at NASA at the time, and I knew that there were politcal pressures on the flight schedule before the launch. One thing that he conveniently doesn't mention is that the State of the Union address was that night. It is a fact that Reagan wanted to salute the first teacher in space. That was common knowledge. Only an idiot would think that the NASA higher-ups would not feel pressure to launch in those circumstances. (I never heard of any plans to link the flight crew to the speach, which I cannot recall being done for any SOTU with anyone; this sounds like a straw man to me).
What I will give him is that I personally doubt that this pressure took the form of the White House calling up Houston. (There is certainly no evidence of that.) But they didn't have to.
I remember... (Score:2, Informative)
I was working there when it happened and saw it (Score:5, Informative)
There was enormous pressure to launch on time. Did the President call the Launch Director and tell him to launch? No, of course not. But NASA's budget depended on getting those launches off and beleive me that is a big motivator.
Did stupid managers ignore the advice of engineers? Not really. Remember that you're dealing with the "fog of war". Nobody knows anything 100% for sure and nobody communicates 100% perfectly. Incomplete data, poorly constructed PowerPoint slides, fear of rocking the boat, preconceived ideas, all contribute to this. Would someone intentionally put the astronauts lives at risk? Of course not, but in the absence of clear information most people just go with what the group wants to do.
Did the astronauts accept the risk? I knew many astronauts (OK actually it was 5 or 6) and they were some of the smartest people I have ever met. They TOTALLY accepted the risk of what they were doing. Just as much as a Marine going into battle accepts the risks. In this case though they were even more educated and aware of the odds. The astronauts I knew usually had multiple degrees, dozens of certifications, and 1000s of hours of training. They knew exactly what they were doing.
Re:composite aging? (Score:2, Informative)
I would think that the leading edges of the wings would be areas that would lend themselves to fairly frequent replacements, given the forces those tiles would be subjected to.
I think one thing that clearly came out of the investigation of the Columbia accident is that the failure of NASA to have ANY kind of inspection routine or any ability to replace damaged tiles in flight was a management failure on the order of what caused Challenger's demise. I think that would pretty clearly take it out of the realm of the acts of spiteful deities...
I Was There And Saw It Live (Score:3, Informative)
Refutation of myth #1 is wrong (Score:4, Informative)
I was six at the time. It was clearly visible from Central Florida, even though that's not where it happened. It was a BIG explosion.
So "everyone saw it" may be wrong, but "millions of people saw it" is certainly correct, and probably "almost everyone in Florida" saw it" is not necessarily wrong.
And it was obvious what happened. The small flame thing in the sky (which is all we actually see during shuttle launches) turned into much larger cloud of something.
The refutation of myth #2 is a bit questionable. Pieces went everywhere. They were found all over the place. And the size of the thing in the sky was big enough to be visible all over the state. Sure, there was no "bang," but it did explode.
Re:Explosion (Score:3, Informative)
What kind of car do you drive?! (Score:5, Informative)
I think you are talking out of your ass. You have a point about saftey, but don't lie to get your point accross.
Re:What kind of car do you drive?! (Score:2, Informative)
What kind of car are you driving where there's "several feet" between the rear passengers and the fuel tank? Most of the time the tank is now directly under the trunk which is just behind the rear passengers and sometimes in older cars the tank spreads to just under the back seat. FWIW I still remember my Dad's 1977 Chevrolet Scottsdale (which I drove for a while when first turning 16) had a tank right under the driver and passenger bench.
Re:The power of suggestion (Score:2, Informative)
Re:composite aging? (Score:5, Informative)
Two points of information: The failure was not part of the wing, but part of the vertical stablizer (the fins). And, secondly, the failure was part of the load-bearing honeycomb, which is not "composite" but mainly aluminum. The 'skin' of the aircraft is composite, and not load-bearing. F15s are all getting structural upgrades (as is noted in the article) to correct this problem, and the air-force has removed the "profile" used that day (which, as i understand, was pretty extreme).
I worked at Eglin shortly after this happened, and worked with many people involved with that aircraft.
Re:What kind of car do you drive?! (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, when was the last time you saw a car blow up by the roadside, Hollywood-style? It doesn't really happen.
Re:I was working there when it happened and saw it (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, James Oberg [wikipedia.org] worked in Mission Control at JSC from well before Challenger until well after. I'd say that qualifies him to "know what he's talking about", at least as much as you're qualified by your experiences.
Re:Engineers bullied or bamboozled into acquiescen (Score:5, Informative)
See Tufte's graphs:
badly excepted here: http://www.asktog.com/books/challengerExerpt.html [asktog.com]
reviewed here http://www.statview.com/support/techsup/faq/Tufte
Re:Live at school (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The power of suggestion (Score:3, Informative)
They found that indeed, the crash position helped dissapate g forces and helped you survive a crash. The bad news was that almost certainly you'd end up with broken legs and would end up dieing because you couldn't walk off the plane (smoke inhalation, fire burning you, etc).
If you get a chance to see that episode, it was quite an eye opener.
Re:Engineers bullied or bamboozled into acquiescen (Score:2, Informative)
I have talked to engineers who were in the final meeting, and on the final conference call. Normally the contractor (Morton Thiokol) has to convince the customer (NASA) that it is safe to launch. Thiokol said "NO" and NASA tried to convince them to say yes (bass ackwards). After the final decision of "no" was reached based on the engineers advice, the conference call link was broken and when it was re-established the Thiokol managers had overridden the engineers and said "OK". IIRC the onsight (Florida) Thiokol manager refused to sign the necessary paper work, inferring what had happened when they were off the line. The next guy down the chain signed anyway, so they launched.
It was not a matter of management not understanding, it was a matter of the dollars that would stop flowing from NASA to Morton Thiokol if they scrubbed being worth more than the lives of the 7 astronauts.
An earlier poster had a very insightful analysis of what this meant to the US, and I've often had similar views of what it meant to the engineering profession. At the time I was a newly minted BSEE working for a government contractor. It wasn't geeky to be an engineer, it was actually cool and somewhat respected. This doesn't seem to be the case today.
Yes but... (Score:3, Informative)
So maybe it wasn't millions of Americans but it was a healthy percentage of American school kids that got to see the launch live.
Re:Bassett (Score:3, Informative)
----------
Sent: Tue 1/24/2006 3:24 PM
Subject: Faculty Member Dave Bassett Passes - STA Community Grieves
The flag in front of Saint Thomas Academy is flying at half staff
in honor of Professor David M. Bassett, longtime Saint Thomas
Academy faculty member, who passed away from cancer today.
A 1962 graduate of Saint Thomas Military Academy, Dave returned to
the Academy in 1975 as a faculty member teaching various areas of
the science curriculum. He was a teacher, mentor, advisor, and
friend to the thousands of students who passed through his
science labs and the halls of the Academy.
His colleagues remember Dave for his quick wit, stories, magic
tricks, talent at the piano, and compassion.
His father, D. Marvin Bassett, taught at STA from 1945 to 1977.
Dave had been on medical leave since April, 2005, and will be
missed by the many thousands of people who were honored to
know him.
---------
I know that I feel lucky to have known him. He was among my top five teachers ever. A good man, a very good man.
Re:What kind of car do you drive?! (Score:2, Informative)
Get it right! (Score:2, Informative)
See? That's what this whole constructive memory thing is talking about. Everybody who's seen the pictures knows that it's Evil Bert, not Earnie. Puh!