Space Shuttle Disaster by Henry M. Holden

Author:Henry M. Holden [Holden, Henry M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4645-0985-8
Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2013-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

Image Credit: AP Images / NASA

This photo of the Challenger space shuttle taken seconds before the explosion shows a flame and hot gas leaking from the side of the right solid rocket booster. The faulty O-ring caused this dangerous leak that led to the explosion.

An Accident Waiting to Happen

This was an accident, but one that did not have to happen. An engineer at Morton Thiokol, the company that made the rocket boosters, had said, “. . . if we do not take immediate action to dedicate a team to solve the problem, . . . then we stand in jeopardy of losing a flight . . . [and] a catastrophe of the highest order—loss of human life.”4 His words were ignored. He knew that someday an accident could occur.

NASA had known for years that the O-ring seals could fail. Out of the first twenty-four shuttle flights, inspections found fifteen instances where the O-rings had been partially burned away.5 When NASA began using a new putty seal, the trouble got worse. There was damage to O-rings in eight of nine flights in 1985.6 NASA never told the astronauts of the danger they faced.

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