The story of how Feynman found out about the Challenger disaster is quite interesting. It is not that he was a clever detective ferreting out the facts -- it's

The story of how Feynman found out about the Challenger disaster is quite interesting. It is not that he was a clever detective ferreting out the facts -- it's just that he tried something different and let himself be nudged along in the process. To quote from his book "What do you care what other people think?"... Well, a few days after the accident, I get a telephone call from the head of NASA, William Graham, asking me to be on the committee investigating what went wrong with the shuttle! [...] When I heard the investigation was going to be in Washington, my immediate reaction was not to do it: I have a principle of not going anywhere near Washington or having anything to do with government, so my immediate reaction was -- how am I going to get out of this? [Gweneth, his wife says] "If you don't do it, there will be twelve people, all in a group, going around from place to place together. But if you join in the commission, there will be eleven people -- all in a group going around from place to place together -- while the twelfth one runs around all over the place, checking all kinds of unusual things. There probably won't be anything, but if there is, you'll find it." She said, "There isn't anyone else who can do that like you can."