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The double entendre is what made it so catchy. The saying was first [1] and the company is now trying to rewrite history. Another fun fact: Morton (tehnically

The double entendre is what made it so catchy. The saying was first [1] and the company is now trying to rewrite history. Another fun fact: Morton (tehnically, Morton Norwich) made other chemicals as well, including rocket fuel. The fuels were marked up so highly, that - together with a company called Thiokol - they decided they could make and fly the whole rocket engine cheaper than NASA could. Their first attempt at rocket building was the Challenger, which blew up less than two minutes after launch, and took with it 7 people, and the Morton-Thiokol partnership. [1]: From 1892, called an "old saying": https://books.google.co.il/books?id=gwFCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA733&dq=%22when+it+rains+it+pours%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiAm9jXlL74AhV_RfEDHUeRC4YQ6AF6BAgKEAI#v=onepage&q=%22when%20it%20rains%20it%20pours%22&f=false https://books.google.co.il/books?id=gwFCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA733&dq...

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Morton (tehnically, Morton Norwich) made other chemicals as well, including rocket fuel. The fuels were marked up so highly, that - together with a company called Thiokol - they decided they could make and fly the whole rocket engine cheaper than NASA could. That's...not really true. Thiokol and Morton Norwich merged in 1982; Morton-Thiokol did a lot, wasn't centered on a proposal to “make and fly the whole rocket engine cheaper than NASA could”, and, in fact, the rocket engine business they had after the merger was the same one Thiokol had before the merger, just with the new entity’s name. Thiokol had been a contractor on the shuttle program since the 1970s. > Their first attempt at rocket building was the Challenger, which blew up less than two minutes after launch No, it wasn't. Thiokol was the contractor for the SRB motor segments from well before the merger, and Thiokol and then Morton-Thiokol made the motor segments for the SRBs for all of the launches before the 1986 Challenger disaster (and all of them after, though some under different names, after Thiokol was purchased.) > and the Morton-Thiokol partnership. Morton-Thiokol wasn't a partnership, but it's true that most of the chemical business was spun out as Morton in 1989, with the propulsion business staying as Thiokol. This wasn't really an unwinding of the merger; Thiokol had a substantial chemic business before the merger. It was a novel split of the combined business that happened to use the branding from the old components because it was available.
- sam_goody 4y ago
  Thanks for the added info. > Their first attempt at rocket building was the Challenger >> No, it wasn't. Thiokol was the contractor for the SRB motor segments from well before the merger I don't see how that differs. The first rocket made by Morton after the --partnership-- merger was the Challenger. My great uncle was the CEO of Morton, and from him I heard (as a child) that the decision to make the engine was a direct result of the huge markup they had on the fuel. But the details are obviously fuzzy [like, maybe he was really CTO...], and its good to have some more facts. IMO, The whole "Morton makes rockets" is interesting, no matter how you spin it.
  - Toutouxc 4y ago
    > The first rocket made by Morton after the --partnership-- merger was the Challenger. Sorry, but that's just too inaccurate. Challenger was the name of an orbiter (one of several), the whole system was called the Space Shuttle, and one part of the system were the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters), and Morton-Thiokol was responsible for the actual rocket motor part of the SRBs.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Language is funny, “the Challenger” can refer to different things depending on context.
      - eesmith 4y ago
        In this context it's "Their first attempt at rocket building was the Challenger, which blew up less than two minutes after launch." The companies merged in the summer of 1982, right? The first Shuttle launch after the merger was STS-5, when Columbia launched in November 1982. Doesn't that count as Morton-Thiokol's first attempt? (FWIW, Tiokol's first attempts were in the 1940s. And of course MTI had many successful attempts before the Challenger explosion.)
        Retric 4y ago
qbasic_forever 4y ago
It was a failed o-ring from launching in too cold of temperatures that caused the Challenger disaster though, not a failure of the rocket fuel. The engineers that understood the danger to the o-rings objected to the launch and would not sign off on it, but they were overruled by NASA's broken management culture at the time and the rest is history. There was a thorough investigation and it placed the blame squarely on NASA management for the root cause of launching under conditions that were dangerous to the shuttle design.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  This was the investigation largely carried out by Richard Feynman, who ignored much of the other investigators to actually get to the root of the issue.
- mavhc 4y ago
  The real question is why they had o-rings. Because it was built in parts. Why was it built in parts? Because it was built in Utah.
  - jxramos 4y ago
    This is a reference to it requiring shipment to the launch site right? That shipment was more practical under bite sized chunks no?
    - mavhc 4y ago
      Yep, shipped by rail, so that jobs were more evenly distributed, and thus cost twice as much, worked half as well, and killed way more people
      - JoeDaDude 4y ago
        This sounds like a good time to insert the very old joke about how the size of a horse's ass determined the size of the booster rockets. https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/256024.aspx https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/256024.aspx
occoder 4y ago
The claim that the saying originated with the Morton slogan seemed fishy to me too. So thanks for doing the digging. I upvoted you, and everyone else who linked to earlier usages. If Morton Salt is trying to take credit for coming up with the saying, shame on them, but somehow I doubt they are. So doubly shame on historydaily.org for pushing a false narrative. It goes to show that you can't blindly trust whatever you read, even on a .org site.
- jhugo 4y ago
  > It goes to show that you can't blindly trust whatever you read, even on a .org site. A domain ending in .org tells you that the owner chose a .org. Nothing else.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Very early on people were taught (in school!) that .com meant it was a business, and would likely be moderately correct about that business, .net was for networks, and .org was a organization that would very likely be truthful. Fake information would only come from .coms, and you could certainly trust .gov. Of course, even then slashdot.org existed so the distinction wasn't really effective; later it DID become a bit of a signal because the "big three" were more expensive than .biz and friends so the latter became known for scam/spam sites. Now it's all completely random and doesn't matter at all.
  - justusthane 4y ago
    Is it a common perception that .org is somehow more trustworthy? And was it ever the case that it actually was?
    - jhugo 4y ago
      As your sibling comment mentions, people used to be taught (apparently in school, but I went to school a bit early for TLDs to be part of the curriculum) about the meaning of the TLDs. It has never been the case that you needed to be any particular kind of organisation (or an organisation at all) to get a .org, but in the early days it did tend to be used more by non-profits and the like.
pontus 4y ago
Thanks for this! That being said, I think that makes it an even better slogan. Taking something that was well known and using it in a new context where the meaning was, in fact, reversed. Kind of brilliant.
throw0101a 4y ago
> Morton (tehnically, Morton Norwich) made other chemicals as well, including rocket fuel. If anyone wants to learn the history of rocket fuel(s) (not rockets, just rocket fuels), see the book Ignition! by John Drury Clark: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/677285.Ignition_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/677285.Ignition_

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Morton (tehnically, Morton Norwich) made other chemicals as well, including rocket fuel. The fuels were marked up so highly, that - together with a company called Thiokol - they decided they could make and fly the whole rocket engine cheaper than NASA could. That's...not really true. Thiokol and Morton Norwich merged in 1982; Morton-Thiokol did a lot, wasn't centered on a proposal to “make and fly the whole rocket engine cheaper than NASA could”, and, in fact, the rocket engine business they had after the merger was the same one Thiokol had before the merger, just with the new entity’s name. Thiokol had been a contractor on the shuttle program since the 1970s. > Their first attempt at rocket building was the Challenger, which blew up less than two minutes after launch No, it wasn't. Thiokol was the contractor for the SRB motor segments from well before the merger, and Thiokol and then Morton-Thiokol made the motor segments for the SRBs for all of the launches before the 1986 Challenger disaster (and all of them after, though some under different names, after Thiokol was purchased.) > and the Morton-Thiokol partnership. Morton-Thiokol wasn't a partnership, but it's true that most of the chemical business was spun out as Morton in 1989, with the propulsion business staying as Thiokol. This wasn't really an unwinding of the merger; Thiokol had a substantial chemic business before the merger. It was a novel split of the combined business that happened to use the branding from the old components because it was available.

sam_goody 4y ago
Thanks for the added info. > Their first attempt at rocket building was the Challenger >> No, it wasn't. Thiokol was the contractor for the SRB motor segments from well before the merger I don't see how that differs. The first rocket made by Morton after the --partnership-- merger was the Challenger. My great uncle was the CEO of Morton, and from him I heard (as a child) that the decision to make the engine was a direct result of the huge markup they had on the fuel. But the details are obviously fuzzy [like, maybe he was really CTO...], and its good to have some more facts. IMO, The whole "Morton makes rockets" is interesting, no matter how you spin it.
- Toutouxc 4y ago
  > The first rocket made by Morton after the --partnership-- merger was the Challenger. Sorry, but that's just too inaccurate. Challenger was the name of an orbiter (one of several), the whole system was called the Space Shuttle, and one part of the system were the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters), and Morton-Thiokol was responsible for the actual rocket motor part of the SRBs.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Language is funny, “the Challenger” can refer to different things depending on context.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      In this context it's "Their first attempt at rocket building was the Challenger, which blew up less than two minutes after launch." The companies merged in the summer of 1982, right? The first Shuttle launch after the merger was STS-5, when Columbia launched in November 1982. Doesn't that count as Morton-Thiokol's first attempt? (FWIW, Tiokol's first attempts were in the 1940s. And of course MTI had many successful attempts before the Challenger explosion.)
      - Retric 4y ago

qbasic_forever 4y ago

It was a failed o-ring from launching in too cold of temperatures that caused the Challenger disaster though, not a failure of the rocket fuel. The engineers that understood the danger to the o-rings objected to the launch and would not sign off on it, but they were overruled by NASA's broken management culture at the time and the rest is history. There was a thorough investigation and it placed the blame squarely on NASA management for the root cause of launching under conditions that were dangerous to the shuttle design.

tsimionescu 4y ago
This was the investigation largely carried out by Richard Feynman, who ignored much of the other investigators to actually get to the root of the issue.
mavhc 4y ago
The real question is why they had o-rings. Because it was built in parts. Why was it built in parts? Because it was built in Utah.
- jxramos 4y ago
  This is a reference to it requiring shipment to the launch site right? That shipment was more practical under bite sized chunks no?
  - mavhc 4y ago
    Yep, shipped by rail, so that jobs were more evenly distributed, and thus cost twice as much, worked half as well, and killed way more people
    - JoeDaDude 4y ago
      This sounds like a good time to insert the very old joke about how the size of a horse's ass determined the size of the booster rockets. https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/256024.aspx https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/256024.aspx

occoder 4y ago

The claim that the saying originated with the Morton slogan seemed fishy to me too. So thanks for doing the digging. I upvoted you, and everyone else who linked to earlier usages. If Morton Salt is trying to take credit for coming up with the saying, shame on them, but somehow I doubt they are. So doubly shame on historydaily.org for pushing a false narrative. It goes to show that you can't blindly trust whatever you read, even on a .org site.

jhugo 4y ago
> It goes to show that you can't blindly trust whatever you read, even on a .org site. A domain ending in .org tells you that the owner chose a .org. Nothing else.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Very early on people were taught (in school!) that .com meant it was a business, and would likely be moderately correct about that business, .net was for networks, and .org was a organization that would very likely be truthful. Fake information would only come from .coms, and you could certainly trust .gov. Of course, even then slashdot.org existed so the distinction wasn't really effective; later it DID become a bit of a signal because the "big three" were more expensive than .biz and friends so the latter became known for scam/spam sites. Now it's all completely random and doesn't matter at all.
- justusthane 4y ago
  Is it a common perception that .org is somehow more trustworthy? And was it ever the case that it actually was?
  - jhugo 4y ago
    As your sibling comment mentions, people used to be taught (apparently in school, but I went to school a bit early for TLDs to be part of the curriculum) about the meaning of the TLDs. It has never been the case that you needed to be any particular kind of organisation (or an organisation at all) to get a .org, but in the early days it did tend to be used more by non-profits and the like.

pontus 4y ago

Thanks for this! That being said, I think that makes it an even better slogan. Taking something that was well known and using it in a new context where the meaning was, in fact, reversed. Kind of brilliant.

throw0101a 4y ago

> Morton (tehnically, Morton Norwich) made other chemicals as well, including rocket fuel. If anyone wants to learn the history of rocket fuel(s) (not rockets, just rocket fuels), see the book Ignition! by John Drury Clark: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/677285.Ignition_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/677285.Ignition_