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very good explanation. surely there must have been engineers on the team that knew the NASA design was unproven - by NOT whistleblowing they killed the crew as

very good explanation. surely there must have been engineers on the team that knew the NASA design was unproven - by NOT whistleblowing they killed the crew as surely as anyone else - chickenshits

ceejayoz 2y ago
The engineers tried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Decision_to_launch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas... > Based upon O-ring erosion that had occurred in warmer launches, Morton Thiokol engineers were concerned over the effect the record-cold temperatures would have on the seal provided by the SRB O-rings for the launch. Cecil Houston, the manager of the KSC office of the Marshall Space Flight Center, set up a conference call on the evening of January 27 to discuss the safety of the launch. Morton Thiokol engineers expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings. As the colder temperatures lowered the elasticity of the rubber O-rings, the engineers feared that the O-rings would not be extruded to form a seal at the time of launch. The engineers argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the O-rings would seal at temperatures colder than 53 °F (12 °C), the coldest launch of the Space Shuttle to date. Morton Thiokol employees Robert Lund, the Vice President of Engineering, and Joe Kilminster, the Vice President of the Space Booster Programs, recommended against launching until the temperature was above 53 °F (12 °C). This article confirms that: > The decision to fly cold-soaked colder than the SRB’s had ever been tested, was also a NASA management decision. Both NASA and Thiokol engineers objected, but were over-ruled. Thiokol upper management also over-ruled their own engineers, and told NASA to go ahead and launch. Thus emboldened by Thiokol management, NASA launched the thing, thus killing its crew.
- librasteve 2y ago
  well, yes. Lets agree on the fact that Robert Lund, the Vice President of Engineering, and Joe Kilminster, the Vice President of the Space Booster Programs, recommended against launching ... I am saying that Robert Lund and Joe Kilminster are partly responsible for these horrible deaths and that instead of some paper recommendation they should have immediately given their resignation and made a press announcement of the situation (regardless of the consequences of breach of NDA or the ending of their careers) or otherwise prevented the launch, not least because as the senior executives with engineering oversight they would have been well aware of the organisation politics / buck passing culture
  - dogleash 2y ago
    Whoever wrote that section on wikipedia didn't do a great job. They're mentioned by name when they were against the launch, and they're "Morton Thiokol leadership" when they change their mind. It's technically true but misleading, I was so confused reading it I had to reference the Roger's Commission report because I thought (correctly) that Kilminster was one that faxed in a signed recommendation to launch to overrule the engineer on site.
  - whycome 2y ago
    There was also a good chance that the flight successfully would reach orbit. Then what?
    - dogleash 2y ago
      Then they keep launching with lower strictness "because it worked last time" until something else fails. Feynman's section of the investigation report is basically the argument that's what was already happening at NASA and the O-rings were just the first thing to fail catastrophically.
      - nordsieck 2y ago
        That's exactly what happened with tile damage. The very first Shuttle flight - STS-1 experienced serious tile damage. And others (famously, the antenna mission) had similar experiences. But it wasn't until the Columbia disaster that anyone suffered for it.
    - librasteve 2y ago
      as set out in the article there is a 1/1000,000 O ring related failure rate for the normal design and an unknown (but now know to be ~1/50) failure rate for the NASA specified design - should corporate / military entities risk life at 1 million to one ... that seems fair to me with the understanding of the crew - but it is definitely not good engineering practice (and is likely a criminal offence) to take an unknown risk with a human crew

very good explanation. surely there must have been engineers on the team that knew the NASA design was unproven - by NOT whistleblowing they killed the crew as surely as anyone else - chickenshits

ceejayoz 2y ago

The engineers tried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Decision_to_launch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas... > Based upon O-ring erosion that had occurred in warmer launches, Morton Thiokol engineers were concerned over the effect the record-cold temperatures would have on the seal provided by the SRB O-rings for the launch. Cecil Houston, the manager of the KSC office of the Marshall Space Flight Center, set up a conference call on the evening of January 27 to discuss the safety of the launch. Morton Thiokol engineers expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings. As the colder temperatures lowered the elasticity of the rubber O-rings, the engineers feared that the O-rings would not be extruded to form a seal at the time of launch. The engineers argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the O-rings would seal at temperatures colder than 53 °F (12 °C), the coldest launch of the Space Shuttle to date. Morton Thiokol employees Robert Lund, the Vice President of Engineering, and Joe Kilminster, the Vice President of the Space Booster Programs, recommended against launching until the temperature was above 53 °F (12 °C). This article confirms that: > The decision to fly cold-soaked colder than the SRB’s had ever been tested, was also a NASA management decision. Both NASA and Thiokol engineers objected, but were over-ruled. Thiokol upper management also over-ruled their own engineers, and told NASA to go ahead and launch. Thus emboldened by Thiokol management, NASA launched the thing, thus killing its crew.

librasteve 2y ago
well, yes. Lets agree on the fact that Robert Lund, the Vice President of Engineering, and Joe Kilminster, the Vice President of the Space Booster Programs, recommended against launching ... I am saying that Robert Lund and Joe Kilminster are partly responsible for these horrible deaths and that instead of some paper recommendation they should have immediately given their resignation and made a press announcement of the situation (regardless of the consequences of breach of NDA or the ending of their careers) or otherwise prevented the launch, not least because as the senior executives with engineering oversight they would have been well aware of the organisation politics / buck passing culture
- dogleash 2y ago
  Whoever wrote that section on wikipedia didn't do a great job. They're mentioned by name when they were against the launch, and they're "Morton Thiokol leadership" when they change their mind. It's technically true but misleading, I was so confused reading it I had to reference the Roger's Commission report because I thought (correctly) that Kilminster was one that faxed in a signed recommendation to launch to overrule the engineer on site.
- whycome 2y ago
  There was also a good chance that the flight successfully would reach orbit. Then what?
  - dogleash 2y ago
    Then they keep launching with lower strictness "because it worked last time" until something else fails. Feynman's section of the investigation report is basically the argument that's what was already happening at NASA and the O-rings were just the first thing to fail catastrophically.
    - nordsieck 2y ago
      That's exactly what happened with tile damage. The very first Shuttle flight - STS-1 experienced serious tile damage. And others (famously, the antenna mission) had similar experiences. But it wasn't until the Columbia disaster that anyone suffered for it.
  - librasteve 2y ago
    as set out in the article there is a 1/1000,000 O ring related failure rate for the normal design and an unknown (but now know to be ~1/50) failure rate for the NASA specified design - should corporate / military entities risk life at 1 million to one ... that seems fair to me with the understanding of the crew - but it is definitely not good engineering practice (and is likely a criminal offence) to take an unknown risk with a human crew