Challenger by Adam Higginbotham
A stunning work of non-fiction that reads like an action-movie thriller — even though you know the painful outcome — Challenger is really a full-scale history of the NASA Space Program, and writes in detail about every decision, large and small, that lead to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28th, 1986, when the nation watched in horror as seven astronauts were killed 73 seconds into their flight when a rocket booster exploded in midair above the skies of Cape Canaveral, Florida. This is the first of Higginbotham’s books I have read — Midnight in Chernobyl is on my short list — but I can’t imagine a better investigative journalist or reporter anywhere, as Challenger is filled with seemingly minute-by-minute accounts of everything that took place on that fateful day in 1986, the fallout from the explosion, the gross negligence, staggering incompetence, and plain ignoring by NASA officials of warning signs from engineers and other experts who knew, beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt, that the O-ring seals in the joints of the rocket boosters would most probably fail when exposed to cold temperatures — and the temperatures on January 28th featured record cold in Florida. A great deal of Challenger is a simple “what did they know and when did they know it” tale, and, based on Higginbotham’s extensive reporting and direct quotations from first-hand sources, NASA officials knew exactly the type of risk they were taking on by launching on that day, labeling this type of risk “acceptable” by their standards, with the goalposts for what was and what was not considered “acceptable” moving considerably over the years. Shockingly, or not, the same disaster occurred again in 2003 — which I had forgotten — so it seems that the lessons learned from 1986 were null and void, as more astronauts lost their lives because of careless errors, greed, and hubris. Hopefully, current and future NASA officials can get their hands on Challenger and learn a thing or two about its history so it doesn’t happen again.
from the very beginning, they recognized that they were placing their lives in the hands of government contractors who were often inventing the tech of space travel as they went along
Apollo launchpad ire was the most lethal accident in the short history of the US space program, and the nation reeled in shock, the disaster pulled back the curtain on the technicolor adventure that the public had begun to see as routine
NASA, findings revealed shocking incompetence, many deficiencies in design and engineering, manufacture and quality control, of the Apollo spacecraft
it took more than a year for the Apollo program to regain momentum after the disaster
the theoretical recognition that things could possibly go wrong was supplanted by the cold realization that they would
it had not taken long for the American people to grow tired of watching men walk on the moon
moon project was often eclipsed by strife at home and abroad
NASA was undergoing what would prove the first of many cutbacks
death was never far away
public interest in the enterprise began to wane
Nixon, new project, carry the name it had been given since the earliest days of its development: the Space Shuttle
would be required merely to travel into low Earth orbit, between 190 and 330 miles above sea level, circle the planet for up to a week before returning home
no one had ever built a vehicle that could travel into orbit, return to Earth intact, and then refueled to repeat the journey again and again
limited budget
120 German rocket engineers brought to the US as part of Operation Paperclip, secret US government scheme to exploit the Nazis specific expertise in the emerging confrontation with the Soviet Union
sometimes bitter struggle that would endure for decades, between the well definted civilian and scientific openness of NASA and the Pentagon’s clandestine hunger to extend the Cold War beyond Earth’s atmosphere
1968, X-15, much of the experimental tech it proved in flight would lie dormant for decades
with the X-15, NASA had established practical design principles for a winged spacecraft that could return to Earth from orbit
Nixon, just 5.5B for the development of the new vehicle
first of many fatal compromises
Faget’s innovations, some version of this system had been built into every previous NASA manned spacecraft since the beginning of the program, but now weight, and cost, meant that it had to go
another serious compromise in the design of the new spacecraft was yet to come
1972, Equal Employment Opportunity Act, illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of race or gender, and NASA had hired a Black woman to run its equal opportunity programs
1978, expected launch date slipped back a year
as funding threatened to run dry, the agency was forced first to extend its deadlines to match limited annual budgets, and then to bleed money from its scientific and unmanned programs to keep the shuttle going
delays and disappointments of Columbia’s stumbling path to orbit couldn’t have come at a worse moment for the shuttle, NASA, or the US
Carter’s watch, Iran, Three Mile Island
Americans feeling that they were at the mercy of forces beyond their control, and their dwindling confidence in their nation’s ability to master tech with which it had once led the world
failures of the shuttle program were not longer viewed as a heroic national effort to pull off a breathtaking feat of engineering, but became instead emblematic of a once invisible superpower tangled in its own garments
1980 general election to Reagan, press and public had come to regard the project with renewed awe
“second space age is about to begin”
success of Columbia’s first mission was heralded across the world as a new dawn of the Space Age in the US, a fitting overture for the new President’s promised Morning in America, a technological redemption for a nation longing to emerge from a dismal shadow of foreign and domestic failures that had loomed over the country for more than a decade
three remaining research and development flights of Columbia were complete by the following summer
President, committed the country to new commercial and military goals in space
new anomaly, one of the synthetic rubber gaskets was badly damaged, Thiokol inspectors filed a report about the damage to the O-rings, but it wasn’t a high priority problem
plans for the next flight proceeded regardless
NASA pressed forward with its plans to steeply accelerate its flight schedule, now expected to include one mission every month in 1985
senior NASA officials continued to argue that it needed an escape system, these efforts floundered in the shallows of cost or bueaucratic intertia
reliability of the shuttle’s main engines concerned many of them from the start
whiplashed by waves of funding cuts, tormented by the caprices of Congress, public opinion, and five different Presidents, by the time the first regular missions of the Space Shuttle began, NASA was no longer recognizable as the same organization that had put men on the moon more than a dozen years before
Thiokol, quality assurance and engineering changes were often pursued informally, in one on one phone calls between company engineers, and paper trails could be fragmentary or nonexistent
astronauts lack of authority over the rockets, with no control and no means of escape, this made the first 122 seconds of flight the most dangerous part of any mission aboard the shuttle
single synthetic rubber gasket encircling the joint, similar to those used by plumbers to seal bathroom or kitchen faucets: an O-ring
vital to the safe functioning of the joint
if the diameter of the O-ring was too small, or the space between the metal surfaces of the joint too large, then the squeeze would not be tight enough to hold back the sudden rush of hot, high pressure gas surging through the rocket at ignition, and the joint would spring a leak
modified it so extensively that what they produced was, in effect, a quite new and experimental design
moment of ignition, two halves of the tang and clevis joint sprang apart
opened a space around the O-rings, compromising the squeeze
crucial moments, the joint cold leak
Thiokol engineers decided to accept it as it was
Parker Seal Company in Kentucky, manufacturer of the O-rings, explained that they were not being used in the way they had intended
memos were swallowed in the furious paper chase of NASA’s growing bureaucracy
one received no response at all, neither ever reached Thiokol
engineers in Utah never learned of the disconcerting visit to the Parker Seal Company
Marshall engineers overruled by their managers in Huntsville, who trusted the Thiokol experts more than their own lab staff
for all the troubling data about joint rotation, and the occasional dissenting voice, the majority of the test results looked good
committee recommended a thorough program of further tests
confirm that the joints would always seal safely at ignition
Marshall and Thiokol managers assured the members of the committee that the existing data they had seen was not reliable
apparently satisfied, the committee decided that none of the rigorous tests that they had suggested was necessary after all
October 1980, they certified the rocket boosters for flight
Wiggins Company, new vehicle riding on a pair of solid boosters could be expected to undergo a failure resulting in the loss of crew and spacecraft once every 18 to 30 missions
yet NASA officials had long ago learned that they could disregard when it proved inconvenient
Space Shuttle Safety Committee dismissed Wiggins’ conclusions
they coaxed the analysts to conclude that a catastrophic failure would occur only once in ten thousand launches
“erosion”, violent and sudden, a flash of destruction complete in less time than it takes to blink
if the hot gas had time to reach and vaporize enough of just one synthetic rubber ring before it could squeeze tightly into the gap opening in the joint, the ring could become too severely damaged to provide a seal
disaster might be inescapable
redundancy, if the first seal did leak, secondary O-ring would be there as a backup
NASA engineers, “acceptable risk”
experimental vehicle working within the narrowest margins of safety in an unforgiving environment
it was left to agency engineers and their contractors to determine how much risk they could tolerate
parallel testing facilities that produced dueling results, and often disagreed about what they meant
O-ring erosion discovered in 1981 was no longer an isolated exception, but a recurring issue
and this time it had happened in two places on the same flight
wasn’t as bad as the damage on the second shuttle mission
well within the safety margins that they had already established for the rings
leaks in the seals had remained “self limiting”
five months later, engineers confidence had been misplaced
whatever was going on in the booster joints was getting worse
and they didn’t understand why
joint design remained fail safe
Thiokol engineers opinions were unanimous
ACCEPTABLE RISK
critical inflection point
the men at Thiokol and Marshall had slowly expanded the parameters of what they regarded as acceptable risk in the joints
they had begun to accept as normal problems that deviated dangerously from the original design standards set for the boosters
shuttle flights could carry a passenger
internal committee concluded the best candidates were teachers or journalists
shuttle was at a crossroads: future, and therefore the future of all US manned flight, had now become dependent on proving that the orbiter was really the most cost effective space truck NASA had promised it would become
the true launch rate was a fraction of that
and the poor reliability and repeated delays
the only was to bring costs down was to ramp up the pace of launches
under a new regime, the number of quality control inspectors and safety checks in the process fell, while overtime hours increased
many senior engineers and managers were soon working 12 hour days seven days a week
often for months at a time, no break
mistakes were inevitable
three shuttles kept launching
space travel seemed quotidian
temps plunged to record breaking lows in FL, the coldest weather in history, sinking overnight to 14 degrees below freezing
Boisjoly, Thiokol, clear to him that there was no way NASA was going to ground the Space Shuttle while they waited for a team of engineers in Utah to fix the O-ring problem
with leaks on such a scale, he was astonished that Discovery hadn’t been blown to pieces on the launchpad
he thought immediately of the cold
that the rockets had been almost crippled by freezing weather at the Cape
technical opinion that the precipitating cause of this event was temperature”
record low temps at the Cape had caused the synthetic rubber of the O-rings to shrink and harden in the cold, reducing the squeeze
Boisjoly lacked the data to prove his hypothesis
April 1985, condition not desirable, but acceptable
Boisjoly’s suspicions had been correct, the performance of the O-rings and the squeeze, was profoundly affected by temperature
in cold weather, the rings would become so inflexible that they might fail to seal the metal surfaces of the casing
when Boisjoly reported the findings to his manager in the engineering department at Thiokol, he told him to keep the data to himself
it would be too damaging to the company if anyone at NASA learned what they had found
Thiokol assessment of acceptable risk once again passed up the agency’s long chain of bureaucracy, and the launch schedule ground inexorably forward
Boisjoly, couldn’t get anyone in management to listen to his concerns
wrote an internal memo
“Data obtained on the resiliency of the O-rings indicate that lower temperatures aggravated this problem’
Mulloy instructed McDonald to remove this statement from the presentation in its entirety
with each successive shuttle launch, they watched the countdown feed from FL with anxiety knotting inside them, convinced that it was only a matter of time before they witnessed a tragedy
open hostility between the two men only added to the simmering strife at the top of the NASA
morale at the agency plummeted to a new low
despite the turbulence and scandal at HQ, and the nagging technical problems of the shuttle, 1986 was projected to be a landmark year for NASA
system began to buckle under the strain
domino effect of Columbia’s delays also forced back Challenger’s launch date, adding mounting pressure to get both crews off the ground as soon as possible
what had seemed then to be a once in a century fluke of meterology seemed certain to be surpassed just twelve months later: the night of January 27th, 1986, would once again see the coldest weather in FL history
many of the guests who had been waiting to witness a weekend launch began leaving the Cape and headed home
the weather people swore in blood it was going to be bad — had one good day that they missed
engineers waiting at their consoles weren’t sure about firing on Tuesday, either, more record cold
Boisjoly told his colleagues that no one in their right mind would fire the shuttle boosters in temps lower than they had witnessed the year before, the launch must be stopped
26 degrees at the opening of the launch window
less than half what it had been when the crew of Discovery narrowly escaped tragedy the year before
potentially momentous and unprecedented step: the first time in the histor of the program that the rocket contractor had ever called to stop a launch
Thiokol team recognized, recommendation was do not launch
beginning with the 10th flight in Jan. 1984, they had witnessed an alarming escalation in problems
almost half of the joint seals had seen some kind of damage
erosion or partial destruction of the O-rings, blow by, leaks
Boisjoly knew his data was thin
weather for the shuttle launch from 29 to 38 at two in the afternoon
advised that the solid rockets only be lit when the O-ring temperature was at or above 53
dissenting opinion from NASA
Mulloy, data was simply inconclusive
past, if a contractor’s data about the state of flight hardware had been inconclusive , the default position was not to fly
Mulloy was asking them to prove the opposite, to show him the data that proved conclusively it was not safe to launch
Boisjoly, spent and defeated, fearing he was moments away from losing his job, he sat down
Lund, most senior engineer at the company
Thiokol’s position on the Challenger launch came down to his vote
thumbs up
never in the history of the program had a contractor been asked to provide written confirmation of the decision
agency managers were preparing to cover themselves in case something went wrong
McDonald was making a final attempt to persuade Mulloy to change course
not just the O-ring problem, but the Atlantic storms had overtaken the recovery ships
ice formed on the launch gantry, damage the orbiter as it took off
NASA managers brushed him off
pad encrusted in ice, ice was dangerous, growing worse
engineers didn’t want to launch, Launch Director did
signed recommendation from Thiokol was in their hands
seething cold had crept through everything
a single dissenting voice was not enough to stop the launch, even from the contractors that had built the orbiter
cold had done its work, synthetic rubber of the seals and the thick grease they were packed in had proved too inflexible to close the gap that opened in the case at ignition
vaporizing portions of the O-rings as it went
NASA’s usually slick public relations operations, renowned in the media for its responsiveness and transparency, had been paralyzed by the crisis
estimated 95 percent of American adults had seen the footage of the shuttle’s final moments
instant replay televised martyrdom in which everyone watching played a part
agency’s reticence and apparent stonewalling about what it knew began to backfire
McDonald no longer had any doubt, his boosters had killed the astronauts, after all
Mulloy and the other NASA managers had no intention of admitting that Thiokol had tried to stop the launch
Thiokol had recommended against the launch, but then changed their minds?
not simply a technical failure, one of drastic human error
commissioners were astonished that, knowing everything they did about the history of the rockets, Thiokol VP chose to recommend a launch regardless
under pressure from NASA officials to go ahead with the launch
name of Morton Thiokol had become a byword for failure, and the painstakingly nurtured public image of the NASA had been demolished
pattern of mismanagement and miscommunication at the highest levels of the agency
many of the astronauts in Houston had learned for the first time about the dangers of the solid rocket O-rings only from public testimony of NASA and Thiokol engineers, and were furious
tumbling gently in free fall, it took two minutes and 45 seconds for the broken section of Challenger to hit the Atlantic, and it now seemed possible that the seven members of the crew might have been alive the whole way down
commissions 230 page report, cost cutting, faulty design, management blunders, institutional hubris that had led to the catastrophic end of Space Shuttle mission 51-L
seven astronauts had been doomed by the failure of a single Viton pressure seal in the aft field joint of their spacecraft’s right hand solid rocket booster
harshest criticism for the managers of the Marshall Space Flight Center
NASA management, agency had become increasingly blind to the hazards inherent in the shuttle program, had fatally weakened its own safety and quality assurance structures, and had insisted on conducting ambitious spur of the moment experimental missions while simultaneously trying to run an airline in space
trying to do too much with too little
“Uh-oh”, final words uttered in the shuttle cockpit, two murmured syllables were proof that, in the fractions of a second before his spacecraft was torn apart, the pilot of the Challenger understood that something had gone terribly wrong
it would be almost three years before the shuttle flew once more
changes undertaken by NASA, redesigned hardware, booster rocket seals, bailout system, rebuilt main engines, and, for the astronauts, a return to wearing full pressure suits, fitted with parachutes and oxygen supplies, but also a wholesale reorganization
fourteen years after Discovery’s return to flight, Space Shuttle missions flew routinely and successfully, 87 further missions by the end of 2002
Columbia Accident Board, August 26th, 2003, concluded that many of the lessons from Challenger had gone unheeded