Rogers Commission

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The Challenger Disaster: Frozen Rockets and Political Snow Jobs

Challenger_explosion

This is part two in a two part series exploring the Challenger disaster. You can find part one here.

With the January 27th launch officially scrubbed and the overnight forecast calling for even more intense cold, the NASA administrators and Morton Thiokol engineers responsible for the Challenger mission faced an increasingly difficult situation. With the launch already rescheduled due to the weather, the shuttle would sit on the launch pad overnight, further chilling the MT built boosters well below the 40°F for which they were launch-certified. Continue reading