Ronald Reagan

2 posts

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

How the Reagan Administration and a Decade of Administrative Failures Doomed The Challenger

Challenger_explosion

In less than two weeks we will quietly pass the 27th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger disaster-an unnecessary tragedy that cost the lives of seven astronauts on a frosty January morning in 1986. I was lucky enough this week to sit through a talk given by a former employee of Morton Thiokol-the company who manufactured the boosters used on and widely blamed for the Challenger disaster.

The commonly accepted explanation for the accident was that Thiokol’s booster design contained fatal flaws in the O-rings that held the boosters together, and coupled with poor organizational control that prevented the flaws from being addressed. The truth, however, was much greater, and much more troubling to anyone who believed in the greatness of the American space program or the infallible nature of President Ronald Reagan’s administration.  Continue reading