The Challenger exploded on this day 38 years ago...January 28, 1986.

Obviously a major malfunction….

I remember watching it explode in school.

Was always fascinated how far back the chain of failed decision points go in this one. The failure was in an O-ring in the field joint. Why did we need a field joint? Because the SRB was segmented. Why was the SRB segmented? Because it had to be designed that way. Why did it have to be designed that way? Because logistically you have to make it fit for rail transport from the factory in Utah. Why did it have to come from Utah? Because some powerful swamp creatures wanted it built there...

There were enough erosion events on Shuttle launches that I can't help but wonder how a single-piece SRB would've performed. I'm sure such a design would've carried its own problems too but we'll never know.

Horrible tragedy. I wasn't around to see it but I've watched every video and read every commissioned report I could find on it. Absolutely inexcusable loss. Some people should've spent their lives in jail for that.

Need
Another
Seven
Astronauts

Not gonna lie, I was not expecting commentary from Eli Gold.

Was in first grade, remember seeing it on TV at school.

I worked at the Huntsville Division of Morton Thiokol when this occurred. We built tactical rocket motors and had no involvement or information on the shuttle motors. When we saw it occur, we first said there is no way it could be related to the booster motors. Boy were we wrong.

Fast forward several months later. Marshal Space Flight Center came to us to test some sub scale motors with the new double clevis and tang design that would eventually be used for return to flight. As part of the testing, we would introduce flaws in the insulation joint to allow the hot exhaust gases to enter the o-ring groove. We would then measure the erosion cross section and evaluate the sealing capability. We did about 12 tests and MSFC was amazed at how cooperative we were and easy to work with compared to our brethren in Utah. They liked us so much they offered to fund us to rebuild an old mothballed test facility for dedicated testing.

Apparently the word got out to the Utah management that we were showing them up and they shut down all future testing.

I’m not sure how all of the politics worked, but we got Cal Wiggins as our plant manager after Challenger. He was heavily involved in the decision making there. We also got Jud Lovingood who retired from MSFC. I’m not sure what he did while he was with us. Just a place to be parked and probably keep his mouth shut.

The Huntsville Division was closed in the early nineties. It was a great place to work and I have many friends I still keep up with from there.

We have a cryptic joke saying that Cal was the only person to ever kill seven astronauts and a manufacturing facility of over 500 people.

quote:

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To this day it remains unclear why NASA insisted on going forward with the launch despite the emphatic misgivings of multiple engineers.

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This is what is unforgivable.

Watched it live and in person from the east side of the VAB - knew instantly vehicle was gone - drove back to offsite office - entire workforce was in a stunned mostly silent mode for the rest of the day - and the next few weeks were a very somber, serious period.