Seven astronauts were killed that frigid January morning.
The failures in management that led to the explosion were many, mostly ones of "we did this before and nothing bad happened"-- which, in retrospect, was like proclaiming that Russian Roulette is a safe game because the hammer fell on empty chambers in the first two tries.
In a public demonstration, using o-ring material and ice water, Richard Feynman showed why Challenger blew up. Arguably, much of the credit for uncovering and making public the cause of the disaster is Feynman's.
But did NASA learn from the loss of Challenger? Probably not.
The ice-water trick was nice enough in itself, but it was really a brilliant ploy to force the Rogers Commission to include his full report, which went much deeper. Lots of people at NASA quietly helped him with it, and he saw to it that nobody was exposed to reprisals.
ReplyDeleteSadly, the Manhattan Project was already killing him as he wrapped it up.
I fully believe that the Rogers Commission would have been a whitewash job without Feynman.
ReplyDeleteThe ice water demonstration was terrific in that it made the problem clear to the public.