Brad Guth wrote:
Of what was utilized instead of asbestos did in fact kill those
unfortunate astronauts.

[snip a lot of stuff about alternative propulsion possibilities]


They weren't killed by asbestos or the lack thereof. A problem was
detected in the O-rings on several launches prior to 51L. That problem
was not solved before launch. A faulty decision was made to press on
to launch despite the fact that there evidence of a serious problem
that hadn't been solved. They were launching with some unknowns, and
instead of deciding to stay on the ground until they could prove it was
safe to fly, they decided to press ahead with launch until they could
prove it was unsafe.

EVERY launch technology has potential problem areas. The details have
to be handled exactly right. Problems have to be investigated and
solved. You can certainly propose alternative technologies that would
have avoided the specific scenario of 51-L. Goodness, if the launch
window had been late in the afternoon after things warmed up, 51-L
would have been successful. But with the same management structure and
decision policy had been in effect, given enough time, there would
eventually have been a disaster. Different in its specific details,
yes. In its results, not very.

Columbia is evidence of that. The SRB field joints are completely
blameless in the Columbia tragedy. Asbestos putty had nothing to do
with it. The engineers were able to work within more serious asbestos
constraints than existed in 1986, and yet they still produced a
redesigned SRB that functioned flawlessly for lots of flights, and I
expect will never cause another problem. That specific fix wasn't
enough to save Columbia. The similarity is the attitude of ignoring a
problem, or using the fact that they got away with an out-of-spec
condition on a prior flight as evidence that they should be able to get
away with it in the future. That attitude and decision-making strategy
is what kills.

And given enough time, it'll kill with any launch technology.

--Rich