Books on Challenger Accident

Incidentally, have you read /The Challenger Launch Decision/?

No, but my local library has that one. I'll have to go to the main branch,
but it looks like it would be worth the trip.

Diane Vaughn: "The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture
and Deviance at NASA."
I saw some apologetic touch in. Like Tufte she critizied Boisjoly for the
diagramm he presented on the night conference. It shows the O-Ring failures
of the past flights versus temperature. But it not included the none-failures
and therefore was less convincing. I think thats nonsense, because the people
of the night con were very familiar with the none-failures. And for an
engineer, the diagramm indicated that there was an additional failure factor
besides temperature. Instead of an unclear message I saw a double no-go.

Further (if I remember right) she omitted the account of Boisjoly how he
with others MTI engineers saw the launch live on TV. It was quite revealing:

http://www.onlineethics.com/moral/boisjoly/RB1-7.html
Btw, Boisjolys site www.onlineethics.com is a must read.

Much better and more to the point then the Rogers Commission is the report
of the House Committee. It tells a lot on STS-51L and still bad truths on
NASA not in the Commission Report and is only rarely mentioned:

Investigation of the Challenger accident : Report of the Committee on
Science and Technology, House of Representatives - 99. Congress,
2. Session (Union Calendar No. 600, House report 99-1016) / Don Fuqua. -
Washington, D.C., 1986

Boisjoly is often called a "whistle blower". A thread on ssh in January
2003 doubted it. Because he did not speak out in the night con after his
chiefs did the final decision. But he is called "whistle blower" because
he and McDonald prevented the cover up NASA and Rogers intented. Read
the account of Feynman on the Rogers Commission. Its in:

"What do you care what other people think?. further adventures of a
curious character." Richard P. Feynman, as told to Ralph Leighton /
Feynman. Richard Phillips / 1988

Dont mix it with: "Feynman's Personal Observations on the Reliability
of the Shuttle" Thats only an Appendix of the Rogers Report. His main
story on the Rogers commission was not on the web (Google) as I
checked it some months ago. Its only in the book and most importand.

Rogers clearly said internal to the other commission members that it
will be no accident investigation. One could spin his statement that
perhaps he would mean not like a NTSB one. But in the context of
Feynmans experience it was very clear. Read his account of the Press
conference as Boisjoly and McDonald blow the whistle. Or how General
Kutyna told Feynman in a secret pentagon meeting room that he (Feynman)
is the only indepented in the commission and warned him of the danger
of blackmailing.

One crucial point Feynman investigated too: Why was NASA so absolutly
eager to launch Challenger? There were several red flags due to the
temperature. Why no delay of a few days? One of the crew (Resnick?)
told to relatives `this time they will launch regardles was happend`.
There was the rumour that a TV live feed from the orbiting shuttle
to the the Presidents State of the Union speech was planed. It was
mentioned by Vaughn too. Still no clear prove surfaced. But the
behavior of Rogers (and of Mulloy: eager to launch, accepted most
guilt, leavs NASA, got big money as beltway bandit) could raise some
suspicion.

With Columbia there was some try of cover up again. But the CAIB got
over it like the Rogers Commission. Like I wrote some weeks ago, I
see some hints of a still hidden story. Perhaps this time Linda Ham
(and the other managers) are even more the scapegoat than Mulloy was.


## CrossPoint v3.12d R ##

In article ,
wrote:

Incidentally, have you read /The Challenger Launch Decision/?

No, but my local library has that one. I'll have to go to the main branch,
but it looks like it would be worth the trip.

Diane Vaughn: "The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture
and Deviance at NASA."
I saw some apologetic touch in. Like Tufte she critizied Boisjoly for the
diagramm he presented on the night conference. It shows the O-Ring failures
of the past flights versus temperature. But it not included the none-failures
and therefore was less convincing. I think thats nonsense, because the people
of the night con were very familiar with the none-failures. And for an

Hmm.

I don't think the book contended (it's been a while since I read it)
that the engineers weren't aware of the fact that the non-failures
existed. The point it made was that the information was presented badly
by the device of leaving out the non-failures:

| |
| * * | * *
| * | *
| * | *
| * | * ** * * * ***
\_________ is a different beast from \________________________

It's presentation of information, it's an image, it's *powerful*. It's
not "making excuses", it's a very good explanation of why a group of
smart engineers, who did seem to be willing to consider cancelling the
launch, managed to miss a pivotal piece of information.

Now, I'm no engineer, but I studied physics; I may have known my
experimental data well, but it made far greater sense as dots on paper.
If I'd only plotted the times I'd got a critical result, and missed the
other 95% of datapoints, I'd have got rather dismal results.

engineer, the diagramm indicated that there was an additional failure factor
besides temperature. Instead of an unclear message I saw a double no-go.

Um. It indicated that, probably, temperature wasn't the critical factor.
We know this to be wrong, but that's not what that graph indicated. Not
so much "beside" as "rather than", and as such it didn't seem to make
much sense not to launch because of temperature.

The "shortened" graph indicates that there isn't a clear failure-T
relationship; the "lengthened" graph reasonably strongly suggests it
did. And, when the decision to launch is percieved as being "can you say
it's too cold to launch?"... well, trouble looms.

[I'm working from memory here, editorials appreciated]

--
-Andrew Gray

SENECA wrote:

Further (if I remember right) she omitted the account of Boisjoly how he
with others MTI engineers saw the launch live on TV. It was quite
revealing:

http://www.onlineethics.com/moral/boisjoly/RB1-7.html

An interesting read (I read all seven pages) that filled in some detail to
what I already knew. Namely, that a lone Thiokol engineer put his job on
the line to stop the Challenger launch, but was shut down by his bosses
and a nasa that was eager to launch.


One crucial point Feynman investigated too: Why was NASA so absolutly
eager to launch Challenger? There were several red flags due to the
temperature. Why no delay of a few days? One of the crew (Resnick?) told
to relatives `this time they will launch regardles was happend`. There
was the rumour that a TV live feed from the orbiting shuttle to the the
Presidents State of the Union speech was planed. It was mentioned by
Vaughn too. Still no clear prove surfaced. But the behavior of Rogers
(and of Mulloy: eager to launch, accepted most guilt, leavs NASA, got
big money as beltway bandit) could raise some suspicion.

I assume that nasa was keen to launch mainly for the White House's
benefit. The so called Great Communicator could sell some more blue sky by
referencing the Challenger and its crew, which as you've noted, would
have been in space as he gave the State of the Union address.

Or who knows, perhaps it was Nancy's astrologer that said it was a good
day to launch. The Regan administration conducted foreign affairs to the
advice of Nancy's astrologer, so why not space shuttle launches too?

With Columbia there was some try of cover up again. But the CAIB got
over it like the Rogers Commission.

Just like the 9-11 investigation. Seems that the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States will have to resort to subpoenas
to see exactly what the FAA knew, and what G.W.'s Presidential Daily
Briefing told him about terrorist activity in the days preceding
September 11 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/na...26KEAN.html?hp
(Apologies, but free registration is required to read the above NY Times
article.)

--
Tony Sivori

Tony Sivori wrote:

SENECA wrote:

Further (if I remember right) she omitted the account of Boisjoly how he
with others MTI engineers saw the launch live on TV. It was quite
revealing:

http://www.onlineethics.com/moral/boisjoly/RB1-7.html

An interesting read (I read all seven pages) that filled in some detail to
what I already knew. Namely, that a lone Thiokol engineer put his job on
the line to stop the Challenger launch, but was shut down by his bosses
and a nasa that was eager to launch.

The problem is, what you thought you knew, and what you think the book
fills in the details on, is wrong.

There is no evidence that Boisjoly put his job on the line, and
overwhelming evidence that when push came to shove, he folded.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

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http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
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Corrections, comments, and additions should be
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