Challenger: Twenty Years Later, Lessons Never Learned
How an Administration Ignored the Lessons of History

By Joe Trento, January 26, 2006

By December 1983, Beggs and Mark had sold the White House on two of their top priorities. First, Beggs bypassed the White House staff and pitched Reagan on the civilian-run space station: “He was bored, inattentive during the first part of the meeting. His mind drifted…he didn’t have the simplest idea of what space was or how a space station might work. Not knowing what to do I told him it was the perfect platform for keeping an eye on the Russians…that was kind of a white lie, manned platforms are terrible for spying--too much vibration. But that caught his imagination and got me his support.”

Against the advice of his science advisor and senior staff, President Reagan approved funding for the space station. Selling the Reagan White House on the International Space Station and the Centaur Upper Stage were giant victories for Beggs and his deputy, but these victories came at great cost. To keep the Air Force on board, Beggs got Congress to buy the controversial Centaur upper stage for high orbit missions. The liquid fueled stage was so dangerous that the astronauts were secretly asking Congressmen to stop funding the program.

Next, Beggs permitted the Air Force to fly secret missions on the shuttles, which only served to shroud the civilian agency in darkness and lessen Congressional and press oversight. He also let safety slide. Beggs had failed to secure from the White House a promise for a fourth and fifth orbiter, and the delicate shuttle fleet was short of parts, full of safety questions and was facing an overly ambitious launch schedule. Problems with both the liquid and solid rockets hung over the program. But Beggs could not address the problems on the shuttle because if the Air Force sensed weakness, it could go to the president and argue that NASA was unreliable for national security launches. Any support from Reagan that Beggs had acquired would be lost.

But, without even realizing it, the biggest sacrifice Beggs had made in selling the ISS and upper stage was his job. George Keyworth, a former weapons designer from Los Alamos and Reagan’s science advisor, was furious over the space station’s approval. He was an advocate for militarized space and did not want the space station to take funds away from projects like Star Wars. When Beggs and Mark secured funding for the space station, all of their political capital had been spent. Within a year, Hans Mark left NASA for a job as chancellor at the University of Texas before the White House could destroy his career. His departure left Beggs without a deputy and the White House with an opportunity to place one of its right wing ideologues in his place.

Oblivious of how much the White House mistrusted him, Beggs left Hans Mark’s replacement to the White House. When Beggs informed the White House personnel director John Harrington that he needed another deputy, he assumed the White House would send him someone with large-scale management experience—someone who could easily manage the under-funded, accelerating shuttle program right off the bat. He had no idea that Mark’s departure would open the door to Keyworth’s handpicked choice, Dr. William O. Graham, a nuclear weapons expert with no large-scale management experience. To Beggs and several old-line NASA officials, Graham would spell disaster for the civilian agency. Graham’s appointment seemed to certify the rumors that NASA was being dominated by the joint participation of the Air Force in the shuttle program.

The Right Wing Takes over the Space Program

As Beggs vainly fought to prevent Graham’s appointment— and the inevitable deterioration of the civilian agency— Roger Boisjoly and his colleagues at Morton Thoikol, the solid booster contractor for the shuttle, were facing problems of their own. Problems with the shuttle’s O-rings were becoming more prevalent. The two rings of synthetic Viton rubber that seal each joint between the booster’s segments had not been sealing properly, thus allowing burning hot rocket gas to seep past the seal and erode sections of the O-ring. Roger and his fellow engineers knew that if the problem worsened, it could be catastrophic for the shuttle. If enough hot gas escaped past the O-ring seals, the entire shuttle could blow apart. To determine what was causing the seals to fail, they asked MTI and NASA management for permission to conduct more tests. They had no idea that NASA was in the midst of a political firestorm. Before his departure, Hans Mark ordered a review of the solid rocket motor joints and the O-ring seal problem. But, his orders were set aside after he left. Beggs decided that the battle with the White House and Air Force had to be waged and the shuttles could not be grounded for safety or any other reasons.

Another reason why the review never took place was because the funding to fix the O-rings seals was being spent on the construction of new lightweight spun-filament boosters. Unlike the reusable steel boosters NASA currently used on the shuttle, these lightweight expendable boosters could be used to give Air Force launches the extra lift they needed to reach polar orbit from the Vandenburg launch site in California. Although the traditional reusable boosters saved NASA an estimated $26 million each flight, Beggs supported the new expendable boosters to keep the Air Force on board. Mark had convinced Beggs that to keep the shuttle politically and financially viable, NASA had to concede some control to the Air Force. But as the Air Force usurped more funds away from the already under-funded shuttle program for projects like the dangerous Centaur upper-stage and the costly spun-filament boosters, the shuttle program itself came closer and closer to self-immolation.

Beggs was preoccupied with keeping Graham out of his way so many major shuttle decisions fell to the number three man at NASA, Phil Culbertson. But Culbertson was feeling the pressure from Beggs, Congress and the White House to launch. Delaying the launch schedule to review the O-ring problems was not an option. “It was clear the greater the launch rate, the more economical the system would be to operate,” Culbertson explained.

As 1984 came to a close, the O-ring problems were getting worse. Roger and his team needed answers, but Beggs refused to delay the launch schedule to conduct the necessary tests. NASA was preparing to launch nine shuttles in the coming year—the most it had scheduled since the shuttle program began, and Discovery and its top-secret DOD payload (a spy satellite) would be the first to launch on January 24, 1985. Roger was forced to rely on his post-flight inspections to determine whether the next flight would be safe. When Roger journeyed to Florida to lecture Kennedy Space Center (KSC) personnel on proper safety procedures and to conduct the post-flight analysis of Discovery’s solid-rocket boosters, he had no idea that he would one day use his analysis to stop the fatal Challenger launch.

As KSC engineers prepared for Discovery’s launch, Roger explained to a group of engineers and technicians that the field joints on the 150-foot tall solid-rocket boosters were not indestructible. Although the 12-foot diameter of the booster case gave an appearance of being indestructible, the walls of the steel booster cases were only half an inch thick. The shuttle was actually quite delicate. The slightest surface scratch or other damage to the boosters’ sealing surfaces would be catastrophic for the space shuttle program. Even a solitary human hair lying across the O-ring could cause the entire shuttle to blow.

Until then, NASA had launched successfully -- except for the terrible fire that killed three astronauts in 1967. The giant Saturn rocket lying on its side outside of the Vehicle Assembly Building paid tribute to those successes every day. The Kennedy Space Center was not just the site of NASA’s greatest achievements; it was the place where dreams were made and where men became heroes. But while NASA’s public relations office would like the world to think that successful shuttle launches like Discovery’s were routine, in reality, they were engineering miracles. As Roger explained to the KSC personnel, every nut, bolt and screw on the shuttle had to be flawless. They had to work perfectly or else people would die. To engineers like Roger, watching a shuttle mission was anything but routine. And as he walked around the Kennedy Space Center, he knew he walked upon hallowed ground.

He marveled at the engineering that sent Mercury and Gemini capsules into space and spent hours inspecting all 40 stories of the Apollo Saturn vehicle. He was also impressed with the VAB itself, which sat at the opposite end of a long parkway that extended for several miles from the launch pad. On the side facing the launch pads 39A and 39B were huge access doors, through which the United Nations Building could easily slide. And adjacent to the VAB were the firing rooms where launch controllers sent men to the moon. From miles away, one could see the enormous American flag painted red, white and blue on one corner of the VAB.

Inside the VAB’s massive walls, several shuttles could be prepared at once on the huge mobile launch pads that once carried the Saturn-Apollo to launch complex 39-A, the slowest part of the rocket’s journey. Since the boosters were too big to ship as a single unit from Utah, they were broken up into four segments. The aft, center and forward field joints connected the four segments in an assembled booster. Both boosters were stacked at the Cape on the giant mobile launch platforms. Then the external fuel tank was attached to the boosters, and the shuttle orbiter was attached to the external fuel tank. While waiting for their assembly, the space shuttle’s big orange external tanks hung like paintings in a giant museum—dwarfed by the very walls upon which they hung. The VAB even had its own weather; rainstorms and weather systems could be created inside the building.

As an engineer who worked for NASA’s contractors, Roger usually only saw the nuts and bolts of the space shuttle—a view most of the American public never sees, but he never got to see his own work collaborate with the rest of the shuttle’s hardware. MTI believed it was easier to send the post-flight inspectors down to the Cape after the shuttle finally launched. That way delays wouldn’t waste MTI’s time or money. But as a result, Roger rarely witnessed the shuttle launches, and this was a great disappointment to him. After all his tests and analyses on individual pieces of hardware were completed, being able to see it all come together in a successful launch was his own personal reward. In a sense, the opportunity to watch Discovery’s lift-off that January was like watching the birth of a child.

But like most worried parents, he watched and waited for something to go wrong. The liquid engines could explode or the vibrations during launch could shake all the tiles off the shuttle leaving it vulnerable to the sun’s scorching rays. A misplaced screw could cause severe damage to the craft. Anything could go wrong and there was very little anyone could do once the solids were lit. After ignition, there was no way to turn the solids off. They would either launch the shuttle into space and burn out on their own or explode. All one could do was watch and wait.

Standing in his shirtsleeves for the first time that trip, Roger patiently waited for the sound of water. At T-.12 seconds, huge torrents of water were poured into the base of the launch pad to prevent the shuttle’s engines soundblast from damaging both the launch pad and the shuttle. Although the mobile launch pad was capped with thick plates of metal, the blowtorch effect emanating from the shuttle would easily destroy it. At T-8.9 seconds the computers ignited the shuttle’s three main liquid engines. As soon as the engines were blasting at full power, an electrical charge was sent to ignite the rubber like solid-rocket fuel compound within each solid rocket booster. Roger heard the voice of Kennedy Launch Control count to ignition. The launch pad was quickly enveloped in steam and smoke. The shuttle struggled against the giant clamps that held it to the pad as the solid rocket boosters waited for ignition.

Suddenly, simultaneously, each booster was lit. The power emanating from the engines was enough to launch the shuttle into space. But a one second delay in ignition from one of the boosters could cause the entire shuttle to spiral into the ground. Although he stood three miles away from the launch pad, Roger felt the ground shake and rumble in response to the shock waves radiating from the craft.

Gradually, the immensity of the shuttle’s mission began to overwhelm his surroundings. All around him, every face was turned toward the launch pad with eager anticipation. In response to the massive power being generated beneath it, the shuttle gently lifted off the launch pad. After several seconds of silence, a giant shock wave rolled over the audience as the shuttle rose though the billowing smoke. He watched as the spaceship lurched upwards, pass the top of the launch tower. Now Houston took control of the flight. From a thousand feet up the shuttle’s huge flame still touched the ground. With his neck arched back and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, Roger watched the shuttle roll over and arch into space until the great machine become the size of a pea.

Everything looked good. Two minutes into flight, he imagined the thrust from the SRBs diminish into nothing, turning the once powerful rockets into dead weight smoking from the burned out fuel. As he walked away from the launch pad, he envisioned the SRBs separate from the external tanks and fall back toward earth so that the orbiter and her crew could fly into space without the hindrance of the additional weight. Far above him, the SRBs plummeted back toward earth, parachuting at 60 miles an hour into the Atlantic.

As Roger and his post-flight team prepared for their inspection of the spent boosters, NASA personnel were already on station near the splashdown point to recover the SRMs and return them to the Cape. To all those at the cape, Discovery’s launch had seemed a stunning success.

Roger watched the port by the VAB for the arrival of the booster recovery ships that were returning the spent solids for inspection. He waited with anticipation as the boosters were moved from the recovery barges into the hanger for inspection. He had no idea that the wonderful memories of the launch on that clear January day were about to be shattered. Instead, Roger was about to get a preview of the hell that awaited a future crew of the shuttle.

A Solid Rocket Motor Nightmare

Roger walked into the hanger and saw the boosters lying horizontally-- like giant patients waiting for surgery. As he had done during his eight previous post-flight inspections, he began a preliminary investigation of the SRB external hardware. At first, everything looked normal. The problems he feared had not come true. He was relieved, but deep down he knew that if the shuttle experienced any problems during launch, he would discover them during his inspection of the O-rings.

For the past five years, he had been recording various “anomalies” in the O-ring seals. Previous inspections had revealed minor evidence of hot gas blow-by and O-ring erosion, but the damage never exceeded the established levels of safety. With Discovery’s seemingly flawless launch still fresh in his mind, he began his inspection of the shuttle O-rings hoping to find little to no erosion or hot gas blow-by.

Under normal conditions, when field joint erosion and hot gas blow-by are minimal, the post-flight inspection can take as little as a day. But as Roger began his inspection that January, it became obvious that this inspection would last much longer.

Roger watched as the technicians unpinned the field joints into four separate sections. He approached the gaping engine segments with notepad in hand and began to inspect the forward joint on the left booster. He immediately noticed that the primary O-ring was eroded by 0.010 inches and blackened grease covered an arc length of 80 degrees. This was no anomaly, he thought. Although the amount of erosion was minimal, the amount of blacked grease past the O-ring seal was far more extensive than in previous inspections.

The dark, sooty grease got his attention. Apprehension filled his stomach. Seeing blackened grease past the seal was like seeing the charred remains of a burned out house. The grease gave silent testimony to the ominous event that had occurred during launch. Worried, he moved on to the center field joint on the right booster and was shocked to find that the amount of primary O-ring erosion and blackened grease past the seal were much more extensive. The O-ring had eroded by 0.038 inches and blackened grease covered an arc length of 110 degrees.

The blood rushed from his face and his palms began to sweat. He envisioned Discovery’s gentle arc as it rose above the launch tower, spiraling toward space. He remembered the roar of the engines as they propelled the shuttle and her crew upward. He saw the faces of the audience below, enraptured by the beauty of the engineering miracle that rose above them. Discovery’s liftoff had been anything but flawless. The primary O-ring had clearly lifted off the sealing surface long enough for hot gas to escape and threaten the integrity of the secondary O-ring. Although the secondary O-ring is supposed to act as a back up to the primary O-ring, the extensive damage that Roger discovered was enough to put the secondary O-ring in danger of failure. A few seconds more and Discovery would have exploded in the blue sky above him, killing all five on board. “Thank God,” he said, “Thank God it didn’t leak through the secondary O-ring, or we would have had a major catastrophe.”

Luckily, he believed he understood the cause of the failure. Florida had been experiencing a record-breaking winter. Temperatures around the state had dropped down into the teens and twenties destroying all the citrus crops around the Cape. It was an unprecedented event in Florida’s history. Citrus farmers desperately burned smudgepots in the groves to keep the cold from destroying the trees. The cold temperatures had turned the 1.1 million pounds of propellant inside the craft into a refrigerator keeping the joints and O-rings below 53 degrees. In cold temperatures the O-rings reacted slowly, allowing more hot gas to escape through the seal. Within seconds, as more and more gas escapes, the entire vessel could explode. “It’s got to be cold weather that causes this,” he said remembering the news reports that flashed pictures of frozen oranges across the screen. “There are no other parameters in this joint…we had a typical set of joints.”

Years later, Roger would look back on his trip to Florida that January with painful memories. The evidence he had acquired during that trip should have been enough to stop the Challenger launch. He finally had enough evidence from his post-flight inspection of Discovery’s solid rocket boosters to convince NASA to fix the O-rings; he would always question why he didn’t make Discovery’s O-ring problems into more of an issue. But deep down, Roger knew that even if he had spent every waking minute warning NASA about the field joints’ flawed design, NASA still would have launched Challenger. There was no one there who could have stopped it—who wanted to stop it. Flying was too intertwined with money, politics and the almighty NASA flight schedule. But Roger never really understood the extent of this mindset. He never really knew of the political morass NASA had become. It was inconceivable to him that NASA had somehow lost the leadership that had once sent man to the moon. He had told NASA and MTI repeatedly that the damage he found on Discovery’s O-rings would come back to haunt them in the next cold weather launch if they did not fix the O-rings’ design. Years later, his futile warnings would continue to haunt him, despite the knowledge that there was very little more he could have done.

Before January 1985, MTI’s engineers had great confidence in the tests they had already performed on the O-rings, no matter how rushed or limited the tests had been. The test results had shown that an O-ring could sustain approximately 1/8 of an inch of erosion and still seal the joint without compromising safety. All flights up to that point revealed erosion levels three times below 1/8 of an inch so until January 1985, there had been no real cause for alarm.

But immediately after his post-flight inspection of Discovery’s SRBs, Roger and his coworkers, Brian Russell, Bob Ebeling, and Arnie Thompson, finally had enough confidence in his theory about the precipitating cause of the O-rings’ failure. He immediately informed the Marshal Space Flight Center about his findings at KSC. “Guys,” he said in front of a more than 40 NASA engineers, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. It is my technical opinion that the precipitating cause of this event was low temperature,” referring to the massive hot gas blow-by he had discovered on the joint. From the bowels of the room, Roger received his response. “You’re right, Rog, we don’t want to hear that.”

If cold weather became a launch constraint, the entire flight schedule would have to be reorganized and time and money would be wasted. Roger’s cold weather theory was not something NASA wanted to hear. But NASA did not have to worry. By the time Discovery had launched, Hans Mark had left and the action order he submitted to review the O-ring problems had already been relegated to the bottom of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center’s priorities.

After Roger’s return from the MSFC, his supervisor, Arnie Thompson, devised a series of preliminary tests to check the ability of the O-ring seals to spring back at various temperatures. Within two months these tests confirmed that cold weather had indeed caused the O-ring seals to nearly fail during Discovery’s launch the previous January. When Larry Mulloy, MTI’s SRB manager, heard Roger’s explanation for the failure, he refused to accept it. “Oh come on, this is a hundred year event, for Christ sake, this is a hundred year event. Do you really think this is going to happen again before we have a chance to fix the joint? No!”

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