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From: kim@analog.UUCP (Kim Helliwell          )
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: SRB ring seals/NASA culpability?
Message-ID: <195@analog.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Feb-86 10:58:11 EST
Article-I.D.: analog.195
Posted: Tue Feb 11 10:58:11 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Feb-86 05:24:06 EST
Organization: Analog Design Tools, Menlo Park, CA.
Lines: 22

The latest news, of yesterday and this morning (2/11/86) is that attention
is centering on the rubber ring seals which hold the SRB segments together,
and that NASA was aware of problems with these up to 9 months ago.

Prefacing my comments with the disclaimer that none of this is yet conclusively
proven, I want to ask the following:

Is it really possible that NASA, in spite of the pretty obvious record of
paranoia when it comes to safety, could just plain ignore warnings about these
seals?  Is there some other explanation--like, they did know, but thought
they had worked out a solution (which unfortunately, wasn't good enough), or
they didn't really realize how bad the problem was, or something?  Anything
whatever in extenuation?

My fear is that, if it turns out that NASA whitewashed this problem in their
haste to meet the launch schedule, the current investigation will degenerate
into a witch-hunt, and the space program will suffer drastically.

Somebody please tell me this can't happen (and why it can't, of course!).
I really hope the news agencies are just exaggerating a bit!

hplabs!analog!kim