Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!sdcrdcf!csun!polyslo!jmckerna
From: jmckerna@polyslo.UUCP (John L McKernan)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: other causes of the Challenger disaster?
Summary: Why do we need other causes?
Message-ID: <2951@polyslo.UUCP>
Date: 28 May 88 06:02:49 GMT
References: <247@ncar.ucar.edu> <3330004@hpindda.HP.COM>
Reply-To: jmckerna@polyslo.UUCP (John L McKernan)
Organization: Cal Poly State University -- San Luis Obispo
Lines: 24

In article <3330004@hpindda.HP.COM> mears@hpindda.HP.COM (David B. Mears) writes:
>I read an article some time ago (I think it was in IEEE Spectrum, but I
>don't remember for sure) which talked about the speculations of one
>scientist.  I don't remember the name of the scientist, and the article
>indicated that not many people took much stock in this person's opinions,
>nevertheless, he believed that wind sheer played a big part in the
>disaster.  He also postulated that the wind sheer was severe enough
>that the struts would have broken apart from the wind sheer even without
>having been weakened by the SRM exhaust leak.

This is second posting I've seen on the subject of the causes of the Challenger
disaster. That seems a little strange to me because I thought the causes were
well understood. What I understood from the media was that the seal of one of
the solid rocket booster segments failed, allowing a jet of burning rocket fuel
to escape at the joint. This jet of rocket fuel then ruptured the external tank
causing the explosion which caused the vehicle to break up.

If anyone has another explanation of what happened, and has a reference to
back that explanation up, it might be interesting to hear it. Also, how
complete is the consensus for that explanation? Is there a broad consensus
for one explanation of the challenger accident?

John L. McKernan.                    Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O.
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