Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hpindda!mears
From: mears@hpindda.HP.COM (David B. Mears)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Re: Morton Thiokol (blame etc.)
Message-ID: <3330013@hpindda.HP.COM>
Date: 21 Nov 88 22:40:11 GMT
References: <1988Nov18.182613.1823@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 50

> / hpindda:sci.space.shuttle / henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) / 10:26 am  Nov 18, 1988 /
> 
> Et tu, Tom?  I really fear for mankind's future when damn near everybody
> who discusses this issue seems to feel that Thiokol was right to go along
> just because it would have been difficult and painful not to.
> 
> The trouble with having an unpopular opinion is that everybody claims you
> don't understand the problem.  I understand, fully and completely, that
> Thiokol was in a very awkward spot where there was great incentive to
> cave in to NASA's pressure.  THAT DID NOT MAKE IT RIGHT.  Nor should it
> excuse them from taking responsibility for their cowardice, and its
> disastrous consequences.
> 
> The greatest tragedy of the Challenger disaster is that seven people died,
> a near-irreplaceable billion-dollar orbiter was destroyed, the US manned
> space program was nearly ruined... and nobody was held responsible for
> it in any meaningful way.
> -- 
> Sendmail is a bug,             |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
> not a feature.                 | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
> ----------

This is not intended as a direct reply to what you've said, Henry, nor should
it be taken in any way as a rebuttal or a contrary opinion.  However, the
things you mention brought to mind a question that, I suppose, really can't
be answered, but is worth asking anyway.

What do you (everyone, not just Henry) think would have been the ultimate
consequences if the launch had been scrubbed?  What would have happened in
the US space program if the engineers had been listened to, and Thiokol
had said `no go' and NASA had listened and stopped the launch?

I feel like I'm the rankest of amateurs in these areas, but I'd guess that
no work would have been done to correct the problems that were found during
the investigation.  We'd still be using old design SRBs (etc.).  This could
have resulted in anything from having the same catastrophe happen, only
during a later (warm weather) launch, to having much fewer lauches during
the year to accomodate a stricter weather allowance.  Neither of these options
appears to be optimal.

I certainly don't want to imply that the Challenger disaster was a good thing
to have happened.  It wasn't.  But I think that some good things have happened
because of it.  I wonder if they would have happened without it.  Sometimes,
I fear, people require a problem to manifest itself in some disastrous way
before the problem gets fixed.

David B. Mears
Hewlett-Packard
Cupertino CA
hplabs!hpda!mears