Remembering the Space Shuttle Challenger: Thoughts on Asbestos and Crew Survivability Procedures.
I first posted my full research project discussing this Internet myth during January 2022 in the blog located at https://theasbestosblog.com/?p=9723 and then again in a blog during January 2023 at https://theasbestosblog.com/?p=10618. The full blown 75 page research paper with footnotes and bibliography can be read at https://theasbestosblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Space-Shuttle-Challenger-Thesis-1282022.pdf.
If you are interested in the topic but do not want to read the entire scholarly analysis, please find a plain language 10 page analysis (without footnotes or a bibliography) at https://theasbestosblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Summary-Research-Challenger-2023-Blog.pdf. It really is a fascinating topic with the issue framed as:
“My initial goal in researching the January 28, 1986 Challenger tragedy was to solve the internet myth on whether it was caused, or contributed to, by an asbestos substitute that failed. This is a significant issue as the Challenger situation continues to be used as a teaching experience for leadership, ethics, communication, engineering, and group think classes. The Challenger accident remains sufficiently popular that Netflix aired a documentary in 2020 that focused on the effect of the cold temperature on the O-rings that failed in the right-hand solid rocket booster. When I decided to return to school in 2021, the involvement of the asbestos-containing putty that was designed to protect those O-rings seemed to be the perfect topic for me to research. As it turns out, when it comes to the asbestos or the potential asbestos putty substitute, we have all been asking the wrong question.”
Many of those issues, especially the asbestos substitute issue, were addressed by my blogs in 2022 and 2023. For this 2024 blog, I would like to emphasize lost opportunities to include an abort or crew survivability procedure into the Challenger design. This is discussed in the May 4, 1984 memo authored by Warren J. North as the Assistant Director for Space Shuttle Flight Crew Operations. The only place that I came across this memo during my research was in the United States Air Force Academy Library, Special Collections. Rather than me telling the historical story, I will let the memo speak for itself.
The most tragic line is that at the end of Section 12 which states than in August 1983, the discussion on designing a crew escape system was shelved because of a potential “adverse public response that might evolve from overt NASA concern for crew safety.” Not technology, not cost, but a worry over public reaction to NASA acting on crew safety concerns. Also, note Section 8 discussing the 1980 appointment of a Crew Survivable Working Group.
This does not mean that an abort system would have functioned in the type of accident experienced by the Challenger crew. However, it does mean that there were several lost opportunities to at least have a discussion. Such a tragedy and loss of life.
Let me know if you found this discussion interesting and informative either by leaving a comment or sending me an email at TheAsbestosBlog@gmail.com. Thank you. Marty.
2 Responses
That is quite a document you have found. Maybe in addition to your thesis you should be writing a Treatement for a Movie Screenplay.
Greg, to me, that was an amazing document; especially since it wasn’t in the general documents or produced by NASA in response to my four FOIA requests. I suspect that post-Challenger, some copies were conveniently unavailable, with the USAF Academy Library, Special Collections being an exception. I am aware of IBM and others tearing down and destroying the picture of the Challenger which leads off the blog.
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