20 Years after Challenger: NASA’s Declining Competence
by James Buchanan
A documentary on the anniversary of the Jan. 28th, 1986 Challenger disaster revealed a shocking series of events. Engineers at Morton-Thiokol were pushed aside while managers were allowed to make an important engineering decision. Meanwhile no one at NASA appeared to be aware of critical temperature problems with O-rings in the solid rocket boosters. The rubber O-rings lost their elasticity at cold temperatures and would not seal in the solid rocket fuel’s hot gases. NASA officials should have known enough to call off the launch. The temperature at the launch pad on Jan. 28th, 1986 was in the 30s –far below the minimum 53 degree launch temperature recommended by Morton-Thiokol engineers. Managers at NASA put pressure on managers at Morton-Thiokol, who then overruled their own engineers.
The solid rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle are made in Utah. Because of transportation problems, the outer-shell of the rocket is made in segments and each joint between the segments is sealed by O-rings. If the O-rings fail, red hot gases could escape and begin burning through the main fuel tank of the Shuttle resulting in an explosion that could destroy the Shuttle –as happened 20 years ago. The solid rocket boosters are recovered by parachute after each launch for re-use and also inspection for wear. Some of these recovered segments showed evidence of problems. NASA and Morton Thiokol had data from earlier flights showing that solid rocket gases had burnt by the first O-ring seal on a previous cold weather launch. This should have raised the alarm at NASA and set the minimum temperature for launch, but it didn’t.
Amazingly, NASA learned little -if anything- from the Challenger disaster. While a re-design of the O-rings was done to prevent an identical disaster, NASA failed miserably when faced with another looming disaster.
Chunks of foam insulation were falling off the Shuttle and damaging the wing. This problem became significant after the insulating foam was changed. A ridiculous objection to freon-based insulating foam was placed ahead of basic safety and a return to the previous freon-based insulation was not allowed. The Columbia burnt up on reentry killing another astronaut crew and grounded the shuttle fleet for another two-and-a-half years.
Freon had been used for decades in air-conditioning units all over the world. Freon is still used widely in the Third World world. The amount of freon used by the Space Shuttle program is completely negligible compared to amount of freon pumped into the atmosphere by the average Third World nation.
NASA should have deep-sixed the new, dangerous insulating foam, gone back to the original freon-based foam and made an exception to environmental restrictions. Once again, NASA could not make the right decision even with clear evidence from previous launches that a disaster was looming.
There was yet one more chance at NASA to do something to prevent the Columbia disaster while the Columbia was still up in space. A number of engineers suggested that a space walk be done to inspect damage to the shuttle wing caused by falling foam. NASA rejected the idea of a space walk in part because the astronauts would have to float free to see the underside of the wing. Astronauts however are trained to float freely and this should not have been seen as a problem. They could always pull themselves back toward the Shuttle by their tether. Another idea to use US spy satellites to inspect the underside of the Columbia’s wing was also rejected by NASA.
NASA (or any other federal agency) has been subject to heavy pressure to hire minorities and to reduce costs. The problems posed by quota-hires are fairly obvious and tend to increase with the increasing technical nature of a particular job.
In the “old days” of the aerospace industry, the managers tended to be life-long engineers, who were promoted up to the management level. Nowadays, it is increasingly common for managers with no engineering experience at all to be placed in positions above engineers. Many of these managers are the less-expensive sort with no engineering experience. Many of these technically-ignorant managers feel that disagreements with engineers are a “test” of power or authority. Most often, engineers raise alarms when they see a serious problem. A technically ignorant manager however will not be able to appreciate the seriousness of a problem or understand the science behind a problem. This sort of ignorance almost certainly played a large role in the loss of both Space Shuttles.
After working for two-and-half years to fix the insulation problem, the first Space Shuttle launch after the Columbia disaster resulted in more wing damage due to falling foam and another grounding of the Space Shuttle fleet. It would be no surprise if the ban on freon-based foam is still on. Our politically correct government still can’t make a tiny exception which is vitally necessary for the safety and continued operation of our Shuttle fleet. The result is the continued grounding of the Space Shuttle fleet and the loss of billions of dollars in launch capability because no one in the government or in NASA has enough guts to say the truth.
NASA is still suffering from a growing technical incompetence and an equally serious problem of gutless management. We would be better off taking all the Space Shuttle funding from NASA and giving it to Burt Rutan, the aerospace genius who built SpaceShipOne, so he could build a replacement for the Shuttle.