LAUNCHERS ICED

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Pigeon
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LAUNCHERS ICED

Post by Pigeon » Thu Sep 08, 2016 8:52 pm

LAUNCHERS ICED

The story of the day Morton Thiokol said no no no and NASA said yes yes yes.

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Royal
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Re: LAUNCHERS ICED

Post by Royal » Fri Sep 09, 2016 4:56 am

Wish I had a full background n this statement.

Can only suspect some passive aggressiveness.

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Pigeon
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Re: LAUNCHERS ICED

Post by Pigeon » Fri Sep 09, 2016 11:59 am

Royal wrote:Wish I had a full background n this statement.

Can only suspect some passive aggressiveness.
passive aggressiveness? lol Who me? (Sorry Alfred for taking your line)

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

When a Thiokol manager asked Ebeling about the possibility of a launch at 18 degrees, he answered "[W]e're only qualified to 40 degrees ...'what business does anyone even have thinking about 18 degrees, we're in no man's land.'" After his team agreed that a launch risked disaster, Thiokol immediately called NASA recommending a postponement until temperatures rose in the afternoon. NASA manager Jud Lovingood responded that Thiokol could not make the recommendation without providing a safe temperature. The company prepared for a teleconference two hours later during which it would have to justify a no-launch recommendation.

At the teleconference on the evening of January 27, Thiokol engineers and managers discussed the weather conditions with NASA managers from Kennedy Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center. Several engineers (most notably Roger Boisjoly) re-expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings that sealed the joints of the SRBs, and recommended a launch postponement. They argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the joints would properly seal if the O-rings were colder than 12 °C (54 °F). This was an important consideration, since the SRB O-rings had been designated as a "Criticality 1" component, meaning that there was no backup if both the primary and secondary O-rings failed, and their failure could destroy the Orbiter and kill its crew.

Thiokol management initially supported its engineers' recommendation to postpone the launch, but NASA staff opposed a delay. During the conference call, Hardy told Thiokol, "I am appalled. I am appalled by your recommendation." Mulloy said, "My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch — next April?" NASA believed that Thiokol's hastily prepared presentation's quality was too poor to support such a statement on flight safety.

One argument by NASA personnel contesting Thiokol's concerns was that if the primary O-ring failed, the secondary O-ring would still seal. This was unproven, and was in any case an argument that did not apply to a "Criticality 1" component. As astronaut Sally Ride stated when questioning NASA managers before the Rogers Commission, it is forbidden to rely on a backup for a "Criticality 1" component.

And a glimpse into the future...for Columbia...

Although the Ice Team had worked through the night removing ice, engineers at Rockwell still expressed concern. Rockwell engineers watching the pad from their headquarters in Downey, California, were horrified when they saw the amount of ice. They feared that during launch, ice might be shaken loose and strike the shuttle's thermal protection tiles, possibly due to the aspiration induced by the jet of exhaust gas from the SRBs.

Sometimes chances are taken. Sometimes the result isn't what is desired.

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Pigeon
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Re: LAUNCHERS ICED

Post by Pigeon » Sun Feb 05, 2023 5:44 pm



Shuttle Columbia breakup real time

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Pigeon
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Re: LAUNCHERS ICED

Post by Pigeon » Thu Feb 09, 2023 5:06 pm

Is past failure point. Failure will result in loss of orbiter and crew.

HMB. 3,2,1, launch.

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Re: LAUNCHERS ICED

Post by Pigeon » Thu Feb 09, 2023 5:10 pm

Bob Ebeling spent a third of his life consumed with guilt about the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. But at the end of his life, his family says, he was finally able to find peace.

"It was as if he got permission from the world," says his daughter Leslie Ebeling Serna. "He was able to let that part of his life go."

Ebeling died Monday at age 89 in Brigham City, Utah, after a long illness, according to his daughter Kathy Ebeling.

Hundreds of NPR readers and listeners helped Ebeling overcome persistent guilt in the weeks before his death. They sent supportive emails and letters after our January story marking the 30th anniversary of the Challenger tragedy.

Ebeling was one of five booster rocket engineers at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol who tried to stop the 1986 Challenger launch. They worried that cold temperatures overnight — the forecast said 18 degrees — would stiffen the rubber O-ring seals that prevent burning rocket fuel from leaking out of booster joints.

"We all knew if the seals failed, the shuttle would blow up," said engineer Roger Boisjoly in a 1986 interview with NPR's Daniel Zwerdling.

Ebeling was the first to sound the alarm the morning before the Challenger launch. He called his boss, Allan McDonald, who was Thiokol's representative at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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