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Show POOR COPY CLASSIFIED j Setsasd allenger SATURDAY,January 2 Page E-2 Experts Expect Anotherpeeoae Explosion Odds Punctuate Challenger Anniversary By Earl Lane NEWSDAY WASHINGTON — Ten years ago Sunday, Americans stared in horror as white plumes smoked > @ 73.12 seconds: The bottom ofthe ship's ex tankfalls off, releasing a massive amountofliquid hydrogenpropellant. At the same time, the right booster breaks from its lower strut and punctures the external PhS | @ 64.66 seconds: The escapingflame melts ahole inthe external tank and mixeswith leaking hydrogen from the tank. —> and writhed through the Florida sky. signaling the death plunge of the Challenger space shuttle and its seven doomed occupants. Long after the horrifying blow . ~ onds: A flicker continue to say that a similar ~\ of flame be shuttle accident is probable de- comesvisible asthe hotgas és start burn spite NASA's best efforts to pre- vent it The judgment is based both on ing a hole morerealistic risk analyses done through the bythe space agency sincetheacci- booster joint's metal casing dent and on a sobering assessment of the ways in which complex or- | = | | | ‘ @ 36.99 seconds: @ 12 seconds: Thepuffs of black smoke disappear as the faulty O-ring and joint managesto seal itself —__ a= . ™@ 7.72 seconds: The ship performs a normal roll rnaneuver for its climbto = said JerryGrey, directorof aero- } @ 73:14 seconds: An explosion Challenger passes through thefirst of sal wind o- shears dent | | 9 miles high a | their normal course of operation Theodds of another shuttle being destroyed now areestimated to be onein 131. “Thereis going \ ) <2 ganizations can produceerrors in Fi | damagedbooster ~ ' 13 miles down range Debris search ar > _. tank —— - inevitable for a moresubtle rea- Solid son. In a well-received new analy- rocket gist Diane Vaughan argues that Orbiter the fatally flawed decision to | eo | A | Dark puffs of smoke are visible on Challenger’s right aL| External tank debr solid rocket booster, ev idence hot gases are burn ing through O-ring seals ina = launch theshuttle did not result from negligence or wrongdoing | / =i —— @ Liftoff - 3.75 seconds: booster —""y-« \ ea External sis of the 1986 disaster, sociolo- | | ex tremely high winds — that reopen the Q ‘The statis- don't imply that. They tell you Fatal Flaw: And trouble maybe | created by the broken fuel tank engulfs Cha er, and the ship breaks apart 2) space and sciencepolicy for the n Institute of Aeronaund Astronautics. errant boosters 58.79 sec to the national psyche. experts to be another[shuttle] | | | 110 seconds: Air / B Orbiter debris — afhaad i cht z Atlantic Ocean but from a tendency by engineers and managers to follow the ac- cepted rules of procedure too blindly. said such organiza- tional behavior — which shaped thelate-night decision to recom- 6h, 10 Years Later, Utah O-Ring * another [shuttle] about cold weather — could easily recur NASAofficials say they under- : There is going to be mend launch despite concerns the space shuttle could cal use a fatal accident i ifj don’t implythat. Theytell a ‘I don’t have very manypictures that hang in myoffice,” said Jay EX Honeycutt, heycutt, director director of the the Kennedy | Space Center Challenger crew and the crew patch. As long as I'minthis job Kol teamwasstill edgy about a blasted off. said he had been dey- main engines has had y Pressed for a decision. of my very closest friends aboard,” he said Vice president for engineering. to take off his engineering hat and Altauty sealion'a sold rocket booster caused the Many Changes: NASA made of the booster has recommended a propellant valves and a geai ' landing cluding a redesign of the faulty sf ine, booster-rocket joint that was the immediate cause of the disaster. Chastened by findings of a presi- dential investigating commission that put the broader blame on NASA management flaws and poor communicationwith its con- jaunch. Thiokol went backUnkon-line , gave to the Thiokol team, NASA managers at the flight center had been been preparing for a ‘no launch recommendation while Thiokol was off line before the fated But NASA ignored the warn- 7 Thiokol engineers did not object My God. Thiokol, when do want me to launch. next April Larry Mulloy exclaimed hearing the company’s mendation. recom- f After the explosion that killed Corp. found that — some post Challenger improvements not withstanding — the odds of a shuttle being destroyed during a mission are one in 131. By com- parison, thereis a 1-in-5,000risk annually of dying as a motorvehicle passenger, a 1-in-26,000 risk of being hit while crossing the street and a 1-in-a-million chance of being killed by lightning It’s almost inevitable” that anothershuttle could be lost during the next decade, said Byron P Leonard, an aerospace consultant in El Segundo, Calif.. who has done risk analyses for the shut- tles. Beyondthe horror of the acci dent itself, investigators were to learn disturbing news: The day before the launch, managers and engineers for the booster rocket maker, Morton Thiokol of Brigham City, Utah, and NASA employees in Florida and at the agency's Marshall Space Flight information, a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted internal flight safety prob lems to bypass key shuttle manag- northern Utah Thiokol headquarters Instead of evil managers, competent technical people made a fied into manufacturir disastrous decision while abiding byall the rules, said Vaughan author of a new book. The Chal. The en: discussed the launched when the temperature was 75 degrees The engineers who wanted to delay the launch could not make a persuasive technical case to high er managers, Vaughansaid Seemed OK: The organization Center in Huntsville, Ala., had ar- al behavior, she said, tended to gued by telephone about the wis domof aliftoff in cold weather tle had flown in the past with un normalize deviance.” The shut- Devastated sought early retirement any mort They've done a marvelous job 2 are from Challenger] and a good motor.” the kol’s profitability for years tc NASA sees no endto its reli »le today Keith henson. o i ‘om: he motor NASA’s pro- ect manager. who holds Mullo at NASA in avariety S$ revenues in the next two or of Thiokol’s corporate success It had explained O-ring erosion be told, but not alongside a stor about the disaster says spokesman Steve Laws: not blown up. Teams had been working on the problem seemed OK to fly again Judson Lovingood, a Marshall Space Flight ma But retired Center er who took pat in the te a retired who shouldered turn over a Teaner sh uttle oper a blame for NASA much of the the disaster said he re grets the accident — though he lecon, objects to Vaughan’s ¢ acteriz: We didn't norm feels no guilt about the decision tc jaunch were trying to resolve it thing differently if presented with the same gi \ ize the deviant,” he said On the issue of culpability. 1 because I didn't think | could do the com pany. the world or the engineer three years. analysts predict For now, Thiokolexecutives re fuse to discuss the tragedy We would like to see the story Some of the worst seal erosion occurred on a rme will aerospace and industrial applica ns — could double the pa: data were ambiguous. a point ac knowledged even by some of the Thiokol engineers who argued against a launch. f the 10-year annive Some of that diversification — specialty fasteni systems for concerns about erosion of O-rings on earlier shuttle flights. But the flight that was lenger progress ¢ Ogden. The company’s space-sys tem segment still builds rocket yoster motors, but it ha divers ers lenger Launch L gineering teams Thiokol executives won't dis cuss the company’s post-Chal ance on Thiokol 1e [shuttle But the company eventu re solved those lawsuits and slowly began to increase profitability once it redesigned the motor In July 1¢ nd Thic kol split. Mort 1 headquarters rer It manufactures no guarantees. A recent NASA would decisior _ bngineers who felt penalized ZAC program’s worst disaster wrathof skittish sharelholde rs sponsored risk assessment by Sci ence Applications International e come worker lawsuits while bate in detail. The panel conclud- one he cusations of causing the space for speaking out about the O-rir problems filed lawsuits. and the company’s stock suffered the ed that the decision to launch Challenger “was based on incomplete and sometimes misleading mé ham City resident says. He expects the motors add to Thio- ers, examinedthe engineering de- But despite 49 successful shut- ules. have again, he said [recovering they make layers of oversight tle missionssince flights resumed in September 1988, there remain in kol faced some of its darkest ¢ lays. coping with human Rae nS ar The presidential investigating Commission headed by former Secretary ofState William Rog- 7 six astronauts and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Morton-Thio- tractors, the space agency also made numerous changes in oper- ating procedures and added new (Ala 70. was seni upon Mulloy was Huntsville in’ Thiokol's vou the solidid rockett boosterryproje The interview pub ished Frid sut iven the same data given the same history and follow company official In 1986. Rol ings el Batteries: Two ofthe three are neededto shuttle flying. Shuttles have hadfue problems in th After the conference — andthe company’s change of position — ightly the Challenger rock et's four segments night In hindsight, it was very bad decision to launch Wish w hadn't done hadn't done that th M ulloy told ing t launch, engineers warned NASA oma and gave pe NASA the OK.raeUnknown Morton-Thio- designed rocket motors that the O-rings weren't respond ing properly experts said it was a | aaa job and the rubber O-rings used to The in redesigned; some power engines. move t flap d rudder and eventually " JAH Challenger explosion. That put on his management hat. Lund dozens of shuttle hardware hangs after elem the thelace changes accident, in- a credible Its predecessor, Thiokol Went “off-line” to discuss the mat‘er privately, Jerald Mason, aseOr vice president, reportedly 0ld Robert Lund, the company’s has done kol Inc.. Oring flight-center_ managers astated by the accident. which killed six astronauts and New Hampshireschoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. “There were several Corp. pulling itself out from under a shroud of blackness after the shuttle Expletion 10 years ago s x a cold O-ring wouldnot seal proptly. As it got late. and the Thio- launch, é observe c Thiokol Many observers say Thiokol metalfatigue and cracking problems oR ’ al Aa Thompson presented data about launchcontrol center as a lower- By John Keahey ESA AKE TRIBUNE This crucial part of the 2 ao ane, ae rengineers neers Roger Boisjoly and Arnold hot-gas erosionofO-rings 6n pre- : F rom Chall Chalienger Disaster Uisastel if designed tibet: Vious flights. Boisjoly arguedthat level manager when Challenger b= nespecialybecause powerthan originally numerous problems crop theyfall. Experts say Aerospace expert it’sa constant reminderof the fact that we haveto becareful Honeyeutt, who was in the Under stress and so complicated that these are the most likely trouble spots in NASA's space shuttle where Senet ites oes atin 3, on its 73-second fli 0 oblivion. “Oneof themis of the Manufacturer Rebounds Hundredsof parts of accident. Thestatistics tee ive uutiemitscuin © tention of compromisingsafety JERRY GREY stand better than anyone thehigh Mulloysaid he wouldn't do any 1 Press |
