The facts make this accident a tragedy in many ways. They had been having
leakage, on earlier launches, with the particular beeswax joint that failed.
The joint was not qualified at the low temperature at launch time. I think
the temperature was in the low 20s and the joint had been qualified at about
freezing. The engineer who was the technical rep for the contractor refused
to approve the launch and he was overridden by his company management and
NASA management. After the accident the engineer was the one most severely
punished and his career was completely destroyed. He later sued and won the
case but the lawyers probably got most of the money and his career was still
trashed. NASA management, as I recall, was declared totally innocent and the
contractor management really received no penalty other than bad public
relations. NASA did revise some procedures but the jerks who should have
gone to jail for their incompetence and disregard for human lives just went
on with their lives. They know whose fault it was and, even though the legal
system didn't get them, there has probably been a lot of internal suffering.
They certainly deserve it. /jnm
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Alan
> Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 10:52 AM
> To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [OM] [OT] Space shuttle
>
>
>
> The thing that irks me the most about this tragedy (as I
> understand it). Is
> that the bureaucratic sort insisted on the launch to get
> publicity of sending
> a civilian (school teacher) in space. If she hadn't been on the
> flight it is
> likely the flight would have been delayed another day till it was
> a bit warmer.
>
> Just remember that next time a manager type keeps insisting the risk isn't
> that great...
>
>
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