What if the Challenger Disaster of 1986 won't happen?

On January 28, 1986, the NASA shuttle orbiter mission STS-51-L and the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-99) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members, which consisted of five NASA astronauts and two payload specialists. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC). Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring was not designed to fly under unusually cold conditions as in this launch. Its failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter.

In their difference, the IOTL ended in a disaster, but in their timeline, the Challenger lets you to go to the moon and the Air Force decided to make its plans to use the Shuttle for classified military satellite launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, continuing all seven crew members.
 
One of the other effects of Challenger was the end of the idea that NASA could pay for the shuttle through bringing commercial payloads to orbit. NASA originally wanted to do hundreds of lunches per year with the Shuttles to fund the effort. If Challenger survives, then either the Shuttle program ushers a new age of pay as you go space exploration, or an accident just happens later.

Retro Report covers this pretty well:
 
Wait, just to clarify, are you saying the orbiter would go to the moon? As far as I know, Shuttles don't have a design capacity to leave low earth orbit. Anyone smarter than me have ideas for the launch system needed? Could you put a LEM type landing system in the payload area?
 

Pangur

Donor
Wait, just to clarify, are you saying the orbiter would go to the moon? As far as I know, Shuttles don't have a design capacity to leave low earth orbit. Anyone smarter than me have ideas for the launch system needed? Could you put a LEM type landing system in the payload area?
There is no way the shuttle is going to the moon. Nearest that you can get is to assemble something in space where the components where brought in to space as cargo
 
The o-ring was the mechanism of this failure. Sysyematic and cultural issues within NASA's safety review process were the causes. Feynman provides a nice summary of this in "What do You Care What Other People Think". The shuttle program, as it was then run, was a disaster waiting to happen. Maybe it's a different failure mechanism on a different day with a different shuttle and a different crew, but before the 80's are over a space shuttle mission is failing. All that came out of the investigation will still come out and the more cautious, pragmatic and ultimately privatised space program will be the end result, just like OTL. Sorry to be a determinist here, but I really don't see it going any other way.
 
STS-27 was a miracle that masked the malpractice by NASA, but in my (amateur) knowledge, they did a pretty deep inspection, including the (much beloved) Canadarm which was inconclusive. If they decided the obiter would be lost, would a rescue mission be logistically possible? I have no idea of late 1980s shuttle prep time.
 
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