WI: Challenger doesn't explode

packmanwiscy

packmanwiscy

So yesterday I was informed that my grandfather, a blacksmith, made the O-ring, the part of the Challenger Space Shuttle that failed and killed 7 people. The sealing on the O-ring wasn't designed to survive temperatures lower than 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

If this flaw is pointed out and corrected before the shuttle takes flight, what effect do you think it has on the Space Shuttle program and the concept of space travel?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Before 1900 would be quite a POD...

packmanwiscy said:
So yesterday I was informed that my grandfather, a blacksmith, made the O-ring, the part of the Challenger Space Shuttle that failed and killed 7 people. The sealing on the O-ring wasn't designed to survive temperatures lower than 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

If this flaw is pointed out and corrected before the shuttle takes flight, what effect do you think it has on the Space Shuttle program and the concept of space travel?
Click to expand...

Before 1900 would be quite a POD...

The O-rings were a synthetic rubber, as well; not metallic.

Best,
 

Delta Force

Banned
The O-ring temperature limitations were known to those involved in the program, so it wasn't a design flaw, simply a launch envelope limitation. They chose to launch anyways outside of the allowed envelope. I read that one group of engineers who tried to warn NASA were greatly relieved when the Space Shuttle actually left the pad and flew for as long as it did, because for a minute they thought that they had thankfully been wrong about things, as their models showed the Shuttle exploding on the pad once the Solid Rocket Boosters were ignited. Apparently a piece of metal from one of the boosters lodged itself in the gap created by the shrinking O-ring long enough to allow for the 73 seconds of flight before the Space Shuttle was buffeted by the jet stream, knocking the debris out, causing gases to erode the booster, and destroying the stack.
 

Just Leo

It was about that time when Volkswagen had a recall of all models with power steering because the seals leaked and the racks failed in cold weather. Space age materials are wonderful, but you still have to read the spec sheet.
 
GarethC

GarethC

Nobel Prize winner and Manhatten Project physicist Richard Feynman sat on the Senate commission to investigate the accident, and included a long account of it in his autobiography Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, which is really worth a read if you can get hold of it.

In short, NASA administrators were warned that the temperature was out-of-spec for the parts, and decided that when the chief engineer says that the dilithium crystals canna take it, Cap'n, replying damn the torpedoes, Gridley is the winning play that lets you bang the green-skinned slave girl, while being the person who postpones another launch would be a career-limiting move. It always worked before, what's the worst that could happen?
 
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