I helped fact-check this podcast for The History Channel. This involved a bit of tracking down the progress of 1980s cold fronts, when the Space Shuttle’s external fuel tank changed color (they realized the white paint wasn’t necessary), and how exactly the reusable booster rockets were reused (they were in segments, so different segments were reused at different locations in different boosters). Also, it’s instructive and horrifying to dig into transcripts of how good and bad decisions get made, and how institutions then try or fail to self-correct.
January 28, 1986. It’s freezing in Central Florida, a historically cold day. That’s bad news for citrus growers, and for NASA, which is scheduled to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger from Cape Canaveral this morning.
Engineers have ben cautioning NASA that cold temperatures can make space launches dangerous. And yet, NASA decides to move ahead. They consider it an “acceptable risk” and send seven astronauts hurtling into the sky.
What went wrong with the Space Shuttle Challenger? And if engineers knew what could happen, why wasn’t this disaster avoided?