Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!pacbell!att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!wayback!arny
From: arny@wayback.UUCP (Arny B. Engelson)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: other causes of the Challenger disaster?
Summary: Article reference
Message-ID: <1334@wayback.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jun 88 19:08:48 GMT
References: <247@ncar.ucar.edu> <3330004@hpindda.HP.COM> <2951@polyslo.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Whippany, NJ
Lines: 61

In article <2951@polyslo.UUCP>, jmckerna@polyslo.UUCP (John L McKernan) writes:
> In article <3330004@hpindda.HP.COM> mears@hpindda.HP.COM (David B. Mears) writes:
> >I read an article some time ago (I think it was in IEEE Spectrum, but I
> >don't remember for sure) which talked about the speculations of one
> >scientist.  I don't remember the name of the scientist, and the article
> >indicated that not many people took much stock in this person's opinions,
> >nevertheless, he believed that wind sheer played a big part in the
> >disaster.  He also postulated that the wind sheer was severe enough
> >that the struts would have broken apart from the wind sheer even without
> >having been weakened by the SRM exhaust leak.
> 
> This is second posting I've seen on the subject of the causes of the Challenger
> disaster. That seems a little strange to me because I thought the causes were
> well understood. What I understood from the media was that the seal of one of
> the solid rocket booster segments failed, allowing a jet of burning rocket fuel
> to escape at the joint. This jet of rocket fuel then ruptured the external tank
> causing the explosion which caused the vehicle to break up.
> 
> If anyone has another explanation of what happened, and has a reference to
> back that explanation up, it might be interesting to hear it. Also, how
> complete is the consensus for that explanation? Is there a broad consensus
> for one explanation of the challenger accident?
> 
> John L. McKernan.                    Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "official" Rogers Commission reason for the Challenger disaster is
certainly not the only one around.  I read a very interesting article in
the May 1988 issue of Defense Science by Dr. Yale Jay Lubkin (a freelance
Electronic Warfare consultant, and the magazine's EW editor), entitled
"The Challenger Disaster".  In it, he references an article by Richard
Feynman in the February 1988 issue of Physics today in which Feynman, a
Nobel Laureate in Physics and a member of the Rogers Commission, details
his dissenting report on the Challenger disaster.  Lubkin also advises
reading the extensive article by Trudy Bell and Karl Esch in the February
1987 issue of IEEE Spectrum.  Also, see pictures in the March 1987 issue
of the British magazine Spaceflight News.

From what I gathered in Lubkin's article, the explanation supported by
Feynman is based on the work of Ali AbuTaha, an experienced space engineer
who has gathered an impressive amount of evidence to support his claims.
Basically, he claims the leak was continuous (not intermittent as claimed
by NASA and the R.C.), and that it was the attempt to correct the
sidethrust which sent the Challenger into violent oscillations and caused
the side of the booster to break out.  The article claims Morton Thiokol
goofed on the design and misused the O-ring.  The internal pressure of the
rocket was supposed to squash the O-ring into a good seal, but the O-ring
was stronger than the rocket wall, causing the wall to deform instead of
the O-ring, lifting the O-ring away from the joint, and causing the
continuous leak (sidethrust), which led to attempted corrections, and the
resulting disaster.  The article then goes on to tell how NASA ignored
AbuTaha's ideas and his evidence.

If you want to know more, read the article(s).

  - Arny Engelson

P.S. I hope I have been accurate in paraphrasing Lubkin, but
suggest you read the article before commenting.

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Campbell, CA.  (408) 370-3509