NASA Pays Homage To Heroes

Remembering The Challenger Disaster 20 Years Later

(CBS/AP) 
The Challenger disaster came in an era of tighter budgets, smaller work forces and a constant need for the space agency to justify the shuttle program that followed the heyday of the Apollo moon shots. NASA had hoped sending a teacher into space to give a lesson would win back some public interest and show the routine nature of shuttle flights.

The success of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs had led NASA to believe that spaceflight eventually could become as commonplace as an airplane ride, said Stanley Reinartz, the former manager of the shuttle project office at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Ala. He made the decision not to take engineers' concerns about the Challenger's O-ring seals to the highest reaches of NASA management.

"Things can go wrong," Reinartz said of the decision to launch. "You don't get away from it. It's always there."

Nelson said he is confident that the current NASA leaders have learned the lessons of management hubris from their predecessors. Griffin grounded the shuttle fleet last summer after foam fell off the tank of Discovery during the first shuttle flight after Columbia. It was a chunk of foam debris that doomed Columbia by knocking a hole in its wing.

"The problem that NASA has had that caused the destruction of both space shuttles is the same reason ... arrogance in the management of NASA so that they were not listening to the engineers on the line," Nelson said.

But some critics wonder how long the 2-year-old reforms and attitude changes implemented after Columbia will last until, once again, dissenting opinion is discouraged and NASA managers override the concerns of their engineers.

In a series of telephone conference calls the night before Challenger's liftoff, engineers from NASA contractor Morton Thiokol recommended against a launch because data showed that cold temperatures compromised the O-rings' resiliency. The temperature at launch time was 36 degrees. Under perceived pressure from NASA managers, Thiokol managers reversed themselves and went against the recommendation of their engineers not to launch, according to the investigation by a commission appointed by President Reagan.

"The presidential commission made very powerful and strong recommendations on how the system needed to be fixed," said Roger Boisjoly, a former Thiokol engineer who had opposed the Challenger launch during the conference calls. "Initially NASA installed every one of those (recommendations), but in the ensuing years proceeded to dismantle them."

Griffin said he is reminded of the early days of the nation's air transport system when scores of test pilots died in plane accidents during the early part of last century.

"The knowledge we gained was gained only through many, many losses," Griffin said. "That is the perspective through which we must look at our losses in spaceflight."