Review: A Book About NASA, by a guy from NASA
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2014
Hugh Harris was the Public Affairs Commentator for the Challenger launch, which makes him part of the NASA public relations department. The book seems exactly what you would expect from a member of the NASA public relations team.=== The Good Stuff ===* As expected, Harris writes very well. The narrative keeps moving, is easy to read, and rewards the reader with a high content of information per page. The author captures the whole Challenger story, from the biographies of the astronauts to the final results of the investigation.* While I have read quite a bit of material on this mission, there were still a number of facts and anecdotes that I hadn't heard before. For example, Harris points out that Ron McNair, the Afro-American astronaut was once denied a library card as a child growing up in the South. Today, that very library is named after him.* The narrative is complete, and doesn't sugarcoat or withhold any information, even that which is not exactly flattering to NASA or its contractors. The book is not especially technical, and is probably well within the understanding of anyone interested enough in the topic to consider reading the book. He avoids the usual NASA tecnobabble and acronym-madness.=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===* The book is exactly as you would expect from a NASA PR type. There are no shocking revelations, and no new shocking revelations or smoking guns. That is most likely a result of the incident being reasonably well understood and investigated previously.However Harris also avoids any  higher order discussions. At its lowest level, the accident was caused by O-Rings operating outside their temperature constraints. This is where Harris stops. But, as the later investigations revealed, there were deeper issues inside NASA, including how information was transferred from working engineers to top managers. This is only briefly touched upon.=== Summary ===This is as good of a book as you will find on the Challenger disaster. It is reasonably complete and understandable by those of us who are not rocket scientists. It is a quick read, and I enjoyed the narrative and style. Unfortunately, its scope stops at the actual technical causes of the explosion, and does not pursue any root causes or changes made to NASA management.