INVESTIGATION OF THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT 

(Volume 1) 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

NINETY-NINTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

64-295 0 

JUNE 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 25, 1986 

[No. 1371 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Science and Technology 

US. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

WASHINGTON : 1986 ~__~__ ~ __~ ~ 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office 

US. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

DON FUQUA, Florida, Chairman 

ROBERT A. ROE, New Jersey 

GEORGE E. BROWN, JR., California 

JAMES H. SCHEUER, New York 

MARILYN LLOYD, Tennessee Wisconsin 

TIMOTHY E. WIRTH, Colorado 

DOUG WALGREN, Pennsylvania 

DAN GLICKMAN, Kansas 

ROBERT A. YOUNG, Missouri 

HAROLD L. VOLKMER, Missouri 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

STAN LUNDINE, New York 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

DAVE McCURDY, Oklahoma 

NORMAN Y. MINETA, California 

MICHAEL A. ANDREWS, Texas 

BUDDY MAcKAY," Florida 

TIM VALENTINE, North Carolina 

HARRY M. REID, Nevada 

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

TERRY BRUCE, Illinois 

RICHARD H. STALLINGS, Idaho 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

JAMES A. TRAFICANT, JR., Ohio 

MANUEL LUJAN, JR.,' New Mexico 

ROBERT S. WALKER, Pennsylvania 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

CLAUDINE SCHNEIDER, Rhode Island 

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York 

TOM LEWIS, Florida 

DON RIlTER, Pennsylvania 

SID W. MORRISON, Washington 

RON PACKARD, California 

JAN MEYERS, Kansas 

ROBERT C. SMITH, New Hampshire 

PAUL B. HENRY, Michigan 

HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois 

WILLIAM W. COBEY, JR., North Carolina 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

D. FRENCH SLAUGHTER, JR., Virginia 

DAVID S. MONSON, Utah 

HAROLD P. HANSON, Executive Director 

ROBERT C. KETCHAM, General Counsel 

REGINA A. DAVIS, Chief Clerk 

R. THOMAS WEIMER, Republican Staff Director 

CHALLENGER ACCIDENT REPORT STAFF TASK GROUP 

ROBERT C. KEEHAM, General Counsel 

RADFORD BYERLY, Jr. 

RONALD E. WILLIAMS 

PATRICIA G. GARFINKEL 

CAROLYN C. GREENFELD 

DAVXD D.CLEMENT 

SHIRLEY J. WATWN JAMES PAUL 

ROBERT E. PALMER 

GEORGE S. KOPP 

HARRY S. DAWSON, Jr. 

HARRIET J.SMITH 

NELSON L. MILDER 

CAROLYN J. RADABAUGH 

GLORIA J. DUNDERMAN 

'Ranking Republican Member. 

**Serving on Cammittee on the Budget for 99th Congress. 

(11) 
CONTENTS 

WITNESSES 

June 10. 1986: Pane 

Hon. William P. Rogers, Chairman, Presidential Commission on the 

Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, accompanied by Neil Armstrong, Vice Chairman .............. I.. ................................ ..: .................................................. 

Dr. James C. Fletcher, Administrator, NASA .................................................... Rear Adm. Richard H. Truly, US. Navy, Associate Administrator for 

Space Flight, NASA ............................................................................................. 

Dr. James C. Fletcher, Administrator, NASA; Rear Adm. Richard H. 

Truly, Associate Administrator for Space Flight, NASA; Arnold D. 

Aldrich, Manager, National Space Transportation S stem, NASA; J. R. 

Thompson, Vice Chairman, NASA Task Force, NA6 A; representatives from NASA’s Task Teams: Dan Germany, Thomas Holloway, Jack Lee, 

John Thomas, Thomas Utsman, Col. Edward O’Connor, USAF ................. 

Charles S. Locke, chairman of the board and chief executive officer, 

Morton Thiokol, Inc.; U. Edwin Garrison, president, Aerospace Group, Morton Thiokol, Inc.; Joseph C. Kilminster, vice president, Morton 

Thiokol, Inc.; Carver G. Kennedy, vice president, space booster programs, Morton Thiokol, Inc.; Allan J. McDonald, director, SRM Verification Task Force; Roger M. Boisjoly, staff engineer; and Arnold R. 

Thompson, supervisor, structures design, Morton Thiokol, Inc .................. Dr. William R. Graham, Deputy Administrator, NASA, accompanied by Thomas Moser, Deputy Administrator, Office of Space Flight and Rear 

Adm. Richard H. Truly, Associate Administrator for Space Flight ........... Dr. William Lucas, Director, Marshall Space Flight Center, accompanied by J. Wayne Littles, Deputy Director of Science and Engineering, Lawrence Mullo , Assistant to the Director for Science and Engineering, Gerald W. imith, Manager, Solid Rocket Booster Project, Stan Reinartz, Manager, Special Projects Office, and Bill Sneed, Assistant Director, Policy and Review ......................................................................................... 

U. Edwin Garrison, president, Aerospace Group, Morton Thiokol Co.; 

Joseph C. Kilminster, vice president; Carver G. Kennedy, vice presi- dent, Space Booster Program; Allan J. McDonald, director, SRM Verification Task Force; Ro er M. Boisjoly, staff engineer; and Arnold R. 

Thompson, supervisor, gtructures Design ....................................................... 

Maj. Donald “Deke” K. Slayton, USAF (retired); Brig. Gen. James A. 

McDivitt, USAF (retired); Capt. John W. Young, USN (retired); Col. 

Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr., USAF (retired); and Comdr. Robert L. Gibson, 

USN; Lt. Gen. Thomas Stafford ......................................................................... 

APPENDIXES 

June 11, 1986: 

June 12, 1986: 

June 17, 1986: 

June 18, 1986: 

June 25, 1986: 

June 11: 

1. Letter from Congressman Scheuer to Congressman Roe report on prob- ability estimates for space shuttle failure-July 15, 1986 ........................ 2. Response to additional questions submitted to NASA from Congress- man Roe .............................................................................................................. 

(111) 

24 

114 

123 

218 

326 

390 

391 

484 

544 

625 

628 
IV 

Psse 

1. Letter from NASA to Congressman Roe clarification of Dr. Fletcher’s 

testimony on June 12-August 5, 1986 .......................................................... 660 

2. Material requested for the record by Mr. Roe at June 12 hearing- presentations of members of NASA’s task teams ...................................... 662 

3. Response to additional questions submitted to NASA from Congress- man Roe .............................................................................................................. 754 

1. Response to additional questions submitted to Morton Thiokol from 

Congreesman Roe .............................................................................................. 758 

June 12: 

June 18: 
INVESTIGATION OF THE CHALLENGER 

ACCIDENT 

(Volume 1) 

TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1986 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:38 a.m., in room 

2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Roe (acting 

chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Mr. ROE [acting chairman]. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 

The House Science and Technology Committee will now convene. 

And, without objection, television broadcasts, radio broadcasts, 

still photography, or other means of coverage will be permitted 

during the full committee hearings this week on the Rogers Commission report. 

Today the House Science and Technology Committee begins an 

intensive series of congressional hearings into the causes and the 

ramifications of a great national tragedy-the explosion of the 

space shuttle Challenger and the loss of seven true American 

heroes. 

These hearings will take a three-pronged approach. First, we will 

look at the technology and the hardware that caused the accident. 

Second, we will closely examine the management problems and decisionmaking problems within NASA. And the last focus of our 

hearings, and perhaps the most important phase, will deal with the 

future of our Nation’s space program, and the question we must 

answer is “Where do we go from here?” 

The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Accident has 

made its report to the American people. The distinguished Chairman of the Commission, the Honorable William P. Rogers, whom 

we will hear from shortly, has done an outstanding job in present- ing to the Nation a remarkable document which fully, truly details 

the entire story of the failures in technology and human error that 

ultimately led to the shuttle disaster. 

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Chairman 

Rogers and the other members of his Commission for a job well 

done. 

It is not the intention of this committee to simply rehash what 

the Rogers Commission has so ably accomplished. We must instead 

utilize the Rogers report as the basis for a new start in America’s 

space efforts. 

(1) 
2 

I would like to quote from the Commission’s concluding thought, 

The commission urges that NASA continue to receive the support of the administration and the nation. The agency constitutes a national resource that plays a critical role in space exploration and development. * * * The findings and recommendations presented in this report are intended to contribute to the future NASA suc- cesses that the Nation both expects and requires as the 21st century approaches. 

It is very clear that because of its great success story Congress 

has been too shy in finding fault with NASA. As the result of the 

Challenger accident, Congress and NASA must begin a new era, 

one in which Congress must apply the same strong oversight to 

NASA that it does to any other Government agency. 

There can be no doubt that we are at a critical turning point in 

our space program. The Challenger accident combined with the 

recent failures of our Titan and Delta rocket systems has raised 

deep concern and some doubts as to what the future holds for us. 

The central theme, again, of these hearings must be, Where do 

we go from here? The Rogers Commission has answered the basic 

question of what happened to the Challenger. But it also leaves 

many other cogent questions unanswered: Do we need a new fourth 

orbiter or a space station? Should future space efforts be centered 

on unmanned rather than manned flights? What needs to be done 

to get us back on track? 

I think it is basically clear that when we discuss where this country is going in space, we are talking about the very future of our 

potential growth in science, technology, national security, and communications. These and other key areas will be affected by how we 

respond to these recent failures. 

It is the intent of these hearings to uncover some of the answers 

to lead us back to our role of supremacy in space and the advancements of high technology associated with that leadership to the 

future benefit of all mankind. 

The Chair now recognizes the distinguished chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, the Honorable Don Fuqua from 

the State of Florida. 

Mr. FUQUA. Thank you, Mr. Roe, and for your remarks. 

And I want to join you in praising the work of the Commission. I 

believe that the investigation will serve as a model for its thorough 

and comprehensive and deliberate approach to a most difficult undertaking. 

And to the chairman, Secretary Rogers, and Vice Chairman 

Armstrong, both of you can take great pride in your leadership and 

that of the Commission in producing an inclusive report. The 

Nation is still suffering from the effects of a very terrible tragedy, 

but I believe that your report will stand the test of time. 

As a member of this committee, I have been involved in the development of NASA programs for the past 24 years. And, consequently, it’s especially painful for me to participate in a hearing 

such as this today. I have witnessed the joys and the triumphs of 

all the manned spaceflight programs and suffered through the 

tragedy of the Apollo 204 fire and now the space shuttle mission 

designated as 51-L. To say the least, it has been a roller coaster of 

emotions. But through the analysis of what went wrong in the 

and I quote: 
3 

Apollo fire, we found the confidence and fortitude to go forward 

with that historymaking program. 

We’re now again facing the test of what direction this Nation 

takes in its future manned spaceflight programs. I am confident 

that the Congress, with the support of the American people, will make the right decisions. 

The Commission report is bluntly critical. It is an indictment of 

both management and technical arrogance brought about by the 

mindset caused by a period of spectacular successes. If we fail to 

remind ourselves that space is a very hostile environment, to be 

conquered only by constant vigilance and continuing attention to 

detail, we will again someday have another catastrophic failure. 

We in Congress, as well as NASA and the aerospace industry, must 

never again be lulled into a sense of overconfidence that could contribute to such a tragedy, While history does not repeat itself, unfortunately people can repeat history. And so I suggest today a new beginning, a new era in the history of NASA, one that does not forget the past but profits from it to 

build on a stronger space program. After the Apollo fire, we accepted the fact that we had erred and we conquered those problems and made NASA a much stronger institution. 

We must and will make the changes necessary to come out of 

this tragedy with a better and stronger program. And to do otherwise is to shirk our responsibility and commitment to those seven 

brave individuals who gave their lives in pursuit of our national 

goal. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the distinguished chairman. 

The Chair now recognizes the distinguished ranking minority member, the Honorable Manuel Lujan from New Mexico for an 

opening statement. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Fuqua and Chairman Roe, I welcome this report, and I 

congratulate Chairman Rogers and Vice Chairman Armstrong on 

the way in which they conducted their investigation and set forth 

their findings. They’ve been tough and fair at a time when both 

were called for. 

I would also like to compliment each of the other commissioners 

and staff members on their individual contributions and dedication 

to this effort. They have fulfilled the mandate given them by President Reagan with great dedication in a highly compressed time 

period while under enormous pressure. All have done an admirable 

job in accomplishing a very difficult task. 

On the surface the Commission’s conclusions appear devastating to those who thought that our space agency could do no wrong. 

While the Commission’s words are strong and its criticism of 

NASA blunt, I believe its findings will ultimately be constructive 

in nature. Because the scope of the Commission’s mandate was limited to investigating the cause of the accident and related safety 

issues, it necessarily left many of the basic policy questions unanswered. 

It is now this committee’s responsibility to address those broader 

issues. In the weeks and months ahead we will call on NASA and 

its contractors to fully respond to our questions. We must continue 
4 

to investigate this accident and the full range of operational, management, and policy issues it raises. 

Our work will not be complete until we’re fully satisfied with the 

answers we get. We must continue to probe until we’re sure that 

the chain of events which led to this tragedy will never again be 

repeated. NASA, its contractors, and outside experts will all have 

an opportunity to add their views. 

As a committee, we must conduct our investigation with an open 

mind. Our hearings must be honest, frank, and fair, but we will 

draw our own independent conclusions. Should we find evidence of 

mismanagement, poor judgment, or even negligence, we must take 

appropriate action. 

In the future we must never allow the previous successes of our 

space program to breed overconfidence. As a committee, we may 

have been too trusting in the past when NASA gave us glowing, 

optimistic reports about our space program. Hindsight suggests 

that NASA’s view of the space shuttle program was not realistic. 

This Nation cannot abandon its space program. The Challenger 

accident and its aftermath mark a new beginning, not an end. In 

the past 4 months this Nation has lived through a very difficult 

time. The time has now come for all of us to put the national 

nightmare of Challenger behind us. Seven brave men and women 

who reached for the stars, in the words of the poem, “touched the 

face of God” deserve no less. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico. 

In view of the limited amount of time, without objection, all remaining opening statements of the members will be included in the 

record at this point. 

[The prepared opening statements by members of the committee 

follow:] 
5 

Statement of 

Hon. Bili Nelson 

June 10. 1986 

Now that the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Chal lenqer 

Accident has completed its work, it is time for the Congress to beqin 

its efforts to grasp the causes of the accident and to determine what 

hardware and management changes should be made in the program. 

I be1 ieve that the Roger's Commission has done an exce 

that their report provides us w-ith a firm basis to beg 

investigation into the matter. 

lent ,lob and 

n our 

in the 24 successful fI ights prior to the accident. the Space Shuttle 

demonstrated what a marvelous and invaluable tool 4t can be in helping 

this coun-try develop and use space for the benefit of al I mankind. 

it is now clear. however, that engineering and management mistakes have 

been made in the Shuttle program. Our task, therefore, is to pinpoint 

where in the program these mistakes originated and then to work closely 

with NASA to ensure that al I of these problems are fully corrected so 

that the Space Shuttie can return safely to flight operations and 

resume making its valuable contributions to the American space program. 
OPENING STATEMENT 

BY 

HON. MANUEL LWW, JR. (R-N,M.) 

RANK I NG REPUBL I CAN EMBER 

COMM I TTEE ON SC I ENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE 

REPORT OF THE PRESIDENTIPL COMMISSION ON THE 

CHALLENGER ACCIDENT 

JUNE 10, 1986 

CHAINAN FUQUA AN0 CHAIRMAN ROE, 1 WELCOME THIS REPORT. I 

CONGRATULATE CHAl RMAN ROGERS AND VICE CHAl RMAN ARMSTRONG ON THE WAY IN 

WHICH THEY HAVE CONDUCTED THEIR INVESTIGATION AND SET FORTH THEIR 

FINDINGS. THEY HAVE BEEN TOUGH AND FAIR AT A TIME WHEN BOTH WERE 

CALLED FOR. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO COMPLIMENT EACH OF THE OTHER 

COMMISSIONERS AND STAFF MEMBERS ON THEIR INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND 

DEDICATION TO THIS EFFORT. THEY HAVE FULFILLED THE MANDATE GIVEN THEM 

BY PRESIDENT REAGAN WITH GREAT DEDICATION IN A HIGHLY COMPRESSED TIME 

PERIOD WHILE UNDER ENORMOUS PRESSURE, kL HAVE DONE AN ADMIRABLE 

JOB IN ACCOMPLISHING A VERY DIFFICULT TASK. 
ON THE SURFACE, THE COMMISSION'S CONCLUSIONS APPEAR DEVASTATING TO 

THOSE WHO THOUGHT OUR SPACE AGENCY COULD DO NO WRONG. NILE THE 

COI.IMISSION'S WORDS ARE STRONG AND ITS CRITICISM OF NASA IS BLUNT, I 

BELIEVE ITS FINDINGS WILL ULTIMATELY BE CONSTRUCTIVE IN NATURE, 

BECAUSE THE SCOPE OF THE COMMISSION'S MANDATE WAS LIMITED TO 

INVESTIGATING THE CAUSES OF THE ACCIDENT AND RELATED SAFETY ISSUES, IT 

NECESSARILY LEFT MANY BASIC POLICY QUESTIONS UNADDRESSED. IT IS NOW 

THIS COMMITTEE'S RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS THOSE BROADER ISSUES. 

IN THE WEEKS AND MONTHS AHEAD, WE WILL CALL ON NASA AND ITS 

CONTRACTORS TO FULLY RESPOND TO OUR QUESTIONS. WE MUST CONTINUE TO 

INVESTIGATE THIS ACCIDENT AND THE FULL RANGE OF OPERATIONAL, 

MANAGEMENT AND POLICY ISSUES IT RAISES. OUR WORK WILL NOT BE 

COMPLETED UNTIL WE ARE FULLY SATISFIED WITH THE ANSWERS WE GET. WE 

MUST CONTINUE TO PROBE UNTIL WE ARE SURE THAT THE CHAIN OF EVENTS 

WHICH LED TO THIS TRAGEDY WILL NEVER AGAIN BE REPEATED. 

CONTRACTORS AND OUTSIDE EXPERTS WILL ALL HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO AIR 

THEIR VIEWS. 

NASA, ITS 

AS A COMMITTEE, WE MUST CONDUCT OUR INVESTIGATIONS WITH AN OPEN MIND: 

OUR HEARINGS MUST BE HONEST, FRANK AND FAIR. BUT WE WILL DRAW OUR OWN 

INDEPENDENT CONCLUSIONS. SHOULD WE FIND EVIDENCE OF MISMANAGEMENT, 

POOR JUDGMENT OR EVEN NEGLIGENCE, WE MUST TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION. 

IN THE FUTURE, WE MUST NEVER AGAIN ALLOW THE PREVIOUS SUCCESSES OF OUR 

SPACE PROGRAY TO BREED OVERCONFIDENCE. AS A COMMITTEE, WE MAY HAVE 

BEEN TOO TRUSTING IN THE PAST WHEN NASA GAVE US GLOWING, OPTIMISTIC 
REPORTS ABOUT OUR SPACE PROGRAM, HINDSIGHT SUGGESTS THAT NASA's VIEW 

OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAM WAS NOT REALISTIC. 

THIS NATION CANNOT ABANDON ITS SPACE PROGRAM. THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT 

AND ITS AFTERMATH MARK A NEW BEGINNING, NOT AN END. IN THE PAST FOUR 

MONTHS, THIS NATION HAS LIVED THROUGH A VERY DIFFICULT TIME, THE TIME 

HAS NOW COME FOR ALL OF US TO PUT THE NATIONAL NIGHTMARE OF THE 

CHALLENGER BEHIND US. THE SEVEN BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN WHO REACHED FOR 

THE STARS AND--IN THE WORDS OF THE POEM--"TOUCHED THE FACE OF GOD" 

DESERVE NO LESS, 

THANK YOU. 
OPENING REMARKS OF 

REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT S. WALKER 

RANKING REPUBLICAN MEMBER 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE SCIENCE 

AND APPLICATIONS 

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 10, 1986 

Good morning, Mi-. Chairman. This morning marks a tragic 

day for the committee and for the nation. Just over four 

months ago the people of the world were shocked to see the 

space shuttle Challenger lost with her crew of seven gallant 

Amer icans. 

Today we begin the difficult duty of reviewing the work 

of the Rogers Commission to determine if we do, in fact, 

fully understand the cause of the Challenger accident. Once 

we satisfy ourselves that we understand exactly what 

happened, and why, then this committee will have to determine 

what our national policies will be in the wake of that 

disaster. 

I must say that it appears that the Rogers Commission 

has done an excellent job and has set a new standard for 

Presidential Commissions. Considering the complexity of the 

Space Transportation System it was a major accomplishment for 

this commission to move as rapidly as they did to conduct a 

major investigation which isolated the field joint of the 

right SRB as the sole cause of this accident. 

From a technical point of view I believe that we can be 

assured that the findings of the Commission are correct. I 

also fully support the recommendations of the Commission. 

Specifically, I fully endorse the recommendations to: 

* Redesign the field Joints; 

I Restructure management to be more responsive; 

* Review fully the Critical Items List; 

* Establish a meaningful safety organization; and 

+I Reduce the tremendous pressure on flight rates. 

Mr. Chairman, NASA is an agency that has given this 

nation some of or most remarkable technical achievements. I 

have great confidence that we can solve the problems that 

caused this tragic accident. As we learned last week at the 
10 

Kennedy Space Center, the technical solutions are ones that 

we can resolve without too much difficulty. It will take 

time and money to fully understand the mechanics of the SRB 

joints, and to design a joint that we will all have 

confidence in. But we can clearly meet that requirement. 

On the other hand, Mr. Chairman, it appears to me that 

some of the management difficulties that this commission has 

identified will take some time to resolve. Our Subcommittee 

on Space Science and Applications has already undertaken a 

major series of oversight hearings on some of these 

management issues. I am particularly concerned with the lack 

of an effective organization within the agency to guard 

safety, reliability and qualtiy assurance. There are 

indications other than the Challenger accident that lead me 

to believe that this is an area of major concern. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend Secretary Rogers, 

and the members of his commission, for a remarkable job which 

was accomplished under very trying circumstances. He has 

given us some clear guidelines which indicate the areas which 

we will have to concentrate on in the coming weeks. 
HON I F. JAWES SEWSEPSRENPIER, JP, 

F'JLL COllr?~ ITTEE YEAR I'JG 

JUNE 17, 1cQk 

THANK YOU, /!R. CHAIRMAIJ, FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE AEI 

OPEN1 NG STATEMENT. 

FIRST, I WELCOPIE p"P. ROGERS AND MEMBERS OF THE COMklSSlON WHO 

DILIGENTLY SERVED OUR COUPITRY IN THIS TlilE OF 'JPTIOI'AL TRAGEDY. 

THE COMM I SS I ON HAS SET A NEW STANDARD OF EXCELLEiJCE I N CONDUCT I NG 

TH I S COMPREHENS I VE I NVESTl GAT I ON OF THE CHALLENGER ACC I DENT I THE 

COMMISSION REPORT WAS PENETPATINS, CBJECTIVE, ACID CONCLUSIVE AS 

WELL AS PROMPTLY DELIVERED. 

I TH I NK THE COMMl SS I ON HAD THE P7OPEP OBJECT1 VE WHICH WAS TO 

PREVENT ANY RECURRENCE 'OF THE FA1 LURE RELATED TO TH I S ACC I DE'?T 

AND ALSO TO REDUCE OTHER RISKS IN FUTURE FLIGHTS, FPOV THESE 

FINDINGS, 1 HOPE WE LEARN FROM OUR YISTAKES AlID MOVE AHEAD TO OUP 

FAMILIAR POSITION AS THE WORLD'S LEADER IN SPACE, AS RONALD 

REAGAN SAID VHEN REFERR I NG TO THE CHALLENGER ACC I DENT "THE FUTURE 

IS NOT FREE: THE STORY OF ALL HUYAN PXXipESS IS ONE OF A STRUGGLE 

AGAINST ALL ODDS, !'JE LEARNED AGAIN THAT THIS AMERICA, NHICH 

ABRAHAM LI~ICOLV CALLED THE LAST, SEST HOPE OF MAN ON EARTH, MAS 

BUILT ON HERO1 SM AND NOBLE SACR IF ICE. IT 'JAS BU LT BY MEN AilD 

WOMEN LIKE OUR SEVEN STAR VOYAGERS, WHO ANSWERED A CALL BEYOND 

DUTY, WHO GAVE MORE THAN WAS EXPECTED OR REQUIRED AND WHO GAVE IT 
12 
OPEN I NG STATEKEtiT 

HON. SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R-ldY) 

HEliRlNG OEl THE REPORT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL COMRISSION ON THE 

CHALLENGER ACCIDENT 

JUNE 10, 1986 

FR. CHAIRMAN: 

1 WANT TO APPLAUD SECRETARY ROGERS AND THE ENTIRE COMMISSIOIJ 

FOR THEIR PAINSTAKING EFFORTS TO LINCOVER THE CAUSE OF THE 

CHALLENGER TRAGEDY. THE COMMISSION HAS QUITE DESERVEDLY WON THE 

ADMIRATION OF THE CONGRESS AND THE AWERICAN PEOPLE FOR ITS 

THOROUGHNESS, ITS INTELLIGENCE AND ITS INTEGRITY. THE 

COMM I S S I 0 N ' S 

FAITH IN THE 

THE COMM 

RECOHHENDATIONS, WHEN IMPLEMENTED, SHOULD RESTORE 

SPACE PROGRAFl AND PREVENT FUTURE LOSS OF LIFESSlON WAS SO EFFECTIVE PRECISELY BECAUSE IT AVOIDED 

THE FAULTS IT EXPOSED IN NASA. WHILE NASA HAD BECOME ALMOST 

CAVALIER ABOUT FACTS, THE COPlMISSlON PAID ATTENTION TO EVERY 

DETAIL. WHILE NASA HAD BEGUN TO SUBORDINATE SAFETY TO OTHER 

CONCERNS, TH€ COMMISSION MADE SAFETY THE FOCUS OF ITS INVESTIGATION. WHILE EJASA'S PROCEDURES HAD BECOHE COMPRESSED AND RUSHED, 

THE COMMISSION TOOK CARE TO BE THOROUGH AND DELIBERATE. AND 

WHILE NASA's INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS HAD BEGUN TO DETERIORATE, 

THE COMMISSION SET A STANDARD FOR RESPONSIBLE DEBATE. 
OUR COMMITTEE MUST ASPIRE TO MEET THE EXACTING STANDARDS 

EPITOMIZED BY THE ROGERS COMMISSION. WE MUST REVIEW IT FINDINGS 

FlILLY. WE MUST RESTORE FAITH IN AMERICA’S SPACE PROGRAM BY 

RESTORING ITS QUALITY AND ITS SAFETY. THAT WILL TAKE MORE THAN 

WORDS * 

1 LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH MY COLLEAGUES TO HEET THAT 

CHALLENGE. 
THE HONOKBLE TWi LEWIS 

STATEMENT 

HER I NG ON CHALLENGER INVEST I GAT I ON 

JUNE 10, 1986 

THE COMMISSION HAS FINISHED ITS WORK AND I BELIEVE IT IS NOW 

APPROPRIATE FOR CONGRESS TO REV I EW THE1 R F I NO I NGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 

1 WANT TO COMMEND CHAIRMAN FUQUA FOR HIS LEADERSHIP DURING THESE 

TRYING TIMES, THIS COMMITTEE HAS HAD MORE THAN A CASUAL INTEREST IN 

DETERMINING THE CAUSE OF THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT; HOWEVER, IT WAS 

IMPORTANT THAT THE COMM I SS I ON BE ALLOWED TO CONDUCT ITS I NVEST I GAT1 ON 

W I THOUT CONGRESS I ON4L INTERFERENCE. 

1 HAVE READ THE COMMISSION'S REPORT, AND IT APPEARS THAT THEY 

HAVE BEEN THOROUGH AND PROFESSIONAL IN THEIR INVESTIGATION OF THE 

ACCIDENT AND THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO IT. IT IS WITH GREAT SADNESS 

THAT I HAVE TO CONCLUDE THAT SERIOUS PROBLEMS EXISTED WITHIN NASA, AND 

THIS TERRIBLE TRAGEDY PROBABLY DID NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN. 

BUT BEFORE WE RUSH TO JUDGEMENT, I THINK WE ALSO NEED TO ASK 

OURSELVES WHAT PART WE PLAYED I N THIS TRAGEDY I AREN' T WE AT LEAST 

PARTLY RESPONSI BLE FOR HELP I NG TO CREATE THE ENV I RONMENT WHERE SERIOUS 

PROBLEMS SUCH AS THE FAULTY DESIGN OF THE SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER COULD 

BE OVERLOOKED ------ OR EVEN COVERED UP? 
I BELIEVE WE WERE LULLED INTO A SENSE OF OVERCONFIDENCE IN NASA's 

ABILITY TO ACCOMPLISH THE SPECTACULAR AND MAKE IT LOOK ROUTINE. NASA 

CREATED FOR ITSELF A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE THAT WE FOUND DIFFICULT 

TO CHALLENGE. PERHAPS WE WANTED TOO MUCH TO BEL I EVE I N NASA's 

INVINCIBILITY, OR PERHAPS WE FELT INCOMPETENT TO CRITIQUE OUR HEROES. 

WHATEVER THE REASONS, WE MUST ACCEPT PART OF THE RESPONSIBILITY AND 

RECOGNIZE THE NEED FOR A MORE CRITICAL OVERSIGHT ROLE IN THE FUTURE. 

THE LEADERSHIP OF DR. FLETCHER WILL BE TESTED MANY TIMES OVER THE 

COMING MONTHS, BUT I AM CONFIDENT HE WILL MEET THE CHALLENGE, 

I APPLAUD OUR CHAIRMAN'S POSITIVE SPIRIT IN CALLING FOR A NEW 

BEGINNING, AND I SHARE HIS CONFIDENCE THAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THIS 

TERRIBLE TRAGEDY AND BUILD AN EVEN STRONGER SPACE PROGRPM, TO DO LESS 

WOULD BE AN INSULT TO THOSE BRAVE ASTRONAUTS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR 

THIS PROGRPM. 
17 

OPENING REMARKS OF 

HONORABLE DON RITTECR 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 10, 1986 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I want to join my colleagues in 

welcoming Secretary Rogers and Mi-. Armstrong before the 

Committee today. I, too, believe that the Rogers Commission 

has done an excellent job in their investigation of the 

tragic loss of Challenger and her gallant crew. 

I believe that it is crucial that the White House and the 

Congress move quickly to resolve the issues raised by the 

Rogers Commission so that we may return to flight status as 

quickly as possible. 

A few days ago I had the pleasure of hearing Scott Carpenter, 

one of our original seven astronauts, who was speaking in my 

district. I was quite impressed with his memories of space 

flight and with his point that from space there are no 

national boundaries. I have heard that virtually all space 

voyagers return to our fragile spaceship Earth impressed with 

the concept that space is an area that needs to be peacefully 

opened to everyone for science and commercialization. 

The United States has built a solid international reputation 

as the world leader in manned space exploration. With the 

current situation in which we are temporarily unable to 

launch the shuttle for manned space flight, or either our Air 

Force Titan unmanned rocket, or NASA's highly dependable 

Delta unmanned rocket, we are in real danger of losing our 

international leadership position in space. 

I think that it is important that this committee act quickly 

to complete our review of the Rogers Commission report, and 

then to give NASA the direction it needs to return us to 

flight. Let us learn from the lessons of the past, and get 

on with the future. 
HONORABLE RON PACKARD 

OPENING STATEMENT ON THE 

CHALLENGER ACCIDENT 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

JUNE 10, 1986 

I COMMEND SECRETARY ROGERS AND THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE 

PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION INVESTIGATING THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT FOR 

THEIR DILIGENCE, THOROUGHNESS AND OBJECTIVITY. 

IN REVIEWING THE COMMISSION'S REPORT AND IN SPEAKING WITH 

NASA OFFICIALS, I AM STRUCK BY THE FEELING THAT THERE IS A 

SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE COMMISSION'S AND NASA's 

PERCEPTION OF THE TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT EVENTS THAT LED TO THE 

ACCIDENT. NASA's ATTITUDE DURING THE INVESTIGATION HAS CONVEYED 

THE MESSAGE THAT THE ACCIDENT WAS UNAVOIDABLE. I STRONGLY 

DISAGREE. I SUPPORT THE COMMISSION'S FINDING THAT THE CHALLENGER 

ACCIDENT WAS PREVENTABLE. I AM GRAVELY CONCERNED THAT NASA MAY 

NOT EVEN YET REALIZE THE SERIOUS MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS THAT HAVE 

DEVELOPED OVER THE YEARS AND PERMITTED SUCH AN ACCIDENT TO OCCUR. 

MY GREATEST FEAR IS WONDERING HOW MANY OTHER ACCIDENTS ARE 

WAITING TO HAPPEN: 

IN THE SAME WAY, CONTRACTORS WITHIN THE PROGRAM MUST BE HELD 

ACCOUNTABLE AND LEARN THE HARD LESSONS OF THE PAST FIVE MONTHS. 

IT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR US TO ESTABLISH CULPABILITY: WE MUST RESTORE 
THE FAITH THAT HAS BEEN LOST IN RECENT MONTHS BY CHANGING THE 

MANAGEMENT POLICY. 

IT IS NOW THIS COMMITTEE'S RESPONSIBILITY TO ASSESS THE 

COMMISSION'S FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, REVIEW THE ENTIRE 

NATIONAL SPACE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM, AND IMPLEMENT COMMISSION 

AND COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS TO ENSURE THAT NO MORE 

"PREVENTABLE" ACCIDENTS WILL OCCUR. FURTHER, THE COMMITTEE MUST 

BE MORE DILIGENT IN ITS OVERSIGHT. 

OUR MANNED SPACE PROGRAM HAS GREATLY BENEFITED THIS NATION 

AND THE WORLD. AS THIS COMMITTEE REVIEWS AND FURTHER 

INVESTIGATES THE ACCIDENT AND NASA, WE MUST NOT, IN OUR ZEAL TO 

REPRIMAND AND CORRECT PROBLEMS, DESTROY NASA. RATHER, WE MUST 

REPAIR AND RESTORE NASA TO THE GREAT ORGANIZATION THAT IT HAS 

BEEN AND IS CAPABLE OF BEING AGAIN. THE CONFIDENCE AND HIGH 

LEVEL OF SUPPORT FOR NASA AND THE SPACE PROGRAM BY THIS 

COMMITTEE, THE CONGRESS, AND THE NATION AT LARGE MUST BE 

RETAINED. 
20 

OPENING REMARKS OF REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT C. SMITH (N.H.-l) 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY HEARINGS ON THE REPORT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL 

CDMMISSION ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT 

JUNE 10. 1986 

The First Teacher chosen for Space Flight, Christa McAuliffe, is deeply 

missed in our home state of New Hampshire. 

hearings on the Challenger accident, I believe that there could be no finer 

tribute to the mory of Christa and her six fellow Challenger crew menbers 

than to rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of space flight. 

As we cmnce this series of 

We must find the problem, fix it and go on. Chairman Rogers and the 

Presidential Cannission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident have had a difficult, challenging task and they have done outstanding work. 

Cannission report is a critical, but fair, document. 

findings will prove of great assistance to this Cmittee as we determine 

how to fix serious safety and comnunications problems and continue with the 

Space Shuttle Program. 

As a relatively new member of the Space Science and Applications 

Subcomnittee, I am extremely concerned with the previous lack of testimony 

by NASA witnesses in subcomnittee hearings on problems of safety and the 

effect of budget constraints on this crucial aspect of the Shuttle Program. 

I want to see future Space Science and Applications Subcomnittee hearings 

prioritize improved safety oversight. 

Shuttle launches were not delayed voluntarily by NASA when the design of the 

Solid Rocket Motor joint was suspected as faulty, and the fact that, as members of the Cannittee which has jurisdiction over NASA, we were never made aware of this design deficiency by NASA. In addition, I am Stunned 

that this design concern might even .have failed to reach the appropriate 

NASA management officials. a restructuring of NASA's cmunication system. 

The Rogers 

Its clarity and 

Particularly disturbing is that 

If this is the case, then Congress must Oversee 

we must translate our attitude of concern for the lives and canplex 

hardware at risk every time we launch into real safety precautions and 

careful management decisions, or we might as well stay on the ground. 

greatest god which could come out of this and future Congressional 

oversight is to see that success in space does not again lead to compromises 

in safety. 

The 
21 

OPENMG CCMMENTS OF COIG2ESSMAN JOE BARTON 

SCIEKE AM) TB2HNOl.K" cCMUTzTIE HEARING 

REP3FT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL 03WISSIceJ ON ?HE CHALLENW ACCIDD?l' 

JUNE 10, 1985 

Mr. cham, I cd the wrk of Chairran Rogers and the other 

members of the Presidential Cdssion on the Space Shuttle Qlallenqer 

Accident. 

exploratian, the Presidential Carmission has pursued its mandate with hard 

mrk and determination. 

In the aftemth of the mrst disaster in the history of space 

All to3 often, cdssions and blue riiin panels which are established 

are paper organizations which e-t infrequently to approve work done by 

staff. 

actual working group utilizing the exceptional talents of its rmkership to 

discover the cause of the shuttle tragedy and rake recmmrdatians to prevent 

its recurrence. There is no doubt that the c-ssion has determined the 

cause of the explosion and mde a ndr of insightful recamendations to 

insure that this never rems aqain. 

Tnis camrission, under the leadership of Chaifian Rqers, has been an 

The findings and reccnurendatians of the Cdssion are an excellent 

stKtinq pint fran which to kqh efforts to solve the problem at NASA and 

the Shuttle program. 

area which deserves OUT greatest attention and efforts. 

astronauts in the design and mnagement of the shuttle programs is also a 

needed reform. The Apollo pngram was characterized by close cooperation 

tztween the enqineers ad the Astronaut office. 

me design of the Solid Rockerr Motor joint is an obvious 

Involving the 

It is no coincidence that the 
22 I 

Apollo prm ms a paragon of excellence which NASA muld do hell to emulate 

today. 

I muld like to see the Science and Tedinolqy Gmrittee address other 

issues as ws conduct OUT oversight hearings of the Rogers Ccmnission reprt. 

The first is the issue of NASA leadership. 

fran an organization focsused on research and development oriented towards 

slngle missions to an organization focused on operations and dbple 

missions. 

which nnrked its earlier days. 

It is clear that WISA has mved 

In doing so, it has failed to maintain the standards of excellence 

The Rcgffs Catunission has detected a pattern of tehavior at NASA that 

overlooked horn ptential safety problems. The list of canponents on the 

shuttle which uere assigned "Criticality 1" (that is canpnents With no backup 

whose failure would cause the loss of life or vehicle) is staggering. 

items are listed as Criticality 1: 

why the tragdy occurred, but why it did not mcur swner. 

748 

The question which axes to mnd is not 

One problem that has dogged WISA from the beginning of the shuttle 

program is that it was oversold,to Congress. 

shuttle flights, NASA estimated that they could eventually fly one shuttle 

flight a he&. 

The mst flights that NASA has ever flown in a 12 month prid, however, is 

nine. 

it is not surprising that there has keen tremendous pressure on NASA to 

increase the nw$er of flights to justify the tremendous investrent in the 

shuttle. 

At one point prior to beginning 

NASA later downgraded this eschte to two flights per mnth. 

Combined with cost figures which have been consistently underestimated, 

The multiple pressures on NASA - budgecay, scheduling, personnel, and / 
payload needs -will not decrease in the years ahead. For this reason, NASA 

needs strong and effective leadership kqiming at the top an3 extending dckvn 

through the en&e'or&zation. Ws type of leadership will help insure 

that NASA regains the excellence which was om the hallnark of the agency. 

Another mjor area of cmcern is the replacement for the shuttle. It is 

certain that we need a replamt for the orbiter. 

kfore this Camittee that "the taxpayer should pay for the next shuttle." 

cannot support this viewpoint. 

to finance the next shuttle. 

and private groups willing to work together to fund an3 build the next 

shuttle. 

tb-e to seriously address partial prints fhchg. 

Scme have testified 

I 

1 will be warking b discover innovative 

I hope that we can gather a coalition of plblic 

. 

With Nic tax dollars kecOming increasingly precious, row is the 

An additional issue is ht level of techolcgy to utilize in the new 

orbiter. Short tenn considerations would seem to dictate building a 

replacement orbiter identical in most respects to the existing three orbiters. 

However, it might k wise to enploy the next generation of technolcgy in a 

replacement orbiter. 

officials and other experts in the coming weeks. 

I look forward to discussing these concerns with NASA 

The shuttle tragedy has forever changed the way we perceive our space 

program. We can no longer not take our access to space for granted. 

critically review the space program and insure that a disaster such as this is 

never repeated. The American space prqran is essential for the future of 

this country. 

resting on the resqtion of space flight and a strong national space program. 

We must 

cklr national pride and mrld technological leadership are 
24 

The Chair wants to advise the members that our plan for the 

conduct of the hearings will be to hear from our distinguished witnesses today, this morning until noontime. We will reconvene tomorrow with representatives testifying from NASA. We will reconvene again on Thursday with Secretary Rogers and his associates 

coming back here, and we’ll reconvene again on Friday with NASA 

to follow up from there. That is the plan for the week, so you can 

plan your schedules accordingly. The Chair would like to again welcome Secretary Rogers and Mr. 

Armstrong, the vice chairman, to our hearings, and Dr. Keel, and 

again compliment you on the extraordinary work that you have 

done. 

And we defer directly to you, Mr. Secretary, for your opening 

statements and any comments you may wish to make. Mr. Secretary? 

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM P. ROGERS, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE “CHALLENGER” ACCIDENT, ACCOMPANIED BY NEIL A. ARMSTRONG, VICE 

CHAIRMAN 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. 

First, I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude and the 

gratitude of-- 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Secretary, could you please pull that microphone 

closer? It’s a little bit hard to hear. 

Mr. ROGERS. How’s that? 

Mr. ROE. That’s better. 

Mr. ROGERS. Is that OK now? 

Mr. ROE. Fine. Thank you. 

Mr. ROGERS. I’ll start again. I would like to express my gratitude and that of the Commission 

for your support and cooperation throughout this investigation. 

You have allowed the Commission the opportunity to proceed with 

its very important and very often difficult task without interference of any kind, and you deserve acknowledgment and recognition 

for doing so. 

As you know, from time to time I briefed the members of the 

committee about our work. I am pleased to say that those briefings 

were conducted in private session. All of the information that we 

conveyed was held by the committee. There were no leaks from the 

committee. And all of us appreciate the fact that you cooperated as 

you did. 

And we recognize that it’s now the right and the responsibility of 

Congress-and you see in our preface we point that out-to conduct the hearings that you deem appropriate. We fully support and 

welcome such hearings. 

I have a prepared statement here which in a sense is a summary 

of the recommendations in the report itself. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to read that statement. I’ll be glad to submit it for the 

record. I thought the committee should have it for the record, but I 

don’t think it’s necessary because it’s pretty much repetitious. 

Mr. ROE. With no objection, so agreed. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogers follows:] 
25 

Testimony of 

William P. Rogers 

Chairman, Presidential Commission on the 

Space Shuttle Challenger Accident 

on the 

Report to the President by the 

Presidential Commission 

before the 

House Committee on Science and Technology 

June 10, 1986 
26 

1 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude 

and appreciation to you and your Committee for your support and 

cooperation throughout the Commission investigation. 

the Commission the opportunity to proceed with its very 

important, and often difficult task, without interference of any 

kind. You deserve acknowledgment and recognition for doing so. 

The Commission recognizes that it's now the right and 

responsibility of Congress in its oversight role to conduct 

hearings as it deems appropriate. We fully support and welcome 

such hearings. 

I would like to begin; bfr. Chairman, by providing the Committee a 

sense of the scope of our investigation and a description of the 

Commission approach to the investigation as events unfolded. 

I will then give you a brief description of the accident and 

explanation of the cause as determined by the Commission. I will 

relate our findings regarding the launch decision process, and 

the history of concerns about the design and flight experience 

with the Solid Rocket Booster joints and O-ring seals. Finally, 

I will discuss Commission findings regarding the NASA safety 

organization, launch pressures on the system, and other future 

safety concerns -- including those brought to the Commission's 

attention by the Astronaut office. 

I will conclude with a summary of our recommendations to avoid a 

future recurrence of a tragedy such as the Challenger accident, 

and to return our nation to safe space flight. 

You allowed 

Scope of Investigation 

We believe the investigation and report is one of the most 

comprehensive and complete of its kind. 

-- Seventy witnesses testified before the full Commission, 

providing 2,800 pages of transcript. 

Commission panel sessions were conducted, yielding 

12,000 pages of transcript. 

Over 6,300 reports and documents were reviewed, 

totaling more than 122,000 pages. 

33 NASA Task Force Reports were prepared -- in part by 

Commission Panel members -- and submitted to the 

Commission for review and analysis. 

-- More than 160 individuals were interviewed and 46 

-- 

-- 

All materials relating to the investigation, including private 

correspondence, were documented, reviewed, and evaluated and made 
27 

2 

a part of the computerized data base. 

now become part of the permanent public record. 

The Commission Report is a complete and careful presentation of 

the facts revealed by the investigation and of the Commission 

findings and recommendations based on those facts. 

additional volumes of supporting information are being 

published: two volumes of supplemental reports, including the 

six NASA Team Reports; and two volumes of Commission Hearing 

Transcripts. 

Commission materials will 

Four 

Commi ss i on Activities 

*President Reagan, seeking to ensure a thorough and unbiased 

investigation of the Challenger accident, announced the formation 

of the Commission on February 3, 1986. 

President, contained in Executive Order 12546, required 

Commission members to: 

(1) Review the circumstances surrounding the accident to 

establish the probable cause or causes of the accident; and 

(2) Develop recommendations for corrective or other action based 

upon the Commission's findings and determinations. 

Following its swearing in on February 6, the Commission 

immediately began a series of hearings during which NASA 

officials outlined agency procedures covering the Shuttle program 

and the status of NASA's investigation of the accident. 

Shortly thereafter, on February 10, Dr. Alton G. Keel, Jr., 

Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget, was 

appointed Executive Director. Or. Keel began gathering a staff 

of 15 experienced investigators as well as administrative 

personnel from various government agencies and the military 

services. 

Eventually, 42 permanent staff personnel, including 

administrative and writing support were assembled. Over 100 

additional contract personnel were assembled to staff the 

Commission document control center -- to enter documents into the 

computer data base, and to assist Commissioners and staff in 

conducting computer searches of Commission documents. 

During a closed session on February 10, 1986, the Commission 

began to learn of the troubled history of the Solid Rocket Motor 

joints and seals. Moreover, it discovered the first indication 

that the contractor, Morton Thiokol, initially recomended 

against launch on January 27, 1986, the night before the launch 

of 51-L, because of concerns regarding low temperature effects on 

the joint and seal. To investigate this disturbing development, 

The mandate given by the 
28 

3 

additional closed sessions were scheduled for February 13 and 14 

at Kennedy. The February 13, 1986, session was an extensive 

presentation of film, video, and telemetry data relating to the 

Challenger accident. 

evidence that the Solid Rocket Motor joint and seal may have 

malfunctioned, initiating the accident. 

The session on February 14 included NASA and contractor 

participants involved in the discussion on January 27, 1986, not 

to launch 51-L. After testimony was received, an executive 

session of the Commission was convened. The following statement 

was subsequently issued on February 15, 1986, reflecting the 

conclusion and view of the Commission. 

It provided the Commission the first 

"In recent days, the Commission has been investigating all 

aspects of the decision making process leading up to the 

launch of the Challenger and has found that the process may 

have been flawed. The President has been so advised. 

"Dr. William Graham, Acting Administrator of NASA, has been 

asked not to include on the internal investigating teams at 

NASA, persons involved in that process. 

"The Commission will, of course, continue its investigation 

and will make a full report to the President within 120 

days. 'I 

The role of the Commissioners thus changed from that of overseers 

to that of active investigators and analysts of data presented by 

NASA and its contractors. 

By February 17, the Commission had divided itself into four 

investigative panels. 

Kennedy, and Thiokol to analyze data relating to the accident and 

to redirect efforts. NASA's investigation was also reorganized 

to reflect the structure of the Commission's panels. 

The Accident Analysis Panel, chaired by Major General Donald 

Kutyna, made several trips to both Kennedy and Marshall and 

traveled to Thiokol facilities in Utah to review photographic and 

telemetric evidence as well as the results of the salvage 

operation and to oversee the tests being conducted by NASA and 

Thiokol engineers. 

Early in March, at my request, this group assembled and directed 

the Conanission's independent team of six technical observers with 

extensive experience in Solid Rocket Motor technology and 

accident investigation to validate and interpret the tests and 

analyses performed on the Thiokol motor by NASA and Thiokol. 

Working groups were sent to Marshall, 
29 

4 

The Development and Production Panel, chaired by Joseph Sutter, 

centered its investigation on the production and testing 

activities of the Shuttle element contractors. 

The Pre-Launch Activities Panel, chaired by David Acheson, 

concentrated on activities at Kennedy where the Shuttle elements 

are assembled and all other final launch preparations are 

completed. 

The Mission Planning and Operations Panel, chaired by Or. Sally 

Ride, focused its efforts on mission planning and crew 

preparation for STS 51-L and on details of NASA's safety, 

reliability, and quality assurance programs. 

While the work of the individual panels and their investigative 

staffs was ongoing, the Commission's general investigative staff 

began a series of individual interviews to document fully the 

factual background of various areas of the Commission's interest, 

including the telecon between NASA and Thiokol officials the 

night before the launch; the history of joint design and O-ring 

problems; NASA safety, reliability and quality assurance 

functions; and the assembly of the right Solid Rocket Booster for 

STS 51-L. Subsequent investigative efforts by this group were 

directed in the area of the effectiveness of NASA's 

organizational structure, particularly the Shuttle program 

structure, and allegations that there had been external pressure 

on NASA to launch on January 28th. 

In addition to the work of the Commission and the Commission 

staff, NASA personnel expended a vast effort in the 

investigation. More than 1,300 employees from all NASA 

facilities were involved and were supported by more than 1,600 

people from other government agencies and over 3,100 from NASA's 

contractor organizations. Particularly significant were the 

activities of the military, the Coast Guard and the National 

Transportation Safety Board in the salvage and analysis of the 

Shuttle wreckage. 

Description of the Accident. 

Based on film, video and telemetry data, the Commission 

determined that the sequence of events leading to the accident 

was as follows: 

-- Liftoff began with the ignition of the.Solid Rocket 

Boosters, (6.6 seconds after ignition of the Space Shuttle 

Main Engines). 

At .678 seconds after liftoff, the first puff of smoke was 

observed emanating from the right Solid Rocket Booster in 

-- 

64-295 0 - 86 - 2 
5 

the vicinity of the aft field joint between the booster and the 

External Tank, near the External Tank attach strut. 

By 2.5 seconds after liftoff the generation of the smoke 

stopped. 

During the ascent -- beginning at about 37 seconds and 

lasting until about 64 seconds -- heavy wind shears were 

encountered that, although not producing excessive loads, 

did provide a "bumpy ride" that could have had an effect on 

an already damaged system; namely, the seal in the aft field 

joint. 

Everything looked normal until about 59 seconds after 

liftoff. 

booster in the area where smoke had been seen before. 

The flame and hot gas plume grew in size during the next 14 

to 15 seconds. It was impinging on the aft (hydrogen tank 

portion) of the External Tank close to where the tank is 

connected to the Solid Rocket Booster. 

At about 64 to 65 seconds the structural integrity of the 

External Tank was breached and hydrogen began leaking from 

the aft region near a welded seam. 

Beginning at about 72 seconds, a rapid sequence of events 

began. The heat and flame weakened connection (strut) to 

the lower part of the External Tank failed. At about 73 

seconds, the bottom portion of the External Tank (hydrogen 

tank) failed. 

Failure of the bottom of the External Tank caused the 

pressurized liquid hydrogen to be released rapidly, which in 

turn propelled the hydrogen tank, with about 2.8 million 

pounds of force, into the intertank area (between hydrogen 

and oxygen tanks), and probably into the bottom of the 

oxygen tank (upper portion of External Tank). 

At about the same time, the forward part of the booster 

(frustum) impacted with the forward part of the External 

Tank, which contained the oxygen tank. Failure of the aft 

booster attachment strut had allowed the bottom part of the 

booster to move away from the External Tank, rotating about 

its forward attachment point. 

This nearly instantaneous mixing of hydrogen and oxygen, in 

an envirorinient of sparks produced when ,the hydrogen tank was 

propelled into the intertank area, caused a fire, or nearly 

explosive burning of these propellants. The Orbiter, under 

About nine puffs of smoke had been generated. 

At this time flame started coming out of the right 
31 

6 

severe aerodynamic loads, broke into pieces within fractions 

of a second. 

The Shuttle was going at nearly twice the speed of sound (Mach 

1.92) and was passing through 46,000 feet of altitude. 

were no alarms sounded in the cockpit. 

no indication of a problem before the rapid break-up of the Space 

Shuttle system. The first evidence of an accident came from live 

video coverage. Radar then began to track multiple objects. The 

flight dynamics officer in Houston confirmed to the flight 

director that 'IRSO (range safety officer) reports vehicle 

exploded," and 30 seconds later he added that the range safety 

officer had sent the destruct signal to the Solid Rocket 

Boosters. 

Boosters are thrusting, there are no survivable abort options. 

There was nothing that either the crew or the ground controllers 

could have done to avert the catastrophe. 

There 

The crew apparently had 

During the period of flight when the Solid Rocket 

Cause of the Accident 

The consensus of the Commission and participating investigative 

agencies is that the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger was 

caused by a failure in the joint between the two lower segments 

of the right Solid Rocket Motor. 

destruction of the seals that are intended to prevent hot gases 

from leaking through the joint during the propellant burn of the 

rocket motor. The evidence assembled by the Commission indicates 

that no other element of the Space Shuttle system contributed to 

this failure. 

The specific failure was the 

In arriving at this conclusion, the Commission reviewed in detail 

all available data, reports, and records; directed and supervised 

numerous tests, analyses, and experiments by NASA, civilian 

contractors and various government agencies; and then developed 

specific failure scenarios and the range of most probable 

causative factors. 

Throughout the investigation three critical questions were 

central to the inquiry, namely: 

-- What were the circumstances surrounding mission 51-L that 

contributed to the catastrophic termination of that flight 

in contrast to 24 successful flights preceding it? 

What evidence pointed to the right Solid Rocket Booster as 

the source of the acc-ident as opposed to other elements of 

the Space Shuttle? 

Finally, what was the mechanism of failure? 

-- 

-- 
32 

7 

Using mission data, subsequently completed tests and analyses, 

and recovered wreckage, the Commission identified all possible 

faults that could originate in the respective flight elements of 

the Space Shuttle which might have the potential to lead to loss 

of the Challenger. Potential contributors to the accident 

examined by the Commission were the launch pad, the External 

Tank, the Space Shuttle Main Engines, the Orbiter and related 

equipment, payload/Orbiter interfaces, the payload, the Solid 

Rocket Boosters and Solid Rocket Motors. 

In a parallel effort, the question of sabotage was examined in 

detail and reviewed by the Commission in executive session. 

There is no evidence of sabotage, either at the launch pad or 

during other processes prior to or during launch. 

As the investigation progressed, elements assessed as being 

improbable contributors to the accident were eliminated from 

further consideration. 

to the right Solid Rocket Motor. 

to the functioning of that motor received detailed analysis: 

-- Structural Loads -- Failure of the Case Wall (Case Membrane) 

-- Propellant Anomalies 

-- Loss of the Pressure Seal at the Case Joint 

Through analysis, supporting data based on the investigation and 

tests, the Commission concluded that structural loads at launch 

or during flight, that flaws in the case membrane, or propellant 

anomalies were not the cause of the accident. 

In contrast, joint seal failure was suspect. Enhanced 

photographic and computer-graphic positioning determined that the 

flame from the right Solid Rocket Booster near the aft field 

joint emanated at about the 305-degree circumferential 

position. The smoke at lift off appeared in the same general 

location. Thus, early in the investigation, the right Solid 

Rocket Booster aft field joint seal became the prime failure 

suspect. This supposition was confirmed when the Salvage Team 

recovered portions of both sides of the aft joint containing 

large holes extending from 291 degrees to 318 degrees. 

Based on extensive tests and analyses, the investigation has 

shown that the joint sealing performance is sensitive to the 

following factors: 

(a) 

(b) 

This process of elimination brought focus 

As a result, four areas related 

Damage to the joints/seals or generation of contaminants as 

joints are assembled. 

Tang/clevis gap opening due to motor pressure and other 

loads. 
33 

8 

(c) Static O-ring compression. 

(d) Joint temperature as it affects O-ring response and hardness 

and formation of ice in the joint. 

(e) Use of putty as a thermal barrier as it relates to O-ring 

pressure actuation timing and O-ring erosion. 

The Commission concluded that the joint/seal design was faulty, 

and overly sensitive to the above factors, and that as a 

consequence the joint malfunctioned, initiating the Challenger 

accident. In summary, the specific findings of the Commission 

with aspect to the cause of the accident are as follows: 

A combustion gas leak through the right Solid Rocket Motor 

aft field joint initiated at or shortly after ignition 

eventually weakened and/or penetrated the External Tank 

initiating vehicle structural breakup and loss of the Space 

Shuttle Challenger during STS Mission 51-L. 

The evidence shows that no other STS 51-L Shuttle element or 

the payload contributed to the causes of the right Solid 

Rocket Motor aft field joint combustion gas leak. Sabotage 

was not a factor. 

Launch site records show that the right Solid Rocket Motor 

segments were assembled using approved procedures. 

significant out-of-round conditions existed between the two 

segments joined at the right Solid Rocket Motor aft field 

joint. 

The ambient temperature at time of launch was 36 degrees 

Fahrenheit, or 15 degrees lower than the next coldest 

previous launch. 

temperature was 28 degrees or 25 degrees colder than any 

previous launch. 

Experimental evidence indicates that due to several effects 

associated with the Solid Rocket Booster's ignition and 

combustion pressures and associated vehicle motions, the gap 

between the tang and the clevis will open as much as .017 

and .029 inches at the secondary and primary O-rings, 

respectively. 

A compressed O-ring at 75 degrees Fahrenheit is five times 

more responsive in returning to its uncompressed shape than 

a cold O-ring at 30 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, it is 

probable that the O-rings in the right solid booster aft 

field joint were not following the opening of the gap 

between the tang and clevis at time of ignition. 

However, 

The calculated joint and O-ring 
34 

9 

Experiments indicate that the primary mechanism that 

actuates O-ring sealing is the application of gas pressure 

to the upstream (high pressure) side of the O-ring as it 

sits in its groove or channel. A tang-to-clevis gap of .004 

inches, as probably existed in the failed joint, would have 

initially compressed the O-ring to the degree that no 

clearance existed between the O-ring and the walls and 

bottom surface of the channel. At the cold launch 

temperature experienced, the O-ring would be very slow in 

returning to its normal rounded shape and it would remain in 

its compressed position in the O-ring channel unable to 

follow the gap opening. Thus, it is probable the O-ring 

would not be pressure actuated to seal the gap in time to 

preclude joint failure, resulting from blow-by and O-ring 

erosion from hot combustion gases. 

Experimental evidence indicates that temperature, humidity, 

and other variables in the putty compound used to seal the 

joint can delay pressure application to the joint by 500 

milliseconds or more. 

Of 20 launches with calculated joint temperatures of 66 

degrees Fahrenheit or greater, only three showed signs of 0- 

ring thermal distress; i.e., erosion or blow-by and soot. 

Each of the four launches with joint temperature at 63 

degrees or below resulted in one or more O-rings showing 

signs of thermal distress. 

the joint would freeze. 

can inhibit proper secondary seal performance. 

grown to breach the joint in flame at a time on the order of 

58 to 60 seconds after lift off. Alternatively, the O-ring 

gap could have been resealed by deposition of a fragile 

buildup of aluminum oxide and other combustion debris. This 

resealed section of the joint could have been disturbed by 

thrust vectoring, Space Shuttle motion and flight loads 

induced by changing winds aloft. 

At time of launch, it was cold enough that water present in 

Tests show that ice in the joint 

A small leak could have persisted throughout the flight and 

In conclusion, in view of the findings, the Commission concluded 

that the cause of the Challenger accident was the failure of the 

pressure seal in the aft field joint of the right Solid Rocket 

Motor. 

sensitive to a number of factors. These factors were the effects 

of temperature, physical dimensions, the character of materials, 

the effects of reusability, processing, and the reaction of the 

joint to dynamic loading. 

The failure was due to a faulty design unacceptably 
10 

Contributing Cause: Flawed Decision Process 

In addition to analyzing all available evidence concerning the 

material causes of the accident on January 28, the Commission 

examined the chain of decisions that culminated in approval of 

the launch. It concluded that the decision to launch the 

Challenger was flawed. 

of the recent history of problems concerning the O-rings and the 

joint and were unaware of the initial written recommendation of 

the contractor advising against the launch at temperature below 

53 degrees Fahrenheit and the continuing opposition of the 

engineers at Thiokol after the management reversed its 

position. They did not have a clear understanding of Rockwell's 

concern that it was not safe to launch because of ice on the 

pad. If the decision makers had known all of the facts, it is 

highly unlikely that they would have decided to launch 51-L on 

January 28, 1986. 

Commission testimony reveals failures in communication that 

resulted in a decision to launch 51-L based on incomplete and 

sometimes misleading information, a conflict between engineering 

data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure 

that permitted internal flight safety problems to bypass key 

Shuttle managers. 

Specifically, the launch decision makers for flight 51-L were not 

made aware of the lengthy discussion during teleconferences of 

the concerns of Thiokol engineers relative to the effects of the 

cold temperatures predicted for launch on the ability of the 

O-rings in the Solid Rocket Motor joints to respond rapidly 

enough to seal the joints. They were unaware that Thiokol, 

including management officials, originally recommended not to 

launch and then, when pressed by NASA, that Thiokol management 

reassessed and recommended to launch. 

The Commission consquently concluded that the launch decision 

process was seriously flawed. Had the concerns of most Thiokol 

engineers, and some Marshall engineers, been conveyed to launch 

decision makers, it seems likely that the launch of 51-L might 

not have occurred when it did. 

The Commission is troubled by what appears to be a propensity of 

management at Marshal 1 to contain potentially serious problems 

and to attempt to resolve them internally rather than communicate 

them forward. This tendency is altogether at odds with the need 

for Marshall to function as part of a system working toward 

successful flight missions, interfacing and communicating with 

the other parts of the system that work to the same end. 

Those who made that decision were unaware 
36 

11 

The Commission also concluded that the Thiokol Management 

reversed its position and recommended the launch of 51-L, at the 

urging of Marshall and contrary to the views of its engineers in 

order to accommodate a major customer. 

Also, the investigation revealed that although the freeze 

protection plan for the launch pad was "implemented," the water 

system was not drained because of the imminent launch of 51-L. 

In order to prevent pipes from freezing, a decision was made to 

allow water to run slowly from the system. This had never been 

done before, and the combination of freezing temperatures and 

stiff winds caused large amounts of ice to form below the 240- 

foot level of the fixed service structure, including the access 

to the crew emergency egress slide wire baskets. 

These conditions were first identified by the Ice Team at 

approximately 2:00 a.m. on January 28 and were assessed by 

management and engineering throughout the night, culminating with 

a Mission Management Team meeting at 9:00 a.m. 

representatives for the Orbiter prime contractor, Rockwell 

International, expressed their concern about what effects the ice 

might have on the Orbiter during launch. 

The decision was made to launch pending a final ice team review 

of the launch complex in order to assess any changes in the 

situation. This inspection was completed following the Mission 

Management Team meeting and the ice team report indicated no 

significant change. 

An analysis of all the testimony and interviews establishes that 

Rockwell's recommendation to launch at the 9:00 A.M. meeting was 

ambiguous. 

conclude that there was a no-launch recommendation. 

The Commission is concerned, however, about the NASA response to 

the Rockwell position. While it is understood that decisions 

have to be made in launching a Shuttle, the Commission is not 

convinced Levels I and I1 appropriately considered Rockwell's 

concern about the ice. However ambiguous Rockwell's position 

was, it is clear that they did tell NASA that the ice was an 

unknown condition. Given the extent of the ice on the pad, the 

Commission finds the decision to launch questionable under those 

circumstances. In this situation, NASA appeared to be requiring 

a contractor to prove that it was not safe to launch, rather than 

proving it was safe. 

At this meeting, 

The Commission finds it difficult, as did NASA, to 

An Accident Rooted in History: 

A Faulty Design and Ignored Warnings 

The Space Shuttle's Solid Rocket Booster problem began with the 

faulty design of its joint and increased as both NASA and 
37 

12 

contractor management first failed 

then failed to fix it, and finally 

flight risk. 

to recognize it as a problem, 

treated it as an acceptable 

Morton Thiokol, Inc., the contractor, did not accept the 

implication of tests early in the program that the design had a 

serious and unanticipated flaw. NASA did not accept the judgment 

of its engineers that the design was unacceptable, and as the 

joint problems grew in number and severity NASA minimized them in 

management briefings and reports. Thiokol's stated position was 

that "the condition is not desirable but is acceptable." 

Neither Thiokol nor NASA expected the rubber O-rings sealing the 

joints to be touched by hot gases of motor ignition, much less to 

be partially burned. However, as tests and then flights 

confirmed damage to the sealing rings, the reaction by both NASA 

and Thiokol was to increase the amount of damage considered 

"acceptable." At no time did management either recommend a 

redesign of the joint or call for the Shuttle's grounding until 

the problem was solved. 

The Commission's review of the Marshall and Thiokol documentary 

presentations at the various Flight Readiness Reviews prior to 

Shuttle flights revealed several significant trends. First, 0- 

ring erosion was not considered a problem early in the program 

when it first occurred. 

after STS 41-8, the initial analysis of the problem did not 

produce much research; instead, there was an early acceptance of 

the phenomenon. Third, because of a belief that in-flight O-ring 

erosion was "within the data base" of prior experience, later 

Flight Readiness Reviews gave a cursory review and often 

dismissed the recurring erosion as within "acceptable" or 

"allowable" limits. Fourth, both Thiokol and Marshall continued 

to rely on the redundancy of the secondary O-ring long after NASA 

had officially declared that the seal was a non-redundant single 

point failure. Finally, in 1985 when temperature became a major 

concern after STS 51-C and when the launch constraint was applied 

after 51-8, NASA Levels I and I1 were not informed of these 

developments in the Flight Readiness Review process. 

The Commission concluded that the genesis of the Challenger 

accident -- the failure of the joint of the right Solid Rocket 

Motor -- began with decisions made in the design of the joint and 

in the failure by both Thiokol and NASA's Solid Rocket Booster 

project office to understand and respond to facts obtained during 

testing . The Commission also concluded that neither Thiokol nor NASA 

responded adequately to internal warnings about the faulty seal 

Second, when the problem grew worse 
38 

13 

design. Furthermore, Thiokol and NASA did not make a timely 

attempt to develop and verify a new seal after the initial design 

was shown to be deficient. Neither organization developed a 

solution to the unexpected occurrences of O-ring erosion and 

blow-by even though this problem was experienced frequently 

during the Shuttle flight history. Instead, Thiokol and NASA 

management came to accept erosion and blow-by as unavoidable and 

an acceptable flight risk. 

found that: 

Specifically, the Commission has 

The joint test and certification program was inadequate. 

Prior to the accident, neither NASA nor Thiokol fully 

understood the mechanism by which the joint sealing action 

took place. 

NASA and Thiokol accepted escalating risk as they began to 

consider flight "anomalies" as part of their "data base." 

The O-ring erosion history presented to Level I at NASA 

Headquarters in August 1985 was sufficiently detailed to 

require corrective action prior to the next flight. 

A careful analysis of the flight history of O-ring 

performance would have revealed the correlation of O-ring 

damage and low temperature. 

The Silent Safety Program 

The Commission was surprised to realize after many hours of 

testimony that NASA's safety staff or safety organization was 

never mentioned. 

of the reliability engineers, and none expressed the satisfaction 

or dissatisfaction of the quality assurance staff. 

thought to invite a safety representative or a reliability and 

quality assurance engineer to the January 27, 1986, 

teleconference between Marshall and Thiokol. Similarly, there 

was no representative of safety on the Mission Management Team 

that made key decisions during the countdown on January 28, 1986. 

The unrelenting pressure to meet the demands of an accelerating 

flight schedule might have been adequately handled by NASA if it 

had insisted upon the exactingly thorough procedures that were 

its hallmark during the Apollo program. 

redundant safety program comprising interdependent safety, 

reliability and quality assurance functions existed during and 

after the lunar program to discover any potential safety 

programs. Between that period and 1986, however, the program 

became ineffective. 

degraded the checks and balances essential for maintaining flight 

safety. 

No witness related the approval or disapproval 

No one 

An extensive and 

This loss of effectiveness seriously 
14 

On April 3, 1986, Arnold Aldrich, the Space Shuttle program 

manager, appeared before the Commission at a public hearing in 

Washington, D.C. He described five different communication or 

organization failures that affected the launch decision on 

January 28, 1986. Four of those failures relate directly to 

faults within the safety program. 

program reporting requirements, inadequate trend analysis, 

misrepresentation of criticality and lack of involvement in 

critical discussions. A properly staffed, supported, and robust 

safety organization might well have avoided these faults and thus 

eliminated those communication failures. 

NASA has a safety program intended to ensure that the 

communication failures to which Mr. Aldrich referred do not 

occur. 

Relative to the safety function, the Commission found that 

reductions in the safety, reliability and quality assurance work 

force at Marshall and NASA Headquarters have seriously limited 

capability in those vital functions. The independence of the 

safety organizations at Kennedy and Marshall is compromised, 

since those organizations are under the supervision of the very 

organization and activities whose efforts they are to check. 

These faults include a lack of 

In the case of mission 51-L, that program fell short. 

Pressures on the System 

With the 1982 completion of the orbital flight test series, NASA 

began a planned acceleration of the Space Shuttle latinch 

schedule. One early plan contemplated an eventual rate of a 

mission a week, but realism forced several downward revisions. 

In 1985, NASA published a projection calling for an annual rate 

of 24 flights by 1990. Long before the Challenger accident, 

however, it was becoming obvious that even the modified goal of 

two flights a month was overambitious. 

In establishing the schedule, NASA had not provided adequate 

resources for its attainment. As a result, the capabilities of 

the system were strained by the modest nine-mission rate of 1985, 

and the evidence suggests that NASA would not have been able to 

accomplish the 15 flights scheduled for 1986. 

One effect of NASA's accelerated flight rate and the agency's 

determination to meet it was the dilution of the human and 

material resources that could be applied to any particular 

flight. The part of the system responsible for turning the 

mission requirements and objectives into flight software, flight 

trajectory information and crew training materials was struggling 

to keep up with the flight rate in late 1985, and forecazts 

showed it would be unable to meet its milestones for 1986. With 

respect to the flight rate pressures the Commission found: 
40 

15 

The capabilities of the system were stretched to the limit 

to support the flight rate in the winter of 1985/1986. 

The Shuttle program made a conscious decision to postpone 

spare parts procurements in favor of budget items of 

perceived higher priority. 

have limited flight operations in 1986. 

Stated cargo and crew manifest policies are not enforced. 

Numerous late manifest changes have been made to both major 

payloads and minor payloads, and in payload specialists, 

throughout the Shuttle program. 

Lack of spare parts would likely 

Outside Pressure to Launch 

After the accident, rumors appeared in the press to the effect 

that persons who made the decision to launch mission 51-L might 

have been subjected to outside pressure to launch. Such rumors 

concerning unnamed persons, emanating from anonymous sources 

about events that may never have happened, are difficult to 

disprove and dispel. 

hearings all persons who played key roles in that decision were 

questioned. Each one attested, under oath, that there had been 

no outside intervention or pressure of any kind leading up to the 

1 aunc h . One rumor was that plans had been made to have a live 

communication hookup with the 51-L crew during the State of the 

Union Message. Commission investigators interviewed all of the 

persons who would have been involved in a hookup if one had been 

planned, and all stated unequivocally that there was no such 

plan. 

The Commission thus concluded that the decision to launch the 

Challenger was made solely by the appropriate NASA officials 

without any outside intervention or pressure. 

Nonetheless, during the Commission's 

Other Safety Considerations 

In the course of its investigation, the Commission became aware 

of a number of matters that played no part in the mission 51-L 

accident but nonetheless hold a potential for safety problems in 

the future. 

Some of these matters, those involving operational concerns, were 

brought directly to the Conmission's attention by the NASA 

astronaut office. They were the subject of a special hearing. 

Other areas of concern came to light as the Commission pursued 

various lines of investigation in its attempt to isolate the 

cause of the accident. These inquiries examined such aspects as 
41 

16 

the development and operation of each of the elements of the 

Space Shuttle - the Orbiter, its main engines and the External 

Tank; the procedures employed in the processing and assembly of 

51-L, and launch damage. 

The Commission examined potential risks in two general areas. 

The first embraced critical aspects of a Shuttle flight; for 

example, considerations related to a possible premature mission 

termination during the ascent phase and the risk factors 

connected with the demanding approach and landing phase. 

other focused on testing, processing and assembling the various 

elements of the Shuttle. 

Ascent: A Critical Phase. The events of flight 51-L 

dramatically illustrated the dangers of the first stage of a 

Space Shuttle ascent. 

issues of Orbiter abort capabilities and crew escape. 

particular concern to the Commission were the current abort 

capabilities, options to improve those capabilities, options for 

crew escape and the performance of the range safety system. 

It was not the Commission's intent to second-guess the Space 

Shuttle design or try to depict escape provisions that might have 

saved the 51-L crew. In fact, the events that led to destruction 

of the Challenger progressed very rapidly and without warning. 

Under those circumstances, the Commission believes it is highly 

unlikely that any of the systems discussed, or any combination of 

those systems, would have saved the Challenger crew. 

The Space Shuttle System was not designed to survive a failure of 

the Solid Rocket Boosters. There are no corrective actions that 

can be taken if the boosters do not operate properly after 

ignition; i.e., there is no ability to separate an Orbiter safely 

from thrusting boosters and no ability for the crew to escape the 

vehicle during first-stage ascent. Neither the Mission Control 

Team nor the 51-L crew had any warning of impending disaster. 

Even if there had been warning, there were no actions available 

to the crew or the Mission Control Team to avert the disaster. 

Nevertheless, the Commission did conclude that other escape 

systems and abort options should receive intensive review and 

made specific recommendations in this regard. 

Landing: Another Critical Phase. The consequences of faulty 

performance in any dynamic and demanding flight environment can 

be catastrophic. 

insufficient safety margin may have existed in areas other than 

Shuttle ascent. Entry and landing of the Shuttle are dynamic and 

demanding with all the risks and complications inhernnt in flying 

a heavyweight glider with a very steep glide path. 

Shuttle crew cannot divert to any alternate landing site after 

The 

The accident also focused attention on the 

Of 

The Commission was concerned that an 

Since the 
42 

17 

entry, the landing decision must be both timely and accurate. 

addition, the landing gear, which includes wheels, tires and 

brakes, must function properly. 

These considerations were examined by the Commission for both 

normal and abort landings. It found that although there are 

valid programmatic reasons to land routinely at Kennedy, there 

are concerns that suggest that this is not wise under the present 

circumstances. For example, the realities of weather cannot be 

ignored. With the capabilities of the system today, the Shuttle 

cannot afford to operate outside its experience in the areas of 

tires, brakes, and weather. Pending a clear understanding of all 

landing and deceleration systems, and a resolution of the 

problems encountered to date in Shuttle landings, the most 

conservative course must be followed in order to minimize risk 

during this dynamic phase of flight. 

The Commission, therefore, made specific recommendations to 

restrict Shuttle landings and improve Shuttle landing systems. 

Shuttle Elements. The Space Shuttle Main Engine teams at 

Marshall and Rocketdyne have developed engines that have achieved 

their performance goals and have performed extremely well. 

Nevertheless, the main engines continue to be highly complex and 

critical components of the Shuttle that involve an element of 

risk principally because important components degrade more 

rapidly with flight use than anticipated. 

Rocketdyne have taken steps to contain that risk. An important 

aspect of the main engine program has been the extensive "hot 

fire" ground test program. Unfortunately, the vitality of the 

test program has been reduced because of budgetary constraints. 

The number of engine test firings per month has decreased over 

the past two years. 

demonstrated the limits of engine operation parameters or 

included tests over the full operating envelope to show full 

engine capability. In addition, tests have not yet been 

deliberately conducted to the point of failure to determine 

actual engine operating margins. 

The Orbiter has also performed well. There is, however, one 

serious potential failure mode related to the disconnect valves 

between the Orbiter and the External Tank. The present design 

includes two 17-Inch diameter valves, one controlling the oxygen 

flow, and the other the hydrogen flow from the tank to the 

Orbiter's three engines. An inadvertent closure during normal 

engine operation would cause a catastrophe due to rupture of the 

supply line and/or tank. New designs are under study, 

incorporating modifications to x-event inadvertant valve 

closures. Redesigned valves could be qualified, certified and 

available for use on the Shuttle's next flight. 

In 

Both NASA and 

Yet this test program has not yet 
43 

18 

Processinq and Assembly. During the processing and assembly of 

the elements of flight 51-L, various problems were seen in the 

Commission's review which could bear on the safety of future 

flights. 

During the 51-L processing, waivers were granted on 60 of 146 

required Orbiter structural inspections. Seven of these waivers 

were second-time waivers of inspections. 

Furthermore, throughout the Commission's review of the accident, 

a large number of errors were noted in the paperwork for the 

Space Shuttle Main Engine/Main Propulsion System and for the 

Orbiter. The review showed, however, that in the vast majority 

OF cases the problem lay in the documentation itself and not in 

the work that was actually accomplished. The review led the 

Commission to conclude that the Operations and Maintenance 

Instructions are in need of an overall review and update, and the 

implementation of Operations and Maintenance Instructions needs 

to be improved. 

At the time of launch, all items called for by the Operational 

Maintenance Requirements and Specifications Document were to have 

been met, waived or excepted. 

areas where such requirements were not met and were not formally 

waived or excepted. 

Another aspect of the processing activities that warrants 

particular attentlon is the Shuttle Processing Contractor's 

policy of using "designated verifiers" to supplement the NASA 

qual i ty assurance force. 

assurance personnel now inspect only areas that are considered 

more critical. 

maintained through several programs is declining in 

effectiveness. 

evaluation by NASA. 

Final ly , technicians interviewed by Commission investigators said 

that accidental damage is not consistently reported, when it 

occurs, because of lack of confidence in management's forgiveness 

policy and the technicians' consequent fear of losing their 

jobs. 

uncorrected. 

Development Nature of Program. The Space Shuttle program, like 

its predecessors Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and ApolloSoyuz, is clearly a developmental program and must be treated as 

such by NASA. Indeed, the chief differences between the Shuttle 

and previous developmental programs are that the Shuttle is 

principally a transportation system and employs reusable 

hardware. 

logistics support, maintenance, refurbishment, component lifetime 

The 51-L audit review revealed 

Due to reduced manpower, NASA qual i ty 

Thus the system of independent checks that NASA 

The effect of this change requires careful 

This situation has obvious severe implications if left 

Reusability implies a new set of functions such as 
44 

19 

evaluation and structural inspections that must be accomplished 

by the program. 

In order to enhance post-flight "turnaround" schedule and 

efficiency, NASA is striving to implement processing procedures 

accepted by the transportation industry. While this effort is 

useful, there is not an exact industry analogy to the Orbiter 

vehicles' flight operations, because each successive Shuttle 

mission expands system and performance requirements. 

Consequently, the Shuttle configuration is evolving as design 

changes and improvements are incorporated. These developmental 

aspects make significant demands, which can be met only by the 

following strategies: 

-- Maintain a significant engineering design and development 

capability among the Shuttle contractors and an ongoing 

engineering capability within NASA. 

evolving capabilities of the Shuttle can be matched to the 

demands on the Shuttle. 

-- Maintain an active analytical capability so that the 

In short, the Shuttle's developmental status demands that both 

NASA and all its contractors maintain a high level of in-house 

experience and technical ability. 

Recommendations 

The Commission conducted an extensive investigation of the 

Challenger accident to determine the probable cause and necessary 

corrective actions. 

its investigation , the Commission unanimously adopted 

recommendations to help assure the return to safe flight. 

Based on the findings and determinations of 

Recommendation One 

Design. 

changed. This could be a new design eliminating the joint or a 

redesign of the current joint and seal. 

established specific criteria for evaluation, certification and 

testing of the new design. 

Independent Oversight. 

the National Research Council to form an independent Solid Rocket 

Motor design oversight committee to implement the Commission's 

design recommendations and oversee the design effort. 

The faulty Solid Rocket Motor joint and seal must be 

The Commission 

The Administrator of NASA should request 

Recommendation Two 

Shuttle Manaqement Structure. The Shuttle Program Structure 

should be reviewed. A redefinition of the Program Manager's 
45 

20 

responsibility is essential. 

Program Manager the requisite authority for all ongoing STS 

operations. Program funding and all Shuttle Program work at the 

centers should be placed clearly under the Program Manager's 

authority. 

Astronauts in Management. The Commission observed that there 

appears to be a departure from the philosophy of the 1960s and 

1970s relating to the use of astronauts in management 

positions. 

experience and a keen appreciation of operations and flight 

safety. 

astronauts into agency management positions. The function of the 

Flight Crew Operations Director should.be elevated in the NASA 

organization structure. 

Shuttle Safety Panel. 

Advisory Panel reporting to the STS Program Manager. 

of this panel should include Shuttle operational issues, launch 

commit criteria, flight rules, flight readiness and risk 

management. The panel should include representation from the 

safety organization, mission operations, and the astronaut 

This redefinition should give the 

These individuals brought to their positions flight 

NASA should encourage the transition of qualified 

NASA should establish an STS Safety 

The charter 

, office. 

Recommendation Three 

Criticality Review and Hazard Analysis. 

Shuttle contractors should review all Criticality 1, lR, 2, and 

NASA and the primary 

2R items and hazard analyses. 

items that must be improved prior to flight to ensure mission 

success and flight safety. An Audit Panel, appointed by the 

National Research Council, should verify the adequacy of the 

effort and report directly to the Administrator of NASA. 

This review should identify-those 

Recommendation Four 

Safety Orqanization. 

Reliability and Quality Assurance to be headed by an Associate 

Administrator, reporting directly to the NASA Administrator. 

office should be assigned the work force to ensure adequate 

oversight of its functions and should be independent of other 

NASA functional and program responsibilities. 

NASA should establish an Office of Safety, 

The 

Recommendation Five 

Improved Communications. The Commission found that Marshall 

Space Flight Center project managers, because of a tendency at 

Marshall to management isolat!m, failed to provide full and 

timely information bearing on the safety of flight 51-L to other 

vital elements of Shuttle program management. NASA should take 
46 

21 

energetic steps to eliminate this tendency whether by changes of 

personnel, organization, indoctrination or all three. 

In addition, a policy should be developed which governs the 

imposition and removal of Shuttle launch constraints. 

Readiness Reviews and Mission Management Team meetings should be 

recorded. The flight crew commander, or a designated 

representative, should attend the F1 ight Readiness Review, 

participate in acceptance of the vehicle for flight, and certify 

that the crew is properly prepared for flight. 

Recommendat ion Six. 

Landinq Safety. NASA must take actions to improve landing 

safety. The tire, brake and nosewheel steering systems must be 

improved. The specific conditions under which planned landings 

at Kennedy would be acceptable should be determined. 

unpredicable weather periods at Kennedy, program officials should 

plan on Edwards landings. 

Flight 

During 

Recommendation Seven 

Launch Abort and Crew Escape. 

NASA: 

The Commission recommends that 

-- Make all efforts to provide a crew escape system for use 

during controlled gliding flight. 

Make every effort to increase the range of flight conditions 

under which an emergency runway landing can be successfully 

conducted in the event that two or three main engines fail 

early in ascent. 

-- 

Recommendation Eight 

Flight Rate. The nation's reliance on the Shuttle as its 

principal space launch capability created a relentless pressure 

on NASA to increase the flight rate. Such reliance on a single 

launch capability should be avoided in the future. 

NASA must establish a flight rate that is consistent with its 

resources. A firm payload assignment policy should be 

established to include rigorous controls on cargo manifest 

changes. 

Recommendation Nine 

Maintenance Safeguards. 

procedures must be especially rigorous for Space Shuttle items 

designated Criticality 1. 

analyzing and reporting performance trends of such items. NASA 

Installation, test, and maintenance 

NASA should establish a system of 
47 

22 

should restore and support the Orbiter maintenance and spare 

parts programs and stop the practice of removing parts from one 

Orbiter to supply another. 

Concluding Thought 

The Commission closed its report with the following concluding 

thought which I believe is a fitting way, Mr. Chairman, to 

conclude the testimony: 

The Commission urges that NASA continue to receive the 

support of the Administration and the nation. 

constitutes a national resource that plays a critical role 

in space exploration and development. 

symbol of national pride and technological leadership. The 

Commission applauds NASA's spectacular achievements of the 

past and anticipates impressive achievements to come. The 

findings and recommendations presented in this report are 

intended to contribute to the future NASA successes t 

nation both expects and requires as the 21st century 

The agency 

It also provides a 

approaches. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will be glad, along w 

the Commission Vice Chairman, Neil Armstrong, to answer any 

questions you may have. 

at the 

th 
48 

Mr. ROGERS. I also want to point out a little bit about the scope 

of our investigation because I know one of the things the committee will be interested in is the scope of it. It was a very intensive 

investigation. It lasted really 3 months. The last month was pretty 

much involved in preparing the report because we had to get the 

report to the printer about 2 weeks before it could be published. So 

after we had hearings for about 2 months-pardon me; you can see 

we’ve had a long investigation. So we spent the last month preparing a report and getting it to the printer. 

And I point out here that we had about 70 witnesses who testified. There are about 2,800 pages of testimony, about 160 individuals we interviewed. There were 46 Commission panel sessions that 

were conducted. I point that out because we broke up into panels. 

We had four panels. Each of the panels conducted their own private investigation-or maybe private isn’t the word-investigation 

on special aspects of the investigation. 

We have about-there were 6,800 reports of documents we reviewed, totaling more than 122,000 pages. Thirty-three NASA task 

force reports were prepared in part in cooperation with the Commission panel members and were submitted to the Commission for 

review and analysis. 

So the investigation is a very comprehensive investigation, and 

all the information will be available to this committee. It will be 

automated, and you can retrieve any aspect of it as you want. We’ll 

make it completely available to the staff of the committee. 

We have provision made so all the material will be at the Archives, and you will be able to get any part of the work of the Commission that you want to. 

I think you will find, Mr. Chairman, that it may be the most 

complete and thorough investigation of its kind that’s been done, 

and I want to take this opportunity to say that the members of the 

Commission really were amazing in the dedication and hard work 

that was involved. 

I also want to pay particular tribute to Dr. Keel and his staff, 

who did really a marvelous job. I’m sure that if you’ve had a 

chance to look at this report, you will realize how thorough it is. 

How we were able to turn it out, I don’t know. I sure couldn’t have 

done it except with people like Dr. Keel. I enjoy all the credit I’m 

getting, but I didn’t have much to do with it. 

Well, I thought the best thing to do, Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, is to merely go to the questions. 

Let me say that I think everything that we can think of that we 

could properly say is in this report. I don’t have anything else to 

say. 

In fact, if I don’t get my voice back, I won’t say it. [Laughter.] 

I think the report is a very thorough one, and it was written deliberately with the idea that you can’t read any one part of it and 

get an answer. You have to read all the report. And I think the 

impact of it comes from the total reading of it. 

There’s no doubt about it that serious mistakes were made. 

There were failures. We set them all out. You may find others that 

we haven’t discovered, but I doubt it. I doubt that you’ll find very 

much that is not covered by the report. 
49 

And I think that the problem that the Nation faces, in part your 

committee faces, is, What do we do from now on? Where do we go 

from here? And we were not asked to deal with that subject. That’s 

really a subject for this committee. 

And with that, I’ll go to questions. 

Mr. ROE. Is there any further comments to be made by Mr. Armstrong at all? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. No, sir; I would just like to make one correction. I would just like to-- 

Mr. ROE. You have to pull that closer [referring to microphone]. 

It’s hard to hear. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG [continuing]. Make one correction to the chairman’s comments. Contrary to what he said, he had a great deal to 

do with the report, and no one on the Commission worked longer 

or harder, and you’ll see his impact on every page. 

Mr. ROE. We appreciate that comment. 

Now let’s proceed from there. What we’re going to do is give the 

members an opportunity-and realize we’re not going to be able to 

complete today-to propound any questions or observations they 

may have, and then we’ll go from side to side so those points can 

be brought forward. 

And I would just like to open up with two short comments and 

any suggestions or response you may wish to make. 

I have had the opportunity-last night, if I look a little sleepy, I 

read the whole report from cover to cover. And I think you’re totally right, Mr. Secretary, when you say that the report has to be 

read in context. I think that’s true, and it comes more clearly to 

the point as to the issues involved. 

Again I think from the members’ point of view, there’s many 

issues that the Commission has raised in their report and some 

that have deliberately been left, what would you say, not complete, 

so to speak, and that’s left to the committee to decide what they 

want to do in the future on that. 

But the thought occurred to me in two directions in your observations or review: really how safe is the shuttle? When you read 

the section particularly with the failure and the history behind the 

failure of the O-ring area, it does bring into point the safety critical 

items list and the number of items on that list. And I wonder if 

you’ve had a chance to evaluate leaving out the accident cause vis 

the O-ring issue and the other peripheral matters relating thereto-how safe is the shuttle in your judgment, considering I believe 

there’s close to 2,000 items that are listed on the critical items list, 

as I recall? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, we did not complete a total evaluation of the shuttle, nor was it our mandate, nor would it have 

been possible in the 4 months we had available. 

We concentrated on what was the cause of the accident, but in 

the pursuit of those-that cause or causes certain additional items 

did come to our attention which the Commission was persuaded 

were of substantial interest from a safety perspective, and to the 

extent we were able to, through our panel work and through 

NASA teams, investigate those areas as they came to our attention, we did so. 
50 

Each of the things in that arena that we felt to be significant 

and felt needed additional work we tried to identify, with helpful 

suggestions, as to how that might be done without infringing on 

the responsibilities of the agency. 

We, as a commission, are not in a position to be able to assure 

you or anyone that all the areas of the shuttle are safe. We can say 

that certainly the solid rocket booster needed attention, and we 

spelled that out in a good deal of detail in the report, and several 

other areas. 

At the same time, I think we can say that we found a lot of work 

was exceptionally well done. We found outstanding design, processing, and execution within the shuttle itself. So we do not in any 

way imply that everything needs a careful examination. 

Mr. ROE. Would it be a fair commentary to say, though, that one 

of the key items of safety is the key issue, one of the key issues 

we’re speaking to, that certainly where the safety critical items list 

is involved, that that ought to have a total re-review from top to 

bottom by NASA? Would that be a fair-in process, in management, quality control, cost evaluation, cost relating thereto? Is that 

a fair comment? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, Mr. Chairman; we have specified that we 

recommend that review be done, and it’s our understanding that 

Admiral Kruly is in the process of conduting such an evaluation at 

this time. 

Mr. ROE. I appreciate that. 

One other short-- 

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, can I say, on- recommendation No. 

3 covers that, and I would just like to add to what Neil said that 

we recognize that there’s never complete safety to be assured in 

the shuttle system, but I think in answer to your basic question, 

yes, I think it’s possible to continue the program safely, with reasonable safety. And I think that if the recommendations of the 

commission are followed that we can do that as a Nation. 

Mr. ROE. I agree with you. 

Let me just ask one other quick question. One of the questions 

you have risen in your report was the process and the thought 

process in reference to emergency escape system or a crew bailout. 

You didn’t get into too much depth on that. Could you elucidate 

further to the committee what your observations were? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I think this would be more appropriate for 

Mr. Armstrong to answer. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Armstrong. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, studies in the area of crew 

escape have been conducted by NASA since the instigation of the 

shuttle program. For various reasons that are detailed to some 

degree in the report, those systems were not implemented. 

We’re persuaded that a complete crew-all situation crew escape 

system is not practical nor desirable, but we do think that limited 

escape possibilities might be providable and should be investigated. 

Mr. ROE. So you’re saying fundamentally it should be re-evaluated? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Is that fair? 
51 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FUQUA. I’ll defer at the present time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished minority leader, Mr. Lujan, from New Mexico. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to again say that I’m very impressed with the report. 

I think the Commission did an excellent job, and of course one of 

the things that I look forward to, and the full committee looks forward to, is the other reports that we get that go more into detail, 

because my concern is what you spoke of just a few minutes ago, 

Mr. Secretary-where do we go from here? And that’s our responsibility. 

In that regard, I’m looking forward to further details. And I 

wonder if they might appear in those reports that we’ll get further. 

What I’m referring to is on the section entitled “An Accident 

Rooted in History.” There are a number of generalities that say 

the joint test and certification program was inadequate. “Neither 

NASA nor Thiokol fully understood the mechanism by which the 

joint sealing action took place.” 

Everything worked because they got away with it, and they continued to do it, and on and on and on. 

“The O-ring erosion history presented to level I at NASA headquarters in August 1985 was sufficiently detailed to require corrective action prior to the flight.” 

Now, I understand your reasoning that it wasn’t your mission, 

but you have been quoted as saying, “Well, we didn’t want to point 

any fingers.” And I suppose none of us wants to get into that sort 

of thing. 

But as a function of our oversight, we need to know what positions to zero in on to change the way that things were done, and in 

that respect we do need to know who was responsible or at least 

what position was responsible for not changing the design, for not 

getting on Thiokol Tor not doing testing that they were supposed to 

do, for failing to make the change testing upright rather than sideways, those kinds of things. Will those things be in your followup report or is there anything 

that you could add to it at this point? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, first let me address the question about our jurisdiction. We felt that we were not required, nor should we, to 

make any judgments about who was responsible individually for 

what happened. In other words, our job was to find out the cause of 

the accident, make recommendations about future safety. Now in 

that process a lot of information developed as to individuals. A lot 

of it is cited in the report. So the committee will have available a 

lot of information about particular individuals, many of whom 

have been transferred already. 

You will also find in our records that we have all of the answers, 

I believe, to the questions you want. We have very detailed information which will be in our appendix that were submitted by 

NASA about who attended meetings, and so forth. 

But I think you’ll probably not find that any one individual was 

responsible or any group of individuals. It was sort of a systems 

failure. Maybe some individuals were more responsible than others, 
52 

but I don’t believe it’s going to be the type of thing that a grand jury would look into. And I think we’ve attempted to say in our 

report all of the things that we think will give this committee and 

the American people a way of judging what happened. 

It was a system failure. And when you look at the report, you 

ask yourself, How could it have happened? I notice several comments by Members of Congress who read this over. They say they just don’t understand how it happened, and we don’t either for 

sure. 

But I guess our job now, as I see it, is to get on with the work of 

how do we make it work in the future. Obviously there are lessons 

to be learned. We’re not talking about that, but I’m not sure assessment of blame is going to be that beneficial to the future program. I think the new Administrator of the program has that responsibility. He has to decide what management changes he wants and 

how he wants to deal with people that may have not performed up 

to their full responsibility. But I’m not sure that it does the Nation 

any good to undertake that-to try to answer that question. 

What is going to be difficult for the Congress and for the administration, and for everybody, is: Where do we go from here? How do 

we correct it? 

And I must say that Jim Fletcher’s got a tough job, and I think 

he deserves the support of all of us. And these are difficult ques- tions to answer in the future. And it’s the responsibility of all of 

Fortunately, we’re-after today, I hope, or tomorrow we can step 

back into private life, but the problem is going to be with this committee and with the Congress and with Jim Fletcher and the administration. 

I hope I haven’t talked too long, but-- 

Mr. LUJAN. No; that’s fine. I had one other-one question of Mr. 

Armstrong because he’s had all kinds of experience through NASA-of course in the Apollo Program and you were a member 

of the President’s Commission that Tom Paine had, plus this Commission. You’ve just been through the whole thing. And we read sometimes that it’s a different NASA today than it 

was perhaps in the Apollo days where safety was the prime consideration then. In other words, prove to me that it’s unsafe would be 

what some people say is today the method of operation of NASA. 

Do you find a difference between now and then-then and now? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir, I do find some differences, but it’s difficult to quantify what the effects of those differences might be, 

aside from the fact that we are involved in this particular investigation. 

I suppose, at the risk of oversimplifying, in the Apollo days we 

always expected everything would go wrong and were surprised 

when it didn’t, and in the current situation, at least the American 

public expects the shuttle to fly right and is surprised when it 

doesn’t. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

New York, Mr. Scheuer. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Rogers and Mr. Armstrong, we’re very grateful for the time 

and the expertise and the real character definition that you’ve 

us. 
53 

given this report. You’ve rendered a great, great service to the 

American people. 

And nobody up here wants to continue trashing NASA in any 

purposeless way, but there are some difficult questions that we 

have to answer. And one difficult question is this whole attitude, 

this whole new culture that grew up in NASA and perhaps in the 

Marshall Center, this culture that’s been called arrogance, conceit 

that they knew it all; they didn’t need to include in the information circle outside experts. They didn’t need to listen to the Rockwell fears, expressed fears of the subzero temperatures. They pressured Morton Thiokol not to bother with a lot of chintzy concerns 

about safety. They excluded the astronauts themselves from the information circle. They had the feeling that they knew it all and 

didn’t need any outside information. They didn’t want anything to 

interfere with the schedule. The schedule seems to be the thing 

and not the safety and efficacy of the mission. 

How do you change this? This is the job that you’re directed us 

to solve, that you’ve given so much energy and emotion and intellect to. It’s hard to sum up in a thumbnail sketch. How do you 

change that attitude? How do you institutionalize better information circles? How do you institutionalize access by all of these experts to very tough decisionmaking channels, if they had deeply 

seated concerns about safety, even in the last moments before the 

takeoff? And how do you legislate humility? How do you legislate 

openness? How do you legislate concern for safety? 

These are tough questions for legislators. It’s not susceptible to 

legislation, but we’ve got to get back to that old “can do” spirit 

where there was a team and safety and efficacy of the mission was 

No. 1; and that they wouldn’t have dreamed of being-in the early 

years of being pressured by anybody, not that there’s any evidence 

that I can see of pressure, unless it was self-imposed pressure. 

How do we get back to the original driving commitment that 

safety to success with individual egos taking a second place and a 

whole new openness of attitudes? 

Mr. ROGERS. I think you’ve put your finger on a key question the 

Commission talked a good deal about. I hope that that will be accomplished, in part by the report and in part by the investigation, 

in part by the fact that all of this became public. 

And I-to illustrate your point, after we had the hearings which 

disclosed the opposition of the launch and the failure to communicate that to those people who made the decision to launch, we were 

all-I don’t know whether shocked is too strong a word or not, but 

we were very concerned about that as a commission. And right at 

that time the people in Marshall who were involved had a press 

conference at which they sort of took issue with us, that we were 

making too much out of it, which to me illustrated the points 

you’re making. I mean, they have to vastly change this mindset. You can’t go on 

this way as ifnothing happened. This was a major, major mistake, 

a tragic accident, and it was witnessed by everybody in the world 

either at the time or subsequently on television. So there has to be 

a change of attitude. 

And I’m not sure how it can be-we have the same problem you 

do, but I think it will be done by-first, by the fact that we’ve had 
54 

this investigation. We didn’t pull any punches. All of the facts were 

laid out on the table, and we think that that will in itself be very 

salutary. Second, it will be required of the leadership of NASA. You’ve got Jim Fletcher, a new Administrator. You have Admiral Truly that 

worked very well and hard with the Commission and I think will 

do an excellent job in that capacity in charge of the shuttle program. He himself is an astronaut. And he is just as concerned as 

all of us are about what happened. 

In fact, he told us yesterday, which I think illustrates the point, 

that he flew on the second shuttle flight, STS-8, and on that flight they had difficulty with this joint. And he didn’t know it, and he 

didn’t know it until after this accident. And you know what kind of 

an effect that will have on his thinking, and his attitude toward 

what happened is just the same as the Commission’s attitude. And 

I think that will be reflected in the whole program, and certainly 

that’s what we hope. 

Nobody could be sure that everything is going to be safely done. 

Everybody should know about the risks involved. If you’re proceed- ing with a joint that isn’t going to work, everybody should know it. 

You should say, “We’re all going to take a chance on this joint not 

working.” That may be necessary. 

The problem here was people didn’t know about it. If you read 

the report, you see the key people in the program didn’t really know about the joint or didn’t know about the seriousness of the 

problem. And I hope that the result of this investigation will be to 

correct that. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Rogers, at any time was the Commission pressured by 

anyone not to fully report on the problems it discovered? 

Mr. ROGERS. No, nobody-we had no discussion with anybody about that at all. In fact, we didn’t have any discussions with any- body outside that I know of about anything, except the work that 

we were doing. We were moving so fast we hardly were able to 

take phone calls. 

Mr. WALKER. So, in other words, the report as you published it 

represents your best thinking on what went wrong on everything 

that went wrong? 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes; absolutely. Mr. WALKER. With all-I spent some time going through the 

report last night, and I congratulate you. I think it really is a job 

well done. But with all of this going wrong, did you get any hint of 

why Congress wouldn’t have seen at least some of these problems 

at some point before we had a tragedy? 

Mr. ROGERS. No, I didn’t. I’m not sure I would have answered if I 

did, but we didn’t see any. [Laughter.] 

We didn’t see anything like that, Congressman. 

Mr. WALKER. Well, but doesn’t it strike you that in the oversight 

process that some of the problems that are revealed here should 

have in some way come out prior to having a tragedy? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I said yesterday that-at the press conference 

we had after the ceremony that I think everybody’s in part to 
55 

blame. I mean I think the administration, several administrations, 

took it for granted everything was working well. I think Congress 

probably thought the same thing and maybe didn’t perform their 

oversight functions as well as they should. The press is in part responsible. I heard Mr. Hotz, one of the members of the Commission, on television this morning saying he was then the editor of 

Aviation Week, and he said he thought the press was in part responsible. I guess the American people themselves were in part responsible. We were all too optimistic about it. 

And, as I say, I don’t know if it serves any purpose to point fingers. I think Congress has to share the blame in part; so do the rest 

of us. 

Mr. WALKER. I think that’s a reasonable way of looking at it, but 

I guess my concern is that, as someone who has sat and listened to 

testimony over the years, a lot of these things were happening, they were knowingly happening, and nobody was mentioning it. 

Now is there anything that in your opinion was being done that 

was kind of a longstanding systematic coverup of some of these 

problems? 

Mr. ROGERS. No, I didn’t see anything like that. 

Mr. WALKER. Well, then, how can we-how is it that we can be 

developing basically systematic problems, problems of management 

that are systemic, and yet nobody have a hint that a lot of these 

things were going wrong? I mean, are we in a position in the space program where we are 

only going to be able to react to crisis? 

Mr. ROGERS. No, I don’t think so. I think that we have to keep in 

mind that we had 24 successful flights, and we were the most successful nation in the world in what we’ve done. So we can’t just look at the dark clouds. There were a lot of successes. 

Look at Neil Armstrong-a lot of successes, and we can’t forget that. And we don’t want to blame our Nation or ourselves too 

much. On the other hand, we don’t want to overlook the seriousness of this problem. I hope that our commission work will have accomplished that 

purpose. I hope that it’s balanced enough so that it takes into account the successes of NASA and successes of our Nation and at 

the same time points the way for future progress in space. Mr. WALKER. Well, at least one of the commissioners was reported this morning as stating that, if the Challenger accident hadn’t 

happened, the program would be shut down now anyhow because 

that the resources are not compatible with the flight rates, and so, 

therefore, there would not have been enough spare parts availability; there would not have been enough resources available to keep 

the program flying. Now obviously problems of that kind of a systemic nature didn’t 

just develop overnight, and that has nothing to do with the public perception of the program. It has a lot to do with OMB. It has a lot 

to do with the Congress. And I guess my concern is, after reading all of this, it seems to 

me that there was a fairly significant failure in the people who 

were providing policy direction to NASA, because I gather in the 

report NASA was doing a pretty good job of following the policies 

dictated to it; is that not true? 
56 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, as I say, I don’t really want to get into the 

business of whether Congress was to blame or the administration 

was to blame or NASA was to blame. It’s all there. When you read 

it, you can form your own conclusions. 

I think Congress bears some of the responsibility. I think you 

will do a better job in the future. I think your oversight responsibility is great. It’s going to be greater in the future, but I hope it’s not 

negative. I hope it’s all positive. We have to have the program. We 

need to have men in space. We don’t need maybe such an optimistic program. We need some more ELV’s, but we have to weigh very 

carefully what part of the program is going to involve humans and 

what part need not involve humahs, but those are problems you 

have to decide, and they’re not easy. And I think we’ve laid out the problems that have occurred, 

what happened, and now it’s up to Congress and the administration to try to deal with it. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished lady from Tennessee, Mrs. Lloyd. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I’m certainly glad to have you distinguished gentlemen with us, 

and we thank you for your time and all of your efforts on behalf of 

this country. The Challenger accident, of course, is a real modern tragedy, and 

I’m reminded of the timeless dramatic tragedy MacBeth. Remember the humbling lines, “An eagle towering in its pride of place 

was a mousy owl popped at and killed.” 

It seemed to me that this modern tragedy of NASA, which is 

always the eagle to this committee, has not been killed, but it’s certainly been wounded by pride, and our legendary high technology 

agency has become arrogant and careless. 

Now I worry that public reaction could permanently cripple this 

eagle unless we do act constructively. And as members of this committee, we always believed that this bird would always soar and 

alight again unharmed. We want to know how you think that this 

committee could best aid in this process-to heal the wounded 

eagle. What do you think this committee can best do to aid the 

process of getting NASA to fly again, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, that’s a pretty tough question. I don’t know as 

I have any advice. I think that the new administrator has a tough 

job, and I think Admiral Truly is very experienced, an astronaut 

himself, highly regarded by all the astronaut community and by, in 

particular, NASA, and will do an excellent job. 

And I think that probably the function that this committee can 

perform is to pay a lot of attention, to be thoughtful about the 

problems of the future, try to determine the extent of financial 

support that is required and how it best can be used, to be sure 

that there is a reinvigoration of NASA; that there is a method that 

is devised to attract some of the leading engineers, the younger engineers. I think to get back-it’s going to be difficult to get back and have 

the same inspirational drive that NASA had to begin with because 

this has been a very traumatic experience for NASA, and in a way it may be that our Commission’s work is going to make it tougher. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Mr. Secretary, would you-- 
57 

Mr. ROGERS [continuing]. But I hope not. I hope that what we’ve 

done will make it better, and I hope it will-everybody will say, “We made a bad mistake. We’ve got to correct it, and let’s get on 

with the job.” And I think this committee, if it supports NASA in 

that respect, will perform a real public service. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Mr. Secretary, other members have alluded to the 

fact that maybe Congress didn’t really assume the proper oversight 

role, maybe we were a little neglectful in really evaluating the programs of NASA. Would you recommend, or you, Mr. Armstrong, that we assume a larger oversight role; that we try to micromanage, or would you prefer that we try to back off and leave NASA 

some room to really bring in new procedures in the oversight? 

Would you comment on that, Mr. Armstrong 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I’m not certain I’m prepared to give a well-reasoned answer to that, but just let me say-and it will also bear on 

Mr. Walker’s question-that there’s some evidence to indicate 

there was an imbalance between the goals and resources over a 

fairly long period of time, starting in the early seventies through 

the late seventies and into the early eighties. And the agency was trying to do amazing things, and did, and were pressed to do it 

with less resources in terms of people and financing, and so on. 

And they tried very hard to make-and did a remarkable job of 

making a remarkable machine with probably less technical insurance than they should have paid the premiums on. 

Mrs. LLOYD. We’ve also alluded to the similarities of Apollo V 

two decades ago. Would you gentlemen like to comment on 

the similarities of these, of the two tragedies? 

Mr. ROGERS. Here, again, I think Mr. Armstrong should answer 

that. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Mr. Armstrong. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I think many members of this committee were 

struck with the similarities, probably some differences, too, but similarities in that there were typical inadequacies that eventually 

caught up with the program and paid a severe price in time schedule and prestiges at the time, but Americans did what they do 

best-they stepped up to that kind of a problem and fixed it. I certainly hope, I believe, we can do it again. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Again, I thank you distinguished gentlemen. Thank 

you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Wisconsin, Mr. Sensenbrenner. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I, too, would like to add my commendation to you and the other members of the commission for approaching this 

task with objectivity and calling them as you saw them. And I believe that the country is much in your debt as a result of the efforts that you made. 

I hope that this set of hearings is used to put to rest all of the 

unanswered questions about the space shuttle disaster because I believe that the Nation and the space program can ill afford to have 

people second guessing the work of your Commission like we’ve 

seen second-guessing of the work of the Warren Commission into 

the assassination of President Kennedy. 
58 

In line with that, I agree with the fact that you didn’t make any 

inquiry into individual responsibility, but during the course of your 

investigation did you come up with any evidence that you believe 

should be referred to the Justice Department for an investigation 

into criminal neglience? 

Mr. ROGERS. No, I did not. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. It’s my understanding that Morton Thiokol 

did not meet the required spec limits on the solid rocket motor. Did 

your investigation reach this conclusion and, if so, why didn’t 

NASA require them to meet specs? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I don’t think the Commission made the judgment on review of that particular fact and passed-and made a 

finding, Congressman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I’ve been given some information that the 

specs for the solid rocket motor indicated that it was supposed to 

be functional between 31 and 99 degrees Fahrenheit. The chronology that your Commission has published as a result of your investi- gation indicated that at least at the middle, the upper middle level 

management engineers at Thiokol, the initial determination was 

not to launch because it was so cold in Florida at the time when 

the shuttle and the orbiter were on the launch pad, and that that 

was reversed-that decision was reversed as the discussions went 

on, and there was a recommendation made by Morton Thiokol to 

launch the night before the tragedy occurred. 

Given the fact that Morton Thiokol was supposed to have built 

the SRB’s to be launched at above 31 degrees Fahrenheit and there 

was some reluctance that the O-rings would crack by some of the 

engineers out there, what conclusions did you reach relative to the 

management decisions at Morton Thiokol and how that got reversed, and whether the reversal was caused by a fear of them 

having to admit that they did not meet the specifications that were 

set forth by NASA when they constructed the SRB’s? 

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, can you hear us? I gather you’re having a little problem. 

Mr. ROE. We’re having difficulties. I guess it’s just the microphones, but go ahead. 

Mr. ROGERS. I don’t believe that that was the conclusion-- 

Mr. ROE. Much better [referring to microphones]. 

Mr. ROGERS. The conclusion that the Commission reached was 

they changed their minds-is that better? 

Mr. ROE. Yes, much better [referring to the microphones]. Mr. ROGERS [continuing]. They changed their minds because we 

think that they were trying to accommodate a major customer. We 

say that in the report. In other words, they originally recommended against the launch unless the temperature was 53 or above, and 

after long, off-the-record-I mean off-the-telecom conference, they 

decided to recommend in favor of the launch. That was the management group, and the management group-one of the managers told the engineer, the chief engineer who had been against the 

launch, he should change his hat, go down-he should take off his 

engineer’s hat and put on his manager’s hat, and so they changed 

their mind and they sent a telex saying, “Go ahead and launch.” 

And the Commission concluded that was done because they wanted 

to accommodate their major customer. 
59 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. But here Thiokol delivered the solid rocket 

boosters for NASA allegedly meeting specs that were supposed to 

be functional over 31 degees Fahrenheit, and there were folks 

within the Thiokol organization that said you shouldn’t do it if the 

temperature was under 53 degrees Fahrenheit. And I think that 

this is a major gap relative to the management decisions of this 

major contractor for NASA. Our oversight can fix up NASA’s management by review, I’m wondering whether we really can fix up 

the management review of a contractor like Thiokol. 

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Armstrong had a comment on my last answer. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Yes. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I don’t recall the details of all the specifications 

on the original contract, but it’s quite clear that the motor was 

obliged to operate under specification at temperatures greater than 

40 degrees Fahrenheit. That was a low temperature of the propellant and, indeed, the low temperature of the propellant in this case 

had a temperature substantially above 50. 

I do not recall whether there were specific requirements for ambient temperature, but there were launch commit criteria under 

which the spacecraft was obliged to fly at temperatures above 31 

degrees, as you specified. 

It should have been the responsibility of any contractor, in my view, if their particular piece of equipment that they were providing was not able to perform within that launch criteria to so identify that fact so that it could be factored into the launch commit criteria. We did not find evidence that that had been done in this 

case. 

Mr. ROGERS. Dr. Keel might have elaboration on that point. 

Dr. KEEL. I think, Congressman, there has been a lot of confusion 

about the various temperature specifications for the boosters. Part 

of that was brought about by the testimony that conflicts with the 

actual documents. I think that just came about over a period of 

time where the-with references to temperatures and the certification requirements was loosely referenced, if you will. 

The 3140-99 degree temperature requirement that’s actually in 

the contract specifications refer to a storage temperature requirement for the solid rocket boosters and their propellant. During the 

program there were people who referred to that as actual performance specification requirements, but that’s not what the documents 

support. Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Florida, Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I might say that my understanding-that the actual design specs 

for the solid rocket booster was to go down to a temperature of 25 

degrees Fahrenheit and be operational. And, indeed, that part of 

the evidence that was delivered to you all from the NASA investigatory team found that Thiokol had never tested down to 25 degrees, and that when asked why, nobody knew the reason-not in 

Thiokol nor in NASA-why it, in fact, had not been tested down to 

that design specification. And, therefore, that’s one of the things 

that we’ll continue to look at as we try to backstop your report. And, Mr. Chairman, you have done an admirable service to your 

country, and I appreciate it. 
60 

Let me ask Mr. Armstrong just a quick question here. One of 

your recommendations in the design recommendation is “Full consideration should be given to conducting static firings of the exact 

flight configuration in a vertical attitude.” 

Our best estimate is that if you were to design a vertical test 

stand and instrument it and then go and build it, that you’d be 

looking upwards of 2 years, maybe a little less than 2 years, particularly if you’re going to fire in the vertical position as it sits on 

the launch pad because you’ve got to have plenty of room underneath for the flame to get out, so you’ve got to get the SRB at least 

80 feet into the air. I suppose if you turn it the other way, nozzle 

up and fire it with the flame up, but if you get it exact configura- tion, as you have recommended here, you’re looking at upwards of 

2 years before you can actually go out and test fire it in that configuration. Do you have any insight, Mr. Armstrong, with all your background as to what you intended with regard to that specific recommendation? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, Mr. Nelson. It has been brought to the attention of the commission that several built facilities be modifiable 

to handle this very large test firing. 

In addition, proposals have been made by some, including those within the agency, that the vertical firing be done in free flight. And we did not have the opportunity to test the possibility of devising such a test, but the desirability is certainly there and we 

thought we should identify it, and there are those who believe it 

can be done without building a new facility. 

Mr. NELSON. All right. You didn’t come to a conclusion that, in 

fact, we should. You’re just saying consider that as one of the options as you try to get the reliability on the SRB? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir, all consideration should be given. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. Mr. Chairman, I’ll reserve the balance of my time. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair recogizes the distinguished gentleman from New York, 

Mr. Boehlert. 

Mr. BOEHLERT.hank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, at the outset I’d like to say that the commission 

which bears your name and has benefited from your enlightened leadership does our system proud. I can’t think of any place in the 

world where a failure of a national program, an inquiry into that 

failure, would be as thorough and as public as this one is. So I 

want to thank you and your colleagues, first of all. 

But, second, let me say that I’m a natural for this committee. I 

got a D in high school physics and haven’t taken a science or technical course since. [Laughter.] 

But the benefit of that is that I would ask of you the same questions that I think the people I’m privileged to represent would ask 

if they were given the opportunity. And I note in your report that 

section which refers to the silent safety program. My concern is 

that it’s a near invisible safety program. 

For example, I understand that NASA does not have a specifically labeled risk management program. Further, I understand that 

from 1970 to 1985 the quality assurance personnel dropped from a 
61 

high of 1,689 in 1970 to 505 in 1985. And, further, when we’re dealing with payload, I understand that while NASA audits the certification process, it does not perform any visual inspection of the payload for performance-to-safety standards. 

It seems to me that with missions becoming a lot more complex, 

the risks are greater, we should have a dramatic increase in safety, 

and yet it seems to be moving in the other direction. Is that an 

area of particular concern, Mr. Secretary? 

Mr. ROGERS. It is, and we address that in our report. As you see, 

we spent a lot of time on that, that subject. I think you’re absolutely right-there has to be a lot more emphasis. And we recommended that a single person, an assistant to the administrator, be at 

headquarters with sole responsibility of safety-to devote himself 

directly and fully to that problem. And then we have set up-recommended some safety panels be set up which were consistent with 

the way the Apollo program used to work and consistent with the 

way the astronauts think it should work. 

So you’re absolutely right, and although some people point out 

that safety is the responsibility of everybody in the program, which 

is obviously correct, the fact is that in this case, whereas everybody 

said they were concerned about safety, they weren’t going to fly 

unless everything was safe, the fact was it fell between the chairs. 

There was nobody that really was paying full attention to that subject. 

And when people were briefed about the weakness of this joint, it 

was always in fine print or the footnotes, hardly noticeable. So we 

feel that you’re absolutely right, and the thrust of our recommendation is that there has to be a lot more attention given to safety. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Secretary, did budget reductions have anything to do with the compromise on safety? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I’m not sure I can answer that, but I would 

think so, yes. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Let me ask you another question. Did the commission have some difficulty in reconstructing some of the conversations that occurred between Morton Thiokol, for example, and the 

NASA people prior to the Iaunch? Would one of your recommendations be that there be tapes of these conversations so that we can 

have for history a very accurate record? 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes; that is one of our recommendations. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Let me ask something else of Mr. Armstrong, if I 

may. I think in your opening statement you made some reference 

somewhere along the line to crew escape. You said a bailout or an 

ejection system might not be practical or even desirable. Could you 

expand upon that? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir. What I-escape systems take a variety 

of forms from very simple jump-out-the-door to very complex systems in which an entire section of the vehicle is removed and ejected by rocket propulsion or some other means and recovered as a 

unit. 

We think these more exotic systems are probably not practical to 

incorporate in this design at this stage, but the ones on the simple 

end deserve additional examination because as the system exists 

now for significant parts of the envelope there really is no method 

64-295 0 - 86 - 3 
62 

of survival, and we believe some additional method of survival is 

possible. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. But am I correct in assuming that this whole 

thing occurred within 73 seconds, so that any escape mechanism, 

any ejection system that might be conceived by man wouldn’t have 

been enough to save the crew? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir, you’re quite correct. We do believe that 

none of the systems that we’ve looked at, to the extent we’ve been 

able to look at them, would have been able to save the crew in this 

circumstance. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

North Carolina, Mr. Valentine. 

Mr. VALENTINE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to say to you I hope that this committee does not with 

your committee get any kind of NASA problem. You know you have received a lot of flowers since you have come in here, and I’m 

sure we won’t make that same mistake. 

I want to say to you seriously that I want to congratulate you, 

sir, and other members of this committee not only for what you 

have done, but for living lives that would equip you to be selected 

to serve on this committee. I think it’s a credit to our country and 

to each of you, because what you have said I think in the work of 

the committee is perhaps some of the most important work to be 

accomplished in the history of the Republic. 

And I just would like to ask you mainly one question. You have 

been very complimentary in what you said about this committee, 

and I think it reflects on the leadership, the chairman, the ranking 

Republican member, the subcommittee chairmen, and so on. 

Do you feel that you received complete cooperation from all of 

the people at NASA with whom you came into contact, you and 

other members of the committee, whom you interrogated, and do 

you feel that you received full and complete cooperation from the 

contractors and subcontractors? 

Mr. ROGERS. If you don’t mind, let me take just a moment to 

answer that because it does divide itself into two parts. 

After a week or so when it appeared to the commission that the 

decisionmaking process was flawed and there were a lot of people 

in that decisionmaking process who might have in some way failed 

to perform properly, we asked that they be excluded from any part 

of the investigation. And at that point NASA put in charge of the 

investigation Admiral Richard Truly who is going to continue in 

his work at NASA, and they cooperated with the commission fully 

in every respect. They responded to every request. They volunteered information that sometimes was embarrassing, and that cooperation on the part of the investigative panels of NASA under 

his leadership could not have been better. 

And that was true generally throughout NASA. And you will see 

from the work of these panels, which is very voluminous, that they 

did a hell of a good job. 

Now as far as-there was one aspect of it that we were not satisfied with, and that was failure of the people at Marshall to tell us 

some facts about their constraints, launch constraints. That was 

not known to the Truly people, and the Marshall people gave an 
63 

excuse why that had not been done, but we were not satisfied with 

that aspect about it. And I made some comments in the hearings 

about that, saying that they had almost been able to cover that up. 

Fortunately, we were able to find out that there had been launch 

constraints in five previous flights previous to 51-L, and that constraints had been removed without any particular reason, it appeared on the surface, and we were upset by the fact that the commission had not been advised of those constraints earlier on. 

But as far as NASA as a whole is concerned, they cooperated 

fully, and they did one excellent job in all respects in giving us the 

information. And it’s all available for your committee to look, and 

your subcommittee has worked very well with us. We’ve worked 

with your staff, and your staff will have access to all of our records. 

And Dr. Keel will be able to help your committee staff in that 

regard. 

Mr. VALENTINE. Thank you, sir. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Florida, Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. ROGERS. Dr. Keel-excuse me just a minute-Dr. Keel just 

pointed out I have not answered your question, Mr. Valentine 

about contractor cooperation. 

I think that in Morton Thiokol’s case they did cooperate fully 

with us in providing documents. They were very cooperative. We 

had a lot of people out there from time to time, and they did give 

us the documents and they volunteered. 

Initially in the conference, Mr. Locke, who is the chief executive 

officer, had with Dr. Keel-that they would cooperate fully, and I 

think it’s fair to them to say that they did provide all the information we wanted. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, let me also offer my words to thank you for the 

tremendous job you and your Commission have done in this tremendous report. 

In the report the level I11 imposed a launch constraint on joints 

but waived that constraint. And the Commission recommendation 

is that a policy should be developed which governs the imposition 

and removal of launch constraints. 

Now since the Marshall project manager, specifically Mr. Mulloy, 

which I’m reading in your report, the SRB manager, didn’t feel inclined to communicate problems to the program manager, wouldn’t 

the effect of requiring him to inform the program manager of a 

launch constraint, especially if this resulted in taking away the authority to remove that constraint, simply be for him not to impose 

a constraint in the first place? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I’m not sure. I think the problem we have is 

that there seemed to be no criteria for-in the first instance in 

placing the constraint and no criteria for removing it. And what 

we have recommended is that they have a thorough review of that 

system, and if they have a constraint on a launch, then there 

should be a finding by a group or someone that they’re going to 

launch anyway. 
64 

I mean, the idea of the constraint was don’t launch until you fix 

it. “There’s something wrong here, we find, and there’s a constraint on this launch until something is done about it. It has to be 

corrected.” 

That appeared to be not the case. In other words, the man that 

put the constraints on just took it off, and the others in the system 

didn’t even know about it. And, as you will see in the report, a lot 

of the key people in the system didn’t even know there was a constraint on the launch, so the constraint was meaningless. 

Now actually the constraint was a correct constraint. They 

shouldn’t have launched until they fixed that joint. 

Mr. LEWIS. That’s the point, Mr. Secretary. It was clear that Mr. 

Mulloy really didn’t think that he had a problem or a life-threatening problem with the-at this time, and he was the most qualified 

person, he felt, to make this decision on the SRB. 

So could this be simply a poor engineering judgment? How would 

a change in the system affect that? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I really don’t want to zero-in on Mr. Mulloy 

especially. If he thought it wasn’t life threatening, why did he have 

the constraint on in the first place? That’s the whole point of the 

constraint-was there’s something seriously wrong and it’s got to 

be fixed before we fly. 

Now if it’s just placed on and then taken off willy-nilly, it’s 

meaningless. It loses all significance. So what we recommend is the 

system has to provide, if there is a constraint, why did you put the 

constraint on, and then there has to be a judgment by the system 

why you take it off. Why do you risk the lives of the crew until 

something’s been done to fix it? 

So I think that NASA-I think that this report will have the 

result of being sure that the whole system knows about a constraint on a launch and it won’t be taken off until it’s either fixed 

or-I mean, you could imagine a situation where everybody says 

it’s impossible to fix this; nonetheless, we have to fly; we have to 

take a chance, and we all know that we’re taking a risk; let’s go 

ahead anyway. Well, that’s understandable. 

What’s not understandable is not having the knowledge that goes 

with it in having uninformed decisions made. Informed decisions 

are one thing, and everybody can accept that, I suppose, in a program that’s dangerous. What you can’t accept is to have ignorance be the controlling factor. 

Mr. LEWIS. That’s a good point, Mr. Secretary, and I think if the 

SRB’s had run their quality test to full specifications as required, 

then a better judgment could have been made at that time, or the 

judgment wouldn’t even have had to have been made; it would 

have been made on the quality test. 

Let me ask you before my time runs out-I’d like to talk about 

level I and level I1 managers that didn’t know of Thiokol’s telephone calls the night before, and it had been suggested and known 

that Thiokol had concerns over the temperatures-my time is up. 

I’ll come back and ask the question later. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

New Jersey, Mr. Torricelli. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
65 

Mr. Rogers, you offered the judgment previously and answered 

questions from the gentleman from Wisconsin-in your judgment 

criminal negligence has not occurred and that a prosecution would 

not be in order. That is certainly a judgment that I share-that in 

the national interest it would-it does not make any sense to proceed in seeking a case of criminal judgment. 

I have to, however, inquire whether your conclusion and my 

hope is not somewhat at variance with elements of the report. The 

threshhold for criminal negligence in our country is not high. 

There has been a loss of life. It would appear on the facts that such 

a loss of life was not only possible but probable, given certain information; that that information by individuals in a position to halt 

the launch either was known or should have been known. Those 

are the elements of a criminal negligence case. 

While I do share your hope and belief that such a case is not necessary or warranted, nevertheless, that is not a decision for us to 

make. I wonder if you could comment on those facts and the legal 

statements that I’ve made. 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, I’ll be glad to. Well, first let me say that my 

answer was in response to a question, and I gave it individually. 

This was not a matter considered by the Commission. 

Mr. TQRRICELLI. Let me ask it on that basis to you, then, as well, 

individually given your own legal background as well as your 

chairmanship. 

Mr. RQGERS. Well, as I say, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking 

about this, but I am satisfied that it would be unwise to proceed 

criminally. I don’t believe there was any venality here. 

And I don’t really believe there was gross negligence. I think 

there was misunderstandings about what each person was responsible for. 

In the case of NASA, it’s such a big organization, so many 

people, that it has all the evils of a bureaucracy. Responsibility is 

pretty diffuse. In this case, the Marshall people felt that they had 

the right to make decisions because they were level 111, that they 

had the right to make final decisions that dealt with this. 

The others at level I1 did not think that was the case. They felt 

they should have been told about this. Mr. Aldrich so testified. He’s 

head of level 11, and his testimony was to the effect that we are 

responsible for improvements in all these aspects and we didn’t 

know it and we should have been told, and that was the mistake of 

the system. 

But in terms of criminal negligence, you can certainly say that 

the people at Marshall thought that they had the right to, what 

they call, close out this problem; they had the right to decide it, 

and they decided it. 

And there were a lot of people involved in that decision. It 

wasn’t just Mulloy, Mr. Mulloy. There were a lot of other people, 

too, as you will see from the record. 

So I think it would be very difficult to prove the willfulness or 

even gross negligence that’s required for a criminal prosecution. 

And, as you say, I don’t think it would be in the national interest. 

Mr. TQRRICELLI. As a matter of policy, I agree with you. It just 

appeared to me that legally it might be an open question. 
66 

Mr. Rogers, the majority of the members of this committee have 

now cosponsored legislation to rebuild the orbiter. We did so, and it 

was introduced, in the belief as we followed your hearings that the 

basic shuttle technology was sound; that the accident was more of 

a failure of management than a limit on technology. And, therefore, the platform as a vehicle-our Nation’s hope should at least 

in part continue to rest with the shuttle and we should proceed. 

I’d like you to react to those conclusions since they were largely 

reached on the basis of things we were learning from your Commission-that those things that need to be repaired can be repaired, 

but that the basic technology remains sound and a good investment 

for the United States. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I think we all agree with that, or at least I 

think the members of the Commission agree with that. And we’ve 

so stated-that we think that NASA deserves the support of the 

administration and the American people. 

But I guess I should add that we did not deal specifically with 

the question of whether Congress should support a fourth orbiter 

or not. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Nor, Mr. Rogers, am I asking you to get to that 

question, but, rather, that the basic shuttle technology is sound. 

There are failures in the system, but they can be addressed and 

can be corrected. The United States can continue to rely on the 

shuttle technology. That’s the only conclusion that I want to make 

certain that all members of the Commission are on accord. 

Mr. ROGERS. I think that’s correct. Certainly I feel that way, and 

I’m sure that Mr. Armstrong does. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Ritter. 

Mr. RITTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to commend Attorney Rogers and former astronaut 

Armstrong and the whole team for one incredible report. 

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, and I just turned to 

page 113, and I look at the system during the day of the launch 

and they’ve got icicles that are a foot long or more. They’ve got instrument boxes encased in ice. 

Now I-you know, we’re talking about the theory of a decision 

process, but it would seem to me that if this picture had ever been 

conveyed by those on the scene to other higher levels of management, in no way, shape, or form would a decision have been made 

to go ahead, given the O-ring problems, the temperature problems 

with the O-ring, the design specifications for the O-ring. It went 

down to 8 degrees that night, and they say the ambient temperature was in and around 30 or so that-at the time of the launch. 

It’s very conceivable that the O-ring itself was well below the ambient temperature. 

It’s really hard to believe. I mean, it is almost outrageous, but I 

guess we go forward. 

I’d like to ask some specific questions here. You’ve recommended 

many safety-related changes. You recommend institutional and organizational changes, changes on the equipment side-main engines, landing systems, joint redesigns and tests, et cetera. Do you 

have a feeling as to whether or not these changes could be satisfac- 
67 

torily resolved in time for a July 1987 resumption of shuttle 

flights? I think everybody wants the shuttle to move forward, but, 

boy, there’s a lot in there, in these recommendations, prior to-- 

Mr. ROGERS. Ithink they can be implemented. I think they can 

be implemented quickly. I think they have to be. 

And I think, as one of the other members of the committee sug- gested, it’s a matter of mindset. I hope that the mindset of a lot of 

people at NASA has changed. We’ve got to get moving and there 

have to be changes made, and they have to be made quickly, I 

think. 

I think one thing that we detected early on in the investigation 

which has changed was there almost was an attitude on the part of 

some people at NASA, based on their public statements, that the 

accident never happened; that the Commission was causing the 

problem. And I pointed out to some of them in private that we 

didn’t have anything to do with the accident; we just came on later 

on, and it was a NASA problem. That’s what caused the accident. 

That’s where it happened. Those were the ones responsible. 

Mr. RITTER. I’d like to ask astronaut Armstrong at this time-are 

we dealing with a climatological situation in this particular area of 

the country which is not conducive to an expeditious and efficient 

launch capability? I mean, I don’t want to raise any hackles here, 

but there are a lot of people from Florida around-- 

Mr. FUQUA. I have to raise a point of personal privilege, Mr. 

Chairman. [Laughter.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Iforbid anybody on the Commission to answer that 

question. [Laughter.] 

Mr. RITTER. Well, Mr. Fuqua, the distinguished chairman, and 

Mr. Lewis, my distinguished colleague are here, but you know 

we’ve just seen so many weather problems and so many temperature problems. At some point you want to say, “Is this the right 

Mr. FUQUA. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. RITTER. If the chairman allows me to take additional time, I 

certainly will to the distinguished chairman. 

Mr. FUQUA. Well, maybe the Commission can explain where the 

ice came from because it didn’t come from-it was cold weather, 

but it was not raining there. It came from an emergency shower that was left on to keep it from freezing, and the drain plug froze 

up and spilled all over and caused the icicles. So it was not necessarily a weather problem. Well, it was a weather problem that 

caused it, but it was not a-- 

Mr. RITTER. I would suspect that the weather kept the icicles 

there. [Laughter.] Mr. FUQUA. Yes, it did. [Laughter.] 

Mr. RITTER. If I could just reclaim my time and go on to the-you 

didn’t comment, astronaut-I’m sorry, could you please? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Well, with respect to your last question, it appears that the freeze protection system as implemented was imperfect and needs some changing, and I think NASA’s fully aware of 

that and certainly will change that system that made the icicles. 

The Florida weather has great advantages and its location has 

great advantages for launching. We’ve taken advantage of that for 

many years. 

spot?” 
68 

In the winter clearly the disadvantages that might be inherent 

were not well understood in this case; I certainly think they are 

now. 

We’ve commented in the report about the vagaries of Florida 

weather at particular times of year with respect to recovery and 

made some recommendations in that regard. 

With regard to your earlier question, which the chairman-to 

which the chairman replied, the safety recommendations with respect to tires, brakes, nose, wheel, steerling, main engine, orbiter 

valves, et cetera, are not new problems. These are problems that 

have been well understood by NASA for many years. There’s been 

active work going on in all these arenas, and those areas-those 

are tough technical problems, but there are proposals to do something about them, and we support their efforts to do that. 

Mr. RITTER. Iwould ask the Chair for additional time for one further question. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair will allow the gentleman extra time. 

Mr. RITTER. Ithank the gentleman from New Jersey. 

Scott Carpenter gave a speech up in my district not long ago, and 

he went through the views of an astronaut from outer space seeing 

spaceship Earth, understanding that you can’t see any of the artificial boundaries, thinking about the family of man, and then he 

jumped to the conclusion-and it was the end of the speech and the 

question wasn’t asked, but he jumped to the conclusion that the 

United States must be first in space. And I think I understand 

why, but I would like to get for the record your views, having been 

so closely associated with the program in its entirety. Could you 

tell us briefly why the United States must be first in space? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Who did you say made that speech? 

Mr. RITTER. Scott Carpenter, your resident philosopher for many 

years, as I understand. But he didn’t really explain it. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Well, not having the advantage of specifically 

what he said, it would be difficult for me to comment on his remarks. 

Mr. RITTER. He didn’t explain why. I guess that’s why I’m asking 

you. He sort of took it for granted, but I wonder if the American 

people take it for granted. And maybe a brief explanation would be 

helpful. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Well, I do believe this Nation does enjoy a preeminent position in spite of these recent difficulties in the past several months. Our technology is remarkable and has served our 

country very well over these past 30 years. I personally have had 

the privilege of participating in that, and all the advantages which 

I have received serving on this Commission have stemmed from 

my-the gift of my country to me in allowing me to participate. So 

it’s not really for me to defend that, but just note that I’m happy it’s happened. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

California. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was expecting someone from the other side. 

I, too, simply want to compliment-- 

Mr. ROE. We happen to startle people that way once in a while. 

[Laughter.] 
69 

Mr. PACKARD. Well, I appreciate the chairman’s consideration. 

I want to add my compliments to the chairman and to the Commission and all of you for the responsible work you’ve done. When we spoke of attitudes, I had to make a note because I just 

returned, along with some of my colleagues on the committee, from 

Friday at the NASA-at the Kennedy Space Center where we were 

briefed by the NASA team of investigators. A distinct impression 

we got at that briefing was that there was no preventable way or 

no means of preventing the accident. In fact, in their major findings and conclusions they state that there was no action possible 

that could have resulted in survival of the STS 51-L crew. 

And you have made it very clear in our briefings previous to this 

and in your report, I believe, it was a preventable accident, and 

that attitude still distresses me and disturbs me, and certainly I 

feel that arrogance and independence in any part of NASA’s orga- nization must be changed because it interferes, I think, with the 

communication systems that you have very carefully addressed in 

terms of leading to the problem, or part of the problem. 

In followup of my colleague, Mr. Ritter’s, questions, your report 

clearly identifies the O-ring joint as the problem, as the cause of 

the accident, with other related problems in combination with that 

design problem and flaw. They’ve known that for 9 years, and yet 

nothing was done about it. 

Did the Commission uncover other major flaws in the total 

system that have potential of creating another accident, may not 

have been contributory to this accident but have potential of creating other accidents, that have gone uncorrected on the same basis? 

Mr. ROGERS. I wouldn’t say on the same basis, but we did uncover other problems that we think could cause a future accident. We 

refer to those and we suggest that they should be considered and 

improved upon. And you will see in this last part of the report a lot 

of discussion about that. 

Yes, I don’t think we found anything of a similar nature, if that’s 

what you mean. I don’t think we found that other things that were 

serious and had been called to the attention of the top people 

where nothing had been done. 

On the contrary, we found-I guess probably the thing we found 

most-and I’m talking really, and Neil should be talking because 

he knows so much more about the system than I do, but one of the 

things that always concerned NASA was the main engines. And 

they realized that there was potential for failure there right from 

the beginning, and they dealt with it pretty well, and it’s been surprising I think to everybody that the main engines have worked as 

well as they have. 

And we have encouraged NASA people to continue to look at all 

aspects of each one of these components to be sure that they were 

dealt with properly. Obviously one of the things concerning the astronauts-the brakes and tires and landing facilities, and particularly at Kennedy because of the weather-- 

Mr. PACKARD. Do you-- 

Mr. ROGERS [continuing]. So these things are all referred to in 

our report, and I hope that while NASA’s in the process of redesigning the joints that they will be able to deal with some of these 

other problems which are also very serious. 
70 

Mr. PACKARD. Do you recommend that we do not fly until these 

other potential problems are corrected? 

Mr. ROGERS. Not as such, because I don’t think that was our 

task. I think the Administrator, the new Administrator of NASA, 

has to make these judgments. I don’t think we should make the 

judgments in advance, but we certainly have pointed out areas of 

serious concern. 

Mr. PACKARD. Another question, Mr. Chairman-the flight readiness review program requires that all of the decisionmakers sign off 2 weeks, I think, in advance of flight, literally sign that the systems are go. Beyond that %week period, advanced period, there is 

no signoff procedure up to flight time but simply an opportunity for them to make comments, but there is no ability for them to 

cancel the flight or to sign that they feel that the flight ought not 

to go. 

Are you recommending that that system be changed to where 

the contractors and other major decisionmakers would have some 

input right up to flight time in terms of whether the flight should 

go or not go? 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes. We recommend that all conversations of that 

kind be recorded from now on and that, in the case of Rockwell, for 

example, where they recommended-where they thought they recommended against launch, and the NASA people said they didn’t 

understand it that way, that all those conversations be recorded, so 

that everyone in the loop will have the opportunity to vote no 

launch, and the vote should be clear and concise. It either should 

be we vote launch or no launch, and there should be no ambiguity. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished lady from 

Kansas, Ms. Myers. 

Ms. MYERS. Mr. Chairman, I was very interested in your recommendation for a safety advisory panel, and I don’t know howwhat role you envision them playing or how it should be made up, 

but I would like to say in all seriousness I think that there would 

be an excellent role for members of the Commission on this safety 

advisory panel. Your background at this point, your understanding of the problems that went into the attitudes that developed, I think 

would mean that you would serve very well. 

You made a comment at the beginning about how you are looking forward to returning to private life, but I’d like to say that I in 

all seriousness am suggesting that as a new job for you. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, thank you. I would like to suggest Mr. Armstrong. [Laughter.] 

Ms. MYERS. I guess my question is, Could maybe both of you expand on the role of this safety advisory panel, because I think 

it’s key to a-as a preventive measure, so that this won’t happen 

again? Who do you envison serving and how? Would they actually 

be onsite? Would they be advisory only? And could you expand on 

that? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Thank you. It’s intended that this panel be a 

working panel; that is, not a full-time job but people that are actively and intimately involved in the organization and the day-to- day activities. As such, it would prevent-or I shouldn’t say prevent, but it would certainly minimize the possibility of unexpected 
71 

problems surfacing without an adequate safety review, similar to 

the question that we just previously asked about main engines and 

nose wheels, and so on. 

We had intended that this be-although we were not specific 

about the membership, we indicated that it should have professional safety people, and we’re thinking about NASA safety people, people out of the astronaut office, people out of the flight crew OPerations group and mission operations, the flight directors, and so 

on, people that are intimately involved everyday, and it will give a 

forum for anyone who has safety concerns about specific systems to have a court of appeals to get to and say, “Look, we’re worried 

about this. We think it should be considered prior to flight.’’ It appears as though in past instances sometimes safety concerns 

were reviewed, evaluated, and, as NASA likes to say, dispositioned. 

But the people who had those concerns were unsatisfied. We think 

this court of appeals will give them a chance to have those concerns again reviewed. 

Mr. ROGERS. Could I just also say that this recommendation resulted in large part from the concern of the astronaut office, and 

particularly Dr. Sally Ride, and I think it is, as you point out, a 

very important recommendation. We think the astronauts should 

be more actively involved in these decisions. Although on paper 

they seem to have proper recitement of responsibility, in fact they have not been as intimately involved in the program as they were 

at the time that Neil was in the program. This is designed to be sure that there onhand-an in-house, 

onhand group of people available right there to deal with any of 

these things that might happen, and their voice will be very important and be listened to. 

Ms. MYERS. Ithink, Mr. Chairman, in that if there is a villain in 

this, it seems to me that pressure is the villain, and I think you have identified that. 

The attitude seems to have changed from one of total safety and 

“if you’re in doubt, don’t launch” to one of “we have to launch.” 

The pressures were commercial, military, press, and I think Congress played a role in this pressure. Part of the pressure was for 

money; part of it was again a role that was referred to earlierwe’ve got to be first in space; we’ve got to get the payloads up. 

My question is, did you determine how we can keep this pressure 

from building again? Because it will build again. The attitudes are 

still all there. And I sense it’s starting already. We have already 

started talking about building a replacement orbiter. We’ve talked 

about we’ve got to get back into space again. So the pressures are 

beginning to build again. 

How can we as a Congress keep this from happening? 

Mr. ROGERS. Ithink that the oversight responsibility of the Congress is awfully important, but I think we also have to be careful, 

though, in our discussion of our pressures. In some ways pressures 

are what makes the American system work as well as it does. 

Everybody’s under pressure of one sort or another, and I think it 

does create a lot of success, a certain amount of pressure. I guess what we have to be careful about is undue pressure or 

pressure that overcomes your considerations of safety. And I think 

in an organization of this kind, where a lot of people are responsi- 
72 

ble, that’s one of the risks, because you sort of are able to divide 

the responsibility. Here when you have so many people in the decisionmaking process, it’s very easy for everybody to succumb to the 

pressure and say, “Well, we all agreed to it.” 

So I guess in answer to your question, I think Congress has a 

very important role to play in its oversight role, and I think don’t 

the people are going to succumb to the pressure for a few years, 

but I think you’re correct that as this program gets going again 

and is successful, and everybody begins to be optimistic, I think we 

have to be careful about that. And I would assume that Congress 

will be a major factor in seeing that doesn’t happen. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Michigan, Mr. Henry. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Rogers, I’m wondering if in anticipating NASA’s response if we might, first of all, divide the findings of the report 

from the recommendations. Are there any of the substantive findings of the report with which you believe, or have reason to believe, NASA is in substantive disagreement? 

Mr. ROGERS. I don’t believe so. I heard Mr. Fletcher this morning 

on television. He said he hadn’t seen, been able to read all of it 

carefully, but he didn’t seem to take issue with the report. 

There may be people who, after they study it carefully, will have 

some reservations about it, but I rather doubt it. 

Mr. HENRY. In the area of the recommendations of the report, 

are there any which you have reason to believe or your judgment 

would suggest would be bureaucratic or institutional resistance to 

the recommendations, any in particular, for example? 

Mr. ROGERS. Idon’t think so. As I say, based on what we now 

know, I do not anticipate that, but it’s always possible. 

Mr. HENRY. On the issue of the kind of dilemma that NASA got 

itself into of increasing commitals in an environment of dwindling 

resources, to quote Mr. Armstrong, is NASA the innocent victim, 

or to what extent might this have been deliberate NASA bureaucratic strategy, as it were, to derive funds from the Congress by deliberately overcommitting and overextending in order to derive 

funds that were absolutely necessary to meet the commitments 

which had been made without cost levels being known to the Congress? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I was not an employee of NASA during any of 

the years in question and cannot speak from personal experience 

there. I think it would be-it would be improper for me to try to 

make a judgment in that area. 

Mr. HENRY. The gentleman from New Jersey mentioned that 

there are a number of people who have signed a bill appropriating 

funds for beginning a replacement Challenger shuttle type of vehicle. Without questioning the validity and the continuing need for a 

Challenger or Shuttle Orbiter Program, would it be prudent in 

your mind to commit these kinds of funds for a replacement or new 

vehicle until the fundamental questions posed and recommendations in your report are resolved, and above and beyond policy 

issues which your report raises, which in many respects are beyond 

the purview of the Commission relative to the role of expendable 
73 

launch vehicles in meeting mission demands as opposed to shuttle 

orbiters? 

I’m just wondering whether each of you would give me-at least 

I guess you can’t perhaps speak for the Commission, but individually what your judgment would be on the wisdom of appropriating 

funds for a new Challenger until those fundamental programmatic 

policy issues are resolved. 

Mr. ROGERS. I want to address-answer your question, if I may, 

first. I don’t think we should make any judgments on the fourth 

orbiter because that was not our job. And I don’t think we can disassociate Gurselves from the Commission. The reason you’re having 

us here this morning is because we’re on the Commission, and I 

want to try as much as possible to be sure that we speak as a Commission, not as individuals. And we think that role is one that 

should be performed by Congress, not by this Commission. 

Mr. HENRY. Let me rephrase the question, because I think it’s 

very critical, given the kind of political climate that we face. And I 

think you’re aware of that from looking at the history of the program, the public nature of the program, and-which obviously has 

been one of the factors which got us to where we are, both in a 

positive sense and a negative sense, but generally a positive sense. 

It’s been a very important issue here. 

And when we have this talk about being first in space, is it 

really irresponsible to suggest that commitments, a $3, $4 billion 

replacement issue, ought to be-the commitments ought to be withheld until we’re resolved some of these fundamental issues which 

were inherent in some of the bureaucratic positioning that apparently was taking place in NASA-to try to handle all launches, all 

role missions in manned vehicles, the contest between NASA and 

the military as opposed to ELV’s and manned shuttles? Aren’t 

these policy issues that ought to be resolved before we preresolve 

them by committing vast resources of money? 

Mr. ROGERS. I don’t think we necessarily have to do it in that 

timeframe. I think that the recommendations of the Commission 

can be put into effect fairly quickly, and I also agree that-with 

your suggestion that some of these safety matters should be dealt 

with right away. I think that there should be a reassessment of the 

brakes and the tires and some of these other aspects, and I think 

that should be done. And if it requires more money, I think the 

money should be provided. 

The thing I do not want to get involved in is the decision about 

the fourth orbiter. That’s a function I think Congress should perform, and I don’t think the Commission is prepared to make a 

statement on that. 

Mr. HENRY. It’s my understanding that roughly about 748 kinds 

of issues--[bell rings signaling time of the gentleman has expired]. 

Mr. ROE. Finish your question. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you. 

There are some 748 issues on the criticality 1 list; that at one 

point the O-ring problem was on that list and was removed. Given 

some earlier comments you made that there are no known or discovered kind of safety flaws, kind of marginal risks equivalent to 

that, how could it be that the one most outstanding criticality prob- 
74 

lem of the list of then 749, to speak metaphorically, that that one 

item most critical should be removed from the list? 

Mr. ROGERS. We can’t answer that really. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. It was not. It was-permit me to-- 

Mr. ROGERS. Sure. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG [continuing]. Make a technical correction. It was 

removed from the launch constraint list rather than the criticality 

1. It was waived from the constraint list. It was not removed from 

the criticality 1. It was moved from criticality 1R to 1, properly so. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah, Mr. 

Monson. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And I, too, would like to join with the others in expressing appreciation for the work that you’ve done and for the terrific service 

that it’s been and for the excellent way that you’ve carried out 

that assignment. I would like to know if you made any determinations as to 

whether or not there are any criteria that should be considered 

prior to a launch or in the design of any aspect of the shuttle or its 

components that are not now included as criteria to determine 

whether or not a launch should take place or in the design aspects. 

Mr. ROGERS. Ithink, if I understand the question, we did in our 

first recommendation set forth some criteria on redesign of the 

joint, but I think that was the only one specific recommendation on 

a redesign-- 

Mr. MONSON. I’m referring to weather criteria or anything like 

that. Were there any-are there any factors that are not now included that you determined should be included in determining 

whether a launch should go forward or whether any design criteria 

should be met? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, as far-no other as redesign criteria. I think 

we have discussed with the NASA people-and I can’t remember 

for sure whether it’s in here or not- but that we felt that there 

should be more specific criteria for launches, particularly at Kennedy due to the weather. We feel that there should be specific 

questions, and they shouldn’t be resolved on the eve of the launch, 

the day of the launch. They should be in place so that you would 

say-we didn’t want to spell out exactly what they should be, but 

we did discuss whether any launch should occur at Kennedy, say, 

within 24 hours after freezing. That would be one way to do it. If 

there was a-if freezing conditions existed, you shouldn’t have a 

launch for another 24 hours. 

So I think NASA’s aware that they have to look into those aspects of the weather, and I think we have made some references to 

the weather. 

Mr. MONSON. Well, more specifically, we talk about ambient air 

temperature, but are there other temperatures that should be 

taken before a decision should be made to go forward with a 

launch? Wind conditions? I’m given to understand that perhaps 

one factor that entered into this was the violent wind shears that 

existed as the flight progressed that perhaps exceeded any previous 

experience. Is there any way to detect that, and should that behave entered into the decision prior to the launch? 
75 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, we did-we had a lot of discussion about that, 

and we talked to the weather people. And they are going to try to 

get more accurate predictions about the weather. One of the problems is that they have some difficulty in determining wind shear at 

high altitudes, and they are improving the system of balloons that 

they have. They launch balloons so many minutes before the 

launch, and so forth, to determine that. And they are quite aware 

of that problem and I think will deal with it. It’s not an easy problem, though. It’s a very tough problem-to judge wind shears. 

As you know, even in commercial aviation they have trouble 

with that, in predicting them in airports. 

Mr. MONSON. Mr. Armstrong, did you have anything to add? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I think the chairman hit the important points 

with respect to our criteria recommendations. They were first in 

the area of the joints, should the new design have joints, and, 

second, in the area of launch and recovery, particular emphasis on 

recovery at Kennedy and the criteria that should be established for 

that. 

Mr. MONSON. With regard to your comments that NASA 

shouldn’t have any more flights than their resources allow, given 

the resources that now are there with three orbiters and such, did 

you draw any conclusions as to how many flights are reasonable? 

Mr. ROGERS. No; we discussed whether we should or not and we 

decided that we should not because it depends so much on developments. We certainly made it clear that we think they have to be 

more conservative. You probably read that Admiral Truly has 

made a statement, a policy, that they are going to be much more 

conservative in the future and they’re going to limit the launches 

to the ones that seem realistic. 

But we didn’t think it was quite appropriate for us to run the 

program or to suggest. That will depend a little bit on developments, but I think they’re going to be careful about it. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Idaho, Mr. Stallings. 

Mr. STALLINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Rogers, I’ve not looked at the report as thoroughly as I’d like 

to, but I’m interested in the civilian in space. Did your commission 

discuss that question at all? And, to the best of your understanding, will that program continue? 

Mr. ROGERS. Here, again, the NASA people have said that they 

are going to-for the next few flights they’re going to have just astronauts on the launches. 

We discussed whether we should make a recommendation on 

that. We finally decided against it because there were a lot of different opinions on the subject. 

Up to the present time I don’t believe that the civilians in space 

program has been an adverse safety factor. I don’t think that’s entered into-it certainly didn’t enter into this accident. And we 

didn’t think it quite appropriate to decide-I mean, I notice that 

some people say we shouldn’t have anybody except astronauts 

unless you have the press or-and others that say, well, you shouldn’t have anybody except astronauts except scientific people 
76 

or somebody else. And I think that has to be a policy decision made 

by NASA. 

I-speaking for myself, I think that the idea of teacher in space 

was an excellent idea. I think it would have been an inspiration for 

youngsters, teachers, and so forth. As it turned out, of course, it 

was very unfortunate, but I don’t believe we as a Commission 

should make that policy decision. 

Mr. STALLINGS. Perhaps Mr. Armstrong could talk about this, but 

I’m wondering if this is more of a public relations ploy, the teacher 

in space or some of the other civilian space programs, or if there is 

actual merit to those experiences. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Stallings, I share the chairman’s view. It 

was my sincere belief that this was a policy matter and it was 

beyond the purview of the Commission, and I prefer not to take a 

position on it. 

Mr. STALLINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Fawell, please. 

Mr. FAWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I haven’t had the opportunity-I suppose not many of us haveto fully digest what is before us here. And I know that basically of 

course you’re dealing with the specific facts and don’t want to get 

into policy. 

Mr. Armstrong, you did make the statement, I think, at the commencement of these hearings that-and correct me if I’m wrongthat there has been a switch in philosophy, you feel, from a “can 

do” attitude, one where a launch was presumed unsafe until rebutted, until now it would appear that perhaps that mindset is that 

it’s presumed safe until rebutted, which is an attitude of mind or a 

basic policy certainly. 

When, in your opinion, was a switch made? Can you pinpoint it 

at all as to when this might have occurred? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. No, sir; I wish I could, but I only saw snapshots 

in the sixties, in the middle sixties, and now in the middle eighties. 

And I was not aware of what happened in between. 

There are some differences, but there are many similarities, and 

I know that, for example, the management structure of the agency changed a number of times during the intervening period. The responsibilities, lines of communication, changed as Administrators 

and Associate Administrators, and so on, entered and exited the 

agency. Clearly, in the process of that, some of the procedures 

changed, but I am unable to be specific. 

Mr. FAWELL. Mr. Rogers, do you have any comments in that 

regard? 

Mr. ROGERS. No; I have less contact with NASA than Mr. Armstrong for sure. 

Mr. FAWELL. At one time-and I haven’t found this in the 

report-in fact, I must confess I heard it on TV last night, so that’s 

how good my source is-but the statement was made that at one 

time there was a policy out of the White House that was unilaterally disbanded by order of President Nixon, and this particular observant said that this was quite a loss because we had some top 

lions that gave some policy and attitudes that perhaps we’re deeply 

missing now. 
77 

And certainly the person at the top does an awful lot in setting 

attitude and policy. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. You’re quite correct, sir. The act, as you will 

recall, provides-the act establishing NASA provides for the possi- bility of such a committee, and it did exist for some years and does 

not at the present time, and it’s something that your committee 

may want to review. 

Mr. FAWELL. Did the commission discuss this at all, the lack of 

such a committee in helping the unfortunate mindset, for instance, 

which we now apparently have at NASA not to develop or to rectify it? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. No, sir; this Commission did not look at that, 

but the Payne Commission did and I believe made a recommendation in that regard, the National Commission on Space. 

Mr. FAWELL. Do you believe-again, this is perhaps out of your orbit-but the growing entry of the military into the use of shuttles, do you believe that this had anything to do with the increased 

pressure more than perhaps it should? Have you discussed-what 

about the future now that the military is certainly banging at the 

gates and very impatient about moving ahead? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, we discussed, of course, the idea that-the fact 

that the military payloads which were included in the space shuttle increased the pressure for launches. And we also pointed out 

that having sort of total reliance on the shuttle was not a wise 

judgment, and that will be changed in the future, because there 

are going to be more ELV’s now in the picture. So, to that extent, the answer to your question is, yes, we did consider that, and we think that will be changed now. 

Mr. FAWELL. I just have one other-I think several people have 

expressed themselves in regard to the question of negligence or 

willful wantonness or whatever. The one phrase uttered by you, 

Mr. Rogers, which certainly caught me was your comment that 

Thiokol apparently changed their minds because they were trying 

to accommodate a major client. To me, if that is so, that flirts with 

willful wantonness, wouldn’t you say so? 

Mr. ROGERS. As I say, I don’t-I’ve been out of the role of being a 

prosecutor for a long time, and I don’t-so I don’t want to be an 

authority on willfulness or gross negligence. I don’t-it doesn’t 

seem to me that prosecution would be successful of anybody in this 

tragic accident. 

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that some ambitious prosecutor would think it was a desirable thing to do and make an attempt to do it. I don’t think it would be successful. I don’t think it 

would be in the national interest, and I hope it doesn’t happen. 

Mr. FAWELL. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Virginia, Mr. Slaughter. 

Mr. SLAUGHTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

On the matter of pressure, with reference to the number of 

flights that NASA was planning, did the Commission find any definite indications of detrimental effects of the number of flights that 

were being planned and worked on? 

Mr. ROGERS. I’m sorry, I don’t think I mderstood the question, 

Mr. Slaughter. 
78 

Mr. SLAUGHTER. Well, I understand that one of the pressures that NASA was under was the number of flights it had scheduled; 

that they had cut back a number of times. But did the Commission 

find any definite detrimental effects of that heavy schedule that, 

orginally, NASA had decided upon that had any effects upon this 

accident? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, you know, you can’t trace those things specifi- cally, but I think that the fact that NASA could not maintain its 

schedule, was quite conscious of the fact of a lot of delays in their 

schedule, it wasn’t meeting the schedule, must have played a part in the psychology of the people involved, so there would be a natural tendency to say, “Gosh, we don’t want to slip up. We want to 

try to get these launches off as quickly as possible.” Now nobody said to himself, “Let’s take a chance. This is going 

to-we’ve got to meet the schedule and, therefore, we’re willing to 

take a chance that this going to be a catastrophe.” Nobody said 

that, but it’s quite possible that, being human beings, that they 

would react to the feeling that they had to meet the schedule. 

Mr. SLAUGHTER. Thank you. Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Walgren, the distinguished Representative. 

Mr. WALGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wouId like to say at the outset how important a document, I 

think, and service you’ve provided to the Nation. My greatest fear 

at the moment of this accident was that we’d never have any idea 

what on earth happened, and at least now we have a very clear definition of cause and a very solid evidentiary framework from 

which to work. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you. 

Mr. WALGREN. Let me ask-is it the belief of the Commission 

that the O-ring failure and the failure of the joint was the real 

cause of this accident? 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes. There is no doubt in our minds about that. I 

think everybody that worked on this has come to the same conclusion, and I hope that there will be no way to change that conclusion. I think it’s a solid conclusion that is not subject to controverSY * 

You not only have initial puffs of smoke, eight puffs of smoke 

within the first 2 seconds, 2Y2 seconds, which coincide with the 

twang of the shuttle itself that has a-it’s like a tuning fork, and 

those puffs of smoke coincided with that twang. So it’s pretty clear 

that the joint failed at the initial stage, and then you see the 

plume and that comes about at the same spot on the joint, so you 

can identify that the smoke came from about a 300-degree mark on 

the joint. When you see the plume appearing, it’s at the same spot, 

and it’s clear that that plume means that that joint failed again, 

partly because of the wind shear, and that then acted like a blow 

torch and destroyed the strut, probably breached the external tank, 

the external-- 

Mr. WALGREN. Can you evaluate the contribution of the wind 

shear to the question or is the joint itself a sufficient cause? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, you can’t be-you know, you can’t say for certain that if it had been a totally calm day-- 

Mr. WALGREN. They might have made it through? 
79 

Mr. ROGERS [continuing]. They might have made it. But there’s 

no doubt that the joint failed, and there’s no doubt that the joint 

caused the accident. And we were concerned as a commission that 

we might come to that conclusion based on the evidence I just 

cited. Incidentally, the top part of the external-on the external-I 

mean of the booster hit the external tank, so there was a breach at 

the bottom probably caused by a strut breaking, and the collision 

at the top which indicated to all of us that that’s what caused the 

explosion. So probably there were two breaches. 

But then we were concerned that we might decide that and conclude that and then the debris would somewhere later on be discovered and it would turn out that our conclusion somehow wasn’t 

correct. As it turned out, the debris confirmed exactly what happened because it’s still at the same spot. So there can be no 

Mr. WALGREN. I would like to emphasize at this point and note 

that you used words in the report like “the genesis of the accident,” because I think that we have to follow that cause to really 

understand the responsibility for this accident in the long run. 

And I am concerned that we, because of the emotioiis and the investment that we all have in the space program, that we will not 

define the responsibility in a way that it will change the attitude 

that you have pointed out in NASA, and that must change. And I just would like to raise my little flag of warning that 

there’s every indication that it’s going to be a very, very difficult 

thing to change, and that the necessary degree of caution to be 

built into this problem shows every sign of yielding to the pressure 

and the emotions and the forces that would push beyond safe operation. And I hope this committee can play a role in preventing, to 

the ultimate degree that that’s possible, that very thing from happening. 

doubt-- 

Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished Representative from California, Mr. Mineta. 

Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I first want to join all of my colleagues in expressing my gratitude for your work on the commission, as well as the 

other commissioners, not only in terms of the results here, but also 

the great public service that you have rendered to the American 

public. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you. 

Mr. MINETA. Mr. Secretary, I’m anxious to have a more thorough 

understanding of the relationship between contractors and NASA. 

One question I have in this regard is, Is there a standard operating 

procedure pertaining to the launch readiness procedures that was 

woefully ignored in the 51-L mission and perhaps many times 

before? 

In the case of SRB’s, Thiokol was talking to level I11 people in 

NASA. On the other hand, it appears that Rockwell was talking directly to Level I people. Moreover, Thiokol was asked for written 

affirmation of their consent to fly. Rockwell was asked for no such 

assurances. And it is unclear to me that anyone spoke to the exter- 
80 

nal tank contractors about the ice situation or, if so, what was the 

procedure. 

Aren’t there procedures, Mr. Secretary, which need to be established or perhaps newly adhered to in order to make this process 

less erratic and, more importantly, more reliable? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. If I may, sir, first, I think the flight readiness 

procedure as conceived and executed by NASA in general is a very 

good and comprehensive one. It really permits and requires every 

element at the foundations of the system, both contractors and 

Government agencies, to voice their approval in a formal fashion, 

in a pyramid style, until all elements are completely covered. I 

think it is a very good system. 

We’ve revealed a few times when it worked imperfectly. I believe 

that we can say that in this case all the elements were interrogated and asked to provide their-any dissatisfaction they might have 

with the conditions forthcoming at the launch the day before. And 

both contractors did so, but as the report points out, in an imperfect fashion. 

Mr. MINETA. You’re careful to inform us that the level I decisionmakers were not informed about the O-ring problem and the temperature hazards. Now O-ring problems have been mentioned in reports in the past, and that full-scale briefings were conducted 

among top agency people. 

I raise this point not to affix blame. I’m just trying to understand 

the information flow. It appears that the information flows upward 

in flight readiness reports which are naturally abbreviated, given 

the closeness to launch time, but is there a mechanism between 

launches where past readiness reports or past problems are reviewed to demand accountability for efforts to fix recurring problems or to explain repeated waivers? 

Why do I have the impression that information only percolates 

upward at the will of middle management people without a corresponding accountability operating in reverse? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. You bring up a very good point, Mr. Mineta. 

It was the commission’s view that the information did probeproceed forward, but was shortcutted. In the case of Rockwell, that 

information was conveyed directly on the moment of launch in response to the temperature concerns. That was level I because Level 

I happened to be at the meeting on the day before launch. 

Mr. ROGERS. But also, just so we don’t get confused about the 

levels, it’s what-the point you’re making is a good point, and that 

is, there was responsible level I, I1 for knowing things about this 

joint which they didn’t do much about, so we don’t want to put all 

the responsibility all level 111. 

But in the case of both contractors, they had plenty of opportunity to make their views known right up to the time of the launch. 

Morton Thiokol had already changed its view, so it didn’t have 

anything to report. In the case of Rockwell, they did express views 

which turned out to be misunderstood, I guess. 

Fortunately, from the standpoint of the Commission, fortunately, 

that did not contribute to the accident. Now there was a breakdown generally in how they dealt with the information about the 

past failures of this joint, and we try to point out in the report how 
81 

that happened and we try to make recommendations to be sure it 

won’t happen again. 

Mr. MINETA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to first join my colleagues in complimenting you, Mr. 

Rogers and Mr. Armstrong, and the other members of the commission for the job you’ve done. It’s thorough, definitive, and very well 

done. 

The irony of all this is that as we view, I suppose, man’s worst 

space disaster, we stand right on the threshhold of some of man’s 

greatest achievements in space. And I think, Mr. Rogers, your comments in your opening statement are very true. The real charge of 

this committee should be where do we go from here. How do we 

insure the safety of future crews and how do we make this system 

work for the future? 

Specifically, you mention and recommend three things relative to 

the astronauts themselves-that they have a larger role in the decisionmaking process. You’ve recommended that astronauts become 

part of the management systems of NASA. You’ve recommended 

that they participate on the safety advisory panels, and that the 

flight commander himself have some say in the decision to launch 

or not to launch. 

I wonder if you characterize the problem as it exists, or as you 

found the problem, as to the lack of input on the part of the astronauts and how you came to evolve in these specific recommendations for the astronaut corps. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, let me take them one at a time. In terms of 

management, we realize that there really are not very many astronauts in management now. Earlier on in the program there were 

some. 

And we also learned that Admiral Truly, who has turned out to 

be really a superb executive, was in NASA and left because he 

really didn’t feel he had an opportunity in management. So after 

this accident, he’s been asked to come back and serve in NASA, 

which suggested to us that there probably are a lot of other astronauts who might like to go into management who would be superb 

at it and haven’t had the opportunity. So we’ve urged NASA to 

consider the astronaut community as a source of excellent management material. Some may not want to, but there’s excellent people 

there, well educated, experienced, knowledgeable. They know all 

the risks. 

Second, we-although the astronaut office has been a useful 

office, we think that they have not had direct access to the top to 

the point that they should. There’s sort of an intermediate level 

there. We want that office to have direct access to decisionmakers 

in all respects. 

Third, we want them to be involved in the panel so they’ll have 

immediate impact on launches and things of that kind, and we 

spell it out in the report. So these are things that we have learned from our investigation. 

We worked very closely with the astronauts and the astronaut 
82 

community, and I think they all feel that their views have been 

fully taken into consideration. 

Mr. ANDREWS. You know, one of the things in testimony in the 

last few months-one of the astronauts testified that they have a 

procedure where the astronauts themselves overfly the site the 

morning of the launch to get a personal feel for the weather. And 

when they were asked what kind of input do you have, if you made 

that decision not to launch after that flight or during that flightyour senses, your instincts told you that the weather was not right, what kind of input do you have as to not to launch? And the response was that they did not know. They did not know how much 

impact their decision, their judgment, would play in that decisionmaking process. 

Mr. ROGERS. And that’s why, one of the reasons, we have the 

safety panel setup, and I’m sure that it will work. Everybody now 

is going to pay attention. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Barton. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I made a statement the day after the accident, the Challenger accident, that I would go up in the shuttle that day. Contrary to Mr. 

Boehlert, I’m trained as an engineer, have worked as an engineer 

in quality control, and have always had this absolute confidence 

that NASA and its procedures and its people were first rate and 

that safety was paramount. 

Well, after following through the press and the briefings and 

your commission report and findings, and going over them, I don’t 

have that confidence. I wouldn’t go up in the shuttle today. Quite 

frankly, I’m not sure that we ought to be even thinking about continuing our shuttle flights until we’re absolutely certain that every- thing is first rate again. 

I think it starts at the very top. I think NASA’s leadership has 

not intentionally, but just through time and the pressures that you 

referred to, begun to overload some of the safety problems, and I 

think safety has just not even become an issue. 

In your report you talk about the silent safety program, and I 

think that’s what it was. 

So I am going to try to participate very fully in these hearings 

an insist that we reestablish leadership and that we reestablish 

safety as a critical importance. 

With that as where I’m coming from, it’s my understanding that 

one of your commissioners, Dr. Feynman, had some recommendations that were thought to be too inflammatory and so are not in 

the report. Now I have no problem with the recommendations that 

are in the report, but I would like to know what his recommendations are and why they’re not in the report. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I don’t know whether you saw him on television last night. He was on the “MacNeil-Lehrer Report,” and he explained that and said that he’s perfectly satisfied with the report 

as written; he supports it. He wrote a paper which is going to be in 

the appendix to be labeled personal observations on reliability of 

the shuttle, and there really wasn’t any problem with him. He said 

so. 
83 

This piece that he’s done deals with-largely deals with probabilities of accidents, failures, and it’s an interesting paper and should 

be in the report, and we all agree with it. 

It didn’t fit into the flow of the report very well, and it wasn’t 

something that the whole commission considered as such, but there 

really wasn’t any problem with it, and he said so last night. 

Mr. BARTON. Well, if I could just quote from the New York 

Times, it says: 

At least one commission member, Dr. Richard Feynman, a Nobel prize winning 

physicist from Cal-Tech, is said to have objected to the deletion of some phraseology 

highly critical of NASA and to have complained that the commission has little evidence to support some of its praise of the agency. 

Although Dr. Feynman would not describe the nature of his objections, he said, 

“Mr. Rogers is worried that all of our recommendations and findings are so negative 

it will look like we’re vindicative or carping or trying to kill NASA. I, myself, believe that’s just the way the investigation came out.” 

I’ve read what has come out. I don’t view it to be negative or 

carping. I think we need to have all the facts before us. And as you 

so well indicated yourself, you have conducted the investigation; 

it’s up to us to set the policy, but we need to know all the findings. 

Mr. ROGERS. I agree with that. And, as I say, we’re pleased that 

all commissioners support this report, and Dr. Feynman support it 

enthusiastically. I think that it’s quite remarkable that this group 

of people with such diverse backgrounds and so many talented 

people all came to the same conclusion unanimously without any 

exception, and we did try to present a balanced report. We’ve certainly not been easy on anybody. We haven’t-- 

Mr. BARTON. I understand that. Well, let’s go on. I assume at 

some point in time, Mr. Chairman, we will have Mr. Feynman 

before our committee and we can ask him about his recommendations. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I hope that you-there’s no reason not to have 

Dr. Feynman here. I would hope, though, that it doesn’t-these 

things don’t ever develop into such minutia. I think it’s too important for the Nation. 

We have-obviously in a commission of this kind we had numerous discussions about language, how do we state things, and we sat 

together for about 10 days and went over this report page by page 

and word by word, and there were all kinds of views expressed. To 

me, the remarkable thing is that we all agreed. 

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, can I ask one question of Mr. Armstrong? 

Mr. ROE. Yes; go ahead. 

Mr. BARTON. Ifyou had been the commander of the spacecraft on 

launch day and known about all the discussion that had gone on 

the day before, the night before, with regards to the O-ring, would 

you have made the decision to fly? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I would have hoped that I would have been involved and aware much longer before, than just the night before, 

and had a chance to evaluate the problem and pass my own judgment on it. 

It’s hypothetical, and I don’t know how I might have ruled had I 

been provided that information, but I certainly would have wanted 

to have had it. 
84 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

New Hampshire, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman-- 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman-- 

Mr. ARMSTRONG [continuing]. May I interrupt, sir? 

Mr. ROE. Yes. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I’d like to-Mr. Mineta asked a question, and I 

failed to answer it and I would like to acknowledge that I did and 

give him the answer, if I may, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Of course. If the gentleman would withhold from New 

Hampshire for a minute, go ahead. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. He asked a question about the FRR’s and the 

trend of information from previous flights, and that is an important point. And the FRR procedure is primarily to go back only to 

the immediate previous flight and review that information in a 

closeout of all open items since that time. And it neglected the 

exact point that you mentioned-what is the trend of events over a 

number of previous flights. And in our report you’ll find some recommendations with respect 

to trend analysis, and we suggest that that properly should be the 

function of a good safety organization and they should be doing that monitoring as a part of the FRR process. And I wanted to get 

that point in because I thought it was significant and-- 

Mr. MINETA. That is encouraging, Mr. Chairman, if I might add, 

because I Chair the Aviation Subcommittee. And when FAA goes 

over the reports of the airlines, when you have these deferred 

items carried over from one report, from one airplane, from the 

same airplane, from one time period to another, then you can see 

why things like the Eastern Airlines and the $9.5 million fine and 

78,000 violations occur, because they have deferred maintenance 

items that have just stayed there consistently over a long period of 

time. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from California. 

The gentleman from New Hampshire. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I’d like to join the chorus of those who have been 

commending you. I think the President chose wisely, and I comment you and your entire committee for the work that you have 

done. 

I, as a layman in this matter, both in a congressional oversight 

responsibility as well as just a private citizen-I find a strange inconsistency in this thing about safety over the past several years, 

and I don’t know many-was it 50-some-odd manned space 

flights-we get down to countdown and we have countless delays, 

postponements, sometimes cancellations, and safety always seemed 

to be the thing on the front page-we didn’t fly because something 

wasn’t right. 

What was different this time? Were we lucky for the past 20 

years or so? Were these flights-were we just plain lucky and we 

were doing things wrong all along or, if not, what was different 

this time? 
85 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, it’s difficult to answer that in a word. What 

we are trying to do in this report is to answer it. I mean, we would 

hope that the American people are interested in it, would read the 

report, and I think the report does answer that question. I don’t 

think it’s possible to answer it in a word or in a sentence or in a 

chapter. I think you have to read it all to come to your conclusion. 

And I think the report does answer that question. 

Mr. SMITH. All right. You made a statement which kind of 

jumped out at me and caught me by surprise, frankly. And I’d like 

you to just make sure you meant it and-- 

Mr. ROGERS. I probably didn’t. 

Mr. SMITH. No, you made a statement which-I wrote it downyou said, “Budget cuts probably did impact safety at NASA.’’ 

My question-- 

Mr. ROGERS. Excuse me. I couldn’t quite hear you. 

Mr. SMITH. “Budget cuts probably did impact safety at NASA.” 

And my question is this: we’ve sat here over the past several 

months, several years for many of us, and never heard that from 

NASA, never heard that from a countless number of witnesses who 

have come before this committee. 

Can you give me some specifics as to why you might come to that 

conclusion? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I guess you can-you can always argue that 

you have more money, you can do a better job. So maybe my 

answer was premised on that thought, but I think that there’s 

more to it than that. 

In this case we examined two aspects that-specifically, one was 

the fact that they’re cannabalizing the orbiters; in other words, 

taking parts from one shuttle, putting them in another because 

they don’t have spare parts and they don’t have enough orbiters. 

So cannabalization is a very dangerous process. You have to make 

all kinds of adjustments when you do it. 

So certainly if they had-they’d asked originally for five orbiters 

and they didn’t get them. So if you cannabalize, take parts from 

one to the other, put it in the other, it obviously is dangerous. It 

has some tough aspects. Furthermore, they are running short of spare parts. Now why 

they were running short, I’m not sure, but they say that they’re 

running short because of budgetary considerations. And there’s testimony before the Commission that if they would have had to continue the program at full speed, that they were going to be running 

out of spare parts, and it would have been dangerous. And that’s in 

the report, too. 

So I think my answer was based on those facts. I can’t say that 

specifically it was budgetary in this case, in the case of the Chub 

lenger, but you certainly could say over a period of time, maybe if 

they had had five orbiters and a little more money, it would have 

been a safer operation. 

Mr. SMITH. did anyone that you spoke to in the course of your 

investigation from NASA or from any other witness-any other 

witness that you asked that question, did anyone give you a yes to 

that question? Did they say, yes, budget cuts did impact safety? Did 

anyone say that? 
86 

Mr. ROGERS. I’m not sure they used that word, but they-and 

they didn’t say it in connection with the Challenger, but they said 

it in generally speaking, yes, sure; the astronauts did. 

Mr. SMITH. Because I think from a congressional oversight responsibility, Mr. Chairman, I think my concern here would be 

when we have the experts coming before this committee not ever 

saying that to us, my concern is I think we should be interested 

more in priorities. We certainly would have canceled some other 

mission, not necessarily dealing with the orbiter, but perhaps some 

other project in the whole scope of the budgetary process with the 

whole program of science and technology perhaps to focus in on 

safety. And so I think-it is not meant to be directed at your committee, but I think that at the congressional oversight level, I think 

we have a lot of work to do, because I have some real concern 

about this being almost a-we were caught up, as somebody said 

before, in the momentum here of everything’s going well, all these 

successes, and now we’re-just keep moving. And I think this committee, frankly, this congressional committee has been caught up 

in that, and I was very much surprised to hear that, but I think 

that will certainly change my attitude. 

Mr. ROGERS. I want to be sure, if I may, make one more response-want to be sure that I’m not suggesting that budgetary 

considerations played a part in this accident. I wouldn’t want to 

leave that impression. 

Mr. SMITH. May I ask one quick, followup question? I know we’re 

out of time-but just one quick question. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from New Hampshire? 

Mr. SMITH. Did you have any evidence that the crew would have 

had any inkling of this O-ring problem in the flight? I have not 

read your report in its entirely, so if it’s in there, I could go back. 

But was there any inkling at all in that 70-some seconds that the 

crew-would the pilot have had any possible ability of knowing 

what was going on? 

Mr. ROGERS. I don’t think so. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 

Bruce. 

Mr. BRUCE. Thank you. 

Mr. Rogers and members of the Commission, I join with the 

others in commending you for the fine work that you’ve done in 

determining the cause and recommending corrective actions for 

Congress. Now we have to evaluate and fund many of your recommendations, and so my questions really are some questions that 

deal with the power of the purse that we have. 

It seems that eight of the nine recommendations that you have 

made to us entail increased cost, and at least in two of the recommendations, recommendation No. 1 on design and No. 7 on crew 

escape, you ask NASA, and indirectly the Congress, to take a different look at how we consider cost. You’ve observed through your 

review a number of wasteful practices at NASA. And can enough 

waste and mismanagement be eliminated at NASA as it presently 

is formulated to make a mission acceptably safe within the current 

budget levels? 
87 

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Bruce, I really don’t have the capabiity of answering that. I don’t know enough about the subject to answer it. 

Mr. BRUCE. In your review did you find any practice at NASA 

that should be brought to our attention, that we should look at in 

the way of waste within NASA, problems they have with overexpenditure? 

Mr. ROGERS. I didn’t. Possibly Mr. Armstrong-see, we really 

didn’t have the mandate of looking at everything. We were not an 

oversight committee to review everything about the shuttle. We 

were asked to deal with the accident, how to prevent future accidents. We didn’t go into whether they were doing it in an extravagant way or not. So I just don’t-I don’t have the ability to answer 

it. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I have to agree with the chairman. I don’t think 

we have the basis for passing a judgment, but as a footnote to that 

comment, let me just say that it seems to me that it’s important 

not only to ask, can you do this job with this kind of money, but, 

secondarily, can you do this job with what level of confidence with 

this kind of money. Because the additional funds that are provided 

to do a particular program are used to pay premiums on additional 

insurance policies basically, doing additional testing, getting additional confidence in the abilities of the systems to do the jobs, and 

so on. And so I suggest that you demand agencies, when they come 

before you, to try to in some way quantify what level of confidence 

they might have with that level. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Will my colleague yield on that for just a 

moment, please? 

Mr. SMITH. I’d be happy to yield. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Secretary, I’m glad you said that budget considerations did not appear to play a part in this accident, because, 

according to a staff report we have-and I would like to just read a 

portion of it- 

“NASA engineers and management were aware of the joint problem in 1978 and 

had observed O-ring failures in the form of erosion and bypass during tests and 

after flight; yet, NASA procedures were ineffectual in correcting the problem prior 

to the STS 51-L accident.” 

So that doesn’t seem to be directly related in any way, shape, or 

manner to budgetary constraints. As a practical matter, for the 

last 5 years we’ve increased the budget for NASA, although I understand because of inflation it really boils down to level funding. 

But I think that’s important to have that on the record, Mr. Secretary, and I’m glad you emphasized that. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from-- 

Mr. BRUCE. One question on safety: your recommendation, your 

second recommendation is that we would establish a shuttle safety 

panel. Your fourth recommendation that we start an office of 

safety with an associate administrator. 

I also saw the program MacNeil-Lehrer last night, and the discussion that occurred in that program concerned me in that at 

least one former astronaut indicated that he thought that was a 

mistake, that the recommendation of an office of safety would 

allow people up and down the line to say: 
88 

Safety is not my watch. That’s sumeone else’s problem, so let’s-the safety office 

is in charge of that. As long as they sign off on this, my rear end is covered so let’s 

not worry too much about it. 

Was there any discussion within the Commission about that particular aspect of safety? And I’m also concerned about, What is 

going to be the coordination between the office of safety and the 

shuttle safety panel? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I believe that was Dr. Hans Mark, Associate 

Administrator, that made that comment. And his concern was that 

which was stated by the chairman earlier; namely, safety has to be 

everybody’s business, and you can’t delegate the responsibility for 

safety to some organization off to the side and expect safety to be 

done. And we certainly as a Commission agree with that approach. 

It’s felt, however, and the organization that the Commission has 

suggested is one in which the safety organization would act like an 

independent audit function in the business world; that is, an outside, independent audit or an internal audit firm that has not line 

responsibility or sale of products or services, or whatever. And we 

believe that’s important. 

The safety panel, on the other hand, is a completely animal. It’s 

intended to be an organizaiton within the line, although it will 

have safety individuals in it, that acts on day-to-day safety concerns of individuals, contractors, and Government agencies, NASA 

organizations wherever they occur, and gives them a court of appeals to bring their concerns and have a hearing. 

But they would not be within the office-they would not be a 

part of the safety stream, which would be the independent audit; 

no, sir. It’s a working level. 

Mr. ROGERS. Can I also say that I heard that “McNeil-Lehrer 

Report,” too, and I heard what he said. I don’t-I disagree with him, 

quite strenuously disagree with him. 

At the present time the chief responsibility for safety, granted 

that everybody has to be responsible in part for safety, but if everybody’s responsible you end up with nobody’s responsible. 

The chief engineer at the present time at headquarters is now 

responsible for safety. He’s the man that is looked to as the safety officer for NASA. He said-and we cited in the report--“If I had 

known, I’m sure that in the 1982 time period when we first came to 

the conclusion that the seal was not redundant, I would have insisted that we get busy right now on a design change and also look 

for any temporary fix we could do to improve the operation of the 

seal.” 

He didn’t know about any of these things. He was the chief engineer. What we are saying is that there should be one person in 

headquarters who is primarily, all of his responsibility has to do 

with safety. Now even that system can break down, but there 

should be some responsible person that should know about these 

things. They should know all about them. They should have known 

all of the problems they had with the seal over a period of a longa period of years. 

As a matter of fact, there were aspects of this seal where they had been-or these seals, whether they’re in the field joint or the 

nozzle joint, which is somewhat the same- there had been problems with them, out of the 24 flights, problems on 14 of the flights. 
89 

And what we’re saying is there should be some person at the 

headquarters whose job it is to say, “My God, it’s my problem. I 

want to know what’s going on. You’ve got to let me know it. If you 

don’t let me know, it’s your scalp. I’m the man that’s going to be 

responsible at headquarters.” And we think that’s an important recommendation. 

Mr. BRUCE. May I make one final-I take it from what you say 

this is very important not only to create that office, but we elevate 

it to the level of Assistant Administrator? 

Mr. ROGERS. Absolutely. 

Mr. BRUCE. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from-the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Traficant. 

Mr. TRAFICANT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As the only member from Ohio, I want to welcome not only the 

Commission members for the fine job you’ve done, but give a real 

hello from Ohio to Mr. Armstrong who helped America before tremendously and is helping now, and we appreciate it. 

You know, as we look back-and now we’re talking about the 

fault and the causations of this tragedy, and we talk about the 0- 

ring. I’m going to offer my opinion and then I’m going to ask you 

for your opinions. I don’t believe the problem was the O-ring. I believe the problem was the management of NASA. I believe everybody should take off the gloves and do what we can to correct the 

problem before this type of an incident could occur again. 

Now this is very unpopular in America-to question NASA. It’s 

been up on that ivory tower, but now we’ve come to see that some 

of the management perspectives that loom within NASA are as 

regular as some of the other more mundane types of agencies such 

as the IRS and others. And, my God, we can’t afford that. 

I refer specifically now to something that I consider to be very, 

very important in this report. It’s on page 10, approximately halfway down, and it refers to the launch decisionmakers not being 

made aware of certain things. 

I want to quote something from this report and then ask that 

opinion and make a recommendation, Mr. Chairman. I quote: 

“These launch decisionmakers,” the statement says, “were unaware that Thiokol, including management officials, originally recommended not to launch and then, when pressed by NASA”- 

when pressed by NASA-“that Thiokol management reassessed 

and recommended to launch.” 

My point is we live in a time of government where the outside 

contractors almost sometimes overly influence the agencies, sometimes illegally. 

Here’s a case where at least at the subordinate level the engineer says, “My God, we’ve got a problem. Let’s not take this thing 

on.” But it was NASA and NASA who pressed that ultimately 

brought about this launch. I find that to be the cause of the problem and the cancer there. 

Now in your opinion, what can this committee and the House do, 

what can we do as elected officials and the representatives of the 

people here-what can we do to deal with the management perspective within NASA to try and bring this ship to order, and what 
90 

are those specific recommendations that you might make to us in 

that regard? 

Mr. Rogers, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you. Let me say, first, that in one respect the 

question you ask is even worse than you made it seem because 

originally it wasn’t just the engineers in Thiokol that recommended against the launch; it was everybody in Thiokol, including management. It was a unanimous recommendation not to launch, and 

that recommendation, unless the temperature was 53 degrees or 

more. So it wasn’t just the engineers fighting management; it was 

a unanimous decision by that company that that shuttle should not 

be launched. 

Now the change occurred not-the engineers didn’t change their 

mind, except Mr. Lund who happened to be part of management, but they changed their mind because NASA said that they were 

appalled at the recommendation and, if the recommendation stood, 

they might not be able to launch until April. And after those 

things were said, Thiokol management changed-made a changechanged its mind. And they signed the telefax that said that it was 

okay to launch. 

Now I-in answer specifically to your question, I think it’s a 

matter of changing the attitude on the part of everybody, and certainly in the case of NASA. I think that contractors have to be 

aware of their responsibility; NASA has to be much more aware 

and take it into consideration, and I think our report, would hope 

our report, will serve that function. 

We hope that the new leadership in NASA will understand the 

risks of proceeding on any situation that’s not safe. And we hope 

that everybody who has the responsibility of deciding to launch the 

shuttle in the future will know all the facts before they make the 

decision. 

They still may make a mistake. It’s quite possible. But they certainly should make the decisions based on known facts at the time. 

We hope that the work of our Commission will serve that purpose. 

Mr. TRAFICANT. For the purpose of time-it’s very limited, Mr. 

Armstrong-I’d like to ask you to maybe move off another quick 

question. It is always the key question that deals with morale. No matter 

what the element you deal with, the attitude of the people within 

has much to do with the intended outcome. What is the morale of 

NASA? In your opinion, what is it going to take to involve the-all 

elements to make them into one key, cohesive unit that has some 

decisionmaking input? 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I haven’t taken any kind of a formal survey and 

can’t really give an enlightened response to that, but I have had 

the opportunity to talk to a number of individuals during’the 

course of the investigation, and I’m encouraged. The people I 

talked to are-were pleased that the Commission was taking an aggressive approach to uncover the facts, and they were disturbed by 

some of the things that we found and that they found as a result of 

the inquiry. But they all universally-those that I talked to generally felt they wanted to get on with the job, make the fixes, and 

they’d feel a lot better when the fixes were in and they were back 

in flying. 
91 

Having said that, I don’t want to imply that there probably aren’t those who will change their mind about their participation in some way or other, because there probably will be, but I just do 

not have those facts. 

Let me make one additional comment with respect to your previ- ous question. I wouldn’t want this committee to feel that the Commission thought that, had we in fact waited and always launched 

at temperatures greater than 53 degrees, or some number, that this 

would have been a safe design. In fact, the Commission concluded 

the opposite-that there was inherent design deficiencies in this 

joint and they need to be fixed, no matter what temperature it’s 

flown in. 

Mr. TRAFICANT.hank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I have a recommendation for the Chair, whether 

it’s in order or not. I would recommend the Investigation and Oversight Subcommittee of this committee look into the management perspective and the decisionmaking that had gone on along with 

this particular launch, if necessary behind closed doors, and take a 

real good look at it and try to get to the bottom of that management aspect. 

Mr. ROE. If the distinguished gentleman would yield, tomorrow 

we’re going to have before us the leadership of NASA, and we’re 

going to get into these program problems in the same kind of 

depth, and I trust you’ll be here to propound your excellent questions. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished Representative from 

Kansas, Mr. Glickman. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Rogers, years and years ago you were at George Washington University Law School the judge of a moot court argument I made 

and I lost it. [Laughter.] So now that you’re back-- 

Mr. ROE. You’d better quit while you’re ahead. [Laughter.] 

Mr. GLICKMAN. I’m not sure what that means. 

Mr. ROGERS. Somebody was looking for a thorn in the flowers we 

Mr. GLICKMAN. No, I’m-actually the country owes you a great 

were getting; maybe you’re it. [Laughter.] 

deal of gratitude. Before I ask you two questions, I’d just like to again make public 

reference to a couple of points: one on page 201, one of your iecommendations is reliance on a single launch capability should be 

avoided in the future. That is a very significant recommendation and one that will cause us a great deal of major public policy 

choices, whether we go transatmospheric vehicle, expendable launch vehicles, no fourth orbiter, cut the shuttle totally, more unmanned spaceflights, and let us hope that the legislative process 

and executive process can deal with those questions rationally and 

independently, because you’ve raised them here and they are 

truthfully public policy questions. Second of all, while it’s been touched before, the role of Congress-I also agree, we have not approached this from an adversarial or at least from an independent role, but it’s no different here 

than it is with almost anything we’re involved with. When we’re 

involved too closely, we lose the independence. 
92 

I recall a number of times NASA took me down on airplanes to 

see the space launch, and that was all very nice. Then I think to 

myself, but the whole idea was, on both of our sides, to establish 

cozier relationships so maybe we wouldn’t be as independent as we 

should be. And I think that that has to be part of it. 

But let me go to a couple of questions. After reading this report, 

I don’t see one darn word about contractors. It almost looks to me 

like you have neglected any reference to the contractors-to 

Morton Thiokol, to all the other contractors who were involved in 

the situation. 

And I’m just wondering, Is there some reason why you have 

seemed to have left them out of this chain? And maybe I haven’t 

read the report as well as I should have, but what about the contractors? What about the relationship between the contractors and 

NASA? Should they expect something new and do you recommend 

something new as a result of this? 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I do think that you missed some of the comments in the report, but we do single out Morton Thiokol particu- larly. We have a lot of discussion in here about them. And we say 

something that’s judgmental, I guess. We say that the contributing 

cause of the accident-we say, “The Commission concluded that 

the Thiokol management reversed its position and recommended 

the launch of 51-L at the urging of Marshall and contrary to the 

views of its engineers in order to accommodate a major customer.’’ 

Mr. GLICKMAN. OK, that’s true, but there’s nothing in your recommendations to recommend any structural changes in the relationship between the contractors and NASA, and I think that goes 

to at least part of the heart of what happened here. And I’m wondering why. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I’m not sure that I understand the term 

“structural change.” NASA has the responsibility of making contracts with contractors that perform their functions properly. And 

we did-we reviewed the Martin Marietta performance on the external tank, and we had testimony from them, and we were quite impressed with the fact that they were very thorough. They did what appeared to be a good job over the 24 previous flights, and we 

also reviewed and have some references here to other contractors. 

Now I don’t think we undertook to try to determine whether 

NASA made the right choice of contractors because I don’t believe 

that was our-- 

Mr. GLICKMAN. That’s not my question. My question is that 

NASA operates very much like the Defense Department and to 

some extent like the FAA in terms of its relationship with major, substantial, outside contractors, and clearly in this case that relationship affected the lack of success of this flight. Now part of it 

was the flaw on the management, but part of it may have been the 

flaw in the relationship between management and the contractor. 

And I’m just, frankly, at this stage disappointed why there wasn’t 

any specific reference. Maybe that wasn t in your frame of reference at all, and-- 

Mr. ROGERS. It really wasn’t. As I say, my thought was that we 

were pretty rough on Thiokol. I mean, they certainly think we 

were. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Well-- 
93 

Mr. ROGERS. I think that when you read this carefully, you’ll see 

that we didn’t recommend any change be made. We think that’s a 

matter for Congress, and Congress already has had some discussions about that. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. I will be glad to yield. I just have one more-- 

Mr. ROE. I think it’s important to point out for the gentleman-I 

know you were a little late in getting here-I think it’s important 

to point out to the gentleman that in the overall scoping of the efforts to be performed by this committee and all its members, we 

are listening to the distinguished representatives in Secretary 

Rogers vis-a-vis their work. We will be calling in NASA tomorrow 

to respond, and there’s plethora of questions that members have 

propounded that only NASA can direct its attention to. 

Third, if the gentleman will yield, we will be calling in an astronaut corps, both retired and present astronauts, to get their particular point of view and their observations, using the basis of the 

Rogers report. 

And then, fourth, we definitely will be calling in the private 

sector vis-a-vis the manufacturers of all phases of this work to get 

their reaction. 

I think in fair play it’s important that each one has their chance 

at the morale justice of the-- 

Mr. GLICKMAN. I appreciate that. I guess my only point is that 

these recommendations on pages 198 to 201 are going to be the 

ones that are copied and sent and disseminated all over the place, 

and not once is there a reference to that kind of structural relationship between NASA and the contractor. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield again, if the gentleman 

would read very carefully what the charge of the President of the 

United States was to the Commission, that would help to clarify his 

concern, I think. 

The responsibility of the Commission was to thorougly review 

and exhaust and recommend their exact findings as they relate to 

the accident per se. I think one of the great achievements of the 

Secretary and his colleagues in forming their report is that they 

have uncovered in a very scholarly manner a number of items 

which we have to look into. And the one you’re mentioning I’m 

not-and you’ll get another minute or two-- 

Mr. GLICKMAN. OK, thank you. 

Mr. ROE. I’m not denigrating your observations. I’m just simply 

saying that that avenue is open. I mean, we can’t explore the regrets of-- 

Mr. GLICKMAN..OK. And I’m not saying that you ignored it intentionally-not to deal with it. 

Mr. ROGERS. No, we didn’t. 

Furthermore, I think you should have won the debate. [Laughter.] 

Mr. ROE. On that basis-- 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Boy, didn’t you soften me up. [Laughter.] 

Now this is the last question. 

Mr. ROE. On that basis, I think you just lost the debate. 

The gentleman from Kansas? 

64-295 0 - 86 - 4 
94 

Mr. GLICKMAN. It seems to me another issue has to do with the 

relationship between management in the NASA Program and management in the Defense Department. 

For example, it almost seems to me that what we’ve seen here is 

that the people who worked at the center were more concerned 

about the center than they were about the program. And it looks to 

me like DOD management is geared just toward the opposite-that 

DOD management is more geared toward the program and not the 

center. 

And you’ve talked about some of these things generally. I wonder 

if you might comment on that and also comment on a possible suggestion as to whether the Department of Defense-this may be 

heresy, but I’m going to ask you to comment on it anyway-whether the Department of Defense should take over the operations of 

the shuttle and/or the operations of NASA and operated, it being 

in charge. 

Mr. ROGERS. Here, again, I really do think that’s outside of our 

mandate. We did not address that and I don’t think we should. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. OK. 

Mr. ROGERS. I think that’s-those questions really are policy 

questions that Congress has to decide. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. All right. Now what about the first part of the 

question about the way the management structure was oriented 

people were more concerned about the center they worked for 

rather than the program that they worked for, where there was a 

delineation of goals? 

Mr. ROGERS. We do make reference to that. We recommend that 

more responsibility be given to headquarters, and particularly we 

think that)Ee center at Marshall is probably too autonomous and 

needs to be looked at very carefully. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from Kansas. 

If there are no further questions, the time has become-we’ve 

come to the end of our time. 

Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you and your vice chairman, Mr. 

Armstrong, for very adroit, candid, upfront testimony. We think 

you did a splendid job. 

We’ve exhausted our work for today. I know your work is not exhausted for today. 

I want to thank you very much. We’re not sure whether we’ll be 

wanting you back on Thursday, but we’ll keep in touch with you. 

Mr. ROGERS. We hope you don’t, very much. We want to get back 

to private life. 

Mr. ROE. I understand. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you very much. 

The meeting stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:37 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene 

the following day.] 
INVESTIGATION OF THE CHALLENGER 

ACCIDENT 

(Volume 1) 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1986 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:35 a.m., in room 

2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Roe (acting 

chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Mr. ROE. The committee will come to order. 

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is the second day in a 

series of hearings that the Science and Technology Committee is 

holding to investigate the shuttle Challenger explosion. Our Nation has a commitment to space exploration and space development, and we must maintain these objectives even as we examine the causes of the shuttle accident. 

As I mentioned yesterday, our approach will be three pronged. 

First, we will examine the accident in terms of technology and 

hardware, which is the process we’re on now-really, what went 

wrong. Second, we will scrutinize the role of NASA’s management 

and decisionmaking process in the accident scenario. And finally, 

we will use this knowledge to help us make the decisions and judgments necessary for the future stability and success of our Nation’s 

Space Program. Yesterday we heard from the Honorable William Rogers, Chairman of the President’s Commission on the Space Shuttle Accident. 

The Commission has provided the Nation with an outstanding documentation of the technology failures and also management prob- lems that led up to the January 28 accident. Today, NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher is with us to respond to the findings and 

recommendations of the Rogers Commission report, as well as to 

present his views on changes and ideas and suggestions on NASA’s 

future structure and operations. And I understand that with Dr. 

Fletcher will be Dr. William Graham, Deputy Administrator, 

NASA; Rear Adm. Richard Truly, Associate Administrator for 

Space Flight; Mr. Arnold D. Aldrich, manager of the National 

Space Transportation System of NASA; Capt. Robert L. Crippen, 

astronaut, NASA; and Mr. Dan Germany, leader, photo and TV 

analysis team, from NASA, in due course as they fit into the testimony. 

[The prepared opening statement of Mr. Roe follows:] 

(95) 
THIS IS THE 

WENING REMARKS 

OF 

HON. ROBERTA. ROE 

HEARINGS ON CHALLENGER ACCIDENT 

JUNE 11, 1986 

SECOND DAY IN THE SERIES OF HEARINGS THAT THE 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CoFlMITTEE IS HOLDING TO INVESTIGATE THE 

SHUTTLE CHALLENGER EXPLOSION, OUR NATION HAS A COMMITMENT TO 

SPACE EXPLORATION AND SPACE DEVELOPMENT AND WE MUST MAINTAIN THESE 

OBJECTIVES EVEN AS WE EXAMINE THE CAUSES OF THE SHUTTLE ACCIDENT, 

AS I MENTIONED YESTERDAY, OUR APPROACH WILL BE THREE-PRONGED. 

FIRST WE WILL EXAMINE THE ACCIDENT IN TERMS OF TECHNOLOGY AND 

HARDWARE, WHAT WENT WRONG? SECOND, WE WILL SCRUTINZE THE ROLE OF 

NASA's MANAGEMENT AND DECl SI ON-MAKI NG PROCESS I N THE ACCl DENT SCENARIO. FINALLY, WE WILL USE THIS KNOWLEDGE TO HELP US MAKE THE 

DECISIONS AND JUDGMENTS NECESSARY FOR THE FUTURE STABILITY AND 

SUCCESS OF OUR NATION'S SPACE PROGRAM, 
97 

2 

YESTERDAY, WE HEARD FROM WILLIAM ROGERS, CHAIRMAN OF THE 

PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE ACCIDENT. THE COMMISSION HAS PROVIDED THE NATION WITH AN OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTATION OF 

THE TECHNOLOGY FAILURES AND ALSO MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS THAT LED UP 

TO THE JANUARY 28T~ EXPLOS I'ON, 

TODAY, NASA ADM I NI STRATOR JAMES c, .FLETCHER I S W I TH US TO RESPOND TO THE FIND1 NGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE ROGERS' COMMISSION REPORT, AS WELL AS TO PRESENT HIS VIEWS ON CHANGES IN NASA's 

STRUCTURE AND OPERATIONS. 

WITH DR. FLETCHER ARE DR. CdILLIAM GRAHAM - NASA DEPUTY bMINI STRATOR AND NEWLY DES I GNATED SC I EtdCE ADV I SOR TO THE PRES I DENT, 

REAR ADM I RAL R I CHARD TRULY - NASA ASSOC I ATE ADM I N I STRATOR FOR 

SPACE FL IGHT, MR, ARNOLD ALDR I CH - NASA MANAGER OF THE NATIONAL 

SPACE TRANSPORATI ON SYSTEM, AND CAPTA I N ROBERT CR I PPI N - NASA 

ASTRONAUT. 
98 

3 

WE INTEND ALSO TO CALL UPON NASA's SHUTTLE CONTRACTORS AT A 

FUTURE DATE. 

THE ROGERS' COlrlMISSION, NASA, AND THE CONTRACTORS ARE THE 

THREE MAJOR COMPONENTS THAT WILL PROVIDE THE COMMITTEE WITH THE 

COMPREHENSIVE PERSPECTIVE IT IS SEEKING IN THIS INVESTIGATION. 

HOWEVER, THIS DOES NOT PRECLUDE ANY DECISION WE MIGHT MAKE TO CALL 

UPON OTHER INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS WHO MAY SHED FURTHER LIGHT ON OUR 

INQUIRIES. 

GENTLEMEN, WE ARE PLEASED TO HAVE YOU WITH US TODAY. 

NOW I WANT TO RECOGNI ZE CONGRESSMAN LUJAN, RANKI NG REPUBL ICAN 

MEMBER OF THE SCIENCE COMMITTEE. 
99 

Mr. ROE. Before I call on our distinguished witnesses today, I 

defer to our ranking minority member, Mr. Manny Lujan from 

New Mexico for any opening statement he may wish to make. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I join you 

in welcoming Dr. Fletcher and Admiral Truly before this committee today. I look forward to hearing their initial responses to the 

conclusions and recommendations made by the Rogers Commission 

as a result of its investigation into the Challenger accident. 

I was glad to hear that Dr. Fletcher has agreed to study the recommendations of the Rogers Commission with an open mind and 

without reservations. That certainly is, in my opinion, the first step 

in the right direction. A lot of other steps must follow to fully implement the tough changes required by the Commission’s findings 

and recommendations. 

The Rogers Commission has made it abundantly clear that a serious, thoughtful, and thorough review of NASA, its policies and 

practices, is overdue. It is unfortunate that it took a tragic accident 

and the loss of seven lives to get our undivided attention. 

Mr. Chairman, I cannot help but express a deep personal frustration at this time. In the aftermath of the Challenger accident, I 

grew increasingly tired of seeing NASA again and again adopt a 

defensive attitude, and generally less than cooperative posture 

toward the inquiry and constructive criticism. However, I believe 

that Dr. Fletcher has recently committed to changing this attitude, 

and I welcome this initiative. I hope he is successful in implementing this change at all levels of NASA management. All of us are 

anxious to get on with the business of rebuilding the space progr”. I intend to lend my full support to that effort. There is, however, 

a string of issues which continues to concern me greatly. I am particularly troubled by NASA’s organizational management structure 

as it applies to the space transportation system, its policies for certifying hardware, and the agency’s approach toward criticality one 

and two items in risk analysis. I’ll pursue these issues during the 

course of our hearings. 

Dr. Fletcher, the bad news is that you have your work cut out for 

you, and it won’t be easy. The good news is that I believe you’ll 

have the full support of this committee as you begin the task of 

fming the critical problems and to rebuild our space program. 

Thank you very much. 

me prepared opening statement of Mr. Lujan follows:] 
100 

. OPEN I NG STATFMENT 

BY 

HON. WUEL LUJAN, JR. (R-NM) 

RANK I NG REPUBL I CAN EMBER 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

NASA's RESPONSE TO ME ROGERS COMMISSION REPORT 

JUNE 11, 1986 

, 

MR. CHAIRMANP I JOIN YOU IN WELCOMING DR. FLETCHER AND THE OTHER NASA 

WITNESSES WHO COME BEFORE US TODAY. I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING THEIR 

INITIAL RESPONSES TO THE CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMFNDATIONS MADE BY THE 

ROGERS COMMISSION AS THE RESULT OF ITS INVESTIGATION INTO THE 

CHALLENGER ACCJ DENT, 

I WAS GLAD TO HEAR THAT DR. FLETCHER HAS ALREADY AGREED TO STUDY THE 

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE ROGERS COMMISS I ON--AND I QUOTE--"W I TH AN OPEN 

MIND AND WITHOUT RESERVATIONS." THAT CERTAINLY IS THE FIRST STEP IN 

THE RIGHT DIRECTION, BUT MANY OTHER STEPS MUST FOLLOW TO FULLY 

IMPLEMENT THE TOUGH CHANGES REQUIRED BY THE CmMISSlON'S FINDINGS AND 

RECOMMENDATIONS. 

THE ROGERS CWMISSION HAS MADE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT A SERIOUS, 

THOUGHTFUL AND THOROUGH REVIEW OF NASA, ITS POLICIES AND PRACTICES IS 

LONG OVERDUE. IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT IT TOOK A TRAGIC ACCIDENT AND 

THE LOSS OF SEVEN LIVES TO GET OUR SPACE AGENCY'S UNDIVIDED ATTENTION. 
101 

MR. CHAIRMAN, I CANNOT HELP BUT EXPRESS A DEEP PERSONAL FRUSTRATION AT 

THIS TIME, IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT, I GREW 

INCREASINGLY TIRED OF SEEING NASA AGAIN AND AGAIN ADOPT A DEFENSIVE 

TONE AND A GENERALLY LESS THAN COOPERATIVE POSTURE TOWARDS OPEN 

INQUIRY AND CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM, I BELIEVE THAT DR. FLETCHER HAS 

RECENTLY COMMITTED TO CHANGING THIS ATTITUDE AND I WELCOME HIS 

INITIATIVE. I HOPE THAT HE IS SUCCESSFUL IN IMPLEMENTING THIS CHANGE 

AT ALL LEVELS OF NASA MANAGEMENT. ALL OF US ARE ANXIOUS TO GET ON 

WITH THE BUSINESS OF REBUILDING THE SPACE PROGRAM. 

I INTEND TO LEND MY FULL SUPPORT TO THAT EFFORT. THERE IS, HOWEVER, A 

STRI NG OF 1 SSUES WH I CH CONTl NUES TO CONCERN ME GREATLY, I AM 

PARTI CULARLY .TROUBLEC BY NASA's ORGAN I ZATl ONAL AND MANAGEMENT 

STRUCTURE AS IT APPLIES TO THE SPACE TRANSPORATION SYSTEM, ITS 

POL I CI ES FOR CERTI FY I NG HARDWARE, AND THE AGENCY'S APPROACH TOWARD 

CRITICALITY 1 AND 2 ITEMS AND RISK ANALYSIS. I WILL PURSUE THESE 

ISSUES DURING THE COURSE OF OUR HEARINGS. 

DR. FLETCHER, THE BAD NEWS IS THAT YOU HAVE YOUR WORK CUT OUT FOR 

YOU--AND IT WON'T BE EASY. THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT I BELIEVE YOU WILL 

HAVE ME FULL SUPPORT OF THIS COMMITTEE AS YOU BEGIN THE TASK OF 

FIXING THE CRITICAL PROBLEMS TO REBUILD OUR SPACE PROGRAM. 

THANK YOU, 
102 

Mr. ROE. I thank the distinguished gentlemen. 

If there are any other members of the committee that have an 

opening statement that they want to issue today, please put it in 

the record. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement I’d like to have 

inserted in the record at this point. 

Mr. ROE. At this point. No objection; so ordered. 

[The prepared opening statement of Mr. Volkmer follows:] 
STATibEKi e!' 

Ha<. HARQD L. VQtMF. 

Cnai man, Suocommittee on Investigations 

and Oversi ght 

1 1 June 1 985 

Wr. Chairman, this is an uncommon and unwantea position we f inc 

ourselves ir, iooay. I:e nave me7 many times in tnis rm to welcome 

back asTronauT crws anc learn of tne work tnat Tney have Deer 

performing ir, spzc6. ki nave we~ched Satel I iff repairs ana orbitai 

consiructior, projecs with fascinatior,. Toaay, we nave tne saa duTy 

to f inc out wnv we cannot exienc TC the brave crm of Space ShuTtie 

lilission 5i-L tne S~E oriviie?.,. 

147. Kil I im. kogers en: tr,s otne- members of the commission appointec 

oy the Fresiaent TC inuestiga~e tnis traseay nave aone e thorougn anc 

comprehensive jou. I sallj~f tnm for heir aedicatiort anc 

Derseverence in traziting aohr, tne information necessary for us ic 

unaersTanc nm this accioen: occurred anc wnaT Ke wil I need to ao Ir, 

oraer TO FljaranTee ThBT ou- ZsTronauTs Tame no iurtner unnecessary 

risKs. 

Tne Com1ssion's reosrt has raisea some seriocs auestions in cy mln~ 

anc i intend to STB~T asking those questions Tocia).. i be! ievi tne 

answers wil I be criTical in NASA's effort to reoesian the flaqec 

sysTems ioentif iea DS tne Rogers Commission anc TO develop e 

nanagemen? S;rucTure tnct aoes noT ai ion' tns agency TC ipore probias 

of suck a critica! r,aTure agair.. 

lie saw ai-re- tne knci Ic fire in 1967 that NASA is able TO accept tougn 

criticim~ anc emerge s'rronger for it. I nave no aoubt that tne 

agency's neh hSSOCiaTE AjminisTraTor for Space Fi ight, Aamirai Truly, 

wii I taKe wrle-reve- STCDS are necessary TO essure Congress anti tne 

Katior: thaT rher. Trle Shutle fI ies again, it will do x) safely. 
104 

Mr. ROE. Any others? 

Mrs. LLOYD. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement. 

Mr. ROE. The gentlelady from Tennessee. No objection; so or- 

[The prepared opening statement of Mrs. Lloyd follows:] 

dered. 
105 

STATEMENT OF 

HON. MARILYN LLOYD 

JUNE 11, 1986 

MR. CHAIRMAN, THIS HEARING MARKS A NEW BEGINNING FOR NASA AND THE 

COMMITTEE BECAUSE OF THE IMPACT OF THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT. WE HEARD 

FROM THE ROGERS' COMMISSION THAT THE DESIGN OF THE SOLID ROCKET 

BOOSTER IS POOR AND IT MUST BE FIXED. WE ALSO HEARD THAT THE 

MANAGEMENT PROCESS WITHIN NASA IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED, AND IT WILL BE 

THIS COMMITTEE'S RESPONSIBILITY TO SEE THAT THE PROPER FIX IS MADE. I 

DO NOT THINK THAT WE SHOULD UNDERESTIMATE THE DIFFICULTY SINCE MANY 

PERCE I VE AN " I NST I TUT I ONAL HARDEN I NG OF THE ARTER I ES" AT NASA 

HEADQUARTERS AND THE F I EL0 CENTERS. COMM I SS I ONER ROGERS TALKED ABOUT 

CHANGING THE "MIND SET" AMONG MANAGEMENT, AND I AM SURE THAT DR. 

FLETCHER UNDERSTANDS THAT THAT WILL TAKE A SIGNIFICANT EFFORT ON HIS 

PART, 

I WAS DISTURBED ABOUT THE FACT THAT MY MEBERS AND THE ROGERS' 

COW I SS I ON FOCUSED SO HEAV ILY ON SAFETY INADEQUAC I ES BECAUSE OF THE 

TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT 
106 

THE ISSUE IS THAT OF A QUPLITY PRODUCT AND ACHIEVING A LEVEL OF 

EXCELLENCE! ONCE AGAIN. IF NASA DOES ITS JOB EXCEEDINGLY WELL IN 

DESIGN AND TESTING AND OTHER ACTIVITIES, SAFETY WILL BE ASSURED. THE 

ISSUE HERE IS NOT SIFIPLY SAFETY -- IT IS NASA's PRODUCT, AND I AM 

AFRAID THAT PRIDE AND TECHNICAL ARROGANCE HAVE ALLCWED THE PRODUCT TO 

ERODE IN QUAL I TY, 

CERTAINLY, IT WILL BE AWKWARD AT FIRST FOR THE COMMITTEE TO MAINTAIN 

AN ARMS LENGTH WITH THE AGENCY, BUT THAT IS CRITICAL BOTH IN TERMS OF 

SUBSTANCE AND PERCEPTION. WE CAN NO LONGER BE THE SPACE CADETS OF 

YESTERYEAR. ALSO, I FOR ONE HAVE NO REGRETS ABOUT SUPPORTING THIS 

GREAT AGENCY THROUGH ITS MANY TRIUMPHS. LOOKING BACK TO ANOTHER 

TRAGEDY, THAT OF THE APOLLO 204 FIRE, I THINK WE CAN LEARN FROM BOTH 

THE S I M ILAR IT I ES AND D I FFERENCES. AT THAT T IME, THE SC I ENCE COW I TTEE 

RPLLIED TO SUPPORT THE PROGRAM AND CARRIED OUT AN INTENSIVE 

INVEST IGAT I ON TO I DENT IFY WHAT NEEDED F I X I NG . HCWEVER, THE POL ICY 

CHOICE WAS A RATHER SIMPLE ONE IN 1967. THAT IS, AT WHAT PACE TO 

PROCEED WITH THE APOLLO PROGRAM IN THE WAKE OF THE FIRE ACCIDENT. 

TODAY, DR. FLETCHER AND HIS LIEUTEbIANTS ARE FACED WITH A COMPLEX SET 

OF TRADE-OFFS NONG POLICY ISSUES, AND THE AGENCY IS INCH MORE 

CONSTRAINED BY ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES. I I FOR ONE, HAVE AN OPEN MIND 
107 

ON THIS DIFFICULT SET OF CHOICES BEFORE US. BUT I WOULD EMPHASIZE 

THAT THE ACCIDENT HAS MADE THE NASA BUDGET A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME FOR 

THIS COMMITTEE. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE Ah' SACRED CWS IN 

TERMS OF PREV I OUS COMMITTEE POS IT IONS ON SPACE COMMERC 1 AL I ZAT I ON, 

SHUTTLE-DER IVED VEH I CLES, ORB I TER REPLACEMENTS, ETC , IT SEEMS TO ME 

THAT ONE COMMITTEE POSITION THAT SHOULD CARRY OVER TO THE NEXT 

CONGRESS IS THAT WE MUST DO RESPONSIBLE OVERSIGHT AND SATISFY 

OURSELVES INDEPENDENTLY THAT NASA IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK 

INSTITUTIONALLY. I HAVE AN OPEN MIND ON THE PROGRAYMATIC FUNDING 

ISSUES, BUT I WILL NOT SUPPORT ANY DECISION WHICH LOOKS LIKE IT IS 

AIMED AT A QUICK FIX. THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO MAINTAIN THE BEST 

PEOPLE IN THE AGENCY, ENCOURAGE THEM TO PROVIDE A QUALITY PRODUCT, AND 

SAFETY WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF, 

MR. CHAIRMAN, I LOOK FORWARD TO THIS NEW BEGINNING AND EXPECT TO WORK 

CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH NASA TO RECAPTURE THOSE GOLDEN DAYS OF SUCCESS. 

MY HOPES AND PRAYERS GO WITH OR, FLETCHER AND HIS TEAM. 
108 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from New York. No objection; so ordered. In fact, everybody, no objection; we’ll put them in at this 

time, and that will solve that problem. 

[The prepared opening statements of other members follow:] 
109 

GEORGE E. BROWN, JR. 

STATENENT 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

RWIEW OF THE REPORT OF THE 

ROGERS COMMISSION ON THE 

CHALLENGER ACCIDENT 

JUNE 11, 1986 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to welcome Dr. James Fletcher and 

other representatives of NASA to this Committee hearing in the 

spirit of sober discussion. Today, and in the days that follow, 

we will review and evaluate the findings and recommendations of 

the Presidential Commission on the Challenger Accident. The 

Commission, commendably chaired by William P. Rogers, has 

presented a thorough and comprehensive document. Based on the 

Rogers Commission report, Congress will be able to make vital 

decisions on how to proceed with the future of the space program. 

I look forward to the conclusion of these hearing--to when 

we can put the accident behind us so NASA can get on with the 

work that it had been doing for nearly three decades. I am 

confident that NASA will make the fixes in both system design and 

operating procedures that are necessary to resume shuttle 

flights. It is a matter of national importance that we carry on 

with a vigorous space program. 
As we begin our evaluation of NASA's technical and 

managerial practices associated with the Challenger accident, we 

should recognize that fault for the shuttle disaster does not lie 

solely with NASA. Congress and the Executive Branch also 

deserves criticism. As much as anything else, the problems at 

NASA are a product of our flawed oversight. In the past two 

decades, we have sent NASA on a budgetary roller coaster ride 

which tested the limits of its highly complex infrastructure. 

Congress and the Administration made ambitious demands on NASA, 

without always being forthcoming with adequate funding. 

This Committee, in particular, has perhaps been overly 

cordial to NASA in the past. This cozy relationship does not 

serve the interest of NASA or the American people. Clearly, some 

distancing between this Committee and NASA will occur. 

on NASA must be prepared to undergo the same scrutiny as any 

other federal government agency. 

From now 

The U.S. space policy is a patchwork quilt of space 

projects, with the Space Shuttle being the center-piece. 

Although these programs are individually meritorious, there 

exists no overall goal. We approve NASA budget year after year 

without a clear vision of what the ulitmate goal in space should 

be. I believe NASA has suffered for lack of a comprehensive 

natiOMl space policy, and to some extent this contributed to the 

Challenger disaster. 
111 

We need the leadership to establish a set of long-term goals 

in space which will guide NASA. If we have a set of long-term 

objectives to work toward, then Congress and the President can 

make intelligent decisions on the interim steps for getting 

there. I bring to my colleagues attention the recently released 

report by the National Commission on Space which outlines a set 

of ambitious goals worthy of serious consideration. I believe 

that the recommendations of this Commission, headed by Thomas 

Paine, can be used as the basis for a truly comprehensive 

National Space Policy. 

Mr. Chairman, we have a difficult job ahead of US as we 

conduct these hearing and prepare our own report. This Committee 

must be decisively critical of NASA, yet leave room for 

encouragement so we can move forward. On the one hand, we must 

not be timid about asking embarrassing or uncomfortable 

questions. On the other hand, we must not damage the essence of 

the space program and foster the dedicated continuation of our 

nation's noblest venture. With the talent that exists on this 

Committee, I know we can strike a balance between ciriticism and 

encouragement of NASA. 
112 

OPENING REMARKS OF 

REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT S. WALKER 

RANKING REPUBLICAN MEMBER 

SUBCOMMI’ITEE ON SPACE SCIENCE 

AND APPLICATIONS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 11, 1986 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Today marks a maJor step in 

our recovery for the tragic loss of Challenger and her 

gallant crew. 

Today we will begin the process of reviewing the 

accident and the recommendations of the Rogers Commission 

with the management of NASA. I suspect that we have a very 

rocky road to traverse this morning, and, perhaps, for many 

days to come. 

This committee has been accused by the media of not 

being sufficiently critical of NASA in the past. In many 

ways that is unfair. But, there is some truth to the claim. 

I suspect that most other members of the committee would 

agree with me that in the future we will no longer serve as 

cheerleaders for NASA, but from here on out we will actually 

be in the huddle with them. 

Yesterday we heard from the Rogers Commission and they 

brought forth an indictment of the agency. There are a 

number of areas which this committee needs to look into 

before we even consider returning to flight status. I am 

particularly concerned about the lack of a functloning safety 

system within NASA. The Rogers Commission refers to it as a 
113 

"silent safety system." Hy own view is that it is nonexistant. This is an area which must be addressed by the 

Administrator and the highest levels of NASA management. 

I am also deeply concerned that the agency continues to 

keep people who played key roles in the multiple management 

failures which led to the accident in key management roles in 

the manned space program. I am not looking for scapegoats, 

and I do not want to see a witch hunt. However, I have lost 

confidence in those who were repeatedly told of the problems 

with the O-rings, and who neither solved the problem 

themselves, nor took it to their superiors. 

We are told that the top managers would not have 

launched if they had been aware of the concern at lower 

levels, but they were unaware of the problem. I think that 

it- is essential to keep those people who were responsible for 

the data not reaching to top out of the management of the 

manned program in the future. 

I think we also must find out why the Congress was never 

told of the problems that the Rogers Commission has 

uncovered. We cannot approve of a return to flight status 

until all of the questions that the commission raised have 

been fully answered to our satisfaction. 
114 

Mr. ROE. Now, for the benefit of the members of the committee, 

we have planned on working with Dr. Fletcher and Admiral Truly 

and the members of their team as I announced before. During the 

day, today, and tomorrow there will be ample time to develop the 

issues involved and to get the facts before the committee as we 

unfold the second phase of our examination, which really has to do 

with not only what happened-which we had from the testimony 

yesterday-but what is the observations and the findings and the 

references that will be developed by the NASA leadership and 

management under Dr. Fletcher. 

Dr. Fletcher has to visit with the President; they’ve got a program that’s laid on this morning-I think it’s around 11 a.m., if 

I’m not mistaken-but as he concludes that program, he’ll be back 

here thereafter to continue on through the afternoon. So again, for 

the benefit of the members, there will be ample time. We’ll go 

through the 5-minute process to get organized and get started. So 

as you are developing your areas of interest, I think you ought to 

develop them in continuity so that we are carrying through any 

particular issue in a continuity so it makes sense as far as the 

record is concerned and as far as getting the work done. 

Now, having said that, I want to welcome our full committee 

chairman, Hon. Don Fuqua from Florida. Don, is there any comment you want to make before we begin? 

Mr. FUQUA. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to welcome Dr. Fletcher back. I think he’s not been before this committee 

in this capacity in about 9 years. 

Welcome back, Dr. Fletcher, and we look forward to working 

with you. 

Mr. ROE. All right. Having said that, Dr. Fletcher, again we want 

to welcome you and Admiral Truly and your team. If you would go 

ahead-I know you have your formal statements, but I do think 

that they’re of such sufficiency that we should review the entire 

full statements, so to set the framework for today’s hearings. So, 

Dr. Fletcher, if you would proceed, I’d appreciate it. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES C. FLETCHER, ADMINISTRATOR, NASA 

Dr. FLETCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I welcome this opportunity to appear before you to address 

the Rogers Commission report; not because it’s easy, or pleasant for 

me, or for NASA, but because it is a necessary and appropriate 

step in a democratic society. 

The Challenger accident, in full sight of the American people and 

the world, raised many questions about what we, as an agency, 

were doing, and certainly, how we were doing it. After a long 

period of many successes, we at NASA are brought back to Earth, 

both literally and figuratively, for a time of reassessment. 

Mr. Chairman, the American people seek answers and you, as its 

elected representatives of this committee, do, too. We are prepared 

today to begin to give you our best current information, plans, and 

responses to questions and recommendations. We do not have all 

the answers yet, and we expect our dialog with you to continue 

often during the coming months. We are dealing with very complicated problems. Simple answers, quick and easy answers are just 
115 

not honest or reasonable. The Commission report urges me, as 

NASA Administrator, to report to the President 1 year from now 

on our progress. I intend that both you and he have interim reports 

as we work to reclaim the excellence that has been our hallmark. 

I said last Monday that NASA was prepared to study the Rogers Commission report with an open mind and without reservations, 

and that is absolutely true. I said that we had already been at 

work-indeed, had begun to seek answers to the disaster-even 

before the Commission was appointed, and that is also true. And I 

promised that where NASA management was found to be weak, we 

would strengthen it; where engineering or design or process needed 

improvement or change, we would do what was needed; and where 

our internal communications-and that includes decisionmakingwere poor, they would be made better. 

It seemed to me that the Rogers Commission report not only was painstaking as it looked back, but cleared the air in a sense for us 

to move on. The Rogers Commission, in short, not only analyzed the failure of the Challenger launch and made recommendations 

for change, it also reaffirmed our goal. 

Mr. Rogers, in his letter of transmittal to the President, said, 

“The Nation’s task now to move ahead to return to safe space flight and to its recognized position of leadership in space, there 

could be no more fitting tribute to the Challenger crew than to do 

so.” 

We intend to do so. No tribute may be sufficiently worthy, considering the sacrifice of the Challenger crew; but we shall do all we 

can to make space flight safe and to maintain American leadership in space. 

Mr. Chairman, that is not an idle statement, and I would like to 

review briefly why I believe that is so. 

First, I believe this body will take an active role in redefining 

our national space effort for the decade ahead and into the next 

century, continuing a role this committee has had from the begin- ning of the American space program. 

Second, NASA, virtually from the moment of the accident, has 

been deeply involved in finding out what went wrong so that we 

could plan for a safer future. 

Third, the Rogers Commission has performed in an exceptional 

way, without posturing, without placing blame in a vindictive 

manner, without seeking to destroy a program that has brought knowledge, pride, and glory to this Nation. 

Let me begin with NASA’s relationship with Congress. There are 

those who have seized on our mistakes to question your oversight, the legitimacy of longtime cooperation and, indeed, possibly the 

space program itself. The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that Congress has 

always maintained a careful and thoughtful balance between a 

critical and sometimes skeptical view of space plans, even as it sup- plied support and encouragement when that seemed justified. 

In the 1960’s, getting to the Moon was a national policy; and 

with the American people’s hearty endorsement, the Congress responded with program and financial support to match the public’s almost unlimited enthusiasm. But those days are long gone. What 

has remained is a close working relationship and, I hope, mutual 

respect. I intend to maintain and improve both. I intend, with Con- 
\-- 

116 

gress, to look carefully at our programs; and, with OMB, to make 

sure that every request to you is a responsible one. We will set priorities with full disclosure and discussion, and we will carefully 

spend the moneys that you authorize. 

The American people have a nonpartisan pride in the accomplishments of the space program and in American preeminence in 

this field. I do not believe they want a timid program that doesn’t 

maintain leadership. I do believe they want this committee and 

NASA to move with assurance together in seeking new goals. 

Let me now review some of NASA’s own activities in the weeks 

since the Challenger accident shook our confidence. We were forced 

to look at everything we had done, from design to the process of 

our decisionmaking. Part of this was the responsibility of a task 

force under Admiral Truly’s leadership and with day-to-day direction by his associate, J.R. Thompson. It involved a development 

and production team, a prelaunch activity team, a mission planning and operations team, an accident analysis team, a salvage 

support team, and a photo and TV team. Much of its activity was 

aimed at helping the Rogers Commission. The NASA task force reports were made to the commission in mid-April; the data is still 

being gathered, analyzed, and pursued by appropriate NASA leaders. 

I also asked Gen. Sam Phillips, who was Apollo Program Director when we were on our way to the Moon, to study every aspect of 

how NASA manages its programs, including relationships between 

our various space centers, with each other, and with NASA Headquarters. General Phillips’ review is not limited to the Challenger 

accident, and operates with broad authority from me to question 

every aspect of our activities. The review and report to me is being 

done without a deadline and will probably take the rest of this 

year for completion; but, as I become aware of things that need to 

be done, they will be implemented at that time. 

The period from the Challenger accident until our next launch 

will be a time of reevaluation for NASA. Our work will not stop; it 

will only be more intense than ever. 

Mr. Chairman, during the past several weeks-and particularly 

during the past several days-the question of when we will fly a 

space shuttle has been raised. I have said that our target date is 

July 1987; but I want that goal placed in its proper context, and 

that context is safety. We will fly in 1987 if it is safe to do so. We 

will not fly if it is not. In the complicated, interrelated situation in 

which we must function, a target date is necessary, particularly to 

potential users. But the date is not a fixed and inflexible one. 

We are realistic about our problems, some of which the Rogers 

Commission noted, and we know there may be delays in design, 

testing, and manufacturing. You will hear more about all of that 

from Admiral Truly in a moment. For the moment, we keep the 

date of summer of 1987 as a goal which may change; what is not 

changeable is our commitment to fly again only when it is safe to 

do so. We will fly when we know clearly that we have dealt with 

the problems which led to the Challenger disaster. 

Finally, while Admiral Truly will deal with the specific recommendations of the Rogers Commission report and what we are al- 
117 

ready doing or have done, I want to make several observations 

about the report itself. 

I said on Monday that the report of a Presidentially appointed 

independent body carries with it special status and the compelling 

obligation to study its conclusions with an openness and willingness to change. That is particularly so with this report. It was done 

thoroughly and with care, with both toughness and understanding, 

and-I repeat-it was done with our cooperation. In its preface, it 

was noted that NASA established several teams of people, not involved in the Challenger launch process, to support the Commission 

and its panels. 

I think it is important for the committee, the House, and the 

American people to understand that NASA and the Rogers Commission have worked closely together, even as each maintained its 

independence during the many weeks of the Commission’s work. 

The preface of the report said, “These NASA teams have cooperated with the Commission in every aspect of its work. The result has 

been a comprehensive and complete investigation. That investigation will have profound effects on NASA and the space programs of 

the United States. Changes have already been made; more will 

come. Yet, Mr. Rogers said, “you don’t want to punish; you just 

want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” That is the goal, I 

think, we all share. That is certainly NASA’s goal, beyond question. 

I have said, speaking for the employees of an agency that has 

given this world not only lasting knowledge’and moments of excitement and joy, that we have reached, with the Rogers Commission 

report, a day of resolve, a time of beginning, a time of rededication. 

I think you will see the truth of that in Admiral Truly’s testimony 

that will follow. 

After Admiral Truly’s statement, we will be pleased to respond 

to any questions the committee may have. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Fletcher follows:] 
118 

HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL 

PRESENTED BY WITNESS 

JUNE 11, 1986 

Statement of 

Dr. James C. Fletcher 

Administrator 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

before the 

Committee on Science and Technology 

United States House of Representatives 

Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Committee: 

I welcome this opportunity to appear before you to address 

the Rogers Commission Report, not because it is easy or pleasant 

for me or for NASA, but because it is a necessary and appropriate 

step in a democratic society. 

The Challenger accident, in full sight of American people and 

the world, raised many questions about what we as an agency were doing and certainly how we were doing it. After a long period of 

many successes, we at NASA are brought back to Earth, both 

literally and figuratively, for a time of reassessment. 

The American people seek answers and you, as its elected 

representatives, do, too. We are prepared today to begin to give 

you our best current information, plans and responses to 

questions and recommendations. We do not have all the answers yet and we expect our dialogue with you to continue often during 

the coming year. 

We are dealing with very complicated problems. Simple answers... quick and easy answers ... are just not honest or 

reasonable. The Commission report urges me, as NASA 

Administrator, to report to the President one year from now on our progress. I intend that both you and he have interim reports as we work to reclaim the excellence that has been our hallmark. 

I said on Monday that NASA was prepared to study the Rogers 

Commission's report with an open mind and without reservations 

and that is absolutely true. 
119 

2 

I said that we had already been at work: indeed, had begun to 

seek answers to the disaster even before the Commission was appointed, much less had a chance to study, question, conclude, 

and report to the President. And that is also true. 

weak, we would strengthen it: where engineering or design or process needed improvement or change, we would do what was needed: and that where our internal communications, and that 

includes decision-making, were poor, they would be made better. 

was painstaking as it looked back, but cleared the air, in a 

sense, for us to move on. 

The Rogers Commission, in short, not only analyzed the 

failure of the Challenger launch and made recommendations for 

change, it also reaffirmed our goal. Mr. Rogers, in his letter 

of transmittal to the President, said, "The nation's task now is 

to move ahead to return to safe space flight and to its 

recognized position of leadership in space. There could be no more fitting tribute to the Challenger crew than to do so." 

considering the sacrifice of the Challenger crew, but we shall do 

all we can to make space flight safe and to maintain Amercian 

leadership in space. 

That is not an idle statement and I would like to review 

briefly why I beleive that it is so. First, I believe this body 

will take an active role in redefining our national space effort 

for the decade ahead and into the next century, continuing a role 

it has had from the beginning of the American space program. 

been deeply involved in finding out what went wrong so that we could plan for a safer future. 

way, without posturing, without placing blame in a vindictive 

manner, without seeking to destroy a program that has brought 

knowledge, pride, and glory to this Nation. 

are those who have seized on our mistakes to question your 

oversight, the legitimacy of long-time cooperation, and indeed, 

possibly the space program itself. 

And I promised that where NASA management was found to be 

It seemed to me that the Rogers Commission Report not only 

We intend t o d o so. No tribute may be sufficiently worthy, 

Second, NASA, virtually from the moment of the accident, has 

Third, the Rogers Commission has performed in an exceptional 

Let me begin with NASA's relationships with Congress. There 
120 

3 

The fact is that Congress has always maintained a careful and 

thoughtful balance between a critical, and sometimes skeptical, 

view of space plans even as it supplied support and encouragement 

when that seemed justified. 

In the sixties, getting to the Moon was a national policy and 

with the American people's assent, the Congress responded with 

program and financial support to match the public's almost 

unlimited enthusiasm. But those days are long gone. 

What has remained is a close working relationship and, I 

hope, mutual respect. I intend to maintain and improve both. I 

intend with Congress to look carefully at our programs and with 

OMB to make sure that every request to you is a responsible one. We will set priorities with full disclosure and discussion and we will carefully spend the monies you authorize. 

accomplishments of the space program and in American preeminence 

in this field. I do not believe they want a timid program that 

doesn't maintain leadership. I do believe they want this 

Committee and NASA to move with assurance, together, in seeking 

new goals. 

The Amercian people have a non-partisan pride in the 

Let me now review some of NASA's own activities in the weeks 

since the Challenger accident shook our confidence. We were forced to look at everything we had done...from design to the 

process of our decision-making. 

Admiral Truly's leadership and with day-to day direction by his 

associate, J.R. Thompson. It involved a development and 

production team, a prelaunch activity team, a mission planning 

and operations team, an accident analysis team, a salvage support 

team, and a photo and TV team. 

Commission. The NASA task force reports were made to the 

Commission in mid-April, but data is still being gathered, 

analyzed and pursued by appropriate NASA leaders. 

Part of this was the responsibility of a task force under 

Much of its activity was aimed at helping the Rogers 

I also asked General Sam Philips, who had been Apollo program 

manager when we were on our way to the Moon, to study every 

aspect of how NASA manages its programs, including relationships 

between our various space centers and NASA Headquarters. 
121 

4 

General Phillips' review is not limited to the Challenger 

accident and operates with broad authority, from me, to question 

every aspect of our activities. The review and report to me is 

being done without a deadline and will probably take the rest of 

this year for completion but as I become aware of things that 

need to be done they will be implemented at the time. 

will be a time for re-evaluation for NASA. Our work will not 

stop. It will only be more intense than ever. 

Mr. Chairman, during the past several weeks and particularly 

during the past few days, the question of when we will next fly a space shuttle has been raised. I have said that our target date 

is July 1987, but I want that goal placed in its proper context 

and that context is safety. 

We will fly in 1987 if it is safe to do so. We will not fly 

if it is not. In the complicated, inter-related situation in 

which we must function, a target date is useful, particularly to 

potential users. But the date is not a fixed and inflexible one. 

We are realistic about our problems -- some of which the 

Rogers Commission noted -- and we know there may be delays in 

design, testing and manufacture. You will hear more about all of 

that from Admiral Truly. 

What is not changeable is our commitment to fly again only when 

it is as safe to do so as we can make it. We will fly when we 

know clearly that we have dealt with the problems which led to 

the Challenger disaster. 

Finally, while Admiral Truly will deal with the specific 

recommendations of the Rogers Commission Report and what we are 

already doing or have done, I want to make several observations 

about the Report. 

appointed, independent body carries with it special status and 

the compelling obligation to study its conclusions with an openness and willingness to change. 

That is particularly so with this Report. It was done with care and thoroughly, with both toughness and understanding. And, 

I repeat, it was done with our cooperation. In its Preface, it was noted that NASA established several teams of people not 

involved in the Challenger launch process to support the 

Commission and its panels. 

The period from the Challenger accident to our next launch 

For the moment, we keep the date as a goal which may change. 

I said on Monday that the report of a Presidentially 
122 

5 

I think it is important for the Committee, the House, and the 

American public to understand that NASA and the Rogers Commission 

have worked closely together, even as each maintained its 

independence, during the many weeks of the Commission's work. 

Commission in every aspect of its work. The result has been a comprehensive and complete investigation." That investigation 

will have profound effects on NASA and the space programs of the 

United States. Changes have already been made. More will come. 

The preface said, "These NASA teams have cooperated with the 

Yet, Mr. Rogers said, "You don't want to punish. You just 

want to make sure it doesn't happen again." 

That is the goal I think we all share. That is certainly 

NASA's goal beyond question. I have said, speaking for the 

employees of an agency that has given this world not only lasting 

knowledge and moments of excitement and joy, that we have 

reached, with the Rogers Commission Report, a day of resolve, a time of beginning, a time of rededication. 

I think you will see the truth of that in Admiral Truly's 

testimony that will follow. After Admiral Truly's statement I 

would be pleased to respond to any questions which the Committee 

may have. 

###### 
123 

Mr. ROE. I thank you, Dr. Fletcher. 

Admiral Truly, would you go ahead with your formal testimony, 

please? 

STATEMENT OF REAR ADM. RICHARD TRULY, US. NAVY, 

ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SPACE FLIGHT, NASA 

Admiral TRULY. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, 

during the months since our return to duty with NASA following 

the tragic loss of Challenger, I, along with my entire organization, 

have spent many hours in support of the Rogers Commission. We 

have done our best to assist them in the conduct of their investigation, and I have reviewed the Commission’s report to the President. 

I personally found it to be extremely thorough and comprehensive. I am in general agreement with all of the findings and all of 

the recommendations, and I am pleased to say that because of our 

close association with Chairman Rogers and their work, I’ve been 

able to anticipate the corrective actions required to safely return 

the space shuttle to flight. 

These actions were initiated by my memorandum of March 24, 

1986, and a subsequent one by Mr. Arnie Aldrich on March 28, 

which directed the shuttle program to undertake this task. 

I would like to now briefly take each of the Commission’s recommendations and provide you with a summary status of my work. 

The first recommendation of the Commission had to do with the 

design of the faulty solid rocket motor joint. On March 24, I directed the Marshall Space Flight Center to form a SRM redesign team. 

The team was to include participation not only from Marshall, but 

from other NASA centers, as well as individuals outside of NASA. 

It is headed by Mr. John Thomas as its leader; it includes personnel from the Johnson Space Center, the Kennedy Space Center, the 

Langley Research Center, and the Astronaut Office; and, in addition, has an expert advisory panel of 12 people, half of whom are 

from industry. As a result of the early suggestion from the Commission, Dr. 

Fletcher has requested the National Research Council to appoint 

an independent oversight committee to review the activities of our 

redesign team. The National Research Council has agreed, and the 

members of that committee have recently been announced. 

The team is pursuing a number of options for the redesign of the 

joint, and we intend to have a preliminary design review later this 

summer. Let me assure you that safety, and not schedule, is and 

will continue to be our primary concern. We will not return to 

flight status without a safe, tested, and certified design. I welcome 

the assistance of the oversight committee and I intend to work very 

closely with them, just as I did with the Rogers Commission, to 

assure full and complete consideration of all of their recommendations. 

The second of the major recommendations of the Rogers Commission has to do with shuttle management. In that same memorandum of March 24, I initiated a detailed review of our management 

structure to determine those changes, both technically and philosophically, that are required. I wholeheartedly support the recommendations to reassess and define the responsibilities of the STS 
124 

program manager, and to ensure that he has the specific type of 

authority that the Commission recommends in their report. I 

intend to reevaluate the shuttle’s level I, level 11, and level I11 

management structure, and to implement any changes that are 

necessary to strengthen that structure and to reduce the potential 

for conflict between the program organization and the institution, 

whether it be at headquarters or at our field centers. 

Another recommendation had to do with the utilization of 

present and former members of the Astronaut Office, and we will 

give that proper consideration for management positions within 

the Agency. 

I want to tell you that I concur completely with the concept of a 

shuttle safety panel reporting to me, and I will initiate action to 

implement this concept and I will leave my door open to them at 

all times. 

As you know, Dr. Fletcher has mentioned that he has asked General Phillips to review all aspects of NASA program management, and this internal shuttle review will be done in coordination with 

General Phillips. 

The third recommendation of the report has to do with the criticality review and hazard analysis. Again, in March, Mr. Aldrichwho is the level I1 program manager of the space shuttle system- initiated a thorough review of all items on the critical items list. 

As the first step in that review, every criticality and criticality 1-R 

item waiver was canceled, and NASA is in the process of a complete review of every one of those items-not just the solid rocket 

motor joint-and if we find those that are not revalidated by this 

review, they will be redesigned and fixed and recertified prior to 

flight. Further, the criticality 2 and 3 items are being reviewed to 

make sure that they are properly categorized. So this, again, by understanding what the Commission was doing, we got almost a 3- 

month head start on getting going again. The fourth major recommendation has to do with NASA’s safety 

organization. And although safety, reliability, and quality assurance is not my personal responsibility within the agency, I am vitally concerned about this activity and I pledge to work closely and 

do what I can to strengthen this most important element of our 

program. 

The shuttle program does perform many of the activities that 

relate to program safety, and all of these are under our review. 

Each person in the Agency has an obligation to put safety first, 

and this will be reiterated many times over the next month. I 

intend to ensure that the management structure and its system is 

modified so that reporting requirements are clearly defined and 

rigidly enforced, and management at all levels is informed of all 

significant issues and their status. 

The fifth major recommendation has to do with improved communications within our system. I personally think that this recommendation may be the most important work of the Presidential 

Commission. It applies not to one part of our system, but to all of 

our people and their organizations. As a part of our review, both 

internal and external communication will be given a primary consideration. This activity will include the Marshall Space Flight 

Center and all of the other shuttle program organizations and cen- 
125 

ters, and will ensure that the specific recommendations of the Commission will be considered. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to depart just for a moment from my 

prepared statement and tell you that of all the recommendations in 

the Commission’s report, the two that I had not formally moved 

out on-and purposely so-until the report was in our hands had 

to do with the assessment of program management and communication. But now that we have that report, I feel that it is time to 

move out. 

I have asked Capt. Bob Crippen, who has completed his work at 

the Kennedy Space Center as a full-time member of our task force 

since the Challenger accident, to head a small group which will examine the overall shuttle program management and report to me. 

Where changes to existing organization or lines of authority are 

deemed appropriate, this group will recommend solutions and options to myself and Dr. Fletcher. 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman hold at that point? I think it 

would be profitable, because we have a continuity I don’t want to 

lose-- 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE [continuing]. And I see we’ve been called to the floor, so 

whv don’t the Members take the next 10 minutes. We’ll recess, go 

to the floor and vote, and please return as quickly as possible.Fecause we are going to continue our work within 10 minutes. 

And I want to keep your continuity going. 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. I think you’ll have to reiterate this part so that it’s 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. We’ll recess for 10 minutes to vote and then return. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will come to attention and reconvene. 

When we broke up for the vote we were hearing from Admiral 

Truly, and you were adding some added information in reference to 

the communications methodology and management. So maybe it 

would be best if you recap that for us again-- 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE [continuing]. So we don’t lose the continuity. 

Admiral TRULY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I was saying, there are two recommendations in the Commission’s report-the fifth recommendation, which has to do with improved communication, and the second recommendation, which is 

the program management structure review that I elected not to 

take a firm action on until we had the Commission report in our 

hands so the action would be appropriate. As I mentioned, Capt. 

Bob Crippen, who has been stationed at the cape since the accident 

and has been a part of the task force, is being called to headquarters for a period of time to head a small group which will examine 

the overall shuttle program management. Where changes to our 

existing organizational lines of authority are deemed appropriate, 

this group will recommend solutions for approval. 

I’d like to quote from my memorandum on this subject from 

March 24: 

clear what you’re trying to report. 

64-295 0 - 86 - 5 
126 

The National Space Transportation Program management, philosophy, structure, 

reporting channels, and decisionmaking process will be thoroughly reviewed and 

those changes implemented which are required to assure confidence and safety in 

the overall program, including the commit-to-launch process. 

Captain Crippen’s group will review the findings and conclusions 

of the Rogers Commission; as a matter of fact, that’s the first chore 

that they will have to do, is to go through this entire report with a 

fine-toothed comb. 

Mr. ROE. Are you reading from that memorandum now, Admiral 

Truly? 

Admiral TRULY. No, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Or just referring to it? 

Admiral TRULY. No, sir; just referring to it. 

Mr. ROE. All right. Well, why don’t we move to make that a part 

Admiral TRULY. Thank you, sir. 

[Material referred to follows:] 

of the record at this point? If there is no objection, so ordered. 
127 

National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration 

Washington. D C 

20546 

TO: Distribution 

FROM: 

SUBJECT: 

M/Associate Administrator for Space Flight 

Strategy for Safely Returning the Space Shuttle to Flight 

Status 

This memorandum defines the comprehensive strategy and major actions 

that, when completed, will allow resumption of the NSTS flight 

schedule. NASA Headquarters (particularly the Office of Space Flight), 

the OSF centers, the National Space Transportation System (NSTS) 

program organization and its various contractors will use this guidance 

to proceed with the realistic, practical actions necessary to return to 

the NSTS flight schedule with emphasis on flight safety. This guidance 

is intended to direct planning for the first year of flight while 

putting into motion those activities required to establish a realistic 

and an achievable launch rate that will be safely sustainable. We 

intend to move as quickly as practicable to complete these actions and 

return to safe and effective operation of the National Space 

Transportation System. 

Guidance for the following subjects is included: 

o ACTIONS REQUIRED PRIOR TO THE NEXT FLIGHT 

o FIRST FLIGHT/FlRST YEAR OPERATIONS 

o DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE SAFE FLIGPT RATE 

ACTIONS REQUIRED PRIOR TO THE NEXT FLIGHT: 

Reassess Entire Program Management Structure and Operation 

The NSTS program management philosophy, structure, reporting channels 

and decision-making process will be thoroughly reviewed and those 

changes implemented which are required to assure confidence and safety 

in the overall program, including the commit to launch process. 

Additionally, the Level l/II/lII budget and management relationships 

will be reviewed to insure that they do not adversely affect the NSTS 

decision process. 
128 ' 

2 

Solid Rocket Motor (SRM) Joint Redesign 

A dedicated SRM joint design group will be established at HSFC, with 

selective participation from other NASA centers and external 

organizations, to recomnend a program plan to quantify the SRM joints 

problem and to accomplish the SRM joints redesign. The design must be 

reviewed in detail by the program to include PDR, CDR, DCR, independent 

analysis, DP-QM testing, and any other factors necessary to assure that 

the overall SRM is safe to comnit to launch. 

post-flight inspections for the redesigned joints and other flight 

components will be developed in detail, with criteria developed for 

commitment to the next launch as well as reusability of the specific 

flight hardware components. 

The type and content of 

Design Reouirements Reverification 

A review of the NSTS Design Requirenpnts (Vol. 07700) will be conducted 

to insure that all systems design requirements are properly defined. 

This review will be followed by a deltr DCR for all program elements to 

assure the individual projects are in compliance with the requirements. 

Complete C!L/OFII Review 

All Category 1 and 1R critical items will be subjected to ? total 

review with a complete reapproval process implemerted. Those items 

which are not revalidated by this review must be redesigned, certified, 

and qualified for flight. The review process will include a review of 

the OKI's, OMRSD's, and other supporting documentation which is 

pertinent to the test, checkout, or assembly process of the Category 1 

and IR flight hardware. KSC will continue to be responsible for all 

OMI's with design center concurrence required for those which affect 

Categcr:: I and 1R items. Category 2 and 3 CIL's will be reviewed for 

reacceptance and to verify their proper categorization. 

Complete OMPSD Review 

The OMRSD will be reviewed to insure that the requirements defined in 

it are complete and that the required testing is consistent with the 

results of the CIL review. Inspection/retest requirements will be 

modifiec' 2s necessary to assure flight safety. 

Launch/Abort Reassessment 

The launch and launch abort rules and philosophy wlll be assessed to 

assure that the launch and flight rules, range safety systems/ 

operational procedures, landing aids, runway configuration and length, 

performance vs. TAL exposure, abor? weights, runway surface, and other 

landing related capabilities provide an acceptable margin of safety to 
129 

the vehicle and crew. 

will be reviewed and improved where possible to allow for the most 

accurate reporting. 

FIRST FLIW/FIRST YEAR OPERATIONS 

First Flight 

The subject of first flight mission design will require extensive 

review to assure that we are proceeding in an orderly, conservative, 

safe manner. To permit the process to begin, the following specific 

planning guidance applies to the first planned mission: 

Additionally. the weather forecasting capability 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

daylight KSC launch 

conservative flight design to minimize TAL exposure 

repeat payload (not a new payload class) 

no waiver on landing weight 

conservative 1 aunch/l aunch abort/l andi ng weather 

NASA-only flight crew 

engine thrust within the experience base 

no active ascentlentry DTO's 

conservative mission rules 

early, stable flight plan with supporting flight software and 

tra i ni nm 

daylight EDW landing (lakebed or runway 22) 

First Year 

The planninp for the flight schedule for the first year of operation 

will reflect a launch rate consistent with this conservative approach. 

The specific number of flights to be planned for the first year will be 

developed as soon as possible and will consider KSC and VAFB work flow, 

software development, controller/crew training, etc. Changes to flight 

plans. ascent trajectories, manifest, etc., will be minimized in the 

interest of program stability. 

after thorough review of the previous mission's SRK joint performance, 

all other specified critical systems performance and resoluticn of 

anomalies. 

In general, the first year of operation will be maintained within the 

current flight experience base, and any expansion of the base, 

Including new classes of payloads, will be approved only after very 

thorough safety review. Specifically, 109 percent thrust levels will 

not be flown until satisfactory completion of the MPT testing currently 

being planned, and the first use of the Filament Wound Case will not occur with the first use of 109 percent SSME thrust level. 

effort will be made to conduct the first VAFB flight on an expeditious 

and safe schedule which supports national security requirements. 

Decisions on each launch will be made 

Every 
130 

4 

DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE SAFE FLIGHT RATE 

The ultimate safe, sustainable flight rate, and the buildup to that 

rate, will be developed utilizing a "bottoms-up" approach in which all 

required work for the standard flow as defined in the OMRSD is 

identified and that work is optimized in relation to the available work 

force. Factors such as the manifest, nonscheduled work, in-flight 

anomaly resolution, mods, processing team workloads, work balancing across shifts, etc., will be considered, as well as timely mission 

planning, flight product development and achievable software delivery 

capability to support flight controllers and crew training. This 

development will consider the availability o f t h e third orbiter 

facility, the availability of spares, as well as the effects of 

supporting VAFB launch site operations. 

THE BOTTOM LINE 

The Associate Adminstrator for Space Flight will t a k e t h e action for 

reassessment of the NSTS program management structure. 

Program Manager at Johnson Space Center is directed to initiate and 

coordinate all other actions required to implement this strategy for 

return to safe Shuttle flight. 

I know that the business of space flight can never be made to be 

totally risk-free, but this conservative return to operations will 

continue our strong NASA/Industry team effort to recover from the 

Challenger accident. 

at some level in our organizations, and I am fully aware of the 

tremendous amount of dedicated work which must be accomplished. 

know that our nation's future in space is dependent on the individuals 

who must carry t.his strategy out safely and successfully. Please give 

this the widest possible distribution to your people. 

must understand it, and they who must do it. 

The NSTS 

Many of these items have already been initiated 

I do 

It is they who 
131 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman will proceed. Admiral TRULY. Captain Crippen’s group will be a small one, and 

he will visit with people inside and outside of the shuttle program, 

including former NASA managers such as former Associate Administrators, Center Directors, and people entirely outside of 

NASA. 

After discussing this at some length with Dr. Fletcher, I think 

that Crip is an ideal choice for this assignment. He’s the commander of four space shuttle flights; he’s had extensive experience in 

several NASA programs, including the shuttle, and I look forward 

to having him to give me a hand in this most critical area. If I 

could introduce Crip to your committee, I would appreciate the op- portunity to do so. 

To return to the specific recommendations of the Rogers Commis- sion, the sixth recommendation has to do with landing safety, which I have been involved with for quite a while because landing 

safety has been a significant concern of our program since the 

1970’s during the approach and landing tests which I flew, using 

the space shuttle Enterprise. We’re going to review all of the shuttle hardware and systems in design reviews to ensure compliance 

with specifications in our concern for safety. Tires, brakes, and nosewheel systems are included in this activity, and I want to tell you that funding for new carbon brakes has already been approved by 

me. Tire and brake testing is continuing and scheduled for this 

summer. KSC runway surface testing has been underway for some 

time prior to the accident, and is continuing. We’re looking at 

better methods of weather forecasting and weather-related support 

for the Kennedy complex specifically; and, as you know, the potential for increased landings at Edwards Air Force Base was recog- nized prior to the accident. Frankly, that will be a dominant factor 

in our schedule as we return to flight status. We are also going to 

look very hard at the need for a dual ferry capability for the 

system, and we will consider that and decide when to come forward 

to you for your support. The seventh major recommendation has to do with launch abort 

and crew escape. As the Commission noted in its report, crew 

escape was not possible in the 51-L accident. It has been looked at 

numerous times in the past; nevertheless, prior to the report being issued, we have started-or Arnie Aldrich in Houston-has started 

a comprehensive crew egress and escape review. 

We are looking at our capabilities of escape throughout launch 

and of the landing environment, and we are relooking at all those 

possibilities that we’ve looked at before. We are going to continue 

to do that. The study is already in progress, and we’re looking further at things such as launch commit criteria, flight rules, range 

safety systems, runway configurations and lengths, and all those 

complex things that go into the equation. The bottom line is, we are re-reviewing and we desperately want 

to provide the best possible margin of safety for our vehicle and 

our crew. 

The eighth recommendation of the Rogers Commission has to do 

with flight rate. We’ve already taken some action on this. We are 

participating with other governmental agencies in a comprehensive 

review of our Nation’s ability to assure access to space. 
132 

I want you to know that I personally concur with the mixed fleet 

concept to avoid reliance on a single vehicle for our Nation. Development of a NASA flight rate which maximizes safety dictates that 

we fly at a rate consistent with our resources, and I intend to develop a schedule that achieves such a rate. 

Within my office is the responsibility for payload assignment and 

for manifesting, and I can assure you that our manifesting procedures that are noted in the Commission’s report-for example, late 

changes, et cetera, that require additional work in our mission 

planning organization-are under my personal review, and I intend 

to change those procedures if they are required to be changed, but 

more importantly, assure that we have the discipline to reduce the 

late changes which cause such an upheaval in the flight planning 

process. 

The ninth and final major recommendation of the Commission’s 

report has to do with maintenance safeguards. We are reviewing 

our maintenance philosophy and its implementation, particularly 

with regard to our spares inventory. This has been under review 

since shortly following the accident, and I want to tell you that the 

results of this activity will be combined with the results of our 

safety, reliability, and quality assurance review to make sure that 

we have an overall plan for vehicle processing and maintenance, 

trend analysis using flight data, good structural inspections, and 

adequate spare parts. 

Mr. Chairman, I came to this job in the weeks following this 

tragic accident with the resolve and the duty to assist the Presidential Commission in finding the cause. The Commission has done 

their work; I embrace their report and believe I have set into 

motion the initial steps to return the space shuttle to safe and effective flight. Their report is a road map for me, and I intend to 

use it as my mandate for action. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify before your 

committee today, for NASA needs your support and guidance as 

our Nation returns to space flight. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Truly follows:] 
133 

HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL 

PRESENTED BY WITNESS 

June 11, 1986 

Statement of 

RADM. Richard H. Truly 

Associate Administrator 

Office of Space Flight 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

before the 

Committee on Science and Technology 

House of Reoresentatives 

Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Committee: 

During the months since I returned to duty with NASA following the tragic loss 

of Challenger, I, along with my entire organization, have spent many hours in 

support of the Rogers Commission. We have done our best to assist them in the 

conduct of their investigation, and I have reviewed the Commission report to 

the President. I find it to be extremely thorough and comprehensive. I am in 

general agreement with all findings and recommendations and am pleased to say 

that because of our close association with their work, I have been able to 

anticipate the corrective actions required to safely return the Space Shuttle 

to flight. These corrective actions were initiated by my memorandum of March 

24, 1986, and a subsequent memorandum by Mr. Aldrich on March 28, 1986, which 

directed the Shuttle program to undertake this task. 

included as enclosures to this statement. 

each of the Commission's recommendations, and provide you with a summary 

status of my work. 

These memoranda are I would now l i k e t o briefly take 

SOLID ROCKET MOTOR (SRM) OESIGN 

On March 24, I directed Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to form a SRM 

joint redesign team to include participation from MSFC and other NASA centers 

as well as individuals from outside NASA. This team was formed with Mr. John 

Thomas as its leader. 

industry, and the astronaut office. 

appointed to assist the redesign team. 

half are from industry. 

Commission, Dr. Fletcher requested the National Research Council (NRC) to 

appoint an independent oversight committee to review the activities of the 

redesign team. 

recently been announced. 

The team includes personnel from JSC, KSC, LaRC, 

As a result of an early suggestion from the 

In addition, an expert advisory panel was 

This panel includes 12 people of whom 

The NRC has agreed and the members of the committee have 

-1- 
134 

The redesign team is currently pursuing several options for redesign of the 

joint with a tentative date for the Preliminary Design Review this summer. Let me assure you that safety, not schedule, is and will continue to be our primary concern. 

and certified design. We welcome the assistance of the NRC oversight 

comnittee, and I intend to work very closely with them, just as I did with the 

Rogers Commission, to assure full and complete consideration of their 

recommendations. 

We will not return to flight status without a safe, tested 

SHUTTLE MANAGEMENT-STRUCTURE 

The Presidential Commission recommended a thorough review of the Shuttle 

program structure. On March 24, I initiated detailed review of the NSTS 

management structure to determine those changes both technically and 

philosophically that are necessary in order to make the STS a more effective 

organization. I wholeheartedly stipport the recommendations to reassess and 

redefine the -esponsibilities of the STS Program Manage- and to ersure that he 

has the specific type of authority suggested in the commission repsrt. I 

intend to reevaluate the Level I/II/III program managemeit conceot and to 

implement any changes necessary to strengthen that structure and to reduce the 

potential for conflict between the program organization and the imtitution 

both at Headquarters and in the field. Utilization of present and former 

members of the astronaut office will be given proper consideration in that 

process. I concur completely in the concept of a Shuttle Safety Panel 

reporting to me and will initiate action to implement this concept and 

personally leave my door open to them as we move forward. 

As you know, Dr. Fletcher has asked General Phillips to review all aspects of 

NASA program management and this internal Shuttle overview will be 

accomplished in close coordination with General Phillips. 

CRITICAL ITEMS REVIEW AND HAZARD ANALYSIS 

In response to my direction. on March 28 Mr. Aldrich initiated a review of all 

items on the Critical Items List. As a first step, all CRIT 1 and 1R item 

waivers were cancelled and NASA is in the process of a complete review and 

reevaluation activity for all items on the list. Those CRIT 1 and 1R items 

which are not revalidated by the review must be redesigned, certified, and 

qualified for flight. 

ensure proper categorization. 

All other CRIT 2 and 3 items are being reviewed to 

This review has been under way for some time. 

SAFETY ORGANIZATION 

Although Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance (S,R& QA) is not my direct 

responsibility, I am vitally concerned about this activity and pledge to work 

closely and do what I can to strengthen this most important element of our 

program. The NSTS program does perform many of the activities that relate to 

program safety and all are under thorough review at this time. 

the agency has an obligation to put safety first and this will be reiterated 

many times over the next months. Within the STS program I intend to ensure that the management structure and its system is modified so that reporting 

Each person in 

-2- 
requirements are clearly defined and rigidly enforced, and management at all 

levels is informed of all significant issues and their current status. 

IMPROVED COMMUNICATIONS 

I think this may be the most important part of the Commission's work, and that 

it applies to all our people and organizations. As part of my overall review 

and restructuring of the management system for the STS, internal and external 

communication will be given primary consideration. This activity will include 

MSFC and all other rhuttle program organizations and will ensure that the 

specific recommendations of the Commission will be considered. 

LANDING SAFETY 

Landing sa'ety has been a significant concern of the program frm the days of 

our approach and landing tests of the "ENTERPRISE." All shut:.? nardware and 

systems are undergoing design reviews to insure compliance kith the 

specifications and concern for safety. The tire, brakes, and rose wheel 

steering systems are included in this activity, and funding for a new carbon 

brakes system has been approved. Specifically tire and brake testing is 

currently scheduled for this summer. KSC runway surface testing had been 

underway for sometime prior to the accident and is continuing. Better methods 

of weather forecasting and weather related support are being evaluated at this 

time. The potential for increased landings at Edwards Air Force Base was recognized prior to the accident and will be a dominant factor in our schedule as we return to flight status. some time and will be thoroughly considered during the upcoming months. 

Dual ferry capability has been a desire for 

LAUNCH ABORT AND CREW ESCAPE 

On April 7, Mr. Aldrich initiated a STS Crew Egress and Escape review. 

scope of this analysis includes egress and escape capabilities from launch 

through landing and will provide analyses, concepts, feasibility assessments, 

cost and schedules for pad abort, bailout, ejection systems, water landings, 

and powered flight separation. In conjunction with this activity we are also 

reviewing all launch and launch abort rules and philosophy to ensure that 

launch commit criteria, flight rules, range safety systems and procedures, 

landing aids, runway configurations and lengths, performance versus abort 

exposure, abort and end of mission landing weights, runway surfaces, and other 

landing related capabilities provide the proper margin of safety to the 

vehicle and crew. 

The 

FLIGHT RATE 

NASA is actively participating with other governmental agencies in a comprehensive review of the nations ability to assure access to space. concur with the mixed fleet concept to avoid reliance on a single vehicle. 

Development of a NASA flight rate which maximizes safety dictates that we fly 

at a rate consistent with our resources and I intend to develop a schedule 

which achieves such a rate. 

I 

Our payload assignment policy and flight 

-3- 
manifesting are under my personal review, to assure both that our rules are clear and that we have the discipline to reduce the late changes which cause such an upheaval in the flight planning process. 

MAINTENANCE SAFEGUARDS 

The STS maintenance philosophy and its implementation, particularly with 

regard to our spares inventory, is currently under review since shortly 

following the accident, The results of this activity will be integrated with 

the results of our 5, R, & QA review to develop an overall plan for vehicle 

processing, maintenance, trend analysis, structural inspections, and spare 

parts. 

Mr. Chairman, I came to this job in the weeks following this tragic accident 

with the resolve and duty to assist the Presidential Commission in finding the cause. The Commission has done their work; I embrace their report and believe 

that I ?ave set into motion the initial steps to return the <pace Shuttle tc 

safe and effective flight. Their report is a roadmap for me, and I intend to 

use it as my mandate for action. Thank you for the opportunjty to testif:) 

before your Committee today, for NASA needs your support and guidance as our Nation returns to space flight. 
137 

Admiral TRULY. Mr. Chairman, if possible, I would like to invite 

Captain Crippen and Mr. Aldrich to the table to assist if there are 

questions that committee members have that they could help us 

answer. 

Mr. ROE. OK, why don’t we do that right now? That’s a good 

idea, so if Captain Crippen and the others would come up to the 

table. 

Before we go into the question period-again, for the benefit of 

the members of the committee-the teams, the support task force 

teams that both Dr. Fletcher and Admiral Truly spoke to during 

their testimony will be visiting with us this afternoon, and tomorrow, particularly, so that they will have-tomorrow, I believe it 

is-we’ll have the opportunity, in view of the fact that they were a 

bridge or a catalyst between the agency and the Commission, we’ll 

have the chance to review their work and question their work and 

any part or piece that we might be specifically interested in. I 

think that’s going to be profitable tomorrow, so I think some of 

those points that will be made can be best handled at that point. 

I have a couple of specific questions that I would like to ask, but 

I’m going to defer now to our distinguished chairman, the distinguished Representative from Florida, Mr. Don Fuqua. 

Mr. FUQUA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Fletcher, you mentioned in your prepared statement about 

the relationship between Congress and NASA. I noticed that while 

fingers are being pointed, it’s pointed at Congress, and I think 

probably we should share the blame. 

But I might point out, those who have said that we are too cozy 

with NASA, I think, need to look at the record. And maybe you are 

familiar with that from your days prior in NASA. I think when 

you look at the record, and particularly the gentleman that served 

in the last number of years as chairman of that subcommittee, at 

the number of days of hearings that they hold in extreme detail of 

the NASA budget and the questions that are asked-not only that, 

but the field trips that are made to the NASA centers and even the 

contractors, for that matter, to try to get a better grasp and ask 

questions about what’s going on-so I would like to, not in a defensive manner, but to say, check the record before you start saying 

that. Maybe some of us are guilty of being supporters of the Space 

Program, and I plead guilty. But that doesn’t mean that we have 

always agreed-and you even mentioned, sometimes with a skeptical view-with some of the decisions that NASA has made, and 

there hasn’t always been unanimity of agreement in all of the 

things that have taken place. Sometimes NASA hasn’t liked the 

way we’ve redistributed money, and sometimes we have not agreed 

with the way that NASA proposed to spend the money. But I think 

if you also look back, you’ll find that never-that I recall-we’ve 

ever reduced money for flight training and operations and safety 

during the course that I have remembered. We have made other 

changes; maybe you can elaborate from your memory, which is 

probably hazy like mine is, when you were serving before. I think 

we have tried to work and support and be proponents of the Space 

Program. I think it’s very important to the Nation. 
138 

But I think that those that say that need to go back and check 

the hearing records and so forth. I think they’ll come away with 

somewhat of a different perspective about that. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Chairman, you are absolutely right. Over the 

years that I remember and also I’ve followed NASA in the years since then, in some detail, this is perhaps the most thorough and 

most critical oversight group of any that NASA deals with in Congress, although Congress as a whole has provided plenty of oversight. On the other hand, having said that, they’ve been supportive of us when we were doing the right thing and critical of us when 

we were doing the wrong thing. 

Mr. FUQUA. I want to mention to Admiral Truly-I noticed you 

were talking about the landings, safer landing in your report, landing safety. And in addition to the tires, brakes, and nosewheel systems, I had even-2 days before-as a matter of fact, on January 26, I had a conversation with then-Acting Administrator Graham 

about the possibility of installation of a doppler radar system in 

the KSC area that could be used for more instant weather prediction. Is that included in your plans, to pursue that? They’re planning to put one in Florida, and it would be an excellent test or 

demonstration facility, located in that area to give more accurate 

weather prediction for launch and landing. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I might ask Arnie to comment. He may know a 

little more about where we are there, but I can assure you we are 

looking at advanced weather forecasting capability down there and 

we are also looking at some of our own internal NASA work out at 

the Ames Research Center on advanced systems. We’ve stood down 

on that cape runway many times and watched the weather change, and it’s been a concern to me and to the crew a number of times. 

We intend to improve our capability during this downtime. 

Arnie, could you elaborate at all? 

Mr. ALDRICH. Yes, Mr. Fuqua. 

Mr. Fuqua, that system is under investigation, both for applica- tion in Florida and on the west coast at Vandenberg, where it 

would be particularly useful for the kind of conditions there. In addition, we are also proceeding with augmentation of the worldwide 

capability for weather reporting and analysis at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to advance our capabilities and coverage. So 

we’re looking at all of the ideas we know to make our weather forecasting as up-to-date and as capable as possible for the future. 

Mr. FUQUA. Well, I would highly recommend that that be pursued. We are moving into some demonstration projects of the dopp- ler radar system, and I think it cannot only serve as an excellent 

demonstration area but also serve a very valuable purpose in our 

space program. Another point that you mentioned, Admiral Truly, was spare 

parts. I know every year this committee has added additional 

money in for spare parts; we’ve had to twist noses, kick, scream to 

get NASA to use it, and most times they have not used it for spare 

parts as it was intended. 

I was told by one of the persons-I shall not name-that they had pirated one of the spaceships so much that he could carry in 

his suitcase what was left of it. I don’t think that’s good policy 

when we do that, and I’m glad that the Commission made specific 
139 

note of that in their recommendations and I’m glad to see that 

NASA is getting the proper attention. And I might point out, this 

all happened before you came on board, so I’m not directing this at 

you; but I just want to, while you and Dr. Fletcher are here, express my concern that spare part money that we have put innever asked for, the committee put in-was never spent in the 

proper fashion that we had directed it to be. And that caused a lot 

of pirating of one vehicle to another vehicle, and I’m glad that the 

Commission noted that. That is not, in my view, a very good way; 

I’m glad the Commission realized it, and I’m glad to see you make 

that point in your statement. 

Admiral TRULY. Thank you, Mr. Fuqua. Again, Arnie has been 

dealing directly with this problem for some time. Frankly, I’m concerned about this and I’m looking forward to having the time and 

the opportunity to really get with Arnie and look over this whole 

problem. I’m a little puzzled by it, frankly; my concept of spare 

parts is not people working on spare parts, but spare parts in the 

bins to support our airplanes and, in this case, the shuttle. But I 

can assure you that during our downtime we’re going to take a 

hard look at it and make sure that the flight rates that we build up 

to after this accident are supportable by the logistics system that 

we have in place. 

Mr. FUQUA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. You have to leave at 11, do you not? 

Admiral TRULY. Mr. Chairman, I believe it’s about 10 minutes of 

11. 

Mr. ROE. Well, we’ve got a few minutes here. I think I want towell, we’ll take it up later. 

Let me suggest the following. I think to set the stage here, both 

Dr. Fletcher’s testimony, which I think was a reaffirmation and a 

first real, good, strong policy position you have presented so far. I 

think you have done a splendid job as to where you want to go 

from there. 

Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Chairman, would you yield for just a moment? 

I think it would be productive if we alternated going to vote and 

keep the hearing going. 

Mr. ROE. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. 

So therefore, where I’m coming from, I think you’ve set that 

stage. 

The second point is that Admiral Truly has expanded further, 

which was our natural question, which was, what have you done 

under Dr. Fletcher’s direction? What have you done now to go 

ahead and implement, not waiting for further, elucidations to come 

from the Commission because they made a number of very solid 

recommendations, and you have now brought us up to date as to 

what you are doing in that direction, as I understand your testimony. Let me ask you a question. It wasn’t clear to me, and I think we 

ought to get it on the record-I think you developed it more firmly, 

Admiral Truly, that we were going to follow-NASA will follow the 

recommendations, all the recommendations, of the Commission? Is 

that the committee’s understanding? Is that the statement that’s 

being made? 
140 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Chairman, we will certainly study all of the 

recommendations, and I see no reason that nearly all of them can’t 

be followed in detail. But, as you recall, some of the recommendations said “consider” certain things. We will certainly consider 

them in great depth. They did not say to do certain things. 

Mr. ROE. I understand that. But I want to get on the record, because that’s the beginning point. 

Dr. FLETCHER. We will certainly deal with all of the recommendations and have a report for you in a timely fashion. 

Mr. ROE. And we’ll be asking that. 

So, for the following point, is there any recommendations that 

have been presented that you seriously, from a management point 

of view, would question at this point in their recommendations? 

Anything that they have presented that you don’t think is the 

right direction to go? I think that’s a fair statement to ask at this 

point. Dr. FLETCHER. I think that all of the recommendations are things 

that are proper recommendations, and we should seriously consider 

them. I don’t know any of them that are not worth considering or, even, maybe the right way to go. 

Mr. ROE. OK. I just want to get that on the record. So, as far as 

you’re concerned, the recommendations that have been made will 

be reviewed in toto and someplace along the line, as the committee 

calls back for an overview of what you’re doing on those recommendations, you’ll be able to give us a better idea as to what the 

substance would be and where we would go from there. Is that 

right? 

Dr. FLETCHER. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. Let me clarify for the record another point. It seems to 

me that the fundamental, upfront issue is the safety issue which 

you both spoke to eloquently, and that is first and foremost in your minds in your administrative approach, as it is as far as this committee is concerned. And then Admiral Truly spoke to the issue as 

far as the critical list, the criticality 1 and the criticality 1-R items 

were concerned. And again to reiterate for the record, is it my understanding and the understanding from your testimony that you 

are saying that all of those critical items will be reviewed individually? 

Admiral TRULY. That’s correct. 

Mr. ROE. Totally? 

Admiral TRULY. Every single one. And not just those on the solid 

rocket motor, but on all the elements of the system. 

Mr. ROE. And is it the intent to have the process-and I notice 

that you’ve abrogated all waivers, so that everything will be looked 

at, and they will be recertified, each and every critical item on the 

list; is that a correct understanding? Admiral TRULY. That is correct. And, as a matter of fact, that 

process had been set in work by Arnie Aldrich even before I issued 

the memorandum that was discussed in my testimony. But when I 

did issue the memorandum that charted a course for us to safely 

get back to flight, that was a major part of it, and you are exactly 

right. Every single criticality 1 and 1-R element or specific element 

of the shuttle system is being relooked at and, if it’s found wanting, 

it will be redesigned and requalified prior to the next flight. 
141 

Mr. ROE. And therefore, our first and foremost observation-the 

first point of management is safety, and that’s the direction which 

you intend to go, which leads me to my final question on safety. 

In part of Admiral Truly’s testimony, on page 2 at the bottom, 

safety organization, you mentioned thatAlthough safety responsibility and quality assurance is not my direct responsibility, I am vitally concerned about these activities and pledged to work closely and do 

what I can to strengthen. 

It would seem to me, regardless of what the chain of command is 

or specific assignment, that safety, No. 1, goes fundamentally to 

Dr. Fletcher and then second to you, whether it’s a direct responsi- bility or not. So could we clarify that for the record? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr . Chairman, the reporting responsibility for 

R&QA, as you know, is to the Administrator of NASA. But we will 

make that study for all of NASA. 

Having said that, however, I don’t think it should be said minimally that Admiral Truly is going to take a very hard look at 

R&QA for the shuttle program. I don’t think he meant to imply 

that he was not going to do that. 

Mr. ROE. That’s why I wanted to get it clarified. And I think the 

relationship between yourself and Admiral Truly, being one of 

your appointees, is critically important that there’s no breach in 

the safety communications point that you were making. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Oh, no. 

Mr. ROE. That is not what the intent was, and there will be a 

very close liaison. We understand that. 

Let me ask one more question. You spoke of General Phillips 

being assigned, Dr. Fletcher, to review all aspects of the NASA program management in their internal shuttle overview. That indicates to me-is not-General Phillips was formerly with NASA, 

and then left? And is he coming-you called him back again? Is 

that what-- 

Dr. FLETCHER. General Phillips, Mr. Chairman, has been gone 

from NASA since the days of the Apollo Program, I believe in 1969 

or 1970, and has been with TRW and has just retired as a group 

vice president. Like a lot of folks that were anxious to help NASA 

get back on its feet, he agreed to come back almost full-time and 

pursue this assignment. This assignment, as you properly indicated, is to look at the overall management structure of NASA, which 

impacts, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, on the shuttle 

management program. Having said that, however, Admiral Truly 

again will look at the management structure and the communications and the procedures for the space shuttle program as part of 

his assignment, and I suspect that’s one of the things-- 

Dr. ROE. Well, what I’m leading up to, would it be profitableand we don’t have to make that decision now, or whatever-but I’d 

like you to consider one point. Sometimes, when we’re cleaning our 

own house, we can’t see what’s in the corner simply because we’re 

used to seeing it. And it seems to me that WI? are bringing an eternal-and no effrontery whatever, because General Phillips has an 

extraordinary, wonderful reputation; I don’t mean that at all-but 

would it be profitable for the agency to also consider looking to the 

private management groups for re-review from an outside point of 
142 

view? In other words, if we’re just going to review internally what 

happened to us, even though there’s added expertise that General 

Phillips brings, would it not be a good idea to give some consideration to overviewing this whole operation with some outside consulting private management groups? From the universities, and so 

forth? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Chairman, when I said General Phillips was 

heading that effort, he has a series of consultants from all over the 

country involved with him making that review, all of whom are 

outside of the NASA organization. 

Mr. ROE. Splendid. Could you, Dr. Fletcher-for the record, could 

you give us a little update response on that, a little bit of a broader 

view of what General Phillips will be doing? And also, that we 

have these different experts and expertise throughout the country, 

from universities and so forth, helping us to make this indepth, 

solid review? I think it will help a great deal on credibility. 

Dr. FLETCHER. We’ll supply that for the record, Mr. Chairman. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 

Material requested for the record on page 46, line 967 by Acting 

Chairman Roe during the June 11, 1986, hearing. 

General Samuel C. Phillips, USAF, (Ret.), is leading a study of 

NASA’s systems and processes for managing its programs, 

personnel, and facilities. The study will draw upon expertise in 

the scientific, technical, and management communities. 

Support for the study is being provided by the National Academy 

of Public Administration. In keeping with its regular practice, 

the Academy is forming a panel of outside experts in both the 

study and practice of management to advise and critique the 

project staff. 

We will inform you of the make-up of the panel as it is 

completed. 
143 

Mr. ROE. Those are the questions I want to ask at this point. 

Now, who is next? I guess I’m about the only one left. Suppose 

we take 10 minutes while I go do my duty and vote, and then we’ll 

reconvene. You’ll be leaving us, but then you’ll return immediately thereafter? 

Dr. FLETCHER. That’s correct, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I know there’s a number of questions the members 

want to ask you. 

We will recess for 10 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

Dr. Fletcher, as you know, has left us for about an hour, and 

then he will return, and Admiral Truly is leading this team. Therefore, I have concluded my first group of questions and I defer to the 

distinguished minority leader from New Mexico, Mr. Lujan. Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral, let me tell you I’m sorry that Dr. Fletcher left, but I’m 

real pleased with the direction of NASA. As you know, many of us 

were concerned about what the attitude would be to accept those 

changes that need to be done, the fact that there were some errors, 

and let’s move on to fix them. At the beginning, it appeared like 

NASA was rather defensive and, in that mode, it’s very difficult to 

make the changes if you don’t recognize that something was wrong. So I’m real pleased to see your statement and the Administrator s 

statement, moving in a positive direction and saying, let’s go. I 

think, perhaps, we may have some little problem on down the line, 

and it’s necessary that management impart that feeling all the 

way through NASA, but I think that’s moving pretty good. 

Let me ask you, particularly in terms of your testimony on improved communications, both the Commission and your statement 

mention, in the communications context, Marshall-not in any specific way, but everybody kind of alludes to Marshall when communications problems are discussed. Is that the basic problem? Is Marshall the basic problem as NASA sees it in this whole thing of communicating information up and down the line? 

I notice that the Commission says-it talks about the tendency at 

Marshall to management isolation. I’d like to pursue that a little 

bit with you, Admiral, if I may. Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir. I would answer that question in two 

ways, looking backward and forward. We had a terrible accident, 

and it was a part of the shuttle system that the Marshall Space Flight Center was responsible for. They have been under a terrific 

amount of criticism in the report and throughout the investigation. The reason that I mentioned the Marshall Space Flight Center in 

my testimony was because of the way the Commission had written 

that particular recommendation. But in looking forward, I would 

answer that question as absolutely not. Communication through the system, through our flight readiness reviews and our L minus 1 

reviews and our change control boards has got to be looked at. And 

it’s not a Marshall Space Flight Center problem; it’s a problem that starts in my office and goes right down to the crews, once 

they’re in orbit. It’s throughout the system. I don’t intend, and I 

know that Captain Crippen, when he looks at the program relation- ships that are required to be looked at, is not going to look at the 
144 

Marshall Space Flight Center any more or any less than the 

others. We have had problems; we did have a terrific communications problem on this launch, and I think in the launches preceding it, and it’s covered in great detail in that report. But as we look 

forward, we’re going to look through our entire system, just as in 

the hardware we’re looking not only at the solid rocket motor but 

all of the hardware that’s aboard. 

So, if that helps you, sir. 

Mr. LUJAN. Yes. In reading the reports and in reading all of the 

different things, it just appeared to me like Marshall was in need 

of some special attention, but that’s not the way you look at it; is 

that right? 

Admiral TRULY. No, I think as we look at it in the future, I envision a program management of the shuttle program that flows just 

the way the paper says it flows, and that is from me at level 1 to 

Mr. Aldrich at level 11, and then to any level I11 program office, 

whether it be at Marshall or at Johnson. Whatever the problems 

have been in the past, that’s the way the program is going to work 

in the future. 

Mr. LUJAN. OK. We’ll be looking, anyway, at the additional reports of the commission and follow through where those bugaboos 

occurred. 

One other thing that kind of stood out in this whole process, as 

far as I’m concerned, is the question of critical items. I don’t know 

if I misunderstood or what, that under criticality 1 you have some 

746 or 748 items, which means that any of those could cause the 

loss of the shuttle, the loss of life, and all of those things, very serious things. It’s impossible to assess 746 items without going back 

and saying, OK, we’ve got to decide that, out of those 746, what are 

the probabilities of accident and what is the severity? Am I correct 

in that, in my analysis of that? 

Admiral TRULY. No, I don’t think you are. I think that Mr. Aldrich could comment better than I because he’s running that 

review-even though the number is large, it is finite. The space 

program is used to dealing with extremely complex designs, and I 

would disagree that we cannot take each of those one by one. We 

have a great advantage now. Although we have a mountain of 

work to do, we have a great advantage to looking at those items 

now because we have had 24 successful flights, and we have a lot of 

flight data on those critical items. And so, we can look at the histories of each one. It takes a lot of people; it takes a lot of time. It’s 

not going to be quick. There are some that we were concerned 

about before the accident, and those are the ones we’re looking at 

first because they’re the most likely ones that we might have to 

make a change to. But before we fly again, we will have looked at 

every last one, and I would disagree that we cannot do that. I’m 

sure we can. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

New York, Mr. Scheuer. Mr. Scheuer from New York. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Admiral Truly, you were on the second shuttle, 

which experienced the worst O-ring erosion of any fuel joint in the 

history of the program, I believe. In fact, it’s ironic, it seems to me, 

that the erosion on the second shuttle occurred on the same right- 
145 

hand fuel joint, which is the same joint which caused the Challenger accident. 

Prior to the Challenger accident, the tragic accident and the investigation, had you been informed by NASA management about 

the O-ring erosion on the second shuttle and other shuttles? 

Admiral TRULY. No, sir. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, how do you feel in retrospect, having flown 

other shuttle missions without having been informed by NASA of 

this known, demonstrably evident, life-threatening condition on 

those shuttles? How do you feel, having been sent up in the air on 

this extraordinarily dangerous mission without having vital information about the safety of the flight, the crew, the mission, that 

was there in NASA headquarters, was there in Marshall headquarters? 

Admiral TRULY. I think that our investigation and this report 

clearly shows that the failure of communication of that problem, or the proper recognition of it, was a major failure and led to the 

cause of the accident. And frankly, personally, I am more concerned not that I as an astronaut and did not know, but that the 

total program through the level 111, then to the level 11, then to the 

level 1 didn’t work that problem for that flight and others. 

When I was in the astronaut office I frankly felt, and I do today, 

that the astronauts themselves deserve to be involved in those 

issues that are critical and are being worked. But I’m much more 

worried that the issue didn’t get worked in the program than I was 

that I personally didn’t know about it. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, I totally agree with you. But don’t you think 

if you and other flight crew members had known of the existence 

of that problem, you would have made damn well sure that it had 

been worked on and solved before the next shuttle event, whether 

you were on that shuttle or not? 

Admiral TRULY. Yes. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Wouldn’t it have had a mighty prophylactic effect? 

I don’t wish to embarrass you at all. 

Admiral TRULY. No. 

Mr. SCHEUER. But isn’t the greatest assurance to the public and 

to the Congress, and even to NASA officials themselves, full and 

complete knowledge by the shuttle team on every aspect of the program? Where their own lives and safety are involved, they would 

insist on proper, prudent steps being taken. They’re all risk-takers. 

You’re a risk-taker; of course you are. But you re a prudent risktaker. 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, we should have known. In answer to your 

question, we should have known before-the way we should have 

known is that it should have been worked as a major technical 

problem, on the top of the table, with everybody concerned. And if 

it had, I’m sure we would have corrected the problem. Mr. SCHEUER. It would have been corrected, would it not, after 

the second shuttle when it first appeared? It would have been corrected before the third shuttle? You wouldn’t have launched a 

third shuttle-- 

Admiral TRULY. Well, that would be speculation on my part. If 

you go back to that flight and looked at that particular incident, 

what the decision would have been, I don’t know. But I do know 
146 

that if it had been worked properly earlier, I believe this accident 

could have been avoided. 

Mr. SCHEUER. If you had been a member of the crew on the third 

shuttle and you knew of the existence of the O-ring failure on the 

second shuttle, would you have acquiesced that all signals are go, a 

launch, a green light on the launch until you were sure that they 

had solved that problem of the O-ring failure? 

Admiral TRULY. If I had known then what I know now, I think 

the proper thing would have been to stop the program and fix the 

problem. Mr. SCHEUER. After the second shuttle, when the O-ring failure 

was evident? 

Admiral TRULY. Whenever the joint design proved that it was 

not working as it was intended. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Right. Right. 

In other words, this is not just a failure of communication; this is 

a failure of decisionmaking. Isn’t that evident? It’s not just that the 

information didn’t filter to the decisionmakers; it did. But they didn’t act on it. They permitted the shuttle crew to take what we 

all see in retrospect as unacceptable risks. Wouldn’t you think 

that’s a reasonable conclusion? And that’s what we want to avoid. 

Admiral TRULY. Ithink somewhere, in the various levels of program management, there was a failure in decisionmaking and in 

communications. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Between 1980 and 1985 NASA and the Air Force 

conducted three studies predicting the probability of failure of the 

shuttle. Two of these three studies predicted that a booster failure 

was likely before all of the 500 manned missions were completed. The Sierra study indicated an estimated failure rate of 1 in 70, and 

the Sandia National Laboratory study indicated a failure rate of 1 

in 210. There was another one that indicated 1 in 1,000. But then, 

by some process of rationalization that I don’t understand, NASA 

Headquarters came up with a failure prediction rate of 1 in 

100,000, which was 100 times more optimistic than the most opti- mistic of these three studies that NASA and the Air Force commissioned. 

Didn’t these three studies-two of which indicated failure before 

the end of the series of manned shuttle flights-didn’t they sort of 

send up an early warning signal to some of you? Totally apart from 

this wildly optimistic of 100,000-to-1 estimate of NASA? 

Admiral TRULY. I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with any of those 

studies and just can’t comment. Perhaps Mr. Aldrich might be familiar, but I m not. 

Mr. ALDRICH. No, I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with those studies. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Would Mr. Fletcher be familiar with the history of 

these predicted failure rates? 

Admiral TRULY. Idon’t know, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Sure. 

Mr. ROE. I know you’ve done quite some research on this. These 

studies were commissioned by NASA? 

Mr. SCHEUER. By NASA and the Air Force, three of them; one 

that came in with one failure out of 70, one came in with one failure out of 210, the third came in with one failure out of 1,000. And 
147 

on top of these, NASA predicted one failure out of 100,000, which is 

100 times more optimistic than the most optimistic of the three. 

Mr. ROE. I think the gentleman, if he would yield further, is 

striking upon an extremely important, nagging point that every 

member of this committee, without exception, is concerned about. 

How could there possibly be 14 incidents, as we understand the 

issues involved, with some kind of a problem relating to those 

O-rings, and nothing was given urgency to immediately get at that? 

I think that’s where the gentleman is coming from. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Yes, and I’d like to know, was the shuttle designed-each of the components designed-to achieve a probability 

of success in 99,999 cases out of 100,000? 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentlemanMr. SCHEUER. And I’d also like to ask them at some point in 

time, what do they consider a reasonable, expected, predicted failure rate? I think the Congress ought to know what the acceptable 

failure rate is. 

Mr. ROE. I understand. If the gentleman would yield-I don’t 

want to lose this train of thought because I think you’re on a very important one. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. We’re going to be breaking sometime around 12:30. We 

would like to be able to give you the information that Mr. Scheuer 

speaks to, vis-a-vis these two or three studies that were commissioned by-what do you call it-NASA, and did that go to the chief 

engineer, what happened, and how come we don’t know about that. 

I don’t mean that unfairly or unkindly. In other words, why don’t 

we-here’s an example; and again, I know that we’re coming back, being called back, new people involved, but we don’t know that 

those were commissioned. What did they say and what did they do? 

So I would suggest to the gentleman from New York, if he will, 

that we-- 

Mr. FUQUA. If the gentleman will yield? 

Mr. ROE. Yes, of course. 

Mr. FUQUA. Those were studies that were commissioned by the 

Department of Energy in relation to a power system called the 

RTG that would be used in some upper stages. I don’t remember 

exactly when they came back, but they were also commissioned for 

the President’s evaluation of approval of those launches. They were 

not commissioned by NASA; they were not commissioned by the 

Air Force, to my understanding. They were commissioned by the 

Department of Energy. 

Mr. ROE. Where the Chair-I respect the gentleman’s enormous background and knowledge-where the Chair is coming from, we 

are going to get, as we unfold our efforts and energies over the 

next 3 or 4 weeks, we’re going to get people making statements and 

different presentations that are made that we have to deal with up 

front for the legitimacy of that particular question. I think that s 

where the chairman is coming from. 

What I’m simply suggesting, in the line of questioning that Mr. 

Scheuer is pursuing, is that we ought to look into those facts, check 

with your chief engineer, so we can elucidate as the chairman said. 

What we are trying to do here is establish the facts as they arenot hypothetical, what may have happened. What are the facts? 
148 

That’s what we’ve got to get at, and this is one of those issues that 

we have to deal with. Is that a fair commentary? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Sure. 

Mr. ROE. And we’ll take this matter up first. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I thank the chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair now recognizes the distinguished gentlelady 

from Rhode Island, Ms. Schneider. 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral Truly, I’d like to focus on some of NASA’s supervision 

of quality control and safety concerns that have come into question, and specifically I’d like to focus on the elements of personnel 

and also of procedures. 

In one of the reports I was looking at here it says that the 

number of quality assurance personnel dropped from 1,689 people 

in 1970 to 505 people in 1985, which is a 71-percent decrease in the 

number of people who are responsible for quality control. And last 

October, an Air Force study had indicated that they found a shortage of engineers and technicians, so much so that it led to an average of 2,200 work requirements by ground processing personnel 

that had not been dealt with. And of all of those requirements, 

only 26 percent of them were scheduled for work. 

Now, my question to you is, are we reaching a conclusion that 

perhaps part of the reason for the accident was a deficiency in not 

only workmanship but also oversight due to the fact that there 

were not enough personnel involved to do the kinds of checking 

and double-checking that should have been done? 

Admiral TRULY. If I might respond first with a comment, and 

then get to your question. 

The numbers that you referred to, I believe, have been corrected 

by the chief engineer, Dr. Silveira, which I can provide for you for 

the record. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 
149 

Material requested for the record on pages 59 and 60, 

lines 1301 through 1306 by Acting Chairman Roe on June 

11, 1986. 

It is important to discuss the reduction in R&QA 

personnel in the proper perspective. Please note that 

the highly publicized "reduction" concerns only R&QA 

personnel. The "70% reduction" over the past 15 years 

included many functions such as metrology/calibration, 

parts, assemblies and systems testing, material testing, 

chemical analysis, etc. which were in the 1970 R&QA 

organizations but transferred to other organizations 

within the NASA centers. Also, included in the "70% 

reduction" were in-house flight programs such as Viking, 

Saturn launch vehicles, and Skylab Apollo Telescope 

Mount which require NASA inspection/verification on manufacturing, assembly and test operation. The 

termination of these in-house flight programs, along 

with the transfer of certain functions, accounts for 

much of the "70% reduction." 

Using the same functional baseline, the number of RLQA 

personnel in 1970 was approximately 1,030 out of a total 

population of 32,500. In 1985 we had approximately 580 

R&QA personnel out of 22,300 employees. Over the 15 

years, NASA had a decrease of approximately 10,200 

employees of which 450 were in R&QA. 

However, this total reduction of 450 R&QA people 

includes the reduction in program content for the Agency 

which is represented by the overall population decrease 

from 32,500 to 22,300 as well as an effective real 

decrease in R&QA coverage on the remaining programs. 

This effective real decrease in coverage can be 

determined by comparing the percentage of NASA R&QA of 

the total population in 1970 versus 1985. In 1970 we 

had 3.2% of the employees in R&QA, while in 1985 we had 

2.6%. The decrease in R&QA was 0.6% or approximately 

135 people. This means that of the 450 drop, 135 

represents a decrease in coverage while the remainder of 

the 450 (315) represents a decrease because of total 

program content reduction. 

Even though we had a reduction in R&QA personnel, our detail review of the quality operation did not reveal 

that we missed any of the quality control check points 

which may have contributed to the accident. We firmly 

believe that the checks and double checks by NASA 

personnel, our Government QA Specialists, and our contractor QA personnel were adequate. We are reasses- sing the entire quality operation for the purpose of 

identifying ways we can strengthen the system. This 

reassessment will include a study of the staffing in SR&QA. 
150 

Admiral TRULY. However, that is not to say that the safety, reliability, and quality assurance program in NASA was not a major 

focus of the Commission’s recommendations. And as I said in my 

statement, I can assure you that I will personally join that effort to 

take a look throughout the agency, and particularly in my responsibility throughout the Space Shuttle Program, to make sure we 

have the right kind of people on the job. 

To answer specifically your question, I think that that was something that the Commission discovered in its investigation and was 

not a direct cause of this accident. But it is something that was uncovered, and I’m sorry there was some confusion on the numbers 

that became public, and we should straighten those facts out for 

you. But I don’t think it was a direct cause of the accident. It was 

something that the Commission ran into. It’s something we should 

fix, and we will do that. 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. So what you’re suggesting is that there are an 

adequate number of personnel available for monitoring and quality 

control supervision? 

Admiral TRULY. Ican’t say that. I have not had the opportunity 

personally to go through the detail. What the chief engineer is 

going to have to do is go through all of our contractors, look at 

what industry standards are for systems that are complex like this, 

make sure that we have not only the right numbers but the right 

kind of trained people, that we have the right sort of supervision, 

and we look at it from the top of NASA. That’s what the Commission recommended, and I’m sure that is precisely what we’re going 

to do. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. I’d be happy to yield, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I think for clarity for the record, the gentlelady is striking on a very important point. And if I can relate her question 

back to the earlier comments that Admiral Truly made in his presentation, we did pursue that. We came back and said that one of 

the key critical issues that NASA had to do was to investigate and 

inspect all of the critical items that were involved, of the 700-someodd items that were involved. 

The logical question that the lady is asking, I believe, or that our 

colleague is asking, is, what is it going to take to do that? And you 

yourself made the point of view that there is an extensive number 

of people that would be involved. 

And then, on a legitimate, followup question, if the lady would 

yield further-our gentlelady and colleague would yield furtheris, is NASA going to use their people, quality assurance people, to 

review and inspect these critical parts? Or are they going to use 

outsiders? Or a combination of both? How do we get the assurance 

that you have enough personnel? What process will you be following, as I understand the basic question? Is that a fair analysis of 

the question? 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. Yes. That’s it. 

Mr. ROE. That’s the question I think she’s asking. 

Admiral TRULY. I agree that is the question, and that is precisely 

the study that needs to be looked at to determine where we are in 

the quality assurance area. 
151 

Within the Office of Space Flight, I have looked at just the numbers. I have not had an opportunity yet to put my name behind the 

report because I’ve just seen it. But I know that for two of our 

major contractors, the numbers of quality assurance personnel on 

the job appear to be quite adequate, at Rocketdyne with the main 

engines and also the numbers that I’ve seen at the Rockwell plant. The numbers have changed over the years because we have been 

out of production. You need more quality people when you’re pro- ducing hardware. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentlelady would yield further? 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. I think it would be profitable by tomorrow if you could 

respond to this question as to some thought process that you may have developed that your people will think about in the following 

direction. 

The question before us is the deepest of concern and the paramount issue of safety; I think we all agree to that. The second 

point that the gentlelady is asking is that, in order to ensure that 

issue in the first step as far as technological hardware is concerned, you and your colleagues have testified that they are up 

front, and priority No. 1 is to get your inspection and reassurance. 

You’ve cancelled the waiver positions on the critical items, and 

those are all going to be gone through again because the question 

was asked by other members that some of those critical items-all 

of those critical items-in effect, if they were defective, could 

create a problem and a serious one. That’s the question. 

Now, the second question we’re asking, there was some question 

as to whether or not the contractors alone should be the ones who 

do the quality assurance as working for NASA, or does NASA consider the issue to be important enough and serious enough to have 

their own cadre of expertise to double-check on the contractors? 

Particulaily, looking at part of the testimony that was given yes- terday where they came back and said, one of the contractors did 

not perform their contract within the ambient levels that they had 

to perform it in. 

So what we simply -- want to nail down, if I’m correct for the 

gentlelady- Ms. SCHNEIDER. You are. 

Mr. ROE [continuing]. Is nail down the point of view as to what 

process is NASA going to invoke to be able to review the critical 

list to improve the quality assurance issue. Will you rely more 

upon NASA personnel working directly for you, the Government? 

Or are we going to put off more and more of that to the private 

contractors who are working for us? How do we get that balance, 

and what do we do to test? 

Is that a fair appraisal of what the gentlelady said? 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. That’s it. 

I appreciate my interpreter doing such a fine job. [Laughter.] 

Mr. ROE. The gentlelady from Rhode Island. 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. Well, I would like to continue on part C of my 

questioning; and due to my magnanimous nature in enabling the 

chairman to clarify this, there are some other points that I would 

like to have clarified. And if you don’t have this information, I 
152 

would appreciate that we obtain this for the record, perhaps at a 

later time. 

But it seems to me that, at the same time that we were watching 

the levels of personnel decline since 1970, I’d like to know what the 

percentage was in increase/decrease or maintenance of status quo 

insofar as public information and public relations was for NASA 

over that same period. Do you happen to have the answer to that 

on hand? 

Admiral TRULY. No; but I’ll be pleased to provide it. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 

Material requested for the record on page 66, line 1439, by 

Ms. Schneider during the June 11, 1986, hearing. 

As of the end of FY 1970 NASA had 131 employees in public 

information and public relations functions. The following table 

shows the comparable end fiscal year totals and the number and 

percentage change from FY 1970 in two year increments through 

May 31, 1986. 

FY 1970 

FY 1972 

FY 1974 

FY 1976 

FY 1978 

FY 1980 

FY 1982 

FY 1984 

May 31, 1986 

Number of 

Employees 

131 

98 

97 

98 

92 

87 

101 

116 

112 

Difference 

From FY 1970 

-33 

-34 

-33 

-39 

-44 

-30 

-15 

-19 

Percentage Change 

From FY 1970 

-25% 

-26% 

-25% 

-30% 

-34% 

-23% 

-12% 

-15% 
153 

Admiral TRULY. As a matter of fact, I can provide the corrected 

numbers that were testified to by Dr. Silveira, for the quality assurance people. 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. In addition to the quality assurance personnel, I 

am interested in looking at the budget that has been utilized over 

that same period of time because it appears to me, Mr. Chairman, 

that we have been seeing over that time period a very aggressive 

public relations campaign in support of the shuttle program. And I 

certainly understand the favorable publicity and the campaign that 

was helping to create an atmosphere which would lead to support 

of this program, but I am concerned about that. 

I’m just going to ask part D of my questioning, here, which relates also to procedures of those personnel. 

The General Accounting Office had indicated that NASA had cut 

or delayed one-half billion dollars in spending on safety testing, 

design, and development from the time the shuttle began until the 

Challenger disaster. Now, the reasons, I understand, that those procedures were eliminated was because they were proven-or it was 

indicated-that they were not cost-effective. I would appreciate it if 

you could elaborate on the decisionmaking discussion that indicated that it was no longer cost-effective, unlike the Apollo space program where various procedures were tested and they design it, and 

then they build the prototype, and that prototype was then tested. 

The idea of eliminating this procedure because it was not costeffective, I’d like some more justification for that, please. 

Admiral TRULY. Again, I’m going to have to respond for the 

record on that. Those happened in years that I’m not personally 

aware of. I will be pleased to try to get you the information for the 

record. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 
154 

Material requested for the Record on page 68, line 1478, by Ms. 

Schneider, from the hearings held on June 11, 1986 

We reviewed the NASA historical records and found that there 

was a series of review meetings held in the mid-1970's to realign 

the Shuttle development testing programs due to the prevailing 

budget constraints. During these reviews and the subsequent 

development program, some testing was deleted, which ultimately 

resulted in significant cost savings. 

The prior Apollo program concepts of dual development efforts 

to obtain a single end item (component or system) were not 

implemented. 

Some component testing was deleted by relying on the 

development testing of larger assemblies which included those 

components. 

Some testing of noncritical items was deferred to the 

development flight tests. 

The total-orbiter acoustic/vibration tests and some subsystem 

thermal vacuum tests were deleted by (1) relying on our knowledge of 

materials and designs performance in space as gained from preceeding 

NASA program experience and, (2) depending on vehicle flight 

tests. Full confirmation was achieved by flying the Shuttle, while 

heavily instrumented, through a series of progressively more 

difficult flight tests to actually measure the operational 

acoustic/vibration, thermal and other environmental effects, and 

performance. 

It is clear, however, that NASA did not delete any safety items 

or systems, or the planned or expected testing of the safety systems 

or related safety concepts or practices. Safety related systems 

were thoroughly tested even where they were redundant, 
155 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, for the record, 

would just like to say that in looking at various pieces of information, there seems to be a trend between the number of dollars 

spent, the personnel, and the procedures, and I’m curious to know 

what kind of conclusions we might be able to draw by looking at all 

three of those aspects. If I had more time, I’d ask how that could be 

looked at in an even larger picture insofar as NASA’s budget 

versus the Defense budget for space purposes. 

Mr. ROE. You will have time for that because we’re going to go around again. 

Ms. SCHNEIDER. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. We’ll start with our next colleague, Mr. Boehlert, the 

distinguished Member from New York, and we’ll go until the 

second bell rings and then you’ll have your time when we come 

back. You can start now, yes. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Part E of my colleague’s question, and I think she addresses a 

very important and critical point. The information provided us by staff indicates, for example, that 

in June of 1970, Marshall had 615 people assigned to reliability and 

quality assurance; and in August of 1985, that number was down to 

88, which is an 86 percent decrease. So I think it’s important, Admiral Truly, that we do have those figures because I think we all 

agree that safety is first and foremost. 

If I may, I’d like to address something that I addressed yesterday 

with Secretary Rogers. And the reason I want to do so is because a 

great many people have asked me-and I’m sure they have asked 

our colleagues-about the crew of the Challenger. A great many Americans think that if Congress had provided more dollars, or 

NASA had established different priorities, it might perhaps have 

been possible to save the crew. 

Is there any bail-out system or ejection system now operational, 

or even in the conceptual stage, that if part of the Challenger- would have permitted the saving of the crew? 

Admiral TRULY. I believe in this accident, there is no system that 

is in development that could have saved the crew-- 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Because of the time factor, 73 seconds, the thrust 

and-- 

Admiral TRULY. The issue of egress and escape has been studied 

and argued in the shuttle program since its inception. The decision 

was made that the way to provide the best safety was to put that 

money, those dollars, into the reliability of the system during the 

first stage. The only sort of system that I, frankly, am aware of 

that could possible be of use during the first stage would involve a 

combination of thrust termination on the solid rocket motors and, 

essentially, a detachable pod as part of the cockpit of the shuttle. 

That was determined just not to be a feasible trade in the early days of the shuttle program. 

As we look at the issue now-and as I said in my testimony-we 

are reopening all of those possibilities, which vary from a major 

change to the system which could be accommodated all the way down to the possibility, at least, of a bailout capability in controlled 

gliding flight. We’re just going to have to get those studies in and 

make the risk and gain trade-offs to decide what to do. In every 
156 

study when we made those tradeoffs before, particularly after we 

had gotten started in the program, the gains in the system to make 

a change did not balance out against the risks involved in modify- ing the hatch or putting in ejection seats or so forth. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. But in this instance, the answer is clearly no to 

that question? 

Admiral TRULY. That’s correct. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. OK. 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman yield on that point? 

Mr. BOEHLERT. I would be glad to yield, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. By the same token, I think you are developing a more 

positive approach. And the idea of balancing the system-and forgive me for being, not emotional, but what kind of a figure do we 

assign to a life? I mean, if we were dealing in equipment and material and things that we make with our hands as part of the system, 

and we evaluated that, what kind of cost evaluation did we make 

when we had seven lives involved? And I don’t mean to come down 

on you. 

Now, I just wonder what weight we put to a life in this engineering system we’re figuring versus the point of view of whether we 

can or cannot afford it. And I don’t mean to mislead anybody and 

second-guess your initial point when you talk about this particular 

flight, but it seems to me in a systems evaluation-and I don’t 

want to belabor the point-that we ought to be talking about-and 

I think you’re moving in that direction-we’re going to take a very 

serious look at this and a very indepth look at what we may be 

able to do to be able to help astronauts in different modes, acts and 

potential modes. Is that a fair statement? 

Admiral TRULY. We are looking at that specific question. The 

review studies of what the possibilities are with the shuttle system 

today are not in. When they are evaluated, first by Mr. Aldrich at 

level 11, a recommendation will be made and we’ll deal with it. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman will yield further, and you’ll have 

your time when we return, but we will be looking in our next oversight-because our oversight will be based continually on safetywe’re going to be looking to that particular issue as to how we put 

the systems cost-analysis benefit ratio to the loss of a human life. 

And I think you would agree with that. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, if I could follow up on that, and 

you had promised me some additional time after this-- 

Mr. ROE. Yes, we’ll give you more time. 

Mr. BOEHLERT [continuing]. I’m just wondering on what level of 

safety we’re looking for before we decide to put people in space. For 

example, just the other day Dr. Fletcher is quoted as saying that 

NASA remains committed to the civilian in space concept. But he 

also has said that will be delayed until shuttle flights are deemed 

safe enough for them, for the civilians. Are we going to have two 

levels, one level of safety for the astronauts, another level of safety 

for the civilians? And that’s-I’ll ask Dr. Fletcher to expand upon 

his response to that when he does get here, but I’m wondering where the dividing line is going to be. 

Admiral TRULY. To me, a life is a life. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. It is to all of us. 
157 

Admiral TRULY. The question is, in the shuttle system, are there 

things that we could do that would improve the crew escape posture that makes the risk less than it is today? I want to make sure 

that you realize that in many cases, things that are approved enter 

new risks into the system; for instance, pyrotechnics that would 

blow a hatch away, that would save you in a certain situation and 

kill you in another. 

So it is a subjective question, and the question of citizens in 

space is a policy question. But the same protection will be provided 

at whatever level to whoever the occupants of the shuttle are. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Chairman, I think it is relevant to note at this 

point, in amazement or disbelief, I might say, that while the NASA 

authorities have been using a figure of one predicted accident out 

of 100,000 flights, we had the testimony just yesterday of George 

McKay, a project engineer at the Marshall Space Center, who said 

yesterday that 20 years ago, Marshall safety engineers predicted a 

flight failure in every 20 to 25 manned flights. And he said, “We 

didn’t tell anybody about it at that time because it would have 

scared the hell out of everybody.’’ Getting to your question, Mr. Chairman, of the value of a single 

life, when we have an ongoing program where the top safety officials know in their heads that there’s likely to be a failure every 20 

or 25 flights, when we have a series of 500 manned flights planned, they don’t rate human lives very highly if they proceed on that intellectual risk assumption. Mr. ROE. Well, if both gentlemen would yield, because we have to 

vote, we will suspend. But where I’m coming from on this question, which I realize is a sensitive, emotional question as both our colleagues do, is part of the policy decision that will follow as we 

unfold our observations over the next 2 days in discussing with you the details and facts. They’re going to based as to what ratio the 

manned space flight should play to unmanned space flight; that’s 

where we’re coming from in those questions. So we’ll suspend for the moment and return in 10 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

If I can have the attention of the Members and our guest witnesses, what we plan on doing is recessing from 12:30 to 1:30. And 

when we return, we think it would be profitable to demonstrate for 

the Members the motion picture that’s there, and then we’ll continue on. That will give them a good insight, I think, into what 

happened, those who haven’t had a chance to see that before. 

When we broke up it was Mr. Boehlert’s time, and we defer to 

Mr. Boehlert. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Hindsight is always 20120, and I think all of us agree as we look 

back that had the conversation between the officials of Morton 

Thiokol and NASA at Marshall been reviewed at the very top, 

there probably would have been a decision not to launch. 

Now, I note in Secretary Rogers’ report that he is recommending-and it’s a recommendation that I fully support-that in the 

future, prelaunch conferences be recorded so that we have a permanent record. But we don’t want just a permanent record to 

review sometime in the future, God forbid, should another tragedy 
158 

occur. What we would like is a permanent record so at the very 

top, these conversations can be reviewed. Had that occurred in this 

instance, the decision not to launch probably would have been 

made. 

So, Admiral Truly, could you address that point? No. 1, do you 

support the recommendation that these pre-launch conferences be 

recorded? And No. 2, can we go a step further and receive some 

assurances that, at least at your level and hopefully Dr. Fletcher’s level, that will be reviewed so that you will have the benefit of discussions like the one that occurred with respect to the O-ring? Admiral TRULY. This is specifically the kind of recommendation 

in the report that I’m going to ask Captain Crippen to lead a group 

and take a look at; that is improved communications and the very 

structure of the process in the decision to launch. 

I might ask if Mr. Aldrich would have a comment to your question since he has participated directly in the flight readiness process far more than I have personally. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Fine. Mr. Aldrich? 

Mr. ALDRICH. Yes. Well, I would comment that we have been 

looking precisely at those kinds of augmentation to the formality of 

the flight readiness process. Prior to the Commission’s report, in 

anticipation of that finding on their behalf, both the recording of 

the meetings and the more formal requirement for participation from all organizations and formal structure of the timing of those 

meetings. What I have done is instituted some specific proposals. 

Mr. ROE. Can the gentleman pull that microphone closer, please? 

Mr. ALDRICH. I’m sorry. 

I’ve instituted some action to provide a series of specific propos- als on the readiness review process to provide to Admiral Truly and now to Bob Crippen as a basis for starting some of the re-look 

and final decisions in those areas following the Commission’s 

report based on the experiences we have been through and our understanding of them. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. And one final question, if I may, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Graham, in your new role as science advisor to the President, 

could you expand a little bit on the role you envision for yourself in that office in connection with direct liaison with NASA? And 

I’m assuming the Senate will be generous in their confirmation. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Yes. As you know, I’m subject to confirmation and 

wouldn’t want to intrude on the prerogatives of the Senate to 

speak to that position until I’m confirmed. However-- 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Incidentally, when you’re talking about the 

Senate, you’re now in the bleachers. That’s the grandstand over 

there. We’re after the facts, and they’re doing a lot of-if yesterday 

is any indication of what’s going to happen during this proceed- ings-a lot of showmanship over there. I think you’re seeing, in 

this committee, a determined effort to get at facts and have a good 

exchange. Dr. GRAHAM. I will certainly continue, if I am confirmed to that 

position to take a deep and consistent interest in the national space 

program and in NASA’s activities, both the program of returning 

to flight and the other activities that NASA will be involved in, as 

a major contributor to the national space program and as the leadership within the Administration in the civil space program. 
159 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Well, as a practical matter, when you were 

Acting Administrator of NASA did you have steady and frequent 

contact with the Office of Science Advisor? I recognize it’s been 

vacant for several months now. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Yes. First through Dr. Keyworth and his staff, and 

then through Dr. Mateg, and now Dr. Johnson. There is a steady 

flow of traffic and discussion between NASA and that office, and I 

believe it’s very constructive and should be continued. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. OK. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Missouri, Mr. Volkmer. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I’d first like to ask, this committee has been told by NASA in 

recent briefings that induced environment criteria for the SRB 

were signed off before the STS-1 in verification compliance notice 

12All. I’d like to know if NASA can provide us with the documentation supporting this decision. 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir, we will. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 

Material requested for the record on page 79, line 1747, by 

Mr. Volkmer during the June 11, 1986, hearing. 

There was no SRB induced environment verification waiver pre 

STS-1. Enclosed find a copy of VCN 12All which shows that to be 

the case. (Note that the copy is a composite of multiple, 

identical forms which were processed in parallel by different 

functional areas. The individual copies are on file at JSC. The 

composite was prepared for Shuttle program level sign off prior 

to STS-1.) On the second page of the VCN, there are three 

incomplete requirements. None were SRB related and as the 

resolution section indicates, all were scheduled to be complete 

prior to STS-1. A check with the System Integration Office on 

July 16, 1986, confirmed that no waivers to the JSC 07700 

Volume X induced environment verification requirements were in 

effect at the time of the STS-1 launch. 

Enclosed supporting data also includes some documentation which 

will clarify the VCN. This data also includes page 3-40 of JSC 

07700, Volume X which establishes the general requirements for 

each Shuttle element to be compatible with defined induced 

environments. The six pages (10.11 to 10.11-12) are from 

Appendix 10 of the same volume. These pages provide definition 

of those induced environments and provide applicable references. 
160 

Mr. VOLKMER. All right. Thank you. I'd like to have it within a 

week, if at all possible. There is also, in reviewing the Commission's report, a great deal 

of confusion involving the, say, environmental criteria, temperature, wind, everything else, rain, that the solid rocket motor was 

expected to meet. And can you tell us what these criteria are, espe- cially the ambient temperatures expected and the safety factor and 

the design? Or can you provide us documentation from the contract 

between NASA and Morton Thiokol stating the exact temperature criteria that the motor would be required to meet? 

Admiral TRULY. If I might, if I would pass that question to Mr. 

Aldrich, who is the level I1 program manager. 

Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. Volkmer, my understanding in reviewing this 

from the level I1 organization is that early in the program, an environmental criteria for launch performance for all elements of the 

shuttle system was established at a range of 26 degrees Fahrenheit 

to 99 degrees Fahrenheit. This was initially put on contract, or it 

was applied through my level I1 organization formally to all 

projects in the shuttle system for them. In turn, to apply directly to 

the contracts of their contractors who provide the hardware for the 

sys tem. 

In the evolution of the program the lower limit, the 26 degrees Fahrenheit was subsequently raised to 31 degrees Fahrenheit but 

was carried forward as the requirement from that time forward 

and has not only been on requirements for each project to design 

to, but also been in the launch commit criteria document that we 

have used for every flight as criteria for flight performance. 

My understanding of the formal documentation is that that was 

applied to each project, including the Marshall projects, and that 

formal certification was provided back from all projects in the program, that elements had been designed and certified to perform within those ranges. 

Now, within the solid rocket booster it does not break the booster 

further, as an overall requirement, down into subelements or subcomponents; it merely specifies that it can perform within its 

design spec, within those temperature ranges for those temperatures at launch from either east or west coast launch sites. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And the SRB was supposed to be certified down to 

a temperature-overall temperature of the SRB-of 31 degrees? 

Mr. ALDRICH. For launch, yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. For launch. 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman yield for a moment on that point? 

Mr. VOLKMER. Well, could I ask my next question first? Then I 

will yield. And that is that I would like to be provided the documentation for that certification for the SRB, including all the testing that was done by the contractor to arrive at that certification. 

Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. Volkmer, the documentation that I would have 

direct familiarity with would be response from the Marshall project 

to the level I1 program that says that those requirements have 

been fully met. The details of the contract and the certification 

testing between the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Thiokol 

Corp. would be a direct question, I think, appropriate to Mr. Jack 

Lee of the task force that has investigated in detail that aspect of 

the certification. He will have more direct knowledge of that than 
161 

I, although I am sure we can provide what documentation the task 

force has put together on that subject. Mr. NELSON. Ihave that documentation right here. 

Mr. VOLKMER. All right; fine. 

Mr. ROE. I think it would be profitable if I understand where the 

gentleman is coming from. Were actual physical tests made, or 

were these determinations made by computer model analyses? In 

other words, where did these temperatures come from? 

Mr. ALDRICH. In terms of the requirement? 

Mr. ROE. Yes. 

Mr. ALDRICH. An analysis of the expected range of performance 

that the shuttle system would be required to perform at was determined. Some of it was determined by analysis, and a wide range of 

environmental conditions are determined in order to provide the 

design specifications for the shuttle systems each to meet. The temperature criteria for launch was, as I understand, a fairly direct assessment of the likely conditions that we would expect to see 

during the norm of the program in terms of design requirements 

and launch conditions. 

Mr. ROE. Well, the gentleman-I have other questions to ask on 

this issue, but it’s your time. I defer back to you. Mr. VOLKMER. Id just like to ask-I know my time is about to 

run out, but I would like to ask either Mr. Aldrich or Admiral 

Truly, in your review of the critical items list-as I understand it, 

you are reviewing all parts, the 1, 1-R’s, the 2’s, the 3’s, all of 

them-is there going to be, or will you have the National Research 

Council, an audit panel, be implemented during this review or utilized in any extent? As I understand it, the Commission made that 

recommendation. 

Admiral TRULY. Iwas not aware they were going to make that 

specific recommendation, but I frankly welcome it. We will have to, 

obviously, talk to the National Research Council and work out an 

appropriate context in which they can perform the audit to this 

review that we’re conducting. I think that at some point it might be very helpful on this criticality 1 and 1-R review that we invite Mr. Aldrich to give you a 

good description of it because it’s come up several times in the 

questions, and I think that in the hearings it might be very helpful 

to get a better and more detailed description of what that review 

is. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, if I may comment, I would like to 

have a little more detail of how that review is taking place and 

who is doing the actual review, especially as a result of reviewing the Commission’s report in regard to the SRB and the fmt that the 

joint was put on the 1-R list and then put on the 1 list, and then 

we end up having nothing but waivers. So I have some questions in 

regard to that. From the outside, I think that-it’s not that I don’t 

trust everybody, but maybe it would be better to have someone on 

the outside actually doing this audit, as well. 

My last question has to do-what was the actual temperature at 

time of launch, the ambient temperature? Mr. ALDRICH. Well, again, I think it would be better, perhaps, to 

ask someone from the task force, perhaps Bob Crippen. My knowledge of that is that there were several readings for the tempera- 
162 

ture at launch, depending on how high above the ground on the 

service structure, and my understanding is it was in the range of 

36 degrees Fahrenheit to 38 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield, that’s a legitimate question and you’re suggesting, Mr. Aldrich, that we would ask them. 

Those team leaders are going to be here tomorrow, Hal, and 

please propound the question again at that point to get it on the 

record. And I agree with you, because I want to add to that line of 

questioning. I will give you a copy of these three or four questions 

that we want to get into the record, to respond this afternoon. I 

want you to think about them a little bit. For example, we’re 

saying that in general, all Government procurements require a 

qualification of test, or an equal test, as a condition of acceptance, 

and assures that it is designed to meet and will operate in the expected environment. That’s the fundamental question. Then we’re 

going to ask you, was there a qualification test call on the design 

specs for the joint? What were the quality test specs for the joint? Did the joint and seals pass the quality test? And four, was the 51- 

L flight environment within the equal test envelope? 

We’ll give you that to take a look at so that we can ask those 

questions of you this afternoon, and that will be more helpful, I 

think, in responding along the line of what Mr. Volkmer is speaking to. 

Any further questions, Hal? 

Mr. VOLKMER. No, that’s all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. All right. 

The next person-the next member is Mr. Fawell from Illinois. 

Mr. FAWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Yesterday I propounded a question to Neil Armstrong, and it had 

to do with his statement that there had been a change of attitude 

or mindset or policy, or I guess call it what you may, at NASA in 

regard to, just in general, the “can do” attitude as he described it 

which prevailed at one time, and the idea that a launch would be 

presumed to be unsafe and would have to be rebutted, to an attitude now that would be best described as saying that a launch is 

safe and you’re going to have to rebut the safety features of that. 

And I asked him the question as to when that mindset or when the 

policy appeared to change, and he couldn’t pinpoint it, nor necessarily get too specific, but I did make reference to an act which, at 

that time, I didn’t know the correct name, but it’s the National 

Aeronautics Space Council, or what is called the White House 

Space Council which at one time was in effect; and I believe in 

1973 President Nixon unilaterally, by Executive order, disbanded 

that. 

I’ve had several who have mentioned to me they felt that’NASA 

thereafter was described by one as a headless agency and didn’t 

have that guidance from on top which certainly sets broad, subjective policies such as safety and other subjective policies. 

Could I have some response, Admiral Truly, from you in that 

regard? Do you think the abrogation of the White House Space 

Council did have a detrimental effect on the basic attitude and 

positive, can do attitude and presumptions to which I’ve made reference? 
163 

Admiral TRULY. I’m afraid that I’m like Mr. Armstrong, Neil, 

who I’m sure responded to that question yesterday. I frankly don’t 

think that the absence or presence of that body watching over the 

space program was a specific act that changed an attitude within 

the agency. As a matter of fact, I think in general, the attitude 

within the agency hasn’t changed. I know as short as 2Y2 years 

ago, when I was at full-time duty in the shuttle program in the Astronaut Office, a large percentage of our time was spent in the 

office-and also in the control boards, and so forth-in safety, and 

I think that continued right up to January 28. 

The chain of events that led to this accident, though, undoubtedly did include subtle pressures that caused the workload to go up 

and to steal from the attention that people were able to pay. However, I don’t think that those were the cause of this accident. I 

think this accident was caused by a specific failure within the 

system to see a problem that was quite apparent, and was waving a 

flag and should have been caught. And I think the body of this 

Commission report concludes the same thing. It is my duty and 

goal to make sure that before we fly again, that whatever led to 

this tragic event will not happen because of any problem of attitude within the agency. 

Mr. FAWELL. Would you agree-- 

Dr. GRAHAM. May I add one comment to that, please? 

Mr. FAWELL. Certainly. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Of course, as you know, Mr. Fawell, this administration has had a very strong interest in the space program over 

the last several years and has, in fact, conducted frequent White 

House-level reviews of space policy. But the thing to remember 

here is that the involvement of the Executive Office of the President in the space program has been at the policy level; and President Reagan has, in fact, provided strong policy guidance for the 

program. The implementation of that policy rests with the agencies, which is NASA. Today, the generation of the policy is done 

through an interagency process which is led by representatives from the National Security Council at the working level, and finally by the President at the top level. And that process has generated 

strong policy for the space program over the last 5 years. 

Mr. FAWELL. Now, you are talking about the Senior Interagency 

Group on Science? 

Dr. GRAHAM. In fact, the hierarchical structure starts with the 

Interagency Group, which involves a number of agencies of the 

Government. And today, more agencies than ever before are involved in the space policy because space has become such an integral part of the activities of so many agencies, from Justice Department, Commerce, Transportation, NASA, and on. 

After that is the Senior Interagency Group; after that is either 

the Cabinet or the National Security Council, and finally, the 

President himself. 

Mr. FAWELL. Now, I have only hearsay to report; I am by no 

means an expert. I have had people tell me that there is bureaucratic entanglement insofar as this particular Senior Interagency 

Group and that, as a result, NASA has been left in a rather independent status so that it can make many of its decisions without 
164 

real strong policy coming down. I don’t know how accurate that is, 

and I realize that that has not been in being for any length of time. 

My feeling, though, is that basic policy on emphasis of safety 

comes from on top, and I’ve had a number of people express to me 

that the White House Space Council, which was abandoned roughly 

in about 1973, was doing a very fine job in giving that on top guidance, and that its guidance-especially in terms of emphasis on 

safety and the presumption being that it’s unsafe and it must be 

rebutted, being, as Neil Armstrong has indicated, somehow that 

concept was lost and reversed, that the White House Council had a 

great deal in putting that kind of emphasis from on top onto 

NASA. That’s the reason I have propounded those questions, and I 

am seeking only to see if we indeed need that kind of-and I think 

there is legislation pending that will reinstate the White House 

Council, as I understand it. It would appear to me that that may be 

something that did contribute to what Neil Armstrong, I think 

rather aptly, referred to yesterday. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. 

Dr. GRAHAM. May I just respond, Mr. Chairman, briefly? 

Mr. ROE. Dr. Graham, of course. 

Dr. GRAHAM. The interagency process dealing with space issues 

today is considerably more complex than the process was in the 

early 1970’s. I view that as a tribute to the space program, to this 

committee, and other Members of the Congress who have, in fact, 

helped to make the space program an integral part of so many of 

the activities of the Government, and so many of our international 

activities, as well. That necessarily leads to a more complex process 

because many more interests are involved now than they were a 

decade or a decade and a half ago. 

Nevertheless, there has been a continued strong leadership 

through this administration in the space program and in the policy 

of the space program which has been generated in the White 

House. NASA’s task in the civilian area is to implement that 

policy; and if we have encountered a difficulty in the safety area in 

the last two decades, as we clearly have with respect to the Challenger, I don’t believe it has been lack of sound policy concerning 

safety; it has been too much the assumption that safety is inherently wired into the system, and can’t leak out, no matter what we do. 

That’s not a correct assumption. We have to work every day to 

keep safety in the system, and one of the consequences of the Challenger accident-as, in fact, was the consequence of the Apollo fire 

nearly two decades ago-will be to rededicate the agency to making 

its implementation cf space policy based on an active pursuit of 

safety in all activities undertaken. 

Mr. FAWELL. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. Doctor, I appreciate your comment and I don’t feel as if 

I got an answer to my earlier question that I asked. 

One of the recommendations under four of the Commission said 

that the safety organization--“NASA should establish an Office of 

Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance, to be headed by an Associate Administrator, reporting directly to the NASA Administrator.” Do you subscribe to that point of view? 
165 

Dr. GRAHAM. Yes, Mr. Chairman. And certainly, along with the 

other recommendations of the Commission, we’ll look at that one 

very carefully. 

At the present, that responsibility for safety, reliability, and 

quality assurance does lie with an Associate Administrator report- ing directly to the Administrator. That Associate Administrator is 

the chief engineer. 

Mr. ROE. Well, what’s bothering me a little bit-just so we get clarification for the record, to know where you fellows are coming 

from-part of the discussion that came from Dr. Fletcher came 

back and said, well, remember, those things were not specific recommendations or other specific directions; they were recommendations for consideration. In this instance, that’s not a recommendation for a consideration. They use the words, “NASA should establish.” So do we consider any of these areas where we come down, in 

the recommendations, where it says “should” as compared to 

“may” or “maybe” to be something that would have a stronger balance in your thought process-and, boy, am I being sensitive to this 

issue right now. 

Mr. GRAHAM. I think there is a difference in the recommendations in the various areas, and we are paying attention to that. But 

I would add that we already have an Associate Administrator who 

has among his responsibilities safety, reliability, quality assurance. I believe the question before us is, should there be an Associate Administrator position dedicated only to those functions? And we’ll 

certainly consider that as we go forward in implementing the recommendations of the Commission. 

Mr. ROE. Well, I don’t want to belabor it, but I would suggest the 

point of view that obviously the Commission certainly must have 

known that, or they wouldn’t have put the recommendation in, No. 

1. I’d be astounded if they didn’t. 

I think, No. 2, they’re saying that we should be creating an 

Office of Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance. Part of what 

you were responding to the gentleman from-Mr. Fawell from Illinois-a few minutes ago was based upon your concern with the 

transmission of safety information through the whole structure, 

and I applauded that approach. I just want to nail down for the 

record that there seems to be a hesitancy of saying-are we saying that we’ve already done that, that NASA has in place an Office of 

Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance that’s headed up by 

somebody? Or is it effective? Why did the Commission recommend 

that or put it in their response at all? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, we’re saying that that recommendation has, in fact, been in place in one particular form. The fact that 

it is a recommendation there indicates to me that the Commission 

is suggesting that that form may not be adequate, and we are going 

to go back and look at that very hard and make sure we understand exactly what the Commission was trying to get at and what 

it recommended, and consider that as we go forward. We will give 

that the most serious consideration. 

Mr. ROE. Well, making the point on the record so that when we 

call you back shortly we’ll be looking for what your response is 

going to be to that. 

I thank the gentleman from Illinois. 
166 

The next colleague is Mr. Slaughter, our distinguished colleague 

from Virginia. 

Mr. SLAUGHTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

When can we expect NASA to have a schedule for shuttle flights - 

over the next years? Admiral TRULY. We have a preliminary schedule for the earliest 

possible flight of July of 1987. During that year, we have already planned that the maximum rate will be either six or seven flights, 

and that will depend on specifically which vehicles we will fly. I 

hope within the next few weeks to be able to recommend a manifest for specific flights throughout that period, and it would be 

available at that time. 

Mr. SLAUGHTER. I have no further questions. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I have three questions for this round of questioning. First of all, I want to follow up in my discussion yesterday with 

Chairman Rogers and Vice Chairman Armstrong on what we 

learned when we were with you, Admiral Truly, last Friday down 

at the Kennedy Space Center on the question of the verification for 

the contract specifications of how the SRB was to operate under natural temperature and also under the induced temperature. And 

the contract specs are contained in a document that was prepared for Marshall by Thiokol dated February 17, 1984, in which-the 

temperatures have been mentioned here earlier-from 99 to 31 degrees, and with an induced temperature that goes down to 25 and, 

in another case, 21 degrees. 

I have the documentation here of the verification that was signed off by all the parties for the flight of STS-1 and then I have the 

documentation also on the verification for STS-5. What can you tell us that you know about why was this verification given if, in 

fact, as you and I learned at the Cape on Friday, that testing in 

fact was not done? What do you know about it? Just share that 

with us. 

Admiral TRULY. I’m going to have to take that question for the 

record or ask you to ask it again when we have our test team members here tomorrow, that they can help answer that. 

Mr. NELSON. Well, let’s ask Mr. Aldrich. Since these Level I11 folks 

at Marshall would be reporting to you as the program manager, what do you know about why wasn’t the testing done? 

Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. Nelson, I know very little about the details of 

the testing and the response between the level 4 contractor organi- zation and the Marshall level I11 project organization. I have not 

participated with the task force and have not delved into that in 

detail. I have researched the feedback to the space shuttle program 

to the level I1 from Marshall indicating full compliance with that 

requirement for induced requirements as part of the certification 

that was reported prior to STS-1 and has continued forward since 

that time. 

Mr. NELSON. All right. So you’re telling me, nobody knows the 

answer to the question? The question is, does anybody have a clue 

Mr. Nelson. 
167 

as to why, under the obligations of the contract, the testing was not 

done? And why NASA signed off on two occasions that the testing, 

in fact, had been complied with-the contract had been complied 

with? Is there anybody here that could address that question now? 

Admiral TRULY. No. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. 

After we heard that on Friday, what did you ask, Admiral Truly, 

to be done with regard to providing information to you on this particular question? 

Admiral TRULY. At this point, I have not asked for any action, 

but I certainly will, since as you know, at that point we were waiting for the Commission report. I do not know what that task team 

concluded in its report, or precisely what the Commission staff developed on that issue. But I certainly understand the line of your 

question, and I would like to take it for the record to supply the 

answer as best we can put it together. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 

Material requested for the record on page 97, line 2191, by 

Mr. Nelson during the June 11, 1986, hearing. 

There are no qualification test specified in the design 

specifications for the joint per se. There are, however, design 

specification and verification requirements for the performance of 

pressure seals and the structural elements (i.e., case and nozzle). 

The case joint pressure seals are to be redundant and verifiable 

through an external test port. 

to be certified by analysis, are 3L0F to 99'F (JSC 07700, Vol. X, 

Appendix 10.10). Induced environment specification, to be certified 

by analysis, are 25'F to 120°F (SD74-SH-0144, ICD 3-44003). The 

lowest established joint temperature in test was 40°F during one of 

four demonstrations and three qualification static test firings. 

Natural environment specification, 
168 

Mr. NELSON. OK. When will those folks that you’re talking about 

Mr. ROE. Tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow. 

Mr. NELSON. Tomorrow? OK. 

The other question that I would like to address specifically on 

this issue is, since everybody is saying that it was not complied with, in addition to why wasn’t it complied with, is there some contractual breach here that we need to know from a legal standpoint? So let’s address that. 

Admiral Truly, earlier today Dr. Fletcher had indicated again that the earliest possible date that we might fly is July 1987, and 

I’m wondering about that date by virtue of a report that was given 

to NASA before you came back to NASA last August, August 1985. 

It was a Thiokol briefing to Mr. Weeks at headquarters, and it was 

talking about a redesign of the joints-in fact, putting a capture feature-and it said that “the earliest possible implementation”- 

and I’m reading right from their report to NASA--“was on STS81N,” which, under the manifest, was scheduled for August 1988. 

Now, if that report would have said that in a redesign for a capture 

feature-and this is a report that was given last summer-why do 

we have reason to believe now that we could come up with an opportunity to fly incorporating some of the same redesign, but to be 

some 12 or 13 months earlier than what was projected? Admiral TRULY. I’d like to briefly address that question and then 

ask again that it might be directed tomorrow to Mr. John Thomas, 

who is head of our SRM redesign team at Marshall. 

We have recognized that in order to get into tests with the new 

design, we’ve had to expedite the delivery of the case segments in 

order to get them into a test program that could meet a flight date 

whenever it may be. The capture feature is one of the various features that is being considered. The early indication that I have is 

that alone, probably not an adequate design. But that’s what the 

redesign team is for, to look at the various redesigns. 

So I think the specific answer to your question is, we’ve had to 

spend money and effort in bringing those case segments forward as 

quickly as we can. 

I should point out at this time that those various case segments 

that have enough metal to have a capture feature on them are a 

threat to the schedule of the summer 1987, as is the tooling that is 

required at the manufacturer’s plant to machine them. And we 

will continue to evaluate those schedules and try our best to meet 

them, but within the context of what Dr. Fletcher said in his statement, and that context is flight safety. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. I’ll follow up on that tomorrow. 

Mr. Chairman, if I might, the third question that I wanted to lay 

out here-let me get Admiral Truly’s response on this. 

In the report, the Commission notes thatattend? 

Numerous contract employees have worked 72 hours per week, and frequent 12- 

hour shifts. 

And then it goes on to citeThe potential implications of such overtime for safety were apparent during the 

attempted launch of STS-61C on January the 6th, when fatigue and shift work were 

cited as major contributing factors to a serious incident involving a liquid oxygen 

depletion that occurred less than five minutes before the scheduled liftoff. 
169 

You and I have talked about that draining of the LOX from the 

tank. They’re saying that that was due to fatigue and excessive 

work shifts. Do you agree with the Commission? And if you do, 

what is the plan for action to alleviate such fatigue in the work 

shifts in the future? 

Admiral TRULY. Well, I must tell you that I’ve been very concerned about looking at some historical data part of the flight of 

the overtime that was required in the year and a half or so before 

the flight. If you plot overtime at the Cape versus the number of 

vehicles in flow, it was increasing. And I think what we plan to do 

in the future is to make a major effort to take a look at what a 

reasonable industry standard is and with our shuttle processing 

contract down at the Cape, what our actual capability is to make 

sure that the flight rates that we choose do not require overtime 

above some level that we choose through study and work to be 

proper. In other words, we’re going to look at the overtime; when 

we get back to flight, we’re going to agree on what the sort of level 

is, and we’re going to manage to that and not allow pressures to 

increase the flight rate to get ahead of our resources, our people 

resources, to do those jobs. 

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Aldrich, you were right there at the Cape in 

January. That’s sort of an unfair question to Admiral Truly, because he wasn’t back with the organization. Do you agree with the 

Commission statement? And if you do, what do you plan to do 

about it in the future? 

Mr. ALDRICH. I agree with the Commission statement in general, 

that large amounts of overtime were required for the pace of schedule that we were seeing during the latter half of 1985 and leading 

into 1986. I’m not sure I would draw that conclusion about 61-C, 

however; if you will recall, we were scheduled to launch on December 19, and had a problem where we were not able to launch on 

that day, and the mission team made the decision to wait until 

after the Christmas holidays, with one of the major considerations 

being allowing the team to have time off for that period, and pick 

up again in readiness to launch on January 6. So that might be one 

of the periods more prone to, in fact, allowing relief and a break 

for the team, although I’m also sure that maybe specific individuals might have been involved in a way that caused them not to 

get the full break during that period. 

Mr. ROE. In the future, there’s no question that that consideration needs to be addressed directly? We understand the work 

we’re requiring the teams to do. And also, the spread across the 

number of people on the team and make sure no single element of 

it is overloaded beyond the point of our understanding of the total 

team schedule. And we’ll be looking into that in depth. 

Mr. NELSON. If you took this recommendation, Mr. Chairman, to 

its logical conclusion, it would mean that there would have to be 

either much less frequency of flights or, as the buildup of the frequency occurs, a greater work force in order to more evenly distribute the workload so that the stress and fatigue factor did not come 

in here, And therefore, that has imminent budgetary implications 

which we’re going to have to get onto as we get into the authorization for appropriations legislation that’s coming on down the pike. 
170 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield, I think that your line of 

questioning this morning goes in the direction which the Chairman 

has been trying to direct this, which is the safety aspect. And it 

seems to me that as we-I know it takes time and a great deal of 

energy-but as we are developing these specific points, they are all 

leading towards ultimate policy decisions, funding, priorities, and 

the points of safety that you’re mentioning. So I think your contribution is extraordinarily important; especially having been there, 

it is very important. 

Now, if we would now take our break as we had discussed, and 

we will return at 1:30 to begin our program this afternoon. I want 

to thank everybody, and we’ll see you at 1:30. 

[Whereupon, at 12:33 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene 

at 1:30 p.m. the same day.] 

AFTERNOON SESSION 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

When we took our recess we were in the middle of questioning by our distinguished Representative from Florida, Mr. Nelson, and 

then we were going to now welcome back Dr. Fletcher, and Mr. 

Germany, however, has joined us now; right? So I now defer to Rear Adm. Richard Truly. Begin again, if you 

will, for the record, to introduce and give us some background on 

Mr. Germany, and then we’ll-and then go ahead and outline what 

our plan is for-your plan for right now. 

Admiral TRULY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

On the makeup of the NASA task force, we had six major teams, 

and one of those teams was the photo and TV analysis team. And 

Mr. Dan Germany from the Johnson Space Center was the leader 

of that team. 

That team supported the Commission and all of the other teams 

with all the thousands of frames of individual photography, television shots, and so forth, and has pulled together a short TV look at 

the accident itself, and I think, without further ado, it would be 

helpful for me to just turn it over to Mr. Germany and let him talk 

for a moment with this model of the space shuttle here to my right, and then allow him to narrate the TV. 

Mr. ROE. Splendid. 

We have Dr. Fletcher and some folks sitting up here to see this 

film because they haven’t seen it before. 

Mr. Germany, if you would go ahead. 

Mr. GERMANY. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. 

The photo-TV support team concentrated all of its efforts on 

taking the products that we received that day from the flight-- 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman yield? This is one of five teams; 

correct? 

Mr. GERMANY. Six teams, sir. 

Mr. ROE. One of six teams? 

Admiral TRULY. One of six teams. Four of the teams paralleled 

in a one-for-one relationship the four teams on the Commission. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield, it might be profitableI’m sorry to interrupt you-it might be profitable to-for the members of the committee that didn’t have an opportunity to visit with 
you, together with the folks that are here and other witnesses-it 

might be well to give us a little rundown on the six teams, the six 

teams that served, because they’re going to be testifying, as I believe, some of them, tomorrow, are they not? They will be with us 

tomorrow. So why don’t you just give a quick overview of that? 

Why don’t you give an overview and then we’ll revert back to 

Mr. Germany so he can pick up this one team, and then we’ll 

have-- 

Admiral TRULY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That might be very 

helpful. The NASA task force was organized with myself as the chairman 

and Mr. J.R. Thompson, who will be here tomorrow, as the vice 

chairman. I remained in Washington during the conduct of the investigation, and Mr. Thompson was located at the Kennedy Space 

Center. 

As I pointed out a moment ago, we had six teams on the NASA 

task force. Four of the teams, four of the six, paralleled on a onefor-one relationship the four teams on the Commission, and I’ll 

speak to them in a minute. 

We had the two additional teams of the NASA task force. The 

first one was the search, recovery, and reconstruction team, which 

was the team that managed the salvage effort to get the actual 

physical evidence and debris of the Challenger from the ocean floor 

and then examined that physical evidence in large hangars at Kennedy Space Center. 

The second team is the team that Mr. Germany headed, which is 

the photo and TV support team. 

The four teams that paralleled the Commission teams were the 

development and production team headed by Mr. Jack Lee, who is 

the Deputy Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He 

looked at the development process, the part of the investigation that had to do with the buildup of the solid rocket motors, for example, in the factory. The second was a team called the prelaunch activities team, 

headed by Mr. Tom Utzman, who is the Deputy Director of the 

Kennedy Space Center, and the prelaunch activities team looked at 

the flow of the vehicle and the buildup of the 51-L Challenger 

spacecraft as it approached the path. The third team of those four was called the Accident Analysis 

Team, and it was actually headed up by Mr. J.R. Thompson, as 

well as his job as the vice chairman of the task force. That was the 

team that supported the Commission in the elimination of the various problems that were postulated; for example, a problem in the 

external tank in the orbiter. And, as you know as you read the 

Commission’s report, finally narrowed down the final cause of the 

accident, which was the fatal joint in the solid rocket motor. 

And, finally, the last team was mission planning and operations 

team, which looked at things like manifesting, workload it caused 

at the Johnson Space Center, training, things like that. 

In tomorrow’s hearing we will have each of those team leaders 

here as well as Mr. Thompson, and Mr. Germany, then, was one of 

the six key leaders of our six teams. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes Mr. Germany. Thank you very much, Admiral Truly. 
172 

Mr. GERMANY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As the admiral said, the photo team consisted of people from 

each of the three major centers-Johnson, Marshall, and KSC. We 

had approximately 100 people including contractors and some 

photo facilities, processing facilities, outside the Agency that 

helped us with our analysis of the products that we received that 

day. There were roughly 108 film cameras and roughly 69 TV cameras, for a total of 177 cameras from which we got products that we 

analyzed, and represented about 13 million frames of film. 

What I’m going to do today is to narrate a TV film that we put 

together that is a compilation from several of the cameras that we 

had. But before I do that, I’d like to use this model to try to orient 

you just a little bit, so that when you do see the film, perhaps it 

will be a little bit easier for you to pick some of these things up. 

A lot of times it happens so fast on the film it is very difficult to 

pick it up the first time you see it with your eyes, so a little bit of 

orientation here-- 

Mr. ROE. Are you able to-when there is a specific area that you 

want to highlight, are you able to stop the film at that point? 

Mr. GERMANY. We have used stop action with the way we put 

the film together, and it turns out that that’s not-- 

Mr. ROE. You can? 

Mr. GERMANY. I’m going to answer for you. 

Mr. ROE. I’m sorry. 

Mr. GERMANY. We’ve used stop action to put the film together. 

Some of that is stopped as it’s moving. If it’s not really clear to 

you, then we can stop it and run it back. 

Mr. ROE. OK. 

Mr. GERMANY. However, with this recorder we have here, when 

we stop it, you lose everything and you’ve got to punch the buttons 

back and forth. All right. So you may get tired of that if we have to 

do it, but I’ll be glad to. 

The model as you know, the shuttle when it takes off-Admiral 

Truly told me not to pick the model up because he doesn’t want me 

to break it. When the shuttle takes off and flies like so-so this is 

the righthand SRB, and the points of interest will be the leak that 

developed was right on this side and around the 300 degree point. 

Actually when-the recovered hardware that we got back, the 

burnthrough was from that 296 degrees to 316 degrees, 294 to 316. 

So you’ll see the flames and the smoke actually come from this 

part of the vehicle. When you see the film, it will be obvious to you 

what I’m talking aboilt there. 

The other thing that happened, first of all, there are three main 

segments of activities, I guess you could say, that occurred with respect to the anomalous events we saw with the photography. The 

first took place at 0.678 seconds when we saw the puffs of smoke 

that occurred, and you’ll see those. 

At 0.836 seconds up to 2.5 seconds there were multiple puffs of 

smoke, and I believe Mr. Rogers mentioned that yesterday when he 

was here. It was like eight or something like that. And then at 3.4 

seconds you stop seeing any smoke. That was the last time we saw 

smoke. 
173 

Then there’s a period of time in which there are no anomalous 

events in the photography. About 58 seconds is when the first flicker of flame appears in the same area from which we saw the 

smoke. And that goes from a flicker of flame all the way up to a 

large flame that you’ll see that resulted in the LH2 tank leak 

which occurred about 64 seconds. 

Now, a point of orientation for you: this is the external tank. The 

lox tank is on top and the hydrogen tank is on the bottom. So that 

LH2 tank leak I’m talking about occurred right around here, which 

is what we call the 2058 ring frame. And 2058 is just a station location as you move up and down the tank. But that’s just for simplis- tic sake we call it a 58 ring frame. That’s when the lead occurred, 

about 64 seconds. And then there’s a period of time, about 9 seconds, when nothing really happens that we see on the photograThen at 73 seconds into flight, 73.124 to be exact, is when we 

have an LH2 tank failure, and you’ll be able to see the LH2 liquid 

as it comes out. 

At the same time this righthand SRB starts to move, because 

what’s happened is either the strut was burned into or we had 

breach of the tank where it came loose. When it came loose and it 

moved out this way, and this part of the SRB crushed into or hit 

the intertank area-intertank means that space between the lox 

tank on top and the LH2 tank on the bottom. And when that happened, essentially losing the integrity of the external tank structure, the significance of that is this whole vehicle configurationwise is tied together through this external tank. You’ve got the SRB’s 

that tied to this ring frame I mentioned. At the far point there’s a 

large truss structure that goes across the intertank area. So when 

you lose the LH-the ET tank structure, then the whole thing we 

call structure breakup occurs. 

And that-from the point that we saw the LH2 tank failure, 

which is 73.124 seconds, then at 73.327 is when structure breakup 

occurred. So that’s only 0.2 seconds or like 200 milliseconds. 

OK? So with that, then, what I’m going to do is roll this film, but 

before you do it-what I’m going to have to do, Mr. Chairman, to 

help you is I’m going to come up there and use the monitor and to 

use the mike. So it will take me a second to get my props set up. 

Mr. ROE. I understand they have to leave this one spotlight on. 

Mr. GERMANY. We’ve got that all squared away. 

[Pause to begin film.] 

Mr. GERMANY. Let’s see. Someone’s going to get the lights in the 

OK, Tommy, are you ready to roll? OK, go. 

[Film being shown.] 

Mr. GERMANY. We’re starting with the first sequence that shows 

the smoke. 

This is one of the TV cameras. You’ll see the smoke coming right 

there. We’re going to show some isolated views in a second so you 

can see a little bit clearer, but that’s the first time. 

This is engineering camera 60. 

You can see it coming right there. We say multiple puffs. You 

can actually see it kind of billowing out as it goes. You’re going to 

see that clear in just a second. 

PhY * 

back. 
174 

OK, this will be a little bit clearer because of the background 

here. See the black smoke going right there? There you go. 

Then it disappears at that 3.3 seconds and then we don’t see it 

anymore. 

This is a combination view. Here and here. 

This is a data camera that’s kind of looking to the side. You can 

see it. 

But we said it moved initially in the plus X direction, meaning 

it’s moving like so. 

This is attach point that goes around the SRB to the 2058 ring 

frame. The joint itself is right above there, right about in there. 

This is later on in the flight where we first see the flame development, and we’re going to show you several views here. You can 

start seeing a little bit of the flickering that goes-see right there. 

We’ll go back and isolate this and you can see it. There are several frames here to give you a perspective of it. 

You can’t see much from the camera because we purposely darkened the background so it would highlight the flame when it appears. That will show up in a second. 

There you go. That’s that 58 second point I was talking about. 

So essentially what happened, you had the smoke; then it tended 

to heal itself a little bit; and then later on it started developing. 

Once that flickering starts, then it gets progressively larger as it 

goes. 

You can see it isolated on this shot over here. 

As the flame gets larger, the plume gets larger, the aerodynamic 

effect makes it tend to move to the rear. 

And as that’s large enough, what that means is the hole is just 

getting larger as it grows. Then the whole thing is constant. 

And after that occurs, then the flame is impinging upon the LHz 

tank-is what caused the leak to develop. 

There right there. 

I can see it just getting progressively worse. At that point the R 

rates here is what helped us to understand that their right-hand 

SRB was starting to move. 

This is a computer-aided design picture here, and what we have 

done is accentuated the motion and we rock it back and forth. Actually it did not rock back and forth, but that’s just to let you get 

an idea-is that motion I was talking about earlier in the model 

occurred here. 

Then once it started to move away is when it collapsed into the 

intertank area forward. 

You’ll be able to see the LHz tank failure because the flame will 

start to look different here. 

There you go right there-when it just changed that color there, 

that was when the tank failure occurred. 

This first hint of vapor at the intertank area is an indication 

that that lox tank on top was leaking after the SRB moved into it; 

that’s right. 

These are taken from 70 millimeter frames, and they are clearer 

on my tape, but when you make it into a TV like this, you lose a 

lot of the clarity. 

Then you can see a flash in here. 
175 

Due to aerodynamics, when this hydrogen is leaking here and 

the lox is leaking here, the hydrogen actually tends to move up the 

side of the vehicle, and when it did, it combined and then from the 

heating you got the flash there. 

This is what I meant by us using stop action, when we made this, 

to help you to see it. 

This intense white flash is when we believe the total structure 

breakup occurred. 

The greatly increased intensity of the white flash-that was just 

the way we indicated that was when the structure breakup occurred because it appeared to the large explosion occurred here. 

Oh, the vehicle came apart. OK, the SRB’s and the orbiter and 

the ET just all came apart. We call it structure breakup rather than a real explosion because a lot of people argue whether or not it was really technically 

an explosion, but we know it was structure breakup. What this series of frames is-this goes back and repeats what 

you’ve just seen. 

You’re going to see the chute here in a second and nose cap, the 

right-hand SRB. There’s that nose cap going. It’ll stop here in a 

second. 

There’s the chute and there’s the nose cap there. 

Then you’re going to see range safety destruct to the right-hand SRB, and then on the left in a second. 

Here’s the left. 

Now you’re going to see a frame of them side by side a little further distance away. Here and here. 

It was going out of the limits that the range safety officer had, so 

he went on and destructed. It turns out it really helped, because if 

those things are burned to completion, they probably would have 

been out in such deep water it would have really been tough for 

recovery. 

[Film stops temporarily because projector is unplugged.] 

Mr. GERMANY. Tommy, would you stop that and just back up for a 

few frames because I want to get the header of this? Just push 

rewind and just-Mr. Chairman, stand by. We’re going to have to 

replace on this because I want to see the first of this. 

OK. Because of the interest in the crew cabin, we’ve included 

some filmage here. You’re going to see this several different sequences, so we’ll start with the larger picture first and then we’ll 

zoom right in on what we’re able to see. 

There’s some pieces that were coming out here. This was the 

wing that was going off in that direction. 

We’ll zoom it back in in a moment, but in the second smoke trail 

is where the crew module ended up going. We’re going to show you 

some details of that. 

This is from camera 202. 

It’s going to be coming right through there. I’m going to show 

you some more details in a second. 

This one right here is the one that did the dipsy-doodle which 

was left; right? 

Now when we did this, we took some TV and enhanced in on a 

frame-by-frame basis. 

That was not it right there. No, it was another piece. 
176 

Coming up. See, right there? It’s going to cross through that 

smoke in just a second. 

There it is right there. OK? We think this is the remainder of 

the SS and these burning in the aft compartment there. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. How did you identify it? Did you enlarge the 

frames? 

Mr. GERMANY. These have been enlarged a little bit; yes, sir. 

You can see it a lot better on a light tobe when you have a 70 

millimeter, and it just stood there and just. stayed at it for a long 

time. 

Now it’s coming down here. That’s the crew compartment, yes. 

In a moment you’re going to see one more series. It looks like it’s 

moving up, but that’s just the way we did it when we put it together. It’s actually not moving up, but this just gives you an idea of 

what it looked like. 

And that completes the film, Mr. Chairman. In fact, that completes what I’ve got for you today. I guess tomorrow we’re going to 

use a cam line, and the cam line I can show you what’s happening 

on the vertical side as well as from the photography point of view. 

Are there any questions? 

Mr. ROE. Well, does any particular member have any questions 

on this particular issue at this time? 

The gentleman from California? 

Mr. PACKARD. Just one came to my mind. Is there any significance as to the black puffs of smoke, the color of the smoke, because there was black and white smoke together there? 

Mr. GERMANY. The color of the smoke would tend to indicate 

there’s hydrocarbons burning which could represent the erosion of 

the O-ring that’s taking place as well as there’s grease in there as 

well. 

OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you very much, Mr. Germany. 

All right. Well, we want to welcome you back, Dr. Fletcher and 

your other colleagues. And I think that was a very descriptive presentation made that helps the members a great deal to understand 

the sequence of events which I’m sure will be helpful when we get 

into the additional questions and answers. 

Now we had just finished before lunch with Mr. Nelson-I’m 

sorry, Mr. Nelson from Florida, and now we have our next colleague, Mr. Valentine from North Carolina. 

The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized. 

Mr. VALENTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We have had to leave here so often and we’ve been in and out, 

and this might have been covered by your-- 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman pull the microphone closer, please. 

Mr. VALENTINE. This might have been covered by your testimony. If so, I apologize, but we are discussing the findings of the 

Rogers Commission, and I would like to know whether or not there 

is now or has been an ongoing, internal investigation by NASA 

and-or if, after the Rogers Commission was constituted and went 

to work, whatever was contemplated in that area kind of merged 

with the Rogers Commission. That may be more than one question, 

but-- 
177 

Admiral TRULY. NASA did participate fully in the investigation 

as a part of the NASA task force and those six teams that I described a few moments ago in support of the commission. 

All of our investigation was.done essentially in their support. We 

met with them many times. I’m not aware of another internal investigation that has gone on. Naturally during the progress of investigation there were thousands, literally, of things that were 

looked at, but it was done under the NASA task force in support of 

the Presidential Commission. 

Mr. VALENTINE. So what you’re saying was that what we have at 

this point is one investigation, that there was not any kind of parallel effort? 

Admiral TRULY. That’s true. 

Mr. VALENTINE. I’m not talking about whether or not there was 

an effort to look at problems of communication, the things that 

have been addressed here, but whether or not there was another 

internal investigation of the tragedy, the explosion, that might 

have reached a different conclusion or might have been compatible 

with the results which have been explained, or if there was anything of that kind that might be of interest to this committee. 

Admiral TRULY. No. I would say that it was a single investigation 

conducted by the Commission. There were many parallel efforts as 

we chased down possibilities of failure as the weeks went on. There 

was plenty of technical controversy as we got more and more data. 

For example, the film that you just saw was not all developed in 

the first day or looked at. It took many, many weeks. But, nevertheless, those were all facets of one investigation that came to the 

answer as reported in the commission’s report. 

Mr. VALENTINE. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes Mr. Lewis from Florida. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Fletcher, I think you’re going to have some very trying moments over the next few months, but I’m sure you’ll be up to the 

challenge. I think it’s excellent that we see those who go out on a 

razor’s edge-Admiral Truly and Captain Crippen-in the positions 

that they’re in. 

I was reading U.S. News & World Report, and you probably saw 

it yourself, and talking about what you’re going to be doing and 

that you’re an interim director. I think anybody that takes over 

the administration of NASA is an interim director. They’re not 

going to stay there forever. 

But how are you going to be able to cut through the layers of 

bureaucracy and really get to the meat of some of the problems? 

What is your plan on doing that? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Lewis, I didn’t use the term “interim director.” I think that was the newspaper’s term. I plan to stay the remainder of the current administration. 

Dealing with this problem is not a trivial matter. This is a very 

complicated piece of machinery. We have a very large team of 

people that are involved in putting NASA back together. It’s not 

only the 20-some-odd-thousand NASA employees, but there are all 

the contractors that we work closely with. That’s going to take 
178 

some weeks, months, and probably the full 18 months’ delay that 

was caused by the accident to deal with it. 

I know of no better way, Mr. Lewis, than to talk to the people at 

middle management levels, at top management levels and, to the 

extent that it is possible for an administrator, talk to the people who are at the working level. That, as you know, is difficult to do, 

but, nevertheless, somehow or other you’ve got to feel you know 

how the troops are feeling, because motivation is a key element in 

making this complicated piece of machinery work, and it’s impor- tant that by the time we fly again the team is properly motivated. 

Mr. LEWIS. Do you plan any shakeups in this point in time? Are 

you going to get a new broom and do some sweeping? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Lewis, we’ll do whatever is required to make 

the management team and the whole organization function better. 

When people need to be replaced, we will replace them. When we 

need to reorganize with different people or the same people, we 

will do that. It will happen not all at once, but we’ll be observing it 

as time goes on and we’ll keep you informed as we do it. 

Mr. LEWIS. In the Rogers report it points out that you should 

have some sort of quality review and quality management, and I’m 

just wondering if you’re looking to have a quality review and 

design review board with the head of that board that can get directly to you, as the report suggests, by either an Associate Administrator or what have you, and cuts through the lower levels of 

management, either arc them or go straight through or sit on the 

boards, someone, say, like Admiral Truly or Captain Crippen or 

someone that has been there and knows that something must be 

done, so they don’t have a lack of application on quality tests and 

things of that nature or redesign and they can get to you. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Lewis, that, of course, is going to be one of Admiral Truly’s high priority items to look at all of the safety, reli- ability, and quality assurance aspects, and I’m sure he’s going to 

have such groups reporting directly to him. 

In addition, as you probably know, SR and QA, as we call it, reports directly to the Administrator. And we have such a group 

now. The important thing is that they’re able to get the information from where it is necessary to come, and so the free access to 

that safety board will be possible. 

In addition to that, as you know, we have a statutory safety 

review board which was set up after the Apollo fire in 1967, and 

that also reports to the Administrator. Both of those functions will 

have to be tightened up considerably from my point of view, but I 

imagine Admiral Truly will want to do the same for his part of the 

organization. 

Mr. ROE. If I could ask you to suspend at this point, we’ll return 

in about 15-10 minutes. We’ll recess for 10 minutes. 

[Recess taken.] 

Mr. ROE. Today we’ll reconvene. 

When we recessed to go to vote, we were having a line of quesThe gentleman from Florida, please? 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to ask Admiral Truly a couple of questions about the 

role that Captain Crippen will play. You mentioned that he will 

tioning being presented by the gentleman from Florida. 
179 

head the Shuttle Management Review Board for the various agencies or various groups. Is that what his title will be? 

Admiral TRULY. I don’t know what his title will be. I haven’t fig- ured that out yet, but specifically-- 

Mr. LEWIS. Well, will you clarify what his role is? 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir. 

There are two specific Commission recommendations. One is the 

second one which deals with shuttle management structure, and 

the second, which is No. 5, involves improved communications. Those are complicated issues that I’m going to have to decide what 

recommendation to make to Dr. Fletcher so that we can do two 

things: first of all, look at the total shuttle program management 

structure and revalidate that large portion of it that I’m sure will 

be revalidated, but change and streamline a portion, if necessary. I 

need someone to help me pull that together, and it is specifically 

that that I’m going to ask Captain Crippen and whoever he needs 

to help him to pull together the options and look at it and see 

where the system could be made better. 

Mr. LEWIS. I see. Do you have any idea at this point who will be 

working with him? 

Admiral TRULY. We have not selected individuals. But I would 

rather have a small group of maybe three to five people that would 

be the core group, so that they wouldn’t be a large committee. 

However, they will have full access not only to all the management 

within the shuttle system and our centers, but also people outside 

the agency. 

Mr. LEWIS. I see. Will there be people from Marshall? Will Marshall have representation on this team? 

Admiral TRULY. We just haven’t selected the individuals that 

will help Captain Crippen do this task. However, the Marshall 

management team will certainly be a part of the review as he goes around and takes a look at what we have now and where we ought 

to go. 

Mr. LEWIS. How will Crip’s activities interface with what General Phillips’ activities are? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, General Phillips is going to look at the overall NASA agency, and it’s anticipated that when the time comes 

and Crip’s task force is put together, they will interact frequently. 

But, of course, it’s more important that we get on with the shuttle 

management and communications aspect. That’s why the first task 

is what Admiral Truly described-get on with the shuttle communications and management. We haven’t quite got to that point in 

General Phillips’ review. 

Mr. LEWIS. I see. One final inquiry for Dr. Graham: Dr. Graham, 

you partially answered this this morning, and I’m interested. Now 

that you have been associated with NASA and you’re going over to 

the Office of Science and Technology as the President’s advisor, 

how do you visualize your role now and working in intra-activities 

with NASA, with Dr. Fletcher and Admiral Truly in getting this 

program moving and back up in the air-space? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Lewis, I have not yet focused on the specific 

actions that I would undertake if I’m confirmed to that job. However, there has been a strong working relationship between the Office 

of Science and Technology Policy and the Science Advisor to the 
180 

President in the recent past while I’ve been at NASA. I would like 

to continue that close working relationship and strengthen it, certainly in the scientific and the technology area where it’s historically been. But also try to maintain a close cooperation with NASA 

in the area of the larger US. Space Program to return to space- flight and moving forward with NASA generally. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Doctor and gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. OK. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman 

from California, Mr. Mineta. 

Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And welcome, Dr. Fletcher. 

Dr. Fletcher I wonder if you could maybe put me at ease a little 

bit. You’ve been quoted as saying if the US. Space Program is in 

turmoil, most of the chaos is external to NASA, and here we are in 

a position of having to sort of look at ourselves as Congress, inward 

at NASA, and wondering whether we have the ability to reform 

ourselves, and I’m just wondering whether or not I’m maybe 

unduly alarmed in terms of taking a statement, and am I taking it 

out of context or am I saying-when you say that most of your chaos is external to NASA, I’m just wondering whether or not I’m 

being unduly alarmed about your statement. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Mineta, I don’t remember having made that 

statement, but it’s probably true that, if it were made, it was made 

before I was nominated for the job. 

Mr. MINETA. This was in last week’s Newsweek. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Oh, then, I don’t remember making that, but let 

me go on and say that there is not chaos within NASA. There’s 

some uncertainty, as you might expect there to be. We are undergoing management reviews and probably management changes. 

People are uncertain as to when we’ll be able to fly safely again. 

People are uncertain about when their missions as scientists, for 

example, will fly again. So I would say rather than chaos within 

NASA, it’s uncertainty, and there is some evidence that we need to 

reassert our goals within NASA, and we are in the process of doing that. 

Mr. MINETA. You’re not saying, then, that NASA’s OK but the 

chaos is external to NASA? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I don’t remember saying chaos, but I can’t really speak for the outside world, Mr. Mineta. 

Mr. MINETA. The office of-is it Safety, Reliability, and Quality 

Assurance that’s now being talked about to be created within 

NASA? I believe that’s been recommended by the Commission. 

I’m just wondering whether you’ve had an opportunity to take a 

look at this, as to whether or not this might be-this recommendation is going to be accepted. 

And I chair the Aviation Subcommittee for the Public Works and 

Transportation Committee. The FAA, for example, has an office for 

airline safety and creates standards for airline safety, but it doesn’t 

try to fly the airplanes or adhere to schedules or make money. And 

I’m wondering if this internal office is going to be insulated from 

the kind of, I guess-or the relationships that that would have, 

that office would have with other parts of NASA to be able to be 

really an office of Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance. 
181 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Mineta, that’s an extremely important function in NASA. The Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance Program is currently under the chief engineer, and reporting to him 

are the Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance directors of each 

of the centers. We think that whole process needs reviewing. It’s 

important how well it’s done and to make sure that communication 

channels are good and that people at both the receiving and sending end of those communication channels are competent, and it’s 

competence and good judgment that counts in reliability and qual- ity assurance. And we will certainly take a look at that whole program both NASA-wide and also within the space shuttle program, and that will truly, undoubtedly start our enthusiasm already. 

Mr. MINETA. Among other findings of the Commission, they stated very explicitly that the Thiokol management had reversed 

its position and recommended the launch of 51-L at the urging of 

Marshall and contrary to the views of engineers in order to accommodate a major customer. Elsewhere the Commission talked about 

the sluggishness on the part of Thiokol in addressing the O-ring 

problems, notwithstanding memos from engineers and even from 

NASA itself on other occasions. And it’s only in the aftermath of 

the accident that we’re getting the sense that Thiokol is devoting 

total commitment to this redesign and only now are projecting the 

can-do attitude about fixing the SRB’s. 

I’m wondering, is it possible that we have a morale responsibility 

maybe to look elsewhere for the redesign and the resupply of the 

SRB’s given Thiokol’s interest in making the SRB’s, and I’d say to 

the extent of even making money over safety, given some of their 

actions since the accident that I would even call unrepentant attitude, and so-and also because of what they’ve done to their two 

dissenting engineers who testified before the Rogers Commission. 

And I’m just wondering whether or not we should be looking elsewhere for the redesign supply of SRV’s. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Mineta, you probably know we have asked the 

National Academies of Science, a body called the National Research Council, to form a very high-powered task force to not only 

review the various ideas or suggestions for design, for improvement of the seals, but also to certify that the tests on whatever designs 

we come up with are adequate and they’re going to follow these 

tests as we proceed over the ensuing months. 

By the way, I should say that, in addition to Thiokol, we have 

people at Marshall, from the Johnson Space Center, and probably other places that Mr. Aldrich and Admiral Truly will want to mention, all involved in that redesign effort. So it’s not just Thiokol 

that’s involved. I guess the expertise of the entire Nation is involved in that redesign. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman from California yield? 

Mr. MINETA. Of course. 

Mr. ROE. As we have been unfolding our hearing process, without 

too much reiteration, we spent yesterday analyzing and digesting the response from the Commission, and then we’ve invited you 

folks to come in today to bring us up to date as to what your plans are, where you’re at, and then specific questions that are being asked by different members. But obviously there’s certain areas 

where the committee has concentrated on in their observations, 
182 

such as the safety area, the assurance area, the critical items list, 

and so forth and so on. 

I think that the key is safety, as was brought out by so many 

members-and now I believe that Mr. Mineta is striking at a very 

important point that has to be aired, in my judgment, and I’m sure 

the rest of the members, publicly. And I think it’s important for 

me to interject at this point what our plan is after we review with 

you tomorrow and bring us all up to date on the technical task 

force working. 

Starting next Tuesday, our plan is to start to bring in outside 

witnesses; namely, the manufacturers. And I think it’s a fair comment to say at this point the first one we plan on calling on Tuesday is Thiokol. Now Thiokol centers upon the whole O-ring issue 

and the whole joint issue, I should say. But as the gentleman from 

California is developing, whether we agree or not and without 

trying to pin blame, because that’s not what the Commission did 

nor is it what the committee intends to do, certainly not at this 

point, it seems to me that the response from Thiokol, their observations, what happened on the way to the forum, so to speak, and 

what they’ve been directed to do as of now, is an extremely important, vital point of the whole issue that we’re speaking to, not only 

from the accident point of view, but down the road-where do we 

go from here; what is our next step? 

But that also intimately relates to the Marshall Center, as I understand it, because they’re the ones who are the overseers, so to 

speak, and working on that issue. Now I think what may be very, 

very profitable would be-there’s an old saying that’s written that 

I have on my wall in my office, and it says that more mistakes are 

made from lack of facts than from poor judgment. More mistakes 

are made from lack of facts than from poor judgment. 

I think it would be to the advantage of the committee, which 

we’ll take up amongst ourselves a little later on, to consider bringing in the Marshall Space key people, technical people I’m talking, 

engineering people, at the time that we are interfacing with the 

Thiokol Co. I think that might be extremely profitable, so that we 

can get this matter up on the deck, No. 1, upfront, and deal with it; 

first of all, to dispel any lack of facts, bring the facts forward as 

they are-if the gentleman would yield further from California-- 

Mr. MINETA. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROE [continuing]. Which is the process I believe you’re following, so that there can be a response in both directions on that 

issue, rather than a time lag and all kinds of conjecture or false 

concerns, or whatever, emerge. Does that sound reasonable? 

Dr. FLETCHER. It sounds quite reasonable, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. Yes; well, then, I just wanted to make that point, if the 

gentleman will yield further. So that is the direction I would 

choose to go next Tuesday so that you can develop in more depth 

your whole line of questioning. 

I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Mr. MINETA. Mr. Chairman, if I might, I’d like to ask a little 

more about the relationship between contractors and NASA. One 

question I have in this regard is this: Is there a standard operating 

procedure pertaining to the launch readiness procedures that was 
183 

woefully ignored in the case of 51-L and perhaps many times 

before? 

In the case of the SRB’s, Thiokol was talking to level I11 people 

in NASA. On the other hand, it appears that Rockwell was talking 

directly to level I1 people. Moreover, Thiokol was asked for a written affirmation of their consent to fly; Rockwell was asked for no 

such assurance. And it’s unclear to me if anyone spoke to the external tank contractors about the ice situation or, if so, what was 

the procedure at the time. 

And I guess what I’m asking is, Are there procedures which need 

to be established or perhaps have to be newly adhered to in order 

to make this process less erratic and, frankly, more importantly, 

more reliable? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Mineta, I’d like to start to answer that question because it pertains to what we’re really not doing very intensively, and then I’d like to ask Admiral Truly and his associates to 

respond to the specific point. 

Obviously we’ve got to tighten up our procedures and, when we 

say communications, we mean communications and procedures. 

Communications have to fit procedures, and vice versa. You can’t 

communicate one way and your procedures say something different. That has to be tightened up all up and down the line, from the 

lowest level to the highest level. 

Having said that, I think Admiral Truly will have to answer, but 

we really have just started that process, and that’s one of the reasons that Captain Crippen is here today. 

Dick, do you want to-- 

Admiral TRULY. The review that you have suggested and Dr. 

Fletcher referred to is the very reason that when I wrote into my 

strategy for returning to safe flight under what we’re going to do 

in a program management context, I specifically wrote in there 

that we were going to review a number of things and put in the 

words “including the launch commit process.’’ 

Certainly, looking to the future, we’re going to have one system, 

which I frankly think that we do now, and I’m going to ask Mr. 

Aldrich in a moment to describe it, although he was not a part of 

the task force that did the investigation, but he at least I think can 

describe that process very clearly. 

But I can assure you that for the future that we’re going to have 

one procedure used by everybody and known to all. 

If I might ask Mr. Aldrich to comment about what the process 

and what the requirements are today, I would like to do that. 

Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. Mineta, we spoke earlier about some of the formality in this area in our review that we would add, including recording and including a more formal list of people for each type of 

meeting. 

The process, as it has worked up to now, however, is documented 

and is fairly clearly laid out in terms of responsibility. The flight 

readiness review process starts within the contractor, which could 

be called level IV. It’s the contractor for each element of hardware 

who does its own internal review of flight readiness and then reports to a similar flight readiness review at level 111, which is the 

individual center project elements. 
184 

A level I1 review commences following that at the program level 

where each of the projects reports their readiness, and it’s finally 

culminated in a review to Admiral Truly, the Associate Administrator for Space Flight, in a level I flight readiness review, and at 

that time there are formal, documented signoffs by both the NASA 

project elements involved and the contractors with regard to readiness, including any constraints or ongoing work in addition to the 

detailed presentations to describe their readiness. That’s about 2 

weeks before launch. 

And then either 1 or 2 days prior to launch there is a final meeting to tie off any loose ends or to look at any new developments 

that have occurred. That’s normally called the launch minus 1-day 

meeting, but it might on some occasions be launch minus 2 days. 

There, again, there’s a formal presentation by each of the 

projects to the combined levels I1 and I management, and at the 

end of each of those presentations there is again a signoff that says 

the contractor and the project element is ready. 

Downstream of that review there is then an operation put in 

place as the actual countdown proceeds where issues are brought 

forward to unscheduled but planned-for and documented procedures which constitute an organization called a mission management team with formal membership. Those meetings are the ones 

which are characterized in our earlier discussions as perhaps not 

having the formality that we would like to see in the future. Although they are formal meetings, they are not recorded and there 

are not usually additional signoffs involved. Specific issues that 

come up, as they are required to be treated, are treated as close to 

real time as is possible by that group. 

And each of the discussions you mentioned with the two contractors were treated in these mission management kinds of sessions, 

although the one with Thiokol was at a meeting at level I11 and 

was not really involved with the total team as I’ve described it 

here. 

Mr. MINETA. Mr. Chairman, if I might ask very quickly-- 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from California? 

Mr. MINETA. It appears that the information flows upward in 

flight readiness reports, as you’ve mentioned, as those are abbreviated because of the closeness of launch time, but is there a mechanism between launches where past readiness reports or past problems are reviewed in order to demand accountability for efforts to 

fix recurring problems or to explain repeated waivers? 

I get the impression that information only percolates upward at 

the will of middle management people without corresponding accountability operating in reverse. 

Mr. ALDRICH. Could I answer that one also? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I think Mr. Aldrich should answer that. On the 

other hand, Mr. Mineta, I want to remind everyone that information has to flow both ways. Communications is a two-way system. 

Mr. MINETA. That’s my point. 

Dr. FLETCHER. The procedures are written in one way, but this is 

a collegial, if you like the systern that we work in. Unless all members of the team at levels I, 11, 111, and IV respect each other and 

communicate well with each other, this system won’t work well. 
185 

Now having said that as a broad generalization, I’ll turn to Mr. 

Aldrich for the specifics. Mr. ALDRICH. The specific answer to problems that occur in 

tracking from flight to flight, we have a formal and, again, a documented structure for the process which logs every flight pre- and 

post-flight anomaly which occurs with each of the elements. It 

tracks that element or that problem to a resolution by the project element. It is then signed off at that level and brought forward to 

level I1 again for signoff. And for each flight, those that are not 

closed from the past flight are reviewed and specifically identified. So, again, the intent is strong that we, in fact, do have a process 

of the kind that you brought up, and we will certainly be attempt- ing to strengthen that as we go forward also. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield again? 

Mr. MINETA. Of course. 

Mr. ROE. You, know, again, I don’t like to monopolize other members’ time, but one of the key issues that is gnawing at many, 

many people in the process is, How could it possibly be that the information did not get up to the higher levels? Therefore, somebody had to make a decision in between. They didn’t either consider it 

important or they felt that they had the authority at that level to 

make that definitive decision. It’s just extraordinary that the top of 

the heap didn’t know. And that’s what gnawing at us. 

And I think what the distinguished gentleman from California is 

developing is not only a two-way street back and forth, but should 

there not be a mechanism in management that demands a two-way 

street where management at top is also asking, or is management waiting for memoranda to come up through the lines to be checked 

off, and so forth. I don’t mean to simplify it. 

And I think that if you could give us-if the gentleman would 

yield further-just a little bit of your overview there-we’re really coming back and saying there’s got to be some methodology that 

devised in management where management can handle particular- ly that kind of a issue. Is that reasonable? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Roe, if I may interject, Admiral Truly, at least 

as long as he’s Associate Administrator for the Space Transporta- tion, is not a shy person, and he is going to ask questions all up and down the line both before the launch and also in between 

launches. 

Mr. ROE. But that’s now, you see, and we’re glad that Admiral 

Truly is with us because we have a shoulder to rest on. I’m looking 

as to what happened before Admiral Truly got here. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Yes. I just wanted to assure you that in the future 

you will have two-way communication, and I and Admiral Truly will see to that. 

Mr. ROE. But someplace along the line there’s got to be review. 

As you know, we’re going to be looking into that to see what 

progress we’re making. The gentleman from California. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. MINETA. I’d be pleased to yield. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I’d just like to follow up, Dr. Fletcher. 

I think what concerns us, all of us, is that we’ve seen this report 

and it apparently-the finding and conclusions of the report is 
186 

simply that information seemed to flow freely down from the top 

from levels I and 11, but in rare circumstances did it flow the other 

direction. And I think all of us would like to get a sense of your view of that conclusion. What specifically do you think was wrong with the decisionmaking? Is that a conclusion that you agree with? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I have not participated in this back and forth with 

the Commission. I’ve read the report. 

Mr. ANDREWS. But what is your view of the report? 

Dr. FLETCHER. It is quite apparent after reading the report that 

there was some failure in communications somewhere along the 

line. Just where it was and how it fit procedures, and so forth, I’ll 

have to leave to the people that were involved at the time, but-- 

Mr. ANDREWS. You do not have an opinion as to where that 

breakdown took place after reading the Commission report? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I would like to reserve that opinion until I’ve 

learned more about it. This is my fifth week on the job and I have 

talked to the people on the Commission, and I’ve talked to our own 

people. I haven’t visited the Marshall Spaceflight Center. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Do you agree with their conclusions? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Yes, I agree with tHeir conclusions. 

Mr. MINETA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Wisconsin, Mr. Sensenbrenner. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I am particularly concerned that NASA has not been insistent 

that contractors comply with the specs in the construction of various items in the shuttle, specifically the solid booster rockets. 

We’ve seen some information that there was specs relating to 

ambient temperature that have been completely ignored by Thiokol, and also the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Nelson, came up 

with information that Thiokol claimed to have tested the solid 

booster rocket at 21 degrees when in fact that was not the case. 

What do you intend to do to insure that the specs are complied with in the future? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I think I’d like to turn to Admiral Truly in a 

moment. I only became aware of that statement today. The first thing we need to do is take the statement in the context 

in which it was given, and then we need to respond in some depth because that’s a serious allegation. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Before Admiral Truly responds, the Armed 

Services Committee has been frustrated repeatedly about the DOD 

not requiring defense contractors to comply with specs, and it 

ended up that they got so frustrated that the DOD authorization 

law was amended to allow for outside testing of new weapon systems that were delivered to the Defense Department. I think that 

unless this committee gets some assurance that NASA is going to 

require that the specs be complied with, we ought to consider legis- lation similarly to take the spec compliance from you and have 

someone from the outside make sure that the contractors are delivering what they’re supposed to be delivering. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Sensenbrenner, we are going to see that the 

contractors comply with the specs. I think that the specific instance that you mentioned we really have to research further, and 

I don’t know to what extent Admiral Truly’s people have looked at 
187 

that particular item, but we insist on strict compliance with the 

specs with our contractors. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, obviously something big fell through 

the cracks as far as the solid booster rockets are concerned, and I 

hope that doesn’t happen again. So, Admiral, why don’t you tell us how it won’t happen again? Admiral TRULY. Well, I can only echo what Dr. Fletcher said. I 

can assure you as part of our review of every critical item on the 

shuttle program, we are looking at design requirements, the testing history, the flight history of that particular article, and it is absolutely necessary that when we have a program requirement that 

an item is tested to a certain temperature or to a certain condition, 

and certified that way, that that in fact is the case and we will undertake whatever effort that we have to to assure that. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Does that mean telling the contractor that, 

“You didn’t comply with specs and go over and do it again at your 

own expense.”? Admiral TRULY. Sure. I mean, whatever it takes. Let me also say that I’m not personally familiar with this particular point that was 

apparently developed by the Commission’s investigation. I’m going 

to get familiar with it as quickly as I can. Until I do, I would have 

to say that you have not heard all the evidence from the Marshall 

Space Flight Center which ran that level I11 or from the contractor. We certainly deserve to hear that, and we will get there. But 

for the future, I can assure you that we will have launch commit 

criteria that we know that the certification is proper. Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey. 

Mr. ROE. As the afternoon progresses after morning, people 

appear to become a little tired, a little testy, and neither is the case 

here. 

What the committee is interested in developing is the earlier discussion-if the gentleman would yield-that manifested our concern with the critical items, the 1 items and the 1R items. And in 

our course of discussion this morning we made the point of view 

that-and Admiral Truly did very well on that, and so did Dr. 

Fletcher-that there’s just no question about rehashing. We’re 

going to see that those particular elements are thoroughly reviewed from top to bottom. We have-you’ve already vitiated and 

negated all of the waiver system, and so forth. I applaud. I think 

that’s fine. 

One of the questions we came back and said, however, that developed from other folks was we were concerned-I believe it was 

Mrs. Schneider from Rhode Island-made the point of view that it 

appeared that there was a substantial reduction in the number of 

quality control people, at least numerical bodies. That doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s denigrated or reduced the quality control. 

There may be parts that you don’t need anymore. We respect and 

understand that. But it was rather a substantial drop. 

Now the gentleman from Wisconsin is developing the point of 

view-it’s an extremely important point of view which I think you 

ought to use the advantage to expand upon technically. I’m going 

to ignore that. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. 
188 

Mr. ROE. That’s all right. 

Now the point then goes to the point of view that if contractorsand we don’t know how widespread this is-if contractors are not 

meeting their requirements that are under their contract that they 

agreed to, then obviously they are-I don’t want to say defrauding the Federal Government, but they are if they’re not producing goods. If I’m asking for a bone, I don’t want a dog. I mean, that’s 

what I’m paying for and that’s what I expect them to deliver to me, 

and I don t mean to be facetious, which leads to this point-if the 

gentleman would yield further: 

How widespread is that? If I’m going to come back and I’m going 

to inspect a critical part 1 and I’m going to say we’re going to 

review that whole thing, query, if I find any fallacies in the-not 

the design-in the manufacturing, did that manufacturer meet the 

requirements that initially were put on that product or that part 

or piece-to meet the requirements that NASA required. 

Now you ought to come back and say to us the following, if I 

may. You ought to get into the discussion we’re moving in that direction. We’re not sure how far that went. But, however, if we’re 

constantly called upon to provide upgraded and improved parts to 

get from critical 1 to critical R1, or whatever the case may be, or 

get the very best part we can, we’re changing the terms and conditions and the specifications. Is that reasonable to say? If I have piece A that is not totally A No. 1 and we found that we 

shave that a little bit or put a little more candor in it, it’s going to 

be a better piece, then you have to issue a new specification-is 

that not correct-for somebody to make that part? Do you understand where I’m coming from? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Chairman, I think I understand what you’re 

saying. And, of course, that’s the whole purpose of the reliability and quality assurance [R&QA] organization, that we have, which 

consists of not only our own R&QA, but we have contract monitors 

and DCAS is done sometimes. That’s a Defense Department organi- zation. But whatever is the case, it’s absolutely necessary not only 

that contractors comply with the specifications, but that we know 

that they comply with the specifications. 

In addition to that, your second point is, if we change the specs 

to tighten it up or to loosen it, as the case may be, we have to 

make absolutely sure that that contractor complies with that 

changed spec. That’s part of the R&QA-- 

Mr. ROE. But come Tuesday morning we’re going to go beyond 

the Government’s-Commission’s and the Government’s representatives of NASA, including this committee, and we’re going to be 

calling in the private sector. The private sector has already been 

convicted in the press. They’ve already been convicted in the press. Who was the bad guy? 

Now it’s essential for us to be able to assure the credibility of the 

future of the space program, but where all of the facts are involved, they must be on the table. And what we’re-and I’m not 

admonishing you or being pedantic, and I think that the question 

of the gentleman, the line of the questioning of the gentleman, is 

very important. Thiokol is the bad guy. That’s what’s out in front on the deck 

right now. They have a right to defend themselves in the heart of 
189 

public opinion and what the facts are-is the reason we want the 

Marshall people in here, too, at the same time. 

Now the evil that’s floating here is-and yours, because of a document to that particular company, that they did not meet the 

plans and specifications that they were chartered to do and paid to 

do. That is what is before us, which is what people have been alluding to. 

Now the gentleman from Wisconsin comes back and he expands 

on that because, if there is one area that the specs haven’t been 

met, clearly have the specs been met in all the areas? And then the 

question is-it’s not that we’re going to do better. What specifically 

are we going to do to deal with that, because if the specifications aren’t being met, and that’s the finest bit of engineering on the 

part is made from the engineering, and those specs aren’t being made, we have immediately denigrated the safety factors involved. 

So what-if the gentleman will forgive me further-what the 

gentleman is simply saying is someplace-I hope by tomorrow or 

when we continue on-that we will be able to ferret out that proc- ess. And is there anything we’re planning on doing to determine 

how wide a range this idea of not meeting specifications has gone? 

Is it in every area? Is it just in that area? It leaves a doubt-is 

where I’m trying to come from. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I think you’re right, Mr. Chairman. The first thing 

we have to do is ascertain the extent of the specific error that was 

made. Of course, as you properly point out, we need to look at the 

whole system to make sure that there aren’t a lot of errors, if that 

was one, similar to that one. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Wisconsin? 

Admiral TRULY. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Aldrich would like to make a 

comment, if he might, at this point. 

Mr. ROE. Yes; of course. 

Mr. ALDRICH. In that specific regard, one of the actions for returning to spaceflight that Admiral Truly had in his direction to 

the program and which we have acted on is a complete review of 

design certification for each element of the space shuttle program. That is in process now at each of the contractors and each of the 

project elements at the NASA centers, and it is a detailed review of 

every element, what the requirements are and how those requirements were verified to be met, either by test or analysis, whichever 

was appropriate. 

In addition, we’re also reviewing the environments that the shuttle must fly through and be exposed to, as they are the basis for 

establishing the design requirements for the hardware. So a parallel activity also in process is revalidating and reaffirming the induced environments and then the process at each element, contractor and NASA, to verify that the design certification is in fact still 

valid, based not only on any changes that might have occurred, 

but, as Admiral Truly pointed out, we now have a number of 

flights of experience in the performance of the specific hardware, 

and factoring that into the analysis as well. 

I think this is an important piece of the total amount of work 

we’re doing, and it’s complementary to the critical items list review 

which I discussed earlier. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Will the gentleman yield? 

64-295 0 - 86 - 7 
190 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. May I reclaim my time? I have one more 

line of questioning I would like to pursue. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Wisconsin has the time. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Apparently the Rogers Commission is not 

all that trusting of NASA, at least insofar as the redesign of the 

solid rocket motor to make sure that the specs are complied with 

and that the safety factors are adhered to, because on the bottom 

of page 198 of the Commission report it does specifically suggest and recommend independent oversight in terms of the design recommendations and the effort that the Commission has suggested in 

terms of the SRM’s. 

Does NASA intend to have independent oversight as the Commission has suggested? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Sensenbrenner, we have set up a team ap- pointed by the National Academy of Science and Engineering, which we call the National Research Council, headed by Dr. Guy 

Stever, one of the officers of that organization, and they have been 

busily involved in helping with the redesign of that seal, I would 

say, for the last 3 weeks. We’ve got advanced warning of that particular recommendation and have implemented it. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I don’t think that that’s what the Commission had in mind-that the National Research Council would be in 

on the redesign, because, you know, that makes them part of the 

team. I think what the Commission had in mind from reading the 

paragraph that’s in the report was that after the redesign took 

place that the independent oversight made sure that the Commission’s recommendations were adhered to. And while I was not able 

to be here this morning because the Judiciary Committee was 

marking up the immigration bill, the report that I got of this morning’s hearing was that you all were less than precise in terms of 

saying which part of the Commission’s recommendations you would 

adhere to. And I’m just very concerned that at least this part of 

the Commission’s recommendations be adhered to and that somebody from the outside look at the redesign of that solid booster 

rocket motor so that we won’t have another cozy arrangement that 

apparently led to the disaster. 

Dr. FLETCHER. That particular recommendation-there’s no question about it. We accept it and we are implementing it. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. OK. Thank you very much. 

I’ll yield to the gentleman from New York, if he wishes to-- 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Yes. 

Mr. Aldrich, you said you’re reassessing to make certain that the 

design specs are valid. What I want to know is, who makes certain 

that the design specs are met? Is it the reliability and quality assurance people? Mr. ALDRICH. I’m sorry, I meant to specifically indicate not only 

that the specs were valid, but also that the design of the hardware 

and the testing and analysis of that hardware assures compliance in an engineering sense. That’s done by the full engineering elements available to each of the projects, both NASA and Government, not only the R&QA organizations in each organization, but 

also their primary design engineer organization and their project 

management as well. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Fine. Thank you. 
191 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Tennessee, 

Mrs. Lloyd. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Fletcher, it certainly is a privilege to meet you, to be able to 

welcome you back. I feel like I’m a real oldtimer that we’re here 

together after all these years; and also to see your colleagues here 

with you. We appreciate your time and the attention that you’re 

giving this matter. 

I’m really playing hopscotch back and forth. I’m attending hearings across the hall on some of the problems that the TVA has. In 

this hearing we’re trying to assess the tragedy and across the hall 

we’re trying to prevent a tragedy. But in the two hearings it seems 

to me that there are so many parallels, that there are so many 

matters that were not brought to the top managerial level. There 

was a lack of communication. There was a lack of focus on really 

design perfection. And one of the statements that really brought home to me in one 

of the-in testimony from across the hall-“Management’s overriding concern for cost and schedule has led to the faulty design and 

construction of TVA’s nuclear power plants.” 

Well, this is bad, but to me what is even worse is that I really 

think that safety in itself is superficial. I think that we’re talking about something that’s so much broader than safety. I think that 

safety is something that happens. I think what we’re talking about 

is quality workmanship and management, and a level or performance in this agency. 

Now it seemed to me that the NASA of the seventies was really 

known for its excellence and that this high degree of safety was 

something-it was part of the picture. It was something that happened, whether the agency is designing or engineering manned or 

unmanned systems. And wouldn’t you agree that if we put the 

proper picture in, if we put the proper perspective in and demand 

the quality and excellence, that safety will be the byproduct? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, I think that safety, of course, is the primary 

concern, but the things that you mentioned, Mrs. Lloyd, are absolutely essential to safety. You’ve got to not only have high quality 

and high reliability on all the parts, but you’ve got to have confident judgment on all these things with people involved, and there 

has to be good communications, as was mentioned earlier, between 

the people. So if there is a question about some item, everyone is 

free to raise the question with his associate or compatriot and resolve the issue. That’s all part of what we mean by safety. But certainly reliability and quality of design is an essential part of safety, 

yes. 

Mrs. LLOYD. It seems to me there is a blatant disregard for communication between your levels. But another thing that really disturbs me is the distinction that we’ve heard yesterday and today 

between technical people and the management people. 

Now what really happened-I don’t really to delay this, Dr. 

Fletcher, but what happened to the technical manager in aerospace 

that made these decisions? We had people that had the sufficient 

data to act upon. We had people like George Lowe and Werner 

VonBraun, Abe Silverstein. Why don’t we have people like that 

today that are technical managers? 
192 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mrs. Lloyd, it’s interesting that you should raise 

those names. Of course, Werner VonBraun is gone and George Low 

is gone, but we did have Gen. Sam Phillips and Dr. Eberhart Reiss 

and Brainerd Holmes and Abe Silverstein, some of the old-time veterans, we call them-they didn’t like to be called “old-timers”-- 

Mrs. LLOYD. They were technical managers. 

Dr. FLETCHER [continuing]. In about 2 weeks ago and had an 

interchange with the current people. And I think that the main 

difference, if I might summarize what we came up with, is that 

there was a collegiality in that group which has to be redeveloped 

among our own people and is in the process of being so. They had 

no questions about the competence of our people. Those, of course, 

were giants because they were the people who put us on the moon 

and brought our astronauts back safely, but we have giants, potential giants, in NASA now. We have to make them work together properly as a team. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Ireferred to NASA as a wounded eagle yesterday. I 

really think that if we are going to fly again we’re going to have to 

make the demand for excellence and the quest for excellence uppermost in the NASA program, and we want to be a part of that, 

that we will not settle for less. 

And this committee and the oversight functions as well as, I’m 

sure, you and Admiral Truly and Captain Crippen share my goals. 

Yesterday we also learned that hindsight is a lot easier than 

oversight, but I would like to review the comparison between the 

Apollo 204 fire and the accident. It seems to me that the flaws are 

so much broader now than they were 20 years ago and that certainly our resources are more limited than they were 20 years ago. And it seems like that we’re going to have to make some policy 

issues where we’re going to go in our program, such as we decided 

to go ahead with the Apollo program. Where do you think that we 

are going? What is-what do you think is going to be our main 

goal? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, Mrs. Lloyd, that’s a broad question, but let 

me give you some broad-- 

Mrs. LLOYD. I realize it is. 

Dr. FLETCHER [continuing]. Answers-- 

Mrs. LLOYD. It allows for your perspective. 

Dr. FLETCHER [continuing]. The best I can. 

Our first and foremost goal is to return the space shuttle to safe 

flight as soon as we feel it is safe to fly. We we will carry the missions that have been assigned to us to carry. Admiral Truly and his 

colleagues are going over the proposed manifest very carefully. Following that, then we plan to launch the payloads that we 

talked so much to you about over the years, the crucial scientific 

payloads-for example, the Hubble Space Telescope and the various Centaur missions: Galileo, Ulysses, Magellan, and so forth, and 

the Spacelab. So following return to flight, we’ll pursue those programs. The little longer term goal-you also are aware of-is to get to 

the space station. We need to have an adequate transportation 

system, both to carry men and equipment back and forth to that 

space station, and also to assemble the space station. So we have to 

have a reliable space transportation system to do that. 
193 

Beyond that, we make studies. We have no commitments. We 

have some guidelines that have come to us from the Tom Paine 

Commission. He proposes several alternatives-an advanced transportation system to replace the shuttle, for example, is one. A national aerospace plane is another possible direction to go, which is 

already in the process of being implemented. And, finally, we can’t forget that our long-range mission is to 

move out into space with men and women and equipment and do 

useful things, and that includes the Moon and Mars and places like 

that. That may have to wait until the turn of the century, or at 

least until there is a change in the budgetary environment. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentlelady. The gentleman from California, Mr. Packard? 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome back to NASA, Dr. Fletcher, the fiery furnance at the 

present time anyway. I’d like to follow the same common thread of questioning this 

afternoon. I’m still not satisfied that we have all of the commitments that I would be looking for. 

The Commission found that the joint testing and the certification 

process was inadequate. What is your understanding of what the 

Commission means by those inadequacies? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, I would have to refer to Admiral Truly and 

his colleagues, if you don’t mind, Mr. Packard. 

Mr. PACKARD. Please. 

Admiral TRULY. Let me give you my view, and I would suggest 

that that would be a good question tomorrow for the head of the 

accident team. 

I think what the Commission was saying is that, if we had had 

prior to the first flight of the shuttle the experience of the-about 

a thousand tests that we have done since January 28 on the joint 

performance of the solid rocket motor, we would have not have 

flown that design. We’d know far more about it, and we can credit 

that to hindsight if we want to, but the commission concluded, and 

so did the task force, and so did I think the technical people, both 

at Thiokol and Marshall, that we did not understand the performance of that joint. I think that’s what the commission meant. 

Mr. PACKARD. And I do not wish to dwell on hindsight, either, 

but I certainly want to profit in where we go from here in develop- ing that process so that there are not those inadequacies in our redesign of this joint plus the looking at other inadequacies in the 

system that have already been identified. 

I think what distresses me and disturbs me the most is that we 

do not have in these areas, some of which are very critical areaswe have ongoing rethinking and redesigning of those areas, but we 

do not have a good flow of those redesign factors into the system, 

the launching system. A good illustration is the brakes, which we know that there are 

flaws there. We’ve had problems. It’s almost like the joints. They have manifested themselves in mission after mission, and yet we 

have not moved in to a new design to correct that problem. And I’m not suggesting that we stop all flights until we correct that 
194 

problem. Sometimes-it certainly would have been beneficial to 

have done that with this-with the joints. But that’s not, I suppose, 

what we would expect. 

But there ought to be a time when the new design is moved into 

the system over a period of a long-term picture without having to 

delay flights. And yet we still see that we have brake problems, we 

have tire problems, we have steering problems, we have main 

engine motor problems or main motor problems. And I’m not persuaded that we are making the kind of progress on these other 

weak areas to the point where we won’t end up with another accident caused not by an improved design on the joint, but on a weakness in the main motor or some other problem. 

I was at the landing where those three tires blew, and that was 

alarming. And I think it is critical and could cost life and equipment. 

I guess my question is, are we going to see the redesign of these 

other areas that we know are weak moved into the system without delay and at the same time without rescheduling the launches? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, Mr. Packard, Admiral Truly and his colleagues can give you a better answer, but let me just say very quickly that, since we are down because of the seals in the solid 

rocket booster, we are taking a look at all of those items, particu- larly the ones you mentioned, but a longer list of items. 

Mr. PACKARD. And some may come up with Mr. Aldridge’s point 

that he made-- 

Dr. FLETCHER. They may very well. 

Mr. PACKARD [continuing]. To review all of your specs. 

Dr. FLETCHER. And so I think that at least is being addressed. 

The first part of your question-suppose there are new things that 

come up during future flights; isn’t there a way to phase those new 

redesigns into the space shuttle transportation system, so that we 

can fix it as we go along? And I think that will be part of our plan in the future. 

I don’t want to speak for Admiral Truly, but that’s my opinion. 

Admiral TRULY. Well, I was going to request the opportunity-as 

an example, on the brakes, to ask Mr. Aldrich to say a word, because I view the brake problem as an entirely different sort of a 

thing than what caused this accident. 

It is true that we have had brake problems over the years. As I 

matter of fact, I flew the second flight of the Enterprise on approach and landing test in 1977, and that was the first indicationit was the second flight of the shuttle and it was the first indication of a problem with brakes. 

However, from the time that that happened until today, the program has worked the brakes very hard. We have moved out and 

had planned to move out prior to this accident on a redesigned 

brake that will be accomplished during this period. And we need to 

do that. 

But there is a big difference in working difficult, complicated, and contentious technical problems on top of the table, and having 

a problem where a breakdown in communications doesn’t elevate 

the severity of it so that we do work as a system. We will never 

make spaceflight totally risk free. 

Mr. PACKARD. I know. 
195 

Admiral TRULY. It can’t be done or we just ought to quit and not 

try. But those other concerns in the Commission’s report-and in no 

way do I want to say that I don’t go along with those concerns, because I do, but those are concerns that have been worked in a different manner, I think, than this solid rocket motor joint. And, to 

me, that’s a big difference. Mr. PACKARD. One very quick question, if I may, Mr. Chairman, 

that I hope will just require a short answer. 

At no place in your report or in our discussion have you indicated that you would report and brief this committee or parts of this 

committee on redesign submissions and considerations of the joint. 

I presume that we would become a very important part of that 

review before there was any money, although obviously we would 

not allocate funds for those redesigns until we were satisfied that 

they would meet the requirements. 

True, the National Research Council and a variety of other inhouse organizations will look at them. I’ve not seen any commitment that they would come back to us before they were approved. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Packard, that is our intention-to bring 

before this committee design changes, improvements, gradual steps 

toward the eventual reflight as we go along. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield? 

Mr. PACKARD. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. I assure the gentleman from California, as long as the 

gentleman from New Jersey is in the Congress of the United 

States, along with the other people on this committee, there will be 

no flights around here until this committee is satisfied that the requirements are met, and I think that that’s what Dr. Fletcher is 

saying. And I think that point ought to be made abundantly clear, 

because-if the gentleman would yield-the point has been out, 

“Well, shall Congress take a closer oversight,” and I think that’sas you are doing things in NASA to revamp NASA, that’s already 

been decided. So the answer, sir, is not only the funding; it’s the 

action of this committee through oversight and then through allocation of authorizations. 

If the gentleman would yield further-I want to back up a little 

bit on Mr. Packard’s comment on the landing gear and the tires 

and the other areas. Now I hope-and I think that’s the point you 

were developing-I hope that when we spoke of critical-let me ask 

a question, if the gentleman will forgive me: Is the problem of the 

landing gear a critical item? Is that in any one of-is that critical 1 

or lR? 

Mr. ALDRICH. Yes, it is. Yes, it’s criticality 1. 

Mr. ROE. It’s criticality 1. Now, to me, criticality means that, 

“Hey, guys, that’s as bad as anything else on that criticality 1.” Is 

that a reasonable point? We don’t have any diversification. We say 

that if it’s critical 1, to me that’s critical 1; it’s go or no go. Is 

that-am I wrong in understanding your nomenclature? 

Mr. ALDRICH. It’s criticality 1 in that failure can be catastrophic, 

Mr. ROE. That’s the point I’m making. 

Mr. ALDRICH. However, design margins can be enhanced tremendously, and that’s what we’re attempting to do with the brake redesign. 
196 

Mr. ROE. Yes, but that’s not the point I’m making, and I think 

it’s terribly important because I want our hearings to have been 

thorough and not spongy, and there’s nothing personal in what I 

say. I’m not as articulate as some other people in getting their 

point across. 

But it seems to me basically when the Commission spoke to the 

critical areas, they said “must.” Now to me that means-you know, 

that can be translated into legislation, too. I’m sure you’re aware of 

that. 

If it’s a critical item and you take X items and you put it on the 

No. 1 list, now the No. 1 list, as you say, that could be a list-anything that would happen on that particular part or piece could be 

critical to the extent of causing a severe accident or even death. Is 

that what critical 1 is about? 

Mr. ALDRICH. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. Well, now, how can we, then, take the point of view 

that, as important as the O-ring is, which is the heart of this particular process that we’re going through now, certainly the landing 

gear is critical, and anything else that’s critical, what is also critical-would we say that, and I’m thinking down the line in this direction-we have three orbiters that we have to retrofit. And any 

decision that’s made ultimately by Dr. Fletcher’s folks and your 

people, if you’re going to take a critical item 1 on that has to be 

redone, it means it’s got to be redone on all the orbiters; isn’t that 

correct? Wouldn’t you’d say that would be correct? 

Mr. ALDRICH. Yes, the design-- 

Mr. ROE. Basically. Otherwise, what do we-we’re not going to 

fix up one and let the other three sit there and do nothing. I mean, 

you know, we don’t want to get too testy today, but we’re talking 

about taking parts from here, there, and whatever. If we’re going 

to provide you with the tools to do the job, Congress is equally as 

important and responsible to provide the resources which we 

expect NASA to come back and tell us and say, “If you want the 

totally safe system, this is what it’s going to cost you.” Now if Congress wants to play the games and not provide the funding, then 

they are not doing their job to the American people, either. It’s not 

up to NASA to tell Congress what they should or should not be 

doing. It’s up to us to understand from you-if I were king, what 

would I do as the best thing in the country? That’s what’s before us 

today. That’s what we’re trying to decide. 

We want to be able to go back to the full Congress and say: 

If you’re really serious about being in space, and we’ve crystallized the safety issue, which we’ve done, we’re coming back and saying, “We need these assurances. 

We need this testing. This is what we need.” 

Now it’s up to us from a management point to determine what 

you need and how you’re going to do it. You tell us that. 

Now I go back to the criticality issue. If we’re going to fly anything, it would seem to me that the critical items are first and foremost in this committee’s mind. And anything that would not meet 

those needs, the O-rings notwithstanding, we consider that to be 

important, including those landing gears. 

Now does somebody want to respond? 

Pardon my enthusiasm, but I get enthusiastic. 
197 

Dr. FLETCHER. Admiral Truly, having flown the orbiter, ought to 

respond at least about the brakes. 

Mr. ROE. I would hope so. 

Admiral TRULY. Well, I want to tell you that what you just said, 

I’m a thousand percent in agreement with. 

Mr. ROE. All right, then, we’ll vote. [Laughter.] 

Admiral TRULY. That’s what this review that Mr. Aldrich is 

heading up is precisely doing, and that is looking at those items, 

relooking at the design. If they require fixing, we’re going to fix 

them before we fly. 

However, there may be a case where we could put restrictions on 

the flights and fly three flights under restrictions because of the 

leadtime and do it. So there’s a lot of things in that-- 

Mr. ROE. We flew 24 flights. I don’t want to beat this horse to 

death, but what I’m trying to get across-we said that as far as 

NASA-and the eloquent presentation Dr. Fletcher made in the beginning I just loved because he said let’s get on with it. But it 

seems to me that if we’re going to get the answers back from you 

folks now and we’re going to get the answers tomorrow from the 

technical, all we’ll know is the facts. 

We’re coming back and we’re saying, “Yes, sir, those things have 

to be repaired. We’re not going to gamble anybody at this point until they are repaired.” 

And Congress ought to be able to say to NASA in response, “If 

we’re going to need these funds and these kinds of resources to be 

able to the best we know how in America as far as safety is concerned, that’s No. 1.” 

Now we don’t want to talk about necessarily redundancy in 

every part. That’s not practicable. We understand that. But we are 

coming back and saying, “Yes, we could fly if the temperature was 

a little here and we didn’t have that ice”-and I don’t want to-the 

answer is no. We’re coming back and saying that everything that’s 

on that critical list to us is critical, and everything that’s on itthat’s why I want to be able to say when we finish our work. 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir; and I agree with you. 

Mr. ROE. OK. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Would the gentleman yield? Would the gentleman 

yield for just a moment on the brake question? 

Mr. PACKARD. Before I yield, let me make a comment on what 

the chairman has just said, and that was the whole point of my question. We had 9 years of forewarning on the joint, that it was a 

flawed joint. There should have been redesign going on during that 

period of time and a phasing in so that, as long as we stayed within the parameters that made even a flawed joint fly safely for 24 missions, that was acceptable. But we should have corrected that joint 

long before the 9 years was up. I’m saying the brakes, the main motors, and other critical areas 

that we already know have got some flaws in the design and need 

to be corrected, we ought to be on about doing that and phasing it 

in and not wait for an accident to force it to phase it in. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. PACKARD. Now I’ll be happy to yield. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Yes; and along that line of redesign, I’d like to 

know if the redesign includes eliminating it from the criticality list 
198 

for abort missions where you have an abort, which is a lot different 

in that you’ve unloaded the payload bay. 

Admiral TRULY. Are you speaking again about the brakes or the 

landing gear? 

Mr. VOLKMER. Yes; and, of course, the-- 

Admiral TRULY. Yes. Criticality 1 items are items that must not 

fail because they would cause the loss of vehicle or crew. 

In the case of the brakes incidentally, Mr. Aldrich has approved 

the new brake design and money, and I have approved it at level I, 

and it is being turned on, and we’re going to do it. 

That will not take, however, the brakes out of being a criticality 

1 or 1R item. They are still that critical, and they are that critical 

for aborts or end-of-mission landings, whenever we would land the 

shuttle. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no further questions. 

Mr. ROE. Just to clarify that point, I think we understand exactly what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Look, we’re going to be able to 

present the best we know how, but it still stays on criticality 1 because if anything happened to it, we’d still have a problem.’’ 

But if we know something’s wrong-do you understand where 

I’m coming from? 

All right, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to go back to Mr. Mineta’s line of questioning. I 

think the issue of the decision to launch or not to launch is so fundamental to these hearings and certainly to the Commission’s findings. I’d like to know Dr. Fletcher if you concur with the view that 

I believe the Commission is saying that the information flows 

downhill pretty easily, but coming back in the other direction there 

has been some serious problems with breakdown in communication. Is that a fair assessment of the situation? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Andrews, of course, I’ve only been here a 

short time, but I accept the committee’s views on that. They have 

worked with our own people, and they’ve worked long and hard, so 

I have to accept the fact that their conclusion is correct. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What do you think the largest problem is? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I think there’s a large number of problems, Mr. Andrews, all of which have to be looked at. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What are those problems. 

Dr. FLETCHER. It has to do with the procedures. It has to do with 

the definition of the procedures that are written down so that 

people can follow them. When they’re not followed, we have to 

have a way to check on any deviation from those procedures. But 

that’s not the only thing. You have to have two-way communications, as we mentioned before. You have to be able to interrogate 

people all the way up and down the line from level IV. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What has been the most serious problem with 

that? 

Dr. FLETCHER, In the past? I really can’t comment. I’ve been gone 

for 9 years. I think somebody else that was involved in the investigation would have to answer that. But that in the future is the 

thing that we’re talking about, when we say tighten up procedures 

and communications. 
199 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman from Texas yield for a moment? 

Mr. ANDREWS. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. I think what we, in our enthusiasm today, and I’m 

probably the most guilty one of the whole group that are here, that 

we have to recognize that the leadership that’s visiting with us 

today and testifying are all relatively new. They’ve had, you know, 

years and years of experience, but they’re back into the stream 

now. 

And I think that part of what the Commission is saying to us 

that these are the group-the broad-based areas where these major problems are resolved, and then are looking down the road for this 

new team to resolve them. And it would seem to me that-if the 

gentleman would yield further-that I would hope that from our 

committee’s point of view, that after we finish with this particular 

phase we’re going through and you get back to work, then we will 

call you in from time to time to bring us up to date as to exactly 

what management improvements are being made, what exact technical improvements are being made, and so forth and so on, for 

what that’s worth for the gentleman’s line of questioning. Mr. ANDREWS. Well, then, let me ask that question to Dr. 

Graham. 

Dr. Graham, what do you think the most serious flaw has been 

in the decisionmaking process to launch or not to launch? 

Dr. GRAHAM. I have more time at NASA during this tour than 

Dr. Fletcher because he has weeks and I have months, but I 

wouldn’t represent that as comprehensive. Nevertheless, in my experience there I believe that there has been a serious problem in 

the information flow upward, as you identify, and I believe that 

goes up to the top of NASA, to the Administrator’s office itself, and 

certainly to level I and I believe to level I1 as well. 

That’s to some extent an issue of the entire internal environment in NASA and the way it functions, the way information is 

received at the upper levels of the organization, the way it’s understood, and the feedback that’s provided. 

I have tried to establish a policy of not shooting the messenger when information comes up, even though the information may not 

be information that goes in the direction that you would like the 

program to take, but rather to try to change the program and give 

the appropriate guidance and feedback to the system, but to encourage the flow of information. 

I believe that has to be done over a substantial period of time 

and at a number of levels for information to come up through the 

system. As you know, that’s caused some problems as well. In fact, 

I had to change the internal organization to remove one person out 

of the information flow line to make sure it came to me more 

quickly after the accident. 

I think that and other things are beginning-we’re beginning to 

set a tone inside NASA to encourage information flow, and I believe Dr. Fletcher’s extremely receptive to information of all sorts 

coming up through the system. That, I think, is an absolute mandate on the Administrator’s office in order to have the information 

flow to run a system such as the shuttle. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Captain Crippen, would you comment on that? 

What, in particular-it appears obvious that the astronauts have 
200 

not had adequate input themselves into the decision to launch or 

not to launch, and what specific steps do you think need to be undertaken right away by NASA to change that? 

Captain CRIPPEN. Mr. Andrews, if I may comment on the initial 

problem-of course, what the Commission was addressing was the 

fact that the information regarding all of the failures within the 0- 

ring itself had not flowed forward over the years adequately such that it was emphasized as to its criticality, and then when we got down to the actual launch and we had temperatures that were low 

and certain engineers were concerned about that, that information 

did not flow up. I do not think that that means that the whole system was not 

flowing information properly. I think it does point out a specific flaw, and we probably had others, but it does say that we have to 

go back and reexamine our information flow. 

People have emphasized that the astronauts did not know. Just 

telling the astronauts is not going to solve the problem, although if 

somebody came and whispered in our ear we had a problem there, 

we would have probably brought it forward. But the proper way to 

bring it forward is through our program managers, and that is the 

way the astronaut office normally performed, and I believe that’s 

the proper case. 

For the tasks that Admiral Truly has assigned to me, I am going 

to try to propose an organization that does give us information 

flow, smooth information flow both up and down. I think we said 

that the information flow down is good. Maybe information down 

was not communicating properly to the people down in the trenches that, yes, we were interested in flying at an accelerated rate, but 

we were still interested in doing it safely. Maybe that information 

wasn’t conveyed properly. Anyway, those are the kinds of things. Up and down flow has to 

be smooth and has to be simplistic to do that. That also follows 

over directly to the launch decision process. The closer you get to a 

flight, the faster it has to flow, and it has to flow very smoothly and people have to know who can call the signals, and those are 

the kinds of things that we’re going to be working on over the next 

few weeks to try to see if we can come up with a proposal that will 

at least make that work better. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Henry. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you? Mr. Chairman. 

I regret I missed about 1 hour of the hearing early this afternoon, but an unanswered or unasked question continues to trouble 

me, so 1’11 ask it even though it’s simple and basic. And I’ll begin, I 

think, with Admiral Truly, if I may. 

In your opening statement you suggested-you said that you 

were in general agreement with the findings and recommendations 

of the Rogers Commission report. Do I take it that that leaves you 

some leeway to suggest you’re not in complete agreement or-- 

Admiral TRULY. No. I want to make it clear that there are some 

choices that the Commission left us, very appropriately. And, as a 

matter of fact, even though I did not see a single one of the specific 
201 

recommendations until the report was published and was not privy 

to them, I discussed them many times with commission members 

and with Chairman Rogers, including, incidentally, the oversight of 

our SRM redesign. I think that is very appropriate, and I’m glad he 

recommended it. 

I don’t know of a single recommendation in here that I am not in 

agreement with. However, there are some choices in it. For example, the choice of where in the organization the person that runs 

safety, reliablity, and quality assurance is a choice that the Administrator will have to consider and make. 

The choice in the redesign of horizontal versus vertical testing the Commission, you notice, did not direct us to test vertically. 

They directed us to assure that we looked at it and made a reasonable decision. I forget exactly what the words are, and we’re already quite a ways along that track to do so. 

But I am in agreement with his approach. As far as I’m concerned, this is a great roadmap to get started with, and I’m very happy with it. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. HENRY. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. I think we also ought to get on the record that through 

Dr. Fletcher and yourself and Dr. Graham that there’s a host of 

other things that are emanating from NASA itself in its own program. It’s not just this group you’re looking at. There’s all other 

things that the new management group is looking at. Is that a fair 

comment to make? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, that’s what I tried to indicate 

in my opening remarks. Having said that, though, I think I want to 

reiterate what Admiral Truly said; namely, that we’re taking this 

Commission report very seriously as an important part of what 

we’re doing to fix the shuttle. 

Mr. HENRY. At this point, if I may, Mr. Chairman-we’re all 

taking it seriously. I just want to have on the record that the 

agreement is complete, not equivocal, acknowledging obviously that 

in a number of areas, particularly technical areas, discretion was 

given to you. 

The reason I raised the question was because you chose the word 

“general agreement” in your written testimony but also when Mr. 

Aldrich was responding to one of the earlier questions, I think by 

Mr. Scheuer or Mr. Nelson, relative to the safety appeals outside 

safety process, he suggested, “Well, I’m in general agreement but 

not in particular agreement.” And what I would like to have as clearly as possible to those 

areas in which complete agreement doesn’t mean unequivocal 

agreement some guidelines. I mean that clearly to me as a 

layman-this report is going to be my handle in trying to follow 

what you’re doing, what else you’re doing. 

May I follow with another question? I’m concerned that we deal 

with the recommendations that at some point the agency makes 

available to the members of the committee some establishment of 

written, objective criteria by which it believes it, will, once having 

implemented it, satisfy the recommendation. 

I’m concerned a little bit about getting caught in a little bit of a 

mish-mash. This is particularly because most of us here are not en- 
202 

gineers and technically qualified and yet we bear responsibility to 

oversee. 

For example, when we had the earlier testimony by Mr. Aldrich 

that each subsystem was devised and certified to be 31 degrees 

Fahrenheit workable on the low end temperaturewise, and yet to find out that the subcomponent parts were not so certified, I don’t 

know how you have a subsystem without the parts meeting that 

criteria. That obviously was one of the issues here. 

Can we get some assurance that you’re going to give us some 

working definition along the way as to what you mean by measurable, objective criteria, whether it be the brakes, the 0-seal problem, 

what have you, so we have something when we go back and we 

talk to commercial engineers or other engineers and say, “Does 

that do the job?” 

Dr. FLETCHER. You mentioned several things, but let me comment on one of them. As far as taking the report seriously, as you 

know, we are obliged to respond to that report in a number of 

months. That will be a written response and done in some depth. 

We are trying to give you a general feeling about our reactions 

to the response, which are positive. We think the recommendations 

are right on target, something that I would have done had I been 

as smart as that Commission. And so that part I think we can 

assure you that you will get a very definitive response. 

With regard to the other issues that we ourselves are looking at 

in the criterion for what is safe and what is not safe-guidelines, as 

you call them-I think you’re entitled to have a feel for that but 

we haven’t yet developed them. After all, we just started the response. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. Don, you are up next. Do you want to wait until we 

return from this vote? This is the second call. 

Chairman Fuqua, I say you’re up next, but would you rather 

wait-- 

Mr. FUQUA. I’m trying to find out what type of quorum call we 

have. 

Mr. ROE. It’s a vote. It’s the last part of the second call. 

The committee will recess for 10 minutes while we go vote. Bear 

[Recess taken.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will come to order. 

And when we broke up for the vote the last time, we were about 

to defer to our distinguished chairman, the Honorable Don Fuqua 

from Florida. 

Mr. FIJQUA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I know that Dr. Fletcher and all his associates, that this has 

been a long day and probably they need to spend some time back 

trying to solve some of the problems. I was going to ask of Admiral Truly-in the previous colloquy 

with one of the members-I think maybe it was Packard or maybe 

Volkmer-a subject came up of brakes and the criticality of brakes, 

and that is-that that could be a critical 1 on an airplane or an 

automobile. I know many times when I’ve landed at National Airport, particularly under adverse weather conditions, I was very 

glad that the brakes worked because otherwise I’d go into the Potowith us. 
203 

mac River on one end of the runway or the other, depending on 

which way you were landing. 

But would not you classify that as a critical 1 item? 

Admiral TRULY. That’s right. I think that’s a good way to understand criticality 1 and 1-R, as a matter of fact, as just an automobile. Your right front wheel is a criticality 1 item. It falls off; you 

have the chance of losing your vehicle and you. If you have a prob- lem with it and redesign it, recertify it, it’s still a criticality 1 item. 

Your brakes, depending on your car model, may be criticality 1R. 

You may have a disc brake system that has a separate front brake 

system and rear brake system, and you would have to lose both of 

those to get in the same situation. But to me that’s a good way to 

understand it, but, nevertheless, even after you certify it properly, 

your right front wheel still is criticality 1, no matter how long you drive your car. 

Mr. FUQUA. I was going to point out to Dr. Fletcher-reference 

was made earlier about where are the giants in NASA. Do we have 

the giants as we had in the past? 

I remember sitting in this room in 1967 when we were investigating why pure oxygen was designed to go into the Apollo capsule, 

and that’s fine as long as you have no electrical fire or any sparks. 

We found that out in a very tragic manner. NASA found that out, 

and some of those giants of NASA found that out that participated 

in that. And I don’t mean in any way to besmirch their record; it’s 

a fine record. I think we have some very excellent people in NASA 

today. Many of them are sitting right at that table. Many of them 

are in this room or have been here or will be here tomorrow, and 

are scattered throughout the whole NASA system. Sometimes success breeds complacency. I think that might be 

what happened in this particular case. But it’s unfortunate we had 

to find out the way we did, but I think we do have some very bright and talented people in the NASA organization and in the 

industrial team. And I hope that we never lose sight of that factthat they made some great contributions over the years, and I 

don’t think it means we have an erosion of talent in this country. I remember the early days, too, when Mark Russell, the political humorist here in Washington, referred to the Vanguard as a civil 

service. He said you couldn’t fire it and couldn’t get it to work. 

[Laughter.] 

That was his remarks, not mine. But the-so we had our lumps 

in the early days of the program. It’s still a very difficult thing to 

do. 

But I would just like to set the record that there are some very 

talented and bright people in NASA and in the industrial team 

that can contribute, and have contributed, and will contribute to 

our Space Program-not only the shuttle where we are today, but 

also the space station and the many other scientific-the feat earlier this year of the Voyager spacecraft was certainly a great credit 

to a lot of very fine people. It’s not very easy to transmit or get a 

vehicle to go as far as that vehicle has, and the project of Galileo 

and some of the others that are-and the Hubble telescope which had its problems along the way. 

But I think we ought to also sometimes look at the good side, and 

I think the Commission did in their closing comment that we 
204 

should move forward with the program. There are a lot of fine and 

talented people and a great organization, and I-while we’ve had a 

bump in the road, I certainly hope that people within NASA do not 

become discouraged and think that Congress or the American 

public is down on them as being incompetents and people who are 

not capable of the task. They are capable of the task, and I’m sure 

that they’ll prove that, given an opportunity. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. 

We now recognize the distinguished gentleman from Utah, Mr. 

Monson. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Fletcher, being from Utah and knowing that you’ve been 

absent for a long time, we still consider you one of us, and we are 

proud of the work that you have done and commend you for the 

public service that you’re showing at this time and the spirit of 

that public service that you’re showing, and wish you all the best 

as you go about these responsibilities. I have developed a concern throughout this process over whether 

or not we’re doing enough to determine and gather enough data 

prior to launch as to whether or not weather conditions are suitable and such. Do you-have you gone far enough in the process yet 

to know whether or not it would be necessary to check more areas 

of temperature, more-whatever can be done to determine the effects of wind at higher altitudes and such? And I know that technology is not fully developed in that area yet, but what do you anticipate happening in that regard, if anything, at this point in 

time? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Monson, that’s an awfully good question. The 

only reason I’m responding instead of Admiral Truly-we had a 

very detailed discussion about that with Captain Crippen yesterday. That’s one of the difficult things to do because you have to 

predict weather not only at the one site before taking off, but you 

have to be able to predict the weather at the alternate landing 

sites in case of an abort. 

We have improved some over the years our weather prediction 

generally, but local weather predictions are still very difficult, not 

quite a science, and we’re in the process of looking at better ways 

of making those forecasts. 

Having said that, it may tie that Captain Crippen or Admiral 

Truly would indicate what progress we have made. 

Admiral TRULY. I don’t have much more to add to that other 

than the fact that we recognize very clearly that we need better 

technology, frankly, in the country for weather forecasting and, 

very specifically, in the space shuttle program, we need the best 

technology that we can get at the Cape. Precisely where that has 

gone I am not familiar with, but we are going to sure pursue it and 

make sure that we have the technology to do the best we can and, 

then, the mission rules and the discipline to make sure we obey our 

rules when we get back to flight. 

Mr. MONSON. I am not only concerned about forecasting; I am 

concerned about actual conditions and our ability to measure them. 

It is one thing to know the temperature 1,000 feet from the vehicle 

but right up at the vehicle itself, are we going to be doing more in 
205 

that regard? Are we going to know more about the effects on the 

different parts of the vehicle and such in advance of what we have 

done in the past? 

Admiral TRULY. Iam sure that we will but, again, we just aren’t 

far enough in the design process. I would comment that even 

though the cold weather that morning was not found to be the 

cause of the accident, it certainly was a possible contributing factor 

in the failure of the joint. It has made the entire system very 

aware of environmental effects. 

On the joint redesign, itself one of the requirements that the redesign team will very likely choose is that even if could withstand 

cold temperatures, it probably will be environmentally controlled 

with heaters. If that is the case, we may very well have direct instrumentation on the pad, but that is a detail best left to the redesign and certification group. 

Mr. MONSON. With regard to redesign, you expressed a short 

time ago that there was a lot about the joint we didn’t understand 

even in the early launches. I understand that effects of rotation 

and such caused the parts in that joint to respond differently than 

it was anticipated they would when they were originally designed. 

What can we do to make sure that we understand enough before 

we have gone through the process of several launches before we 

gain the knowledge that we need to to understand exactly how 

these parts are working and whether or not they are working the 

way we thought they would when we designed them? 

Admiral TRULY. Well, I don’t have a pat answer, but I can tell 

you that I am a great believer in ground testing and understanding 

the systems through test and then operating systems more toward 

the middle of the envelope. We have done that in the main engine 

program in the past years. I haven’t had the opportunity to take a 

look at that program, but, in general, I would say that I am an advocate of spending money to do testing of critical parts on the 

ground. We may very well find in the program that we make recommendations to have a more robust test program, particularly on 

criticality 1 items. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Captain CRIPPEN. Could I add just a little bit to that, that the 

main reason that we are smarter about the way the joint performs 

now was not just the accident. That told us we had a problem. But 

we have done a number of subsystem tests that have made us 

smart about the way the actual joint operates. 

John Thomas from Marshall who was the man that, although he 

was a deputy, actually did the lead on the accident analysis was 

the prime driver behind most of those tests. He is now the lead on 

the redesign effort. Consequently, I am certain that he is going to 

use that same fundamental rule in the design of the new joint. 

Mr. MONSON. May I follow up, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. ROE. Yes, of course. 

Mr. MONSON. It causes me concern, though, when I hear that 

what we originally anticipated would happen may have been exactly opposite of what actually happened when the rocket was fired in 

certain parts of that, especially surrounding the joint in this instance, not this particular launch, but the performance of the joint overall. I guess you can never be 100 percent sure that you have all 
206 

knowledge, but I assume that from your statements, those tests 

will include making sure that what we thought we were designing 

is actually the way it performs. Admiral TRULY. Well, if I understand your comment properly, 

personally, I am going to gain the confidence to go fly again not 

from the design but from the testing, the certification and the test 

program. That is why choices like the manner in which we test, 

the configuration in which we test, the analysis of the test data, 

that is the real data. We want to go fly again and the Nation desperately needs us to get back in the air, but the proof of the pudding is in the test program, and, as a matter of fact, no matter 

whether it is July 1987 or any other date, it is primarily the scheduling of that test program with enough time for the system to analyze it that will give us the confidence. 

And when’we get started flying again, we are going to have 

enough time in between the flights so that we can take the motors 

apart, analyze them at the factory, and before we commit to the 

next flight make sure that we have no evidence of a problem in the 

joints. So, in general, the confidence that we all gain in this redesign 

will be through the test programs. It is a very important part of it. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Not in the report but attested to by several Commissioners since 

the report has come out is the fact that some of them claim that if 

the accident had not happened, the system would be shut down by 

now anyhow because of a lack of spare parts and a lack of resources. Do you agree with that? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Walker, I am not sure you are addressing the 

question to me. 

Mr. WALKER. Whoever might know. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I have read the same statement. I think, however, 

there has been a rather thorough look at that by Admiral Truly 

and his associates, but I don’t know which one is best qualified to 

answer it. 

Admiral TRULY. Well, in a word, I don’t agree with that, but I 

would rather Arnie speak to it, Mr. Aldrich. 

Mr. ALDRICH. Two of the areas along that line that are brought 

out in the Commission’s report deal with the availability of the 

flight software for the flights in 1986 and time for adequate crew 

training and the spare parts question. In leading into the flights 

for 1986 that were planned, we knew that we had a very, very tight 

schedule. We had packed into it all that we thought we could 

achieve, and we realized there was some risk of meeting all the 

milestones. 

One of those areas which we spent a lot of time on was, in fact, 

the mission preparation and flight software schedules. We knew 

they were tight. We had touched all the bases, however, and had a 

map that said we could get there. I will be the first to admit that 

we might have run into delays and, rather than be shut down, we 

would have been delayed. 
207 

I think the same situation is true with the spare parts. There are 

shortages in some areas but not in others. Depending on which 

parts were needed and exactly what the configuration of the orbiter situations were, we again could have been delayed for parts, but 

I really doubt that we would have been completely shut down. 

Mr. WALKER. But you would have been pushed very, very hard to 

complete anywhere close to the schedule that you had manifested. 

Mr. ALDRICH. Ithink we would have been pushed hard to complete the schedule we had manifested, but we might have been 

close. We had some very demanding things in 1986. 

Mr. WALKER. Why didn’t somebody admit that to the Congress, 

then, when we were looking at some of these problems in the upcoming year when you were before us? 

Mr. ALDRICH. Well, I can’t respond to what was reported to Congress because I was not here on that subject. I did go at lengths in 

the program in support of the spare parts budget, particularly for 

the orbiter which is where the question is, and we were able to 

achieve the budget we achieved through the process we went 

through. 

Mr. WALKER. We kept being assured over and over and over 

again that these manifested schedules and so on not only could be 

met but you were confident that we were moving ahead and that 

we were not going to have problems. Now, we find out that there 

may indeed have been problems. 

Here is where it fits in, then, it seems to me, the overall part of 

the Commission. We have heard testified about today and we heard 

at that time that safety is always No. 1, that throughout this that 

you were being pushed hard, that you weren’t sure you could make 

the manifest, and yet safety was always No. 1. 

You said it, we believed it, and you had a flight record to prove 

it. In large part, it seems to me that what transpired then was that 

having had that on the record, we then get the Presidential Commission report that talks about the silent safety program. They 

specifically talk about things which are very disturbing: 

“Organizational structures at Kennedy and Marshall have placed 

safety reliability and quality assurance offices under the supervision of the very organizations and activities whose efforts are 

their’s to check.” 

That is not a safety program. 

“Problem reporting requirements are not concise and fail to get 

critical information to the proper levels of management.” 

That is not a safety program. 

“Five weeks after the 51-L accident, the criticality of the solid 

rocket motor field joint was still not properly documented in the 

problem reporting system at Marshall.” 

That is an atrocity. 

It seems to me it is not only a silent safety program, it is an invisible safety program at that point. In the problem reports-and 

you, Mr. Aldrich-it says in the report that your office and the 

entire Johnson safety reliability and quality assurance directorate 

were not even on the distribution list for the problem reports. That 

is not a safety program. 

What are we going to do to correct that? 
208 

Dr. FLETCHER. I don’t know who should start, but that is an important element of the investigation that we are going to look into, 

both NASA-wide and in the shuttle program. We do have a safety 

program that we have to respond specifically to those comments 

that you just made, but I think, more important, we have to make 

sure that the appropriate safety program is implemented in the 

future. 

Mr. WALKER. But let me just follow up on that. That is a general 

systemic breakdown. I mean, the things I am citing here are particulars, and you may address the particulars, but what you have 

got is a systemic breakdown. When you have got those kinds of 

problems, when the top level management isn’t even on the distribution list for the problem reports, that becomes then a program 

on paper but not in reality. 

What I am asking is, what are we going to do to solve that 

problem? 

Admiral TRULY. Mr. Walker, I think that long journeys start 

with a single step. We have a lot of things in work-to solve those 

specific problems. Frankly, even though the Commission did characterize it as a silent safety program and I accept every single one 

of their findings, they just have to be addressed. As someone said 

earlier, you can’t do it with paper. You know, people who have 

thousands of flying hours aren’t alive because the papers said for 

them to preflight their airplanes. They are alive because they preflighted their airplanes. 

We do have a number of problems, but I think that we also have 

a system that was spending a great deal of time on safety. But 

somehow, through organizational changes and lack of discipline in 

some places, it needs to be shored up. I don’t know how to answer 

your question except to have the commitment to redo it during this 

down time where it needs redoing, revalidate it where we deem it 

to be OK, and get to work on it. And that is what we are pledged to 

do. 

Mr. WALKER. Well, let me just suggest that it seems to me that 

in reading the report that we got to a place where you had said to 

yourselves over and over again safety was No. 1 with you. You said 

it to us, as I pointed out before, and you had a flight record to 

prove it. And you began to believe that everybody up and down the 

line was concerned with safety, as we would hope they would be. 

But as a result of believing that everybody was concerned about 

it, there was no one who had it as their primary concern. Ultimately, that led to a breakdown in the system. 

So, it seems to me the correction somewhere along the line has 

to be that there has to be a primary concern about safety at some 

point in the system all the time. Would you agree with that? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Walker, you are absolutely right. There needs 

to be a central point, not only in NASA but in each of the centers, 

in which safety is the primary concern. As a matter of fact, that 

should be the case with each element of this decision process, for 

example, starting with level i down to level 4. We do have a central safety location in headquarters in the chief engineer’s office. 

Mr. WALKER. IfI may, Mr. Chairman-- 
209 

Dr. FLETCHER. The fact that it wasn’t communicated properly 

down at one of the centers, if that was the case, was a glitch and 

shouldn’t have happened. 

Mr. WALKER. Well, Mr. Chairman, if I might just take a little 

more time, the headquarters person-that is Dr. Silveira’s officehe has one person who spends one-quarter of his time on safety, reliability and quality assurance. And he has one other guy who 

spends 10 percent of his time on shuttle safety. Now, that is not 

really much of a commitment on the part of the agency. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I am not familiar with those numbers. We have 

safety in the R&QA office. 

Mr. WALKER. As I understand, they are in the report. Those figures are in the Presidential Commission report. Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Walker, I would like to check that against the 

current status. I believe the Commission may have been reporting 

on the status at the time of the accident which is very germaine to the accident and very appropriate for them to report on. Some 

changes have taken place there already. But as Dr. Fletcher and 

Admiral Truly said, more changes are anticipated and certainly 

contemplated in that area. 

I believe you are exactly right that there is a systematic problem there. The safety function can too easily become mixed with other 

functions inside an organization. When that happens, the results 

can be very serious. 

At this point, it is the task before us to make sure that there are 

safety channels which don’t cross over the program channels in 

such a direct way that issues which are safety issues coming up through the system become unidentifiable with program issues 

which have to be worked in their own way and in their own 

framework. 

Mr. WALKER. Or, when you are trying to meet a manifest schedule that you know you can’t meet anyhow, become the things that 

get shunted aside because they do not fit with what you have got to 

get done on the schedule that you have set for yourself which is an 

impossible schedule. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Yes. That is exactly what I mean by a programmat- ic issue. A programmatic issue is meeting cost, meeting the budget, 

meeting the schedule, and safety cannot be traded off against that. 

Risk management has to be a discipline of its own. And those have 

to come together very, very high in the organization and not be 

suppressed. If the Challenger accident has reminded us of anything it is the 

importance of keeping these functions separate and distinct. 

Mr. WALKER. And at least the program managers have to get problem reports, right? 

Dr. GRAHAM. That, certainly, and many other things as well. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Missouri, Mr. Volkmer. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you very much. 

I would first like to ask Bob and Dick somewhere along the line 

in reading the things I have read in the last few days, there is an 

impression in my mind that there is some concern-assuming that 

we didn’t have the disaster of 51-L and we were going for 16 mis- 
210 

sions this year-that the question of whether we had a sufficient 

astronaut corps in order to handle that 16 missions and also to do 

the administrative work, et cetera. Would you comment on that? 

Captain CRIPPEN. Yes, sir. I am not aware that anybody had a 

concern regarding whether we had an adequate corps. We had 

crews assigned for all the flights and in training, the same question 

had arisen that Mr. Aldrich alluded to earlier that was getting all 

of the software, the computer programs, out and delivered on time 

such that those could be put in our simulators and everybody could 

be adequately trained. Those were some of the things that were 

stacking up on us. 

It wasn’t a question of whether we had people; it was a question 

of whether we had time and facilities to get it all done. 

Mr. VOLKMER. There was concern, though. 

Captain CRIPPEN. There was concern. 

Mr. VOLKMER. All right. Thank you. 

That will, of course, have to be addressed, Dr. Fletcher, somewhere along the line if we plan to go back once into operation in 

the numbers that we plan to do with the number of shuttles that 

we have, will it not? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Volkmer, even if I didn’t pay any attention to 

Admiral Truly and Captain Crippen, that would certainly be a concern that would be fixed. But having two astronauts that have 

been in the program, I am certain it will be fixed. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Now, the other matter I would like to address isand it gets back to where we are now. We now have three shuttles. 

There is a question of whether we are going to have a fourth. I 

don’t think anybody today can answer that question with assurance. 

The statement in the recommendations of the commission in 

roman numeral VIII says, “The Nation’s reliance on the shuttle as 

its principal space launch capability created relentless pressure on 

NASA to increase the flight rate.” The next sentence is the one I 

was to address today, at least, Mr. Fletcher, if you could give us 

some idea of when we could see some activity, if any, on it. “Such 

reliance on a single launch capability should be avoided in the 

future.” 

Dr. FLETCHER. I think that-- 

Mr. VOLKMER. First, what does that mean to you, that sentence? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, to me, it is very clear what they mean. We 

have already taken some action, Mr. Volkmer. They mean that we 

need to have a mixed fleet, a mixture of space shuttles-- 

Mr. VOLKMER. Expendables? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Large expendables like the Defense Department 

what they call CELV’s-we used to call it a T34D-7. Then also perhaps additional medium-sized launch vehicles like something similar to the Atlas-Centaur or Thor Delta. That is what I think is 

meant by that. We call it a mixed fleet, other transportation systems besides the shuttle. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Now, are you addressing the question when you 

get into the mixed fleet and into the expendables, or are you addressing the question of whether that should be in the private 

sector producing those or providing those or whether it should be 
211 

done through the Government as we have done in the past with 

NASA again furnishing the expendables? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Volkmer, we are part of an interagency group 

which is dealing with that. It is called the Commercial Space Working Group, I believe. It is under the Economic Policy Council of the 

White House. We and the Department of Transportation, the Department of Commerce, and I think Defense also are working that 

problem very hard to decide not whether there will be commercial 

launch vehicles but when that should occur. It is very likely that 

sometime in the future we will begin to have commercially supported launch vehicles. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Assuming that we do not have the fourth shuttle, 

we do not get it, what would you predict would be the flight rate, 

let’s say, by 1989 with three? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Volkmer, first of all, all I want to say is I 

don’t like the thought of having only three orbiters because that is 

kind of a marginal fleet. It is not just the flight rate that is of concern, but it is the problem, suppose you have a brake difficulty and 

you want to fix it or some other problem with one or the other of 

the orbiters, the pressure to launch with only three might cause 

another accident. I don’t want that to happen. Having said that, 

though, I think Admiral Truly can answer the specific question you 

asked. 

Admiral TRULY. We have a fairly major effort within the program that Mr. Aldrich is running to take a look specifically at 

flight rate. The present status of that is we have taken an initial 

look without having all the data in, and I believe that we can 

safely build up to a flight rate with a three-orbiter fleet of 12 to 15 

flights. 

But I would like to make an important point to that. The difference in 12 and 15 is not a push on safety or what. It is primarily 

the sorts of flights you choose. For example, if you fly Spacelab, it 

requires a longer vehicle flow. Frankly, with the manifest that I 

see today, we are going to have those kinds of vehicle flows in 

there. So, I think we are going to be on the low end of that scale 

after 3 or 4 years into the program. 

In the outyears, I am sure we will get smarter. There may be 

ways to build it up somewhat, but at least on my watch, it will be 

planned, as I said, and as the Commission stated in that very paragraph that you referred to, we will have a flight rate that is commensurate with our resources, be they people or dollars or work 

shifts at the Cape or whatever. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. What I plan on doing is having 

one more colleague ask some questions, and we will cut around 5, 

but there is a statement I want to make before we quit to get ready 

for tomorrow. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Commission has a finding, Captain Crippen, that training simulators may be the limitation on the flight rate. Do you agree 

with that particular assessment of the Commission? 
212 

Captain CRIPPEN. Mr. Nelson, I think that finding is associated 

with the statement I made earlier that it is not the simulator so 

much as it is the software programs that end up feeding those simulators and how fast we can get those developed and fed in. We 

were saturated with what we were facing this year, and there is an 

effort being made to streamline that. Part of it is not necessarily 

just the flights that you have out in front of you. It is the fact that 

we were also contending with manifest changes. A manifest change 

in effect begins to look like another flight even though you don’t 

execute it. It was those kinds of things that we are now trying to 

smooth out so that we aren’t faced with those kinds of problems. 

But that is why you are hearing rates quoted by Admiral Truly 

that are more along the lines of about four flights per orbiter. With 

that kind of thing, we can do it. 

If we had some additional simulators, it would certainly help, because they are full. Also, our simulators right now, the actual basis 

for them preceded the approach and landing test program. Consequently, we are in need of new computers to support them, so we 

have some problems in those areas that you will see probably addressed in future budget requests. 

Mr. NELSON. You are referring to one of the first parts of the 

findings in which it says that capabilities of the system were 

stretched to the limit to support the flight rate over the winter of 

1985-86. If I recall, I saw one statistic that had STS-61C that compared to other training hours in the simulator that that crew was 

particularly low. If I recall, it was something like 50 hours of training in the last so many days compared to others that had 20 percent more training hours. 

Is that an example of what you are talking about on the crew 

software? 

Captain CRIPPEN. I am not familiar with the statistic you just 

quoted. It was an example that we were faced with more and more 

of the specific mission training coming later and later in flight. It 

was because the programs to support that training were coming 

later and later. I would assume that the figure that you just quoted 

was part of the total problem that we were addressing and why it 

was continuing to get tighter through this particular year when we 

were looking at it. 

Mr. NELSON. The commission report goes on to say in addition to 

the software problem that you have identified, iLThe two current 

simulators cannot train crews for more than 12 to 15 flights per 

year.” 

Captain CRIPPEN. That is just the physical amount of time that 

you can put into simulators themselves. They can only produce so 

much training time, and that was why I said that if we were going 

to go and talk about flight rates exceeding that, it would certainly 

be desirable to get supplementary simulators to support it. 

Mr. NELSON. Dr. Fletcher, yesterday, I took the occasion while 

Chairman Rogers and Vice Chairman Armstrong were here to get 

a clarification on their interpretation of the following recommendation: “Full consideration should be given to conducting static firings of the exact flight configuration in a vertical attitude.” And 

that has come up here a couple of times today. 
213 

The answer that we got back from Mr. Armstrong was that that 

was not a requirement. It was a recommendation for consideration. 

In other words, they were not mandating in their recommendations 

that you test in the vertical attitude, but they certainly wanted you 

to give consideration to simulate all of the factors in the exact 

flight configuration. What is your reaction to that at this point and recognizing that 

you don't have all the facts at this point? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, since you addressed the question to me, it 

just turns out that we have had a lot of discussions with Admiral 

Truly and his colleagues on that subject. That is a reasonable thing 

to request. By the way, it has been looked at in some depth ever 

since I have been here and probably long before. 

It is a reasonable thing to do, particularly if you test it vertically right side up. Of course, that is a little difficult because you have to 

have a holddown system of some kind. To test it upside down, I am 

not sure that is a reasonable test. Then, of course, the thrust goes - up in the air. 

Having said that, we are still looking at the problem and giving 

it the studv that it deserves. and I can tell vou this. that if Admiral 

Truly andlhis colleagues have come up with any good scheme for 

doing that, I would be surprised, but I hope I am surprised. Go 

ahead, Dick. 

Admiral TRULY. If I could, let me tell YOU brieflv where we are, 

and we can go into it in more detail tomorrow if"you would like: 

We are already doing precisely what the Commission report said. I 

spoke yesterday on the phone to a couple of the Commissioners so 

that when we get to our recommendation, we can get to the individuals on the Commission who discussed this from a technical 

point of view and try to get it together. The most important part of that recommendation is not really the difficulty of doing the test because even though it is going to 

cost a lot of money and take a lot of time and probably slow us 

down, but which is the proper configuration on the basis of technical merit that we should do the full-scale testing. 

In preparation for this hearing, I spent a good bit of time on the 

telephone with the people who are doing that work and it is not 

complete, but that is precisely what they are doing. They are looking at, for example, between the horizontal and the two vertical 

configurations, they are looking at things like how well can you 

measure thrust, what sort of a range can you vector the TVC, the 

gimbling of the nozzle in the two configurations and, most impor- tantly probably in this situation, the loading on the joints in the 

two, actually, the three configurations, what would be the best 

from the point of view of joint dynamics. 

Beyond that, you sort of drift into the problems of it. For example, there is one other, and that is the assembly, in other words, 

which of the two configurations would be the proper one or the 

most conservative one as compared to the failure that we had. 

So, I am confident that we are very fairly looking at that, and we 

are going to look hard at it. I believe that vertical testing could be 

done. We have looked at approximately 10 sites around the country that I can tell you about. We have a preliminary estimate of what 

we could do at each of them. It would be a mighty effort to do it, 
214 

but if it is necessary to do, we will do it. But the first question is, 

should we do it, and that is the way we are approaching it. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Walgren. Mr. WALGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I realize it has 

been a long day for everybody, and I have had to be absent as well. 

I apologize for raising points that might have been covered, but I 

feel I should and I am troubled by one area. 

That is this balance between looking back with recrimination or 

blame versus going forward. What I am concerned about is that apparently there is widespread agreement that the mindset in NASA 

has to change. I am concerned that the new start won’t have that 

much of a difference unless we really do assess responsibility. I 

wonder whether NASA is prepared to look at this sequence of 

events and assess the kind of responsibility that I think would be 

needed to change a mindset and change an attitude. 

The head of the Commission, Mr. Rogers, said that in talking to 

someone at NASA it was like there hadn’t been any accident, and 

that is a direct quote from him here before this committee yester- day, and that is what I am trying to get at. 

I wanted to ask, Dr. Fletcher, you said in your press release in 

response to the Commission’s report that the criticism was not, and 

I think I quote, “completely undeserved.” You don’t mean to imply 

that there was an undeserved criticism in the report by that quali- fication, do you? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Walgren, remember that that statement was 

made after having received the report only a few hours. I think 

there was maybe at most 4 hours between the time I received the 

report and the time I made the statement. And, naturally, you 

want to cover yourself. As far as I know now, there is no part of 

that report that wasn’t deserved. 

Now, that isn’t to say that I have read it so much in detail that 

every word and adjective and so forth I agree with, because I can’t 

really say that, but by and large, the report and the harsh criticism is deserved by NASA. 

Mr. WALGREN. One of the recommendations was that there be 

tape recordings of some of the conferences where the decisions to 

launch might be made and where reservations should be made. Mr. 

Boehlert made the point that certainly that would create a record 

that you would be able to go back on, and heaven forbid that we 

should ever have to. 

I think one of the most interesting things about that is that I 

sense that somehow or other the shuttle and its mission are so 

overwhelming that it is hard for a mere individual to get in the 

way. I think when I look back on some of this record, I can see the 

size of the project, the momentum of the project, and the importance of the project, having a kind of momentum that seems to 

override the individual. 

I wanted to ask that that recommendation of tape recording be 

very deeply considered by NASA because I think the one thing it 

would do is it would elevate the individual and encourage them to 

play their role at whatever point to the fullest knowing that someone might look back on it, but not so much as a tracking device but 

as a mechanism to empower the individuals that are making these 
215 

kinds of decisions because of the psychological momentum of the 

program itself. Do you have any thoughts on that? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Walgren, one thing that you said earlier, I 

think, really is important to say again, and I will say it a different 

way. If we haven’t learned by that tragic mistake, we haven’t done 

our job. That is the way we learn. I am sure there were places in 

the organization where there was not the appropriate motivation 

or, as you say it, the appropriate sense of responsibility. We can’t 

make this very complicated machine work without everybody in 

the decision loop feeling that responsibility and being motivated 

not to make a mistake. 

A recording of his conversations is possibly one way we should 

consider to make sure that people do feel that responsibility. There 

are a lot of other things we have to look at as well. 

Mr. WALGREN. IfI might, one other question, Mr. Chairman, and 

that would be in one of the Thiakol memos, they talk about the 

possibility of a near-term fix of the 0-seal problem or the O-ring problem and being based on shimming the joint differently than 

apparently it was planned originally. The Thiakol memo is dated 

August 20-something, and they say we ought to do the near-term 

shim fix on the flight that is scheduled after STL-25 which was 

scheduled to go August 22 at the time. 

My point is that there was indication that there was a very nearterm interim improvement that could be made on the O-ring problem. The question is whether that improvement was made on this 

shuttle flight that took off some 8 months later and, if not, why 

not? 

Admiral TRULY. Do you know? 

Captain CRIPPEN. To the best of my knowledge, it was not. The 

proper gentleman to probably answer that question is John 

Thomas tomorrow who did lead the accident analysis-- 

Mr. ROE. Well, if the gentleman would yield at that point and 

the gentleman from Pennsylvania would indulge me, I think that it 

is important to keep our continuity. I know you were at two other 

hearings. We are bringing those folks in tomorrow who are directly 

related to that. So, I think it would be more profitable to get the 

factual information rather than conjecture, if that is reasonable. 

We will take that up first thing tomorrow. I think it is appropriate. 

Mr. WALGREN. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very 

much. 

Mr. ROE. I think it would be more productive. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania again for his excellent participation. 

We are going to quit now. I want to thank you all for being extraordinarily patient and very understanding and very up front. I 

like that. I think there have been some difficult questions today, 

and I think we have all been pursuing them, and I think you have 

equated yourselves very, very well in the new management team 

that is heading up NASA. 

I would hope that tomorrow, as we had discussed, we will meet 

at 9:30. It would be again very desirable to have Dr. Fletcher and 

Dr. Graham and Admiral Truly and all of you here tomorrow as 

we go through the next step. The next step now is to detail through 

the task forces you have set up and go through that drill. I think it 
216 

is important for members to understand exactly what happened 

there which we are talking about. 

I would like for you to think about this for tomorrow afternoon. I 

know that it would be inappropriate for you to be in a position of 

making policy decisions because it is not your prerogative. It is certainly not this day anybody’s until all the facts are unfolded. 

However, I think that as we go through the phase that we are 

going through now in dealing with the technological factors, safety 

factors, and beginning to mature some thought processes as it relates to improving the management efforts which have been discussed in depth today that the final leg of our journey is going to 

be what the policy positions are going to be. 

There are different people, of course, who have different views as 

to what policy should be. Some people say we should have a balanced fleet, some people say we should not build the fourth orbiter, 

some people say what do we do with three if we don’t build the 

fourth, will we be able to do the space station, what about the satellites that are sitting in warehouses now, and so forth. So, there is 

a universe of knowledge and fundamental basic information that 

has not yet been presented into the debate. Most of it has been conjecture to this point and, rightfully so, the Commission took the 

point of view that that was not their charge under the President’s 

directive. I think that is a statement of fact as to where we are 

now. 

However, I would hope that as the members unfold their questions tomorrow, those are some of the questions that should be 

asked so that we can begin to see in both a short-range policy point 

of view and a long-range policy point of view what are the facts 

before the Congress. In other words, it would be things such as if 

we have the three orbiters, why three? Why not two? Why not ten? 

I don’t mean to be facetious. I think that is something that ought 

to be laid out before the American people. 

I think the next point is, what is the relationship when we start 

talking about time and cost as it relates to the space station, the 

experimental phases, and the different things we are looking to 

achieve in the space station situation per se? The idea if you are 

going to be limiting, if we only have a fleet of three shuttles or four 

shuttles, what does that mean from an objective point of view as 

far as payloads are concerned, particularly in light of the safety 

factors and the re-review that you so well testified to here today. 

So that we could get some observations, at least, factual observations based upon the information that is available to us that we 

can at least have some foundation for a thought process to develop 

by the committee as far as long- and short-range policy would be 

concerned. 

So, I wanted to alert you to that for consideration, because some 

of those questions will be propounded by different members tomorrow afternoon. 

I want to thank you very much for being with us. The committee 

will stand adjourned, and we will meet again tomorrow at 9:30. 

[Whereupon, the committee recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., 

on Thursday, June 12, 1986.1 
INVESTIGATION OF THE CHALLENGER 

ACCIDENT 

(Volume 1) 

THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1986 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:35 a.m., in room 

2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Roe (acting 

chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Mr. ROE. The committee will come to order. 

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is the third day in the 

Science and Technology Committee’s series of hearings to investigate the shuttle Challenger accident. We have had 2 very produc- tive days so far, the first with Hon. William Rogers, Chairman of 

the President’s Commission on the Space Shuttle Accident, and the 

second with NASA Administrator, Hon. Jim Fletcher and Admiral 

Truly and his staff. Dr. Fletcher is back today and we appreciate 

his joining us again, accompanied by Adm. Richard Truly, Mr. 

Arnold Aldrich, and joining the NASA group for this hearing is 

Mr. J.R. Thompson, Vice Chairman of the NASA Task Force. In 

addition, we will be hearing today from the six NASA task teams 

that supported the Rogers investigation. That means we’re going to have 12 reports this morning, I think. 

I believe that our initial progress and pace has been good, and I 

look forward to continuing our momentum. The committee’s task is 

to conduct an incisive and comprehensive inquiry into the Challenger crash, using the report of the Rogers Commission as an important basic foundation. Our objective in doing so is to provide for 

a constructive change in the Nation’s space operation to ensure its 

future progress. So again, we want to thank you, Dr. Fletcher and Admiral Truly 

and Mr. Thompson and Mr. Graham-Dr. Graham, rather-for 

your excellent cooperation yesterday. We’ve gotten good reports. Members feel comfortable with the progress we’re making. And 

then, as we had planned yesterday, our program would be to take 

and now review in a little more depth, from a technical point of 

view, the work that your task force had done in coordination with 

the Commission to kind of close that gap between our review and 

your presentation. And then we would continue this afternoon on 

additional questions and answers, and see if we can conclude that 

phase of the work today. 

(217) 
218 

[The prepared opening statement of Mr. Roe follows:] 

OPENING REMARKS OF HON. ROBERT A. ROE 

This is the third day in the Science Committee’s series of hearings to investigate 

the Shuttle Challenger accident. 

We have had two very productive days-the first with the Hon. William Rogers, 

Chairman of the President’s Commission on the Space Shuttle Accident-the second 

with NASA Administrator, James Fletcher. 

Dr. Fletcher is back today, accompanied again by Admiral Richard Truly and Mr. 

Mr. Arnold Aldrich. Joining the NASA group for this hearing is Mr. J.R. Thompson, 

Vice Chairman of the NASA Task Force. In addition we will be hearing today from 

the six NASA Task Teams that supported the Rogers investigation. 

I believe that our initial progress and pace have been good, and I look forward to 

continuing our momentum. 

The Committee’s task is to conduct an incisive and comprehensive inquiry into 

the Challenger crash, using the report of the Rogers’ Commission as an important 

foundation. Our objective in doing so is to provide for constructive change in the 

nation’s space operations to insure its future progress. 

America needs a sound and successful space program to carry it into the 21st Century. We are here to assure that this will happen. Gentlemen, welcome. 

I want to recognize Congressman Lujan, the Ranking Republican on the Science 

Committee. 

Mr. ROE. Without further ado, I recognize the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico, the Honorable Mr. Manuel Lujan. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have an opening 

statement. I’d like to move right on. 

Mr. ROE. Very fine. 

Dr. Fletcher, we defer to you. 

STATEMENTS OF DR. JAMES C. FLETCHER, ADMINISTRATOR, 

NASA; REAR ADM. RICHARD H. TRULY, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SPACE FLIGHT, NASA; ARNOLD D. ALDRICH, MANAGER, NATIONAL SPACE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM, NASA; 

J.R. THOMPSON, VICE CHAIRMAN, NASA TASK FORCE, NASA; 

REPRESENTATIVES FROM NASA’s TASK TEAMS: DAN GERMANY, 

THOMAS HOLLOWAY, JACK LEE, JOHN THOMAS, THOMAS 

UTSMAN, COL. EDWARD O’CONNOR, USAF 

Dr. FLETCHER. I’d like to defer at this time to Admiral Truly, 

Mr. ROE. Admiral Truly. 

Admiral TRULY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Shortly after the accident, I recognized very quickly that what 

was needed was a good organization within the NASA task force, 

which I briefly mentioned yesterday, and I needed some full-time 

help from someone who could pull the task force’s day-to-day activities together, and quickly came upon Mr. J.R. Thompson to my 

right, here. Mr. Thompson was a former employee at the Marshall 

Space Flight Center during the development phase; he was a 

project manager for the space shuttle’s main engine project; and is 

now at the Plasma Physics Laboratory at Princeton University. 

J.R. Thompson agreed to come on with the task force full time and 

just recently, with our conclusion, is now back up at Princeton and 

is here today to take you through an overview of the technical investigative activities that the task force did in support of the Presidential Commission. 

who will introduce his associates. 

So I would like to turn it over directly to him. 

Mr. ROE. Dr. Thompson. 
219 

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman-- 

Mr. ROE. You’re going to have to pull those mikes in. They’re not 

quite as sensitive; you have to get pretty close. 

Mr. THOMPSON. By way of introduction to today’s agenda, I’d like 

to highlight and summarize the organization that Admiral Truly 

put together in support of the investigation conducted by the Commission. So if I could have the first chart. 

With myself and Admiral Truly providing the overview, with 

Bob Crippen from the Johnson Space Center, Col. Nate Lindsey, 

Joe Kenvin, and Walt Williams, the NASA task force was structured as you see on the chart with six teams, four of which were 

direct analogs of teams supporting the Commission. The development production team, headed by Jack Lee of Marshall Space Flight Center; the prelaunch activities team by Tom Utsman at the 

Kennedy Space Center; the accident analysis team-I provided the 

overview leadership for that, but the driving motivator and worker 

in terms of getting the job done at Marshall Space Flight Center 

was John Thomas; the mission operations team, by Tommy Holloway of Johnson Space Center; and the search, recovery, and 

reconstruction team by Col. Ed O’Connor from the Air Force; and 

the photo and TV support team, by Dan Germany of Johnson 

Space Center, that you heard yesterday. 

Just in terms of the end product of the work that was done by the task force, we delivered to the Commission on April 18 some 47 

volumes of reports. We completed the answer to some 247 action 

items that were formalized by the Commission. Col. Ed O’Connor 

and his recovery team with the Navy, and a rather outstanding 

force, recovered some 215,000 pounds of debris, which represents 

slightly over 25 percent of the shuttle vehicle. 

During the course of our support work with the Commission, we 

conducted some 20 different, separate, individual tests-rigswhich ended up being over 2,000 tests in terms of analyzing the 

data and what went wrong during the mission. This was not done 

just by the task force. Including many NASA people throughout 

the various centers and the contractor personnel at any one time, 

there were approximately 6,000 people directly supporting the task 

force, which was then supporting the Commission. So a lot of 

people certainly put on a lot of long hours to support this activity. 

I think we came to the right conclusion. Certainly, the task force 

embraces the conclusions drawn by the Presidential Commission; 

and to get into that data, we would like to start with a summary of 

the time line. I think you heard from Dan Germany more yester- day on that, but we would like to summarize that, which I believe 

would be a natural lead-in to the accident analysis team. That pres- entation is going to be given by John Thomas, followed by Jack Lee 

and the production development team, and then the mission oper- ations team and the prelaunch activities. 

We will not present a presentation today unless you require one 

from the search team because of your extensive review of that 

hardware at the cape, but we stand by to answer any questions that you have in that area and have some backup material if you 

need it. 

If there are any questions of me-if not, then we will proceed directly with a summary of the time line by Dan Germany. 

Mr. ROE. Well, you might want to clarify for the record-if the 

gentleman will yield for a moment-as was explained yesterday by 
220 

Dr. Fletcher and Admiral Truly, this high-level team-teams-of 

expertise in these particular various assignments worked in coordination between NASA, the agency per se, and under the direction 

of the Commission so that the Commission’s reports, efforts that we 

have received, is a product of these particular coordinated activities. And that, I think, we have to get on the record. I want to close 

that gap; isn’t that what we’re doing here? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Yes, sir. Let me speak for the task force; that is 

very much true. We worked very closely with the Commission, answered, to my knowledge, any action that they gave us, and provid- ed them quite a bit of data. 

Mr. ROE. Dr. Fletcher. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Chairman, Dr. Graham, of course, was here 

when this was going on, and I think he can clarify the relationship between the task force and the Rogers Commission. He was closer 

to the Rogers Commission during that time. 

Mr. ROE. OK. Dr. Graham. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

When the Presidential Commission was set up, we had discussions with them as to how NASA was going to support their investigation. It became clear in those discussions early on that they intended to break their activities into a number of subcommittees. 

This was within the first week of their establishment. At that 

point, we worked with them to follow the identification of specific subcommittees and specific tasks that they were going to put together. Then when we put together our formal support teams, we 

mirrored the intentions and the areas that those Presidential Commission task force subcommittees were going to pursue as closely 

as we could. So we tried to make a structure within our own work 

which was closely enough a reflection of what the Presidential 

Commission was going to do that we could have easy and direct 

channels of communication between each of our groups and the 

subcommittees of the Presidential Commission. That was reflected 

in the first four working groups or task force groups that you see 

on the chart; the other two were then support to the entire oper- ation, and we maintained direct communications across those 

under the specific arrangements that Admiral Truly set up throughout the investigation. 

Mr. ROE. So therefore, the work that we’re about to review now 

closes the gap between the expertise and the work that the NASA 

task force teams did for themselves and for the Commission? 

There’s no gap between those two, no information gap between 

those two? 

Mr. GRAHAM. There was no information gap, Mr. Chairman. We 

responded to all requests of the Commission. In addition, when we 

felt there was an area of investigation or study that needed to be 

done that the Commission hadn’t specifically recommended, we 

went ahead and pursued it anyway in the technical and accident 

investigation area. We made the results available to them and, 

from time to time, we suggested to them specific issues or areas 

that they might wish to pursue. So we attempted to keep as close a 

coordination between the two activities as we possibly could. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, if I may? 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from New York. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. If I just may, I’d like to ask Admiral Truly a 

quick question. 
221 

Was there any limitation placed on the resources that were made 

available to you for this important assignment? Admiral TRULY. No, sir, there were not. 

Mr. BOEHLERT.hank you. 

Mr. ROE. Dr. Thompson, you may proceed. 

I just want for the members’-for the record, and for the members’ information-that we’ve closed-there’s no gap that lies between this testimony and the Commission’s testimony. That’s the 

point I want to make. 

Dr. Thompson, if you would be so kind? 

Mr. THOMPSON. At this point, then, we would like to proceed di- rectly with the time line summary by Dan Germany of the Johnson Space Center. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Germany. Mr. GERMANY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committeethe first chart, please. This is really the second piece of the activities that the photo and 

TV Team worked with during the accident investigation. Yesterday 

you saw the film that we had, so today I want to just briefly run 

through the time line that goes along with that particular film 

that you saw, really for two reasons; one, for the record, and then 

to provide you some information as you go through your deliberations, and it can help you understand better some of the activities 

that you’ll be seeing from the other teams. 

Next chart, please. This is a chart of the vehicle coordinate system that we used, 

and the X axis is the axis that runs along the vehicle itself. As you 

can see, in the front part of that, any time you have a roll maneuver, it’s about that X axis. And then, the Y axis is the horizontal 

one that you see there. And any time you see a pitch maneuver on 

the vehicle, it’s going to be about that particular Y axis. And then 

the Z axis of the vehicle is the vertical one on the chart there, and 

any time you have a yaw maneuver it’s about that particular Z 

axis. 

Next chart. 

Now, this time line-I’ve got four charts that we’re going to summarize for you. And let me kind of walk through the graphics of 

the chart before I get into the details of it. 

The bar column in the middle is time, and you read it from the 

bottom of the chart to the top of the chart. So zero at the bottom is 

ignition command of the solid rocket motors, and it goes all the 

way up on this chart-we show 22 seconds. And each of the columns that you see, starting on the left, the column entitled 

“camera,” just gives you an idea what each of the camera numbers 

are for which we’ve pulled the sequences which you saw yesterday. And then the next column, “photographic event,” is a verbal description of what we saw from the particular-either TV or films. 

The next column, MET-MET means Mission Elapsed Timeand that’s referenced back to the zero ignition command. We’ve got that on both sides of the vertical bar because on the left side of the 

chart is “photographic activities”; on the right-hand side of the 

chart is the instrumentation that went along with the particular 

photography that we saw. 

Now, this chart is the first one that shows the first activities that 

were anomalous from a photographic point of view that has to deal 

with the smoke, and at 0.678 seconds there, you see we confirmed 

smoke. And then we talk about the multiple puffs of smoke that 

64-295 0 - 86 - 8 
222 

happened. And after that, at 2.7 seconds and 3.3 was the last time 

we saw the smoke. 

Next chart. 

Mr. ROE. Would it be profitable for the people that are here, if 

somebody had a pointer and was just pointing this out as we went 

along? I think that might be helpful, because everybody doesn’t 

have the advantage of having a copy of your-- 

Mr. GERMANY. OK. Crip, would you mind pointing? 

Now, this particular chart indicates that, really, nothing was 

happening in that second period of time from the 3.3 seconds up to 

58 from a photographic point of view. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Germany, can I interrupt you again? 

Mr. GERMANY. Sure. 

Mr. ROE. Let’s go back to the first chart and start over again. 

Mr. GERMANY. All right. 

Mr. ROE. I think it’s very important because the first phase on 

the left-hand side, where we’re talking about the photographic 

events, you’re in effect following in sequence here, in chart form, 

what we viewed yesterday by photography. 

Mr. GERMANY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. ROE. And it might be well just to reiterate that as we’re 

going on because it gives a sequence that’s very important to lateron conclusions, if you don’t mind doing that over again. 

Mr. GERMANY. OK. 

At 0.678 seconds is where the first time that we saw the smoke. 

And then, from 0.8 up to 2.4 is where we saw the multiple puffs 

that you saw on the film yesterday. And then at 2.7 seconds was 

the last time we saw smoke above the right SRB ET attach ring. 

And what that is telling you is that, if it was no longer above it, 

that means essentially the smoke was not replenishing itself, so the 

joint was tending to heal itself. 

So the next point up, at 3.3 seconds is when you see the last positive visual indication, and it’s below the ETF dome. So now the vehicle is moving, and you no longer see anything going in the plus-X 

direction; so therefore, the joint has essentially healed itself for 

this particular time period. OK, next one. 

So during this period of time here, from 35 up to 54, we’re seeing 

nothing from an anomalous point of view. 

Next one, Tommy. 

OK. From 58.7 up to 64.7 is where we see the next series of 

events that occurred. And what’s happening in this series is, the 

first evidence of flame occurred at 58.7 seconds. And let me just 

kind of verbally describe what this chart is going to tell you here. 

The flame started, the first time we saw it, and then it started to 

flicker a little bit. And as it-from a flickering point, it became 

continuously and well defined at 59.2 seconds, so that’s telling you 

the flame is progressively getting larger and is becoming constant. 

And then, later on, at the 60.2 second period is where it is attaching itself to the ET 2058 ring frame. Now, what this is telling you is that now the flame is impinging upon the ET, and from this 

point on is when you’re going to start to do the damage to the external tank itself. 
223 

The result of that is shown at 64.6 seconds-Crip, if you couldright there, is the first indication of the leak at the 2058 ring 

frame. So this is telling you now that the external tank is beginning to leak as a result of the impingement of the flame upon the 

tank, OK? 

Next chart, please. 

So the leak has started now, and we didn’t really see anything 

else from an anomalous point of view from that point until we get 

to the 73.1 second point, and that is the LH-2 tank failure. When 

the LH-2 tank failed-and if you’ll look at the right-hand side of 

the chart, Crip, at 72.2, start the divergent yaw rates-the R means 

right and the L means left-the difference between the right-hand 

booster and the left-hand booster. Now, the right-hand booster is 

starting to move away as it broke off, and you saw-you remember 

the CAD picture yesterday, when we saw it rotating like that? So 

the booster is breaking away, and the LH-2 tank has failed. 

Now, here’s what’s happening. When that LH-2 tank fails, you 

have a large-the hydrogen itself is coming out of the bottom of 

the tank. You get a little bit of an extra thrust rippling up through 

that structure. The right-hand SRB is starting to move, and it 

crunches into the inner tank area, as you saw yesterday; and when 

that happens, you lose the structural integrity of the external tank. 

And when that occurs, there’s nothing to hold the vehicle together, 

essentially, because it’s all tied together through the external tank. 

So that point on is when we get the-the structural breakup occurred, which we call the point at 73.3 seconds, greatly increased 

intensity, the white flash. This is where we feel the structural 

breakup occurred. 

And I believe that’s the last of the charts, and that’s just a brief 

summary for you, Mr. Chairman. Are there any questions? 

Mr. ROE. Are there any members that have a specific question on 

this first phase? 

Mr. WALKER. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Walker from Pennsylvania. 

Mr. WALKER. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I do have a statement 

here that I would like unanimous consent to put in the record. 

Mr. ROE. No objection; so ordered. 

[The prepared opening statement of Mr. Walker follows:] 
224 

OPENING REMARKS OF 

REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT S. WALKER 

RANKING REPUBLICAN MEMEBER 

SUBCONnITTEE ON SPACE SCIENCE 

AND APPLICATIONS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 12. 1986 

Good morning. Mr. Chairman. Today we move into a more 

detailed analysis of the Challenger accident. We have now 

heard from Secretary Rogers and have had the opportunity to 

read the report his commission has submitted to the 

President. We have also heard from the highest level of NASA 

management that they endorse the commission report. 

Last night the President of the United States indicated 

that he will seek a new orbiter to replace Challenger. That 

is good news for those of us who firmly support our space 

program. 

Having sat through several days of hearings and having 

read a great deal of material to get ready for these 

hearings, let me share some very important observations with 

you. 

“Any program, and particularly the largest and most 

complex research and development program ever undertaken by 

man ... must have schedule goals. The schedule is an 

essential and significant management tool -- without it the 

program would require more and more time and more and more 

money. 
225 

"Safety must be considered of paramount importance in 

the manned space flight program even at the expense of target 

dates. The earnest declaration that 'safety is our prime 

consideration' must be transfused into watchfulness so that 

people do not again stumble into the pitfall of complacency. 

NASA's creation of a Flight Safety Office with broadened 

capabilities and better lines of communication is a step in 

that direction. The. Congress, in the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration ... authorization act, directed the 

Administrator to appoint an Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel 

to review NASA's operational plans and advise the 

Administrator with respect to the hazards of proposed or 

existing facilities, proposed operations, and on the adequscy 

of proposed or existting safety standards." 

"It is not our intention to have the committee intrude 

unnecessarily in NASA's daily management responsibilities or 

to substitute congressional judgement on the innumerable 

matters requiring decision by the program managers. It is a 

practical impossibility for the committee to review all 

communications between NASA and its contractors. Clearly 

NASA must exercise discretion in determining what information 

it will call to the attention of Congress." 

"Nevertheless, the committee's investigation 

demonstrated that NASA must make a more concerted effort to 

alert Congress to major problem areas as the space program 

evolves. The serious contractor deficiencies noted ._. 
226 

should certainly have been reported to the committee at the 

time of the ... budget hearings, if not before." 

"We are disturbed at the possibility that, had there 

been no disaster, important shortcomings in the management, 

scheduling, design, production, and quality control might 

never have come to light." 

Mr. Chairman, those observations are important because 

they are direct quotations from the report of the Senate 

Committee which investigated the Apollo 204 Accident which 

occured on January 27, 1967. 

Hr. Chairman, I am astounded how accurately those words 

from two decades ago apply to the situation we face today. 

Just a few short blocks from NASA headquarters is the 

buildlng that houses our national archives. Engraved on the 

face of that building are the words of the philosopher who 

wrote, "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to 

repeat it." 

My concern, Mr. Chairman, is that history does not 

repeat itself, but people can repeat history. The Congress, 

and more specifically, this committee. has a duty to sear 

into the institution memory of NASA that these errors cannot, 

and must not be repeated. 
227 

Mr. ROE. Do you want to turn those lights on for the moment? 

Mr. WALKER. There is that long period of time, or a fairly substantial period of time, between the first puff of smoke and then 

the visible flame. Do we have a theory about what happened there? 

You said the joint appeared to heal itself. Do we have a theory about what that process was, of the healing? And then what rup- tured the joint again at approximately the 62 second point? 

Mr. GERMANY. Mr. Walker, let me do this for you. I’m going to 

give you a little bit of an answer, and then Mr. Thomas, who is 

going to be following me on the accident analysis team, will go into 

it in more detail. But since you ask it now, I’ll give you part of the 

answer right now. 

As the smoke occurred and the erosion started of the O-ring, we 

believe that what happened, a combination of the exhaust products and the vehicle dynamics stopped the twang in the vibrations after 

that first three seconds. It tended, then, to seal. And then, as it 

went later into flight, if you go through the MAX-Q region, which 

is maximum dynamic pressure, the vehicle starts the oscillation 

and the vibration again-- 

Mr. WALKER. When does that start? 

Mr. GERMANY. Well, MAX-Q occurred-let me just, so that I 

won’t have to guess the exact answer for you-MAX-Q occurred at 

59 seconds, maximum dynamic pressure. After that point, then we 

feel the erosion began again, and that accounts for that. Now, Mr. 

Thomas will go into more details for you if that satisfies you right 

now. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. Further questions? The gentleman from California. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think we’ve understood that the crew had no way, nor did 

ground control, have any way of knowing the progress of this 73 

seconds in terms of the anomalies. That’s correct, isn’t it? 

Mr. GERMANY. Yes, sir, that is correct. 

Mr. PACKARD. There were no monitoring systems that would 

have alerted them to the progress. At what point in time would-well, apparently there was no 

point in time where they could have shut down the motors-- 

Mr. GERMANY. No, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD [continuing]. And stopped the process of going, 

even had they known? 

Mr. GERMANY. That’s correct. 

Mr. PACKARD. They would have either had to have aborted and 

cut the shuttle away from the rest of the hardware, had they 

known, but that would have been the only thing they could have 

done, no way to have salvaged the mission. 

Mr. GERMANY. That’s correct. We didn’t have anything at all 

that would allow them to correct the situation or to leave the situation. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Barton. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you. I just have two quick questions. 

One, based on what you just said, how close, in spite of all the 

screw ups, did the mission come to not disintegrating? And two, if 

it wasn’t-were there some unusual wind shears that caused exces- 
228 

sive-I think you call it maximum-Q-that if it had been a normal 

wind situation, that wouldn’t have occurred? Does that make sense 

Mr. GERMANY. Well, I’m not sure I follow the questions directly, but the-- 

Mr. BARTON. I mean, it appears that there was a chance, in spite 

of the cold temperature-the ring did seal, and for a certain 

amount of time everything was working OK. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield, I think it would be more 

profitable-we’ve only seen the first blush; we’re going to have an 

analysis presented by the accident analysis team, and it might be 

better if we listened to what their analysis is, because the questions that we’re generating now relate to that issue, if that is satisfactory to the members. I think it would be more profitable, and we 

would at least have the full background before us. Is that all right? 

to you? 

So why doesn’t the gentleman hold on his questions? 

Mr. BARTON. I would like an answer to the first question. 

Mr. ROE. All right. 

Mr. BARTON. If they feel that the mission came close to being 

successful, in spite of all the problems. Admiral TRULY. Let me try and-the answer is no. We don’t 

know how the leak would have continued to grow had the vehicle 

not broken up where it did, but I know of no analysis that said that 

we could have sustained that unknown-that leak that was grow- ing at an unknown rate until separation, and that the axial thrust 

caused by the exhaust at the time of separation would have also 

created an unknown separation condition at the time of solid 

rocket motor separation. 

So the task force never was able to develop any conclusive data 

that would have shown that the mission could have been a success. 

You could postulate that, but we had no data. 

Mr. ROE. All right. 

Under those circumstames, I believe you will-is your next plan to have the accident analysis team’s observations presented by Mr. 

Thompson? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Suppose we proceed with that. 

Mr. THOMPSON. OK, John. 

At the time of the accident, Mr. Chairman, John Thomas was the 

manager of the Space Lab Program at Marshall, and he was instrumental in providing the leadership for this accident analysis team. 

And with the conclusion of our work, he is now leading the redesign activity on this joint on the solid rocket booster. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Thomas. 

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. We’ll have to pull those microphones closer because 

we’re having difficulty hearing. And it’s not your fault; it’s the 

microphones’ fault. We’re hoping NASA will design a new one for 

us in due course along the line. 

Mr. THOMAS. OK. 

Could I have the first chart, please? 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I’d like to discuss 

with you today our activities within the task force dealing with the 

topic of accident analysis. 

b 
229 

Next chart, please. 

And to set the stage for doing that, I would like to describe for 

you the approach utilized in the accident analysis process. It was 

structured from the very beginning, observing the incident, obtaining the flight data, the photovisual coverage and the observations 

from the flight. From that, we developed a fault tree, and that 

fault tree was constructed using the data from the incident, the 

anomalies we did observe early on, the observable vehicle failures-that is, the explosion-and all the failure sources that could 

produce such-- 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman please suspend? We have a call of 

the House. I don’t want to lose the continuity, but your testimony is too important and I want to keep it in continuity. So we will 

have to recess for 10 minutes and vote. And if everybody would 

please come back right away, because in 10 minutes time we’re 

going to proceed to go through this program in depth. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. Again, the committee will reconvene. We were just 

about to begin with the presentation by Mr. Thomas. If you’d be so 

kind as to begin again, sir. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman. Over here, Mr. Chairman. 

Before we start, I think it should be noted that our senior astronaut lost his position to an electronic pointer. [Laughter.] 

He was pointing out on the charts where the presenter-now 

he’s lost out to an electronic pointer. That just goes to show you 

the advance of technology. 

Mr. ROE. I missed that. OK. Are we ready? 

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I was in the process of defining the 

analysis approach that we implemented in the accident analysis 

team, beginning with the incident. And from the incident, developing a fault tree that included the anomalies, the vehicle failures, 

and the source of those failures, and that was for each and every element that was aboard the 51-L flight. Having defined the fault tree and the potential sources for cause 

of the failure, then we developed an incident data base, an accident 

data base, consisting of a large amount of design and qualification 

data, the assembly tests or assembly and build tests and checkout 

data, determined the flight environments, the data that was received from the flight on the downlink, and other data from the 

ground, the various tests and analyses that had been conducted 

and would be conducted in the future in a closed-loop fashion, as 

well as the recovered hardware and a detailed listing of anomalies 

that had been experienced in the past. Having this data base, then, we reviewed the data base and developed from that a number of scenarios that would have led to a 

structural breakup of the vehicle. We postulated the sequence of 

these scenarios and then evaluated their credibility. And in evaluating that credibility, it required that we do additional testing and 

analysis, which is also shown in the process, where we had special 

tests set up, special analytical models developed, as well as those 

that were existing at the time. And then we took the results of 

those, fed those back into the data base, and then cycled back 

through the scenarios. Having then an iterative process of testing 
230 

credibility of each one of the scenarios, finally winding up with conclusions of what we suspected to be the causes and the findings 

of the accident analysis panel. 

Next chart, please. Then to carry out this process, we established an organization that is listed under J.R. and myself in the top block. We established a group for each of the major elements; that is, the shuttle 

main engine, the external tank, the solid rocket motor, one for the 

solid rocket booster, and for those things that transgressed across 

all of those systems, a systems working group. We also treated the 

payload, which was an inertial upper stage and the TDRS satellite. 

We then had recovery support involvement down at KSC, and we 

kept very close with that. The photo analysis support was very important in this process in determining events and the times of 

those events to supplement the downlink instrumentation. 

In addition, the orbiter was thoroughly reviewed. The installation process, as well as the analytical process leading to payload installation into the orbiter, was reviewed and the Goddard Space Flight Center reviewed the TDRS and the other payload aboard 51- 

L, the Spartan. That is the major payloads that were in the bay. This group met-could I have the next chart, please? This group 

met continuously, were in session continuously, from the time of 

the accident. There were preestablished contingency plans in place for each one of these groups; they were implemented, particularly 

for the major elements, within hours following the accident, and 

were in session up-even prior to the formation of the task force, 

and then we carried forth with those. The task force was established in early March, and from that point forward-you can tell in 

the middle of the chart there those areas where we met with the 

Commission and preceding each Commission meeting, we had a 

very regular session with our counterparts on the Commission, 

called the accident analysis panel. 

Now, the other major milestone within this scenario of events is 

the 18th of April, and that’s the time that the report was prepared 

and submitted. 

Could I have the next chart, please? 

Now, proceeding into the analysis itself and the findings, first I 

would like to give you some very summary level findings, and then 

from there I will progress to describe each one of the findings and 

later on determine-or show to you the determination of the various failure mechanisms that caused the seal to leak. 

The first finding, of course, is that the right-hand aft field joint 

leaked hot combustion gas, and that was from the solid rocket 

motor, of course. And the second event, as Mr. Germany pointed 

out earlier, was that that leak contacted the external tank and 

weakened or penetrated the hydrogen tank. The hydrogen tank 

then was breached by this penetration or weakening, and it then 

initiated the process that led to the structural breakup of the total 

stack. 

And also in these findings, we determined that there was no 

other element of the STS or its payload which contributed to the 

cause of the accident. 

Now, if I could take those one at a time, and begin with the solid 

rocket motor description on the right-hand chart. You will see the 
23 1 

solid rocket motor up at the top. It is assembled at the factory in casting segments, of which there are four. You see the forward segment, and then aft, and those segments at the factory have what 

are called factory joints, and they are covered over with insulation 

and propellant, as delivered to the launch site. At the launch site, 

the solid rocket motor is assembled using these four segments. And 

as each segment is joined, there is a field joint; and the field joint, 

as shown by arrows emanating from each of the three, it shows a 

cross section of the field joint down below that. 

Mr. ROE. May I interrupt you and ask you a question, there? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Is the configuration and the structure of the factory 

joint the same material makeup, other than the sealing insulation 

on the outside, as would be the field joint? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. In other words, it’s still an O-ring type of configuration, 

but it’s sealed in the factory? Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you. 

Mr. THOMAS. On the left screen I’ve shown a colored cutaway of 

the field joint, and if I could start on the right-hand side of that, is 

the propellant in the red; the insulation in blue; and there is a 

liner that is shown in gray, there. The brown between the insulation is vacuum putty, and the metal parts then, are shown-the 

clevis, which is in orange, and the case tang, which is in purple; 

and the O-rings that seal those two metal parts are in green. The joint is pinned together around a given joint by 177 pins that are 

shown in this schematic in yellow. Those pins are held in place by 

a metal band that goes around the circumference of the total vehicle, holding those pins in place, and that is covered over with cork, 

that is shown in green. You can see the leak check port also, in a 

lighter brown, that is utilized to leak-check the two O-rings. This joint configuration is the one that failed, and the failure 

mode was that the gas came through-our analysis is that the gas 

came through the putty, between the insulation. The O-rings 

leaked; the gas then either went down around the tang in this direction, down here, and out, and as the metal heated, up-or the 

hot gas exited here-the hole then became larger. Or, as the gas 

came down and out this area right here, and the tang was overheated, and the emanation of the hole was at that point. At any 

event, the hole-which I will describe to you shortly-began at this 

joint. 

May I have the next chart, please? 

This is a photograph of the recovered hardware from this par- ticular right-hand aft field joint, and the photograph is taken looking from this direction into the-from inside out. It is the top part, 

here, represented by this schematic. This is the hole here, and that 

is what one can view here. These are the pinholes, as you can see, 

those pins right there, on this side and along the bottom here. The 

white is the insulation; this black is the propellant as it has burned 

forward, and this is the actual melted metal. 

This is at approximately the 300 degree position on the spacecraft. 

Next, please. 
232 

This is the lower half of this joint, that is, this part, depicted schematically here. This is the hole that goes from this point to 

this point, and that’s approximately 33 inches. Again, the propel- lant, the insulation, and the metal. There is a secondary hole in 

the metal at this point that we believe occurred or penetrated very late; in fact, after the 73-second time period, due predominantly to recirculation around the external tank attach ring on the outside. 

It was, we feel, an outside-to-inside burn through. 

May I have the next charts, please? On the left is a sketch of the vehicle looking forward, with the 

right-hand solid rocket motor here, and the leak that I was just talking about from a circumferential standpoint occurred at this 

point right here, then contacted the external tank in this radial location, and from then forward to the dome, then exited the external tank. And that, longitudinally, is slightly around on the other 

side of that solid rocket motor. 

Next, please. I mentioned that we had prepared a fault tree for you earlier, 

and I have shown that at a very summary level on these two 

charts that are on the screen now. If I could just briefly explain the 

two screens. 

This one is the total summary fault tree, as you can see. It has 

the orbiter, the main engine, the payload, the external tank, and 

the solid rocket motor. This chart on the right screen takes these 

two elements of the fault tree and gives you an indication of the 

next tier or the next level of detail that was postulated that could 

have caused the failure. 

The color code with respect to understanding the chart, the 

green represents an improbable cause; the red, a probable cause; 

and the yellow, a possible cause. And this fault tree, we started-in 

fact, you start and go backward in the development of a tree and 

test it, then in the opposite direction. We started with the total 

breakup. We observed the external tank breakup, and then we pos- tulated those things that could have caused that, the orbiter, and 

so forth. Then the next level down would be to determine what 

within, for example, the external tank could have produced that 

observation there, and that was damage at liftoff, premature-that 

is the range safety system, called a linear shaped charge-destruc- tion, a structural flaw, or an overload could have caused structural 

breakup of a tank. And, in fact, we cleared all those as not being the cause of this accident. 

Then one would move down to the solid rocket booster and again consider loads; consider that the integrity of the pressure vessel 

was violated, and it also has a range safety system aboard. And we 

determined that it was not at fault. 

The red, then, the way one would follow this logically, is from 

here to here to here, and then back down, and then you get finally 

down to the point that we have a joint seal anomaly. The conclusion is, then, that there were no other contributors to 

the accident other than the solid rocket motor, and the solid rocket 

motor joint leakage. 

Now, what would then cause the joint to leak? And these are the 

factors that we determined to contribute to that leak. That is, the 

gap opening due to joint dynamics, and I’m going to go into these a 
233 

little bit further; but this first one, the dynamics; the joint temperature at launch, affecting both resiliency of the O-ring and the potential for ice in the joint; the joint damage and/or contamination 

during the assembly process; O-ring squeeze after mating-that is, 

as has been referred to, it’s also a static O-ring compression-putty performance, which is a pressure-holding capability, also referred 

to as pressure actuation time; assembly blow-holes, which can 

produce O-ring erosion. I’d like to take each one of those individually and describe it for you. 

Next chart, please. 

The gap that I have reference to when I say the gap opening is 

as shown right here, at the upper left-hand corner of this screen. 

This is a cutaway of the joint. In the static condition, the joint is in 

this configuration, relatively straight from tang to clevis, and the 

O-rings are located in here and the gap is the gap between thethis land between the O-rings, the O-rings and this tang. As the 

motor pressurizes, the ends of the clevis and the end of the tang tend to bow in this direction. And this is-the internal pressure, of 

course, is on the left side of the tang and clevis. This bows out, this 

bows out, and you put a bending moment in the clevis which 

causes the tang to move away from this inner clevis leg at this 

point, therefore, opening up the O-ring gap. That is what has been 

referred to as gap opening, and also rotation of the joint. 

Depicted also on the curves is time in thousandths of a second, 

and this is the gap opening at these points right here for the primary O-ring, which is located in this slot, and the secondary 0- 

ring, located in this slot. And as you can see, as the motor pressure 

builds up with time, these gaps begin to open and open at a fast 

rate, between 200 and 300 milliseconds after ignition, and finally 

wind up with the primary O-ring gap opening as much as 27 to 29 

thousandths and the secondary opening on the order of 15 to 17 

thousandths. And we believe that these, in fact, have a probable influence in the cause of the accident. 

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, could I ask a question there? 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. BARTON. Is that the normal performance of those O-rings, or 

was that the performance during the accident? 

Mr. THOMAS. I’m particularly describing the metallic part of the 

joint at this time, and it is normal. The O-rings in this case, which 

I will talk about a little bit later, in theory and in design should 

track that opening. 

Mr. BARTON. OK, but that is a normal occurrence in the flight, 

right there? 

Mr. THOMAS. That is. 

Mr. LUJAN. Mr. Chairman, I have a quick question. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. LUJAN. Is the maximum pressure time-pressure from inside 

the tank-is that concurrent with the maximum turbulence time? 

Mr. THOMAS. No, sir. The maximum pressure is immediatelyright after ignition, and it drops downward as you go toward the 

area-or the regime-of maximum dynamic pressure. Once 

through that, it builds back up slightly. 

Mr. LUJAN. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman will proceed. 
234 

Mr. THOMAS. The-it should be noted also that this aft joint is 

the-the aft joint on both sides of the vehicle-is, in fact, open less 

than those that are forward, and that is normal, as well. But we do 

conclude that this is a potential cause, in combination with the 

other effects, for the accident. 

If I could have the next, please. 

Joint temperature is, of course, a factor that must be considered. 

Tests show that the O-ring resiliency significantly decreases at the 

temperatures experienced on STS 51-L. The cold O-ring would not 

track the gap opening rate without pressure assist, and what I 

mean by that is that the pressure assist is pressure from the motor 

getting in the O-ring groove and forcing it to a closed position. 

There must be room in that O-ring groove for the pressure to enter 

that groove and provide the pressure assist. 

On the right-hand chart, I’ve shown the temperatures for the two 

lower joints, the aft field joints, for both vehicles, both SRB’s, the 

right and the left. The little insert up at the top shows the radial 

clocking on the right-hand solid rocket booster; the left-and as 

you can see, the right-hand solid rocket booster temperature 

around the periphery varied in the way that is shown here from 

about 30 degrees at that position; it built up as we go around between 90 and 180 degrees, and drop back down. The reason for this 

is-this is at time of launch, but at the time of launch, the sun 

angle was about from this direction, which put the sun on this side 

of this solid rocket motor. On the other side, it was shielded, on the 

left-hand side, and as you can see that was a relatively steady temperature, on the order of 30 degrees plus or minus 2 or 3 degrees. 

Analysis and tests indicated also that at these temperatures, that 

ice could be in the joint, and that would be formed from water that 

penetrated the joint during a rainstorm or inclement weather 

while the vehicle was on the pad. And we did show by analysis that 

ice could be at that location within the joint, and further tests 

showed that if ice was there, and should it freeze, it will unseat the 

secondary O-ring. 

I think it is needed to be pointed out that most all of the 51-L 

joints up the vehicle tended to follow this same temperature distribution pattern around the vehicle, although they would be slightly 

warmer. 

So we conclude from this that the joint temperature is a probable 

contributor to the cause, in conjunction with other factors. 

Next, please. 

During the assembly process, with the tight tolerances that we 

must maintain, there is the potential for some damage to the 0- 

ring or the metal, or there is the potential to create contamination 

that could affect the sealing performance. With respect to tightness 

of the tolerances at the locations that would be experienced during 

the 51-L, I’ve shown each one of the joints as they appear on the 

stack. The top one is the right-hand motor; the lower is the left; 

again, with the clocking. This location here on the right hand-as 

I’ve shown with this arrow-is the location where one would 

expect-either at this location or the one 180 degrees opposite-are 

the locations that one would expect damage during the assembly 

process, if it occurred because this is the location of the maximum 
235 

ovality as measured during the mating process between the two 

segments. You can see that this one is the worst; the others are less than 

that, as you look around the other five joints. Even with this process, we looked to see if there had been metal-to-metal interference, 

and analytically it would appear that there is no potential for overstressing the components, should that have existed. 

We also showed that by some subsystem testing, subscale testing, that contamination could be produced at that joint, but we had to 

work at it a great deal in order to produce that contamination. 

We have had some very, very limited experience of O-ring damage in ground tests; however, we believe that to be associated 

with the ground test assembly process and not necessarily directly 

applicable to the flight motor. But in-any event, it was possible to 

have created the contamination or damage, but we believe that 

with the care that was taken and with the dimensions that we actually measured, that it was improbable that contamination contributed to the 51-L accident. 

Next, please. A very important factor to be considered, particularly in conjunc- tion with cold O-rings and their resiliency, is the squeeze-that is, 

the degree of compression-of the O-ring around the joint. It 

should be noted also that, at this location where I pointed a minute 

ago that the maximum potential for damage could occur, this is 

also the maximum point of squeeze on the aft field joint for the 

right-hand motor, and that is also the point where we observed the 

leak, around the 300-degree position around the vehicle. So we find 

that these conditions, with this maximum dimensions, could 

produce max squeeze on the O-ring. 

Now, if one puts max squeeze on the O-ring, this then reduces 

the pressurizing volume that it might have within its groove, and 

as we have shown by subsystem testing, an initial gap between the 

O-rings and the tang of 20 thousandths, which was considered to be 

the nominal prior to 51-L, it would seal down to 10 degrees. And I 

guess I should stop now and explain my color code. 

The green is that the test that we performed would pass. The 

yellow as that we would have some leakage, but it would finally seal, and the red indicates that the joint would not seal at all. 

Down the left-hand side are the temperature ranges for which we 

tested; across the top are the pressures reaching the O-ring at the 

time of ignition, and the right-hand column is that the pressure is 

delayed some 200 to 500 milliseconds, which is associated with 

putty, that is the next topic. This is the squeeze of 4 thousandths on the O-ring. This is a 

nominal squeeze of 20, and if we can direct our attention to these 

two columns right here, it would show that with a 20 thousandths 

initial gap, that the joint would seal down to 25 degrees and there 

would be, then, the potential for some leakage, but it sealed down 

into this area; but it would not pass when we tested lower than 

zero degrees. With an initial gap of 4 thousandths-if I could skip one line for 

a second-4 thousandths, which is maximum squeeze, it showed 

that the joint-the confident sealing of the joint was only down to 

about a temperature of 55 degrees, and in this 40 to 50 degree 
236 

region, there was a question of whether it would finally seal. And 

then below 40 degrees, it was shown by these subscale tests that it 

would not. 

Now, these subscale tests are not finite in their discrimination, 

but they do give one enough information to describe the relative 

thresholds at which passing or failing would take place. 

In order to test the squeeze theory-that is, that the tighter the 

squeeze, the higher the operating temperature must be-we installed some tests which I do not have shown on the right-hand chart, but showing that with a 10 thousandths gap, that it would 

seal down to 25 degrees, which says that the threshold is somewhere-on the squeeze-from 4 to 10 thousandths of an inch. 

There is one other-- 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman. 

Mr. LEWIS. Might I ask when this squeeze test data was obMr. ROE. The gentleman is asking when was the squeeze test 

Mr. THOMAS. This particular data was obtained post-51-L acciMr. LEWIS. So you have nothing to compare it to prior to the inMr. THOMAS. No, sir, we do not. 

Mr. LEWIS. OK. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Mr. Chairman, could I ask a question? 

Mr. ROE. The gentlelady from Kansas. He’s almost finished, but 

the gentlelady from Kansas. Go ahead. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Well, in previous damage to the O-ring, because it 

had shown up in previous flights, had you been able to identify 

what was causing the trouble? Was it a squeeze or a burn or-- 

Mr. THOMAS. Earlier in the-those that you have reference to, I 

think, is the erosions and blowby earlier in the program, before 51- 

L? 

Mrs. MEYERS. Yes. 

Mr. THOMAS. Those were attributed, in every case, to a blowhole 

where the O-ring was eroded, to a blowhole in the putty that allowed a hot gas jet impingement or hot gas jet to impinge upon the 

O-ring and erode it. 

Mrs. MEYERS. So that-when you talk about the squeeze problem, 

that is a result of the cold temperatures? 

Mr. THOMAS. The squeeze, per se, is a result of the dimensions of 

the two mating motor cases and the mating process, how they come 

tained? 

data obtained. 

dent. It was during the investigation process. 

vestigation? 

__ together. 

Mrs. MEYERS. I understand that, but vou had said that the 

squeeze was not a factor previously, and so did that have something to do with the cold temperature? 

Mr. THOMAS. When I answered the previous question I did not 

intend to mean that it was not a factor previously, that it was not 

known to be a factor previously, prior to 51-L. 

Mr. ROE. Well, if the gentlelady will yield now, I want to finish 

this because we’re losing continuity. I want to finish this continuity, and then we’ll have ample time to get into depth because I 

know-I see here that there’s a series of questions that should 
237 

emerge here, and the gentlelady is right on target. But I’d rather 

wait and put them into context or we’re going to lose-we’re going 

to be all over the lot and we’re going to lose the context that I’m 

trying to create for the record. So if you would please bear with 

me, the gentleman would conclude. 

Mr. Thomas. 

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you. There is one other factor in this O-ring squeeze scenario that surfaced during the investigation, and that is that the cases, the case 

walls and diameters, appear to grow slightly-on the order of, say, 20 to 30 thousandths after four to five uses; this was determined 

during the investigation process, and that must be reckoned with 

for the future. 

The maximum squeeze is considered a probable cause, in conjunction with other factors. 

Next, please. The last factor that is considered to be in the probable category 

is putty performance, and tests showed the potential for putty to 

delay O-ring pressurization during the ignition process; however, 

that performance is variable. Sometimes it would delay the pressurization and sometimes it would-a hole would become in the 

putty, and it would pressurize immediately. This was further substantiated by the presence of blowholes in the putty prior to 51-L, 

and in 16 of the 138 joints. We also determined, during the investigation and the destacking of STS 61-G-which was a vehicle that 

was stacked after 51-L-it was found that several of the joints in 

the 61-G contained blowholes, which would have occurred during 

the assembly process, of course. Tests confirmed that delayed pressure actuation could result in failure of the seal. If it holds the 

pressure off by 250 to 500 milliseconds, the joint would fail at the 

max squeeze conditions and at the low temperatures. And that’s 

shown in the right-hand column of the chart on the right. Again, the green is pass. If we have maximum squeeze at 55 degrees, we 

delay the pressure 250 to 500 milliseconds; then it will-with 4,000 

squeeze, it will pass down to 55 degrees and down to about 40 degrees with nominal initial gap opening. But lower than that, the 

seal would not pass. So putty performance is a variable, and it is considered in the 

probable category. The last slide, please. 

We could not determine that any single causing mechanismsthat is, those that we just discussed-could be discerned. The 

damage and contamination at mating we believe to be improbable, 

but it takes a combination of others to form the most probable 

cause of the 51-L accident, and those are the gap opening, the 0- 

ring squeeze, the low temperature-either involving O-ring resil- iency, or ice in the joint-and the variability of putty. And the conclusion was that the joint must be redesigned to eliminate the effects of these conditions. 

And that is all I have, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I want to thank the gentleman for an excellent, indepth 

presentation. 

I think that we again have to vote, regrettably. Is the gentlelady 

from Kansas still here, Mrs. Meyers? 
238 

What we’ll do-because you were developing a good point-what we will do is to recess again so we can keep the continuity going, recess for 10 minutes. We’ll vote and return immediately, and then 

the Chair will defer to Mrs. Meyers to continue that process she 

was on in reference to the pressurization. So you’ll be up first 

when we return. 

So we’ll recess for 10 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. Members, I’m sure, are 

delayed, unfortunately, on the floor, but we’re going to go on. 

What I would like to do at this point, in view of Mr. Thomas’ 

presentation, I think that there has been considerable questioning that has emerged, as you know, over the last 3 or 4 days since we’ve begun the hearings in the specific area of this-in the specif- ic area which we’re discussing, and I think it would be profitable for us to review four or five of the elements that people have on 

their mind, and be done with this part of the issue as to really 

what happened in the accident per se, vis-a-vis the relationship of 

the O-ring plus temperatures and the other areas that we have 

been discussing. I know we have other representatives that have 

further testimony to give-Dr. Thompson-but we’ll take that up 

as we go along today. Now, having said that, for the record I would like this question 

just to get it into the record for anyone who chooses to answer it. 

Maybe, Dr. Fletcher, you might want to direct one of your folks. 

During the course of the photography that we reviewed yesterday, at 0.678 seconds, the black smoke was observed and there were 

seven or so puffs that followed, caused by-and then the question is, the burning of material. And now, for the record, what material 

do you believe was burning at the time? 

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, we believe that material that was 

burning was the insulation that is shown as NBR on that joint pho- tograph, and the grease, and possibly the O-ring to some extent. 

Mr. ROE. The question that follows on that answer, and that’s 

the answer that comes from the Commission’s report-given that 

the insulation is designed to protect the casing, how could it burn? 

Mr. THOMAS. The insulation was eroding; and by eroding, it 

burns down a little bit and flakes off, and burns down and flakes 

off. And in that process, it releases it and provides the insulation. 

Mr. ROE. The final question to this, for the record. Given the 

small volumes of the O-rings and the grease per se, how could so 

much smoke be produced, quantitatively? 

Mr. THOMAS. I speculate, Mr. Chairman, that that was the NBR, 

and there are ample amounts of NBR, the insulation. 

Mr. ROE. The insulation. A11 right. 

Now, in the course of the testimony that we’ve had, starting with 

Dr. Thompson and then yourself, Mr. Thomas, filling in, the areas 

that were covered fundamentally which I want to concentrate on 

are the joint situation, the weather situation, the putty situation, 

and in effect, I wrote down to myself, the torque situation, meaning 

the change of pressure because of the dynamics of the vehicle itself 

on the O-ring. OK? Those are the areas that people now are begin- ning to want to get into in more depth so that we can lay to rest 

once and for all any doubts and questions-and answer any ques- 
239 

tions, hopefully-that these folks may want to ask at this point, to 

get upon the record. Do you understand where I’m coming from? 

Now, therefore, I will defer to the ranking minority member, Mr. 

Lujan from New Mexico. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much. Thank you. 

Mr. Thomas, there is one thing in all of the readings and studies 

that comes to mind as something that might have happened, and I 

haven’t heard anyone talk about it yet. My understanding is that 

when you begin to stack everything together, you first stand the 

solid rocket boosters up-you know, pointing up-then you add to 

that the external tank, and then you add the shuttle onto that. Is 

that correct, the way that it’s all put together? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes. 

Mr. LUJAN. I further understand that after the external tank is 

put on, it is then filled with the fuel. Is that correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LUJAN. And that at the time that it is filled with the fuel, it 

is already attached to the solid rocket boosters. When it is filled, 

when the external tank is filled, the coldness of the fuel makes the 

external tank contract. My understanding is that it’s 4 inches that 

it contracts. 

When it does that, of course, it’s got to pull away from the solid 

rocket boosters 2 inches on each side, assuming that it’s all equal. 

Could that contribute-because the damage was near the struts 

that hold the external tank and the booster together-could that 

pulling away, those 4 inches by contracting the external tank, have 

contributed to the weakening in that general area? Was that studied in the entire process that you went through? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. We revisited all of the stacking loads as 

the vehicle was assembled to determine if there was anything in 

the process that caused us to exceed our design allowable limits, 

and that the stack configuration, as it sat on the pad with the propellants loaded, was analyzed. And it wsis determined that there 

were no unexpected or unusual loads produced prior to the 51-L 

liftoff. 

Mr. LUJAN. Well, but we’ve had the damage at that joint all the 

way along. My question is, is there a spring or something-if you’re 

going to move 4 inches, something’s going to give somewhere, 

where that strut is attached on both sides, whether that could be a 

contributing factor to the other 13 times that there was damage inside the joint. 

Mr. THOMAS. I don’t recall specifically what the shrinkage radially of the tank is, nor what it is longitudinally, but in the longitudinal direction is where it shrinks the most; that is, it gets shorter. 

And that is taken-the deflection there is taken into account by 

having the struts slightly at an angle, such that when it does 

shrink, they are up at the proper horizontal angle. And the preloading in the struts is accounted for in this shrinkage calculation, 

both radially and longitudinally. I just don’t happen to recall the 

numbers, sir. 

Mr. LUJAN. The struts aren’t rigid? 

Mr. THOMAS. The struts are hinged at each end. 

Mr. LUJAN. So that the up and down would be compensated for 

with those hinges-well, I’m not sure, now, whether it’s 4 inches 
240 

that it shrinks in circumference or not. My understanding was 4 

inches; now, it may be from top to bottom rather than-- 

Mr. THOMAS. I’d be happy to provide that for the record, sir. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 

Material requested for the record on page 48, line 1162 by 

Mr. Lujan on June 12, 1986. 

The external tank (ET) shrinks in both longitudinal and radial 

dimensions as it is loaded with cryogenics prior to launch. The 

shrinkage is accounted for in the external tank to the solid 

rocket booster (SRB) strut configuration and design loads. The 

forward struts are designed for longitudinal loads and remain 

stationary during loading. The AFT struts are for lateral 

(radial) loads. They are initially at a seven degree downward 

angle (SRB to ET) and move to a horizontal position as the ET is 

loaded. The seven degree angle change is equivalent to the 

longitudinal shrinkage of four inches. Unconstrained ET radial 

shrinkage is 3/4 inch. However, due to the strut configuration 

and loads, the physical radial shrinkage is 3/8 inch. 
24 1 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico. 

May I ask for just a clarification, again for the record. As I understand it, when the 0-ring-the joint and O-ring system was 

originally designed, that the understanding from an engineering point of view is that upon launching of the vehicle, that the torque 

or the pressures that were put up-I would say torque at that 

point-literally help to seal the O-rings. Wasn’t that the original conception in the early, original design? 

Mr. THOMAS. That is my understanding. 

Mr. ROE. That is what I think we heard testimony to. And then 

it was determined, after a point in space-you’ll pardon the euphe- mism; a point in time-it was then determined that instead of that 

occurring, that those pressures that evolved during the course of 

launching literally pulled away from the O-ring and worked the opposite. Do you recall that discussion? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. When was that-when was that latter phenomenon discovered? 

Mr. THOMAS. I don’t remember the chronological time, but it was 

around the time that the structural test article was tested at Marshall. It’s in the late 1970’s’ I believe. 

Mr. ROE. That’s what I’m trying to get at. So it was determined, 

from an engineering design point of view at a given time in space in 1977 or whatever, that instead of the pressure on those O-rings working “X” way, it was just the opposite during the launch because of countervening pressures, and it worked the opposite way? 

Is that a factual statement? 

Mr. THOMAS. That’s my understanding. 

Mr. ROE. OK. I think that’s important to keep in mind. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Kansas, Mrs. Meyers. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I-several of us up here, I think, were confused about the O-ring 

squeeze, and I thought that when the two parts were put together, that it was actually opened wider so that then the O-ring would 

not fill the gap and prevent the gases from going through, and 

that’s why I was asking the question, and was wondering whether 

that equipment had ever been involved before, or shown that kind 

of damage before. 

Mr. THOMAS. Regarding your first understanding there, as the 

two halves are mated, the squeeze on the O-ring around the circumference of the sealing surface will vary, but not to the point that it would create a gap between the O-ring and the sealing surface. It’s just a differential amount of squeeze as you go around the 

vehicle on the O-ring. So from that standpoint, it’s not a problem during the stacking process. What turns out to be a problem is that 

if you have maximum squeeze on the 0-ring-that is, maximum 

compression-in conjunction with cold temperatures, that is when 

the O-ring performance or the joint performance to seal degrades, 

because the fundamental problem with that is that you cannot get 

pressure behind the O-ring to actuate it to seal and the cold weather has prevented it from being resilient enough within itself to 

follow the opening of the gap as it rotates or as it opens during 

motor ignition. 
242 

Mrs. MEYERS. OK. 

Was the putty part of the original design, or was that something 

that was added later to protect the O-ring? 

Mr. THOMAS. It was in the original design, for that purpose. 

Mrs. MEYERS. As I understand it, Mr. Chairman, there was a 

briefing last August at NASA headquarters in Washington about 

the O-ring problem and Morton Thiokol briefed people in Washington about the O-ring problem. Who was at that briefing? 

Dr. FLETCHER. You’re asking people that weren’t at headquarters 

at the time. We may have to supply that for the record, unless 

somebody in the back row-can you? 

Mr. THOMPSON. I believe Mike Weeks was the senior man at that 

meeting, and Mike is here today. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mike Weeks is here, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. Well, that’s a statement of fact. Would you provide for 

the record who was at that meeting? I think that would be adequate. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Yes, sir. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 

Material Requested for the Record on Page 52, Line 1247, By Mr. Roe 

on June 12, 1986. 

Attendees at the August 19, 1985, O-ring Briefing at NASA 

Headquarters: 

-. MORTON-THIOKOL 

J. E. Mason 

C. C. Wiggins 

J. C. Kilminister 

A. 3. McDonald 

C. A. Speak 

F. J. Ross 

MSFC 

L. 6. Mulloy 

R. Schwinghamer 

HEADQUARTERS 

L. M. Weeks 

0. L. Winterhalter 

W. H. Hamby 

R. Bardos 

P. F. Wetzel 

P. N. Herr 

H. Quong 
243 

Mr. ROE. I’m trying to stick to the technical questions, now, so 

that we don’t lose the continuity. OK? 

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, I think that is a very important 

question, though, about who was at the meeting and what they 

were told. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield, there are a plethora of 

important questions just to be asked. What the Chair is attempting 

to do at this particular session, while we have the expertise here, is 

to take and establish a series of factual events as to the issues involved. We’ve got all afternoon and days and days to expand on 

that. While we’ve got these technicians that have been flown in 

from all over the country, I don’t want to lose the value of those 

technicians’ knowledge; while we’re asking questions that are germane, I want to deal with this issue today so that members clearly 

understand the technical issues so we don’t have to go back and 

revisit it 500 times, and then we’re going to get more work done. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Could I ask one more technical question? 

Mr. ROE. Yes, of course you can. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Ithink it was indicated in the report that the 

putty may have been dislodged or may not have stayed in place because of the testing once the rocket was put together. Is that accurate? 

Mr. THOMAS. After the segments are mated and they have the 

putty in between the joint, there is a leak check of the O-rings that 

is performed using the leak check port between the O-rings, which 

is pressurized to two pressure levels. An initial pressure is induced 

into this small cavity between the O-rings, of approximately 200 

pounds per square inch. That is to seat the O-ring. It is dropped 

back down to 50 PSI and locked up and monitored to see if there is 

a loss of that pressure, indicating an O-ring leakage. There was a 

postulation that this high pressure, the 200 PSI, may have blown 

by the O-ring before it seated, and then been trapped by the putty, 

and then continued to blow through the putty, creating a blowhole 

prior to ignition. And we have not been able to determine whether 

that is fact or not. That was only a postulation. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Thank you. 

Mr. HENRY. Would the gentlelady yield on that point? 

Mrs. MEYERS. Yes. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you. 

My understanding was that as the O-ring sealing problem 

became more and more increasingly apparent, that the pressurization levels were increased as kind of a fail-safe check on the seals. 

And as you increased up to 200 pounds per inch, as a preflight 

readiness and inspection you may have potentially negatively affected the putty variability. Am I correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. That is what the statistics show. 

Mr. HENRY. So you have a counterproductive safety program, as 

it were. The safer you tried to make it by that means, the more 

likely the accident, if we understand the problem correctly. 

Mr. THOMAS. Well, I think it’s important to note that the higher 

the pressure, the more the incidence of O-ring distress. Rut it did 

not appear to make that distress on an individual O-ring, to my 

recollection, worse. 
244 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York, 

Mr. Scheuer. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Thomas, according to the Rogers report, “Prior to the accident, neither NASA nor Thiokol fully understood the mechanism 

by which the joint sealing action took place.” We know there were 

a number of early warning signals from 1983, two different warnings in 1985 up to NASA headquarters, so they had an impressive 

body of evidence there that things had gone awry, that there was a 

very real problem that needed to be addressed. 

Now, I’m impressed by the report that you have assembled in the 

short 6 weeks since the tragic Challenger accident. I’m very impressed by the enormous data base that we now have about the 0- 

rings, the faulty O-rings and the field joint behavior. I’d like to 

know, how much did it cost to accrue this information since Challenger? How much personnel did NASA assign to that? And above 

all, for goodness’ sake, why wasn’t this work done after repeated 

early warning signals that emanated from Marshall but did go up 

to NASA central headquarters on at least three occasions, as outlined in the report, so that they were alerted, they should have 

known. My question is, Why wasn’t the remarkably fine work that 

you and the others have done in the last 6 weeks done before the 

tragic accident so that, as Admiral Truly testified yesterday-if 

this knowledge that you’ve accrued after 6 weeks of brilliant and 

dedicated and highly professional effort had been available to Admiral Truly and other decisionmakers before the Challenger 

launch, that launch certainly would have never taken place. So since they had the knowledge that things had gone awry, why 

didn’t they do over a period of several years what they’ve done 

very professionally and very successfully over a period of only a 

couple of weeks? 

Dr. FLETCHER. MrScheuer, I’d like to start that question. As you know, once an accident has occurred you can put your best talents 

and your large amount of resources in investigating that particular 

accident. Before the accident occurred, perhaps we should have 

been alerted, as you suggest, and-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Let me interrupt you, Dr. Fletcher. It’s not a question of, you should have been alerted. You were alerted. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I’m sorry, I-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. In 1983, information came up to NASA headquarters in Washington that things had gone awry. L. Michael Weeks 

signed a waiver of the fail-safe requirement for the joints, and 

headquarters was fully informed about the lack of redundancy in 

the joints. Then, in July 1985, in a memorandum from Irving 

David, it further shows that headquarters was again alerted to the 

seriousness of the joint problem, and in August 1985, Michael 

Weeks and others at headquarters were briefed again about the repeated failures of the O-rings. So you were alerted; so this isn’t just 

a problem of communications. 

There are plenty of fingers of blame, if we are in the business of 

fingerpointing. There are plenty of problems with decisionmaking 

at Marshall, and undoubtedly they should have taken corrective 

action based on the information they had. But it seems to me that 

we cannot exculpate NASA’s central headquarters from a major 
245 

share of responsibility here by saying, if they were alerted. You 

were alerted. Why didn’t this effort, this remarkably effective and 

professional effort that we’ve done in a matter of 6 weeks-why didn’t this take place in 1985? After the third warning that something was very much awry with the O-rings and the seal? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Excuse me, Mr. Scheuer. I didn’t mean to say, if I 

did, that we were not alerted. I’m just saying that maybe we should 

have taken that sort of intensive action at the time. And by the 

way, I think that your earlier statement is quite right; headquarters was at least as much to blame as other parts of the organization. I don’t think all of the responsibility should reside just at the 

Marshall Space Flight Center, and I have said that and I think everyone else that I know has said the same thing. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I’dlike either you or Mr. Thomas to tell us, how 

much did this effort cost that was made in the last 6 weeks to 

accrue this remarkably impressive data base? How many people 

were involved in the effort? How much did it cost? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Here, let me try to answer that. We’ve discussed 

that within the task force, and there’s a lot-well, there’s not a lot 

of rigor in this number, so let me just try to give you a ballpark 

estimate. And if you’re interested, Ill try to go back-or get NASA 

to go back-and try to-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, you’re using up valuable time, Mr. ThompMr. THOMPSON. It’s about $5 million. About $5 million would be 

my estimate to run the tests that we conducted during this investigation. 

Mr. SCHEUER. During this 6 weeks? 

Mr. THOMPSON. During about the 6 weeks where we maximized 

the test activity. 

Mr. SCHEUER. How many professional and scientific people were 

involved in that? 

Mr. THOMPSON. In the conduct of the test, in the analysis of the 

test? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Yes. 

Mr. THOMPSON. I’d say in the range of 200 people. 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, of course I’d yield, Mr. Chairman, but I can’t 

Mr. ROE. I’m going to give you more time later. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I yield, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I’m only trying to do something here, and I’d ask you to 

suspend on that because otherwise I would be breaking the continuity of my own arrangements. 

What I’d like to do is to ask Mr. Scheuer to suspend for a 

moment because, obviousIy, these questions are going to lead in 

this direction. What I want to get on the record at this point, so we 

can be done with it, is there any other member here now that 

wants to ask a technical question on the basis of the data that we 

have before us? We have information that’s been presented; we’re 

not through with this, but that’s the prelaunch and the other 

safety areas that follow. This is the heart of the technical testimony. And we’ve talked about the field joint; we’ve talked about the 

weather issues, the relation thereto; we’ve talked about the puttyson. 

help remarking-- 
246 

there’s other questions on the putty; we’ve talked about the high 

pressure. So what I’d like to do is use this time for any member, in 

that order, first to get that on the record so we are done with revisiting 50 times the same question over and over and over again, and 

then go from there and recognize Mr. Scheuer to begin, and then 

from Mr. Scheuer back to the gentleman from Texas, because we 

started in that direction. 

Mr. NELSON. Ihave a technical question. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Florida is recognized. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. 

Mr. Thomas, now, there seems to be an inconsistency, and I want 

you all, Mr. Thompson, to straighten this up for us. We had testimony-first of all, let me start with the Commission report. The Commission report says that one of the contributing factors 

was the fact that the casing of the SRB was out of round, and you 

all have measured this. You have measured it on a number of 

flights; indeed, we find that there was an out of round on 61-C, as 

well. And in the way that you have presented the data to us here 

today, the way the Commission has structured their report, that is 

an implication of one of the factors that contributed to the failure 

of the joint. 

Where the inconsistency comes in is that we have had testimony or information to our staff, specifically last Thursday at the Cape from a Mr. Carver Kennedy, who says that once you mate the 

clevis and the tang, insert the pin, and then insert around the circumference 177 of the clips in the pins, that that actually causes a 

circularizing in the joint so that the implication is that you would eliminate the out of roundness once the clips are inserted in the 

pins. 

Now, the question is, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Thomas, what is correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Nelson, I believe that the process that you just 

described with the installation of the pins and the insertion of the 

shims-- 

Mr. NELSON. Shims? 

Mr. THOMAS. Shims. 

Mr. NELSON. Are you talking about the pin? Is that one and the 

Mr. THOMAS. No. 

Mr. NELSON. The clip? 

Mr. THOMAS. The clip. 

Mr. NELSON. The clip? OK. You call it shim? S-H-I-M? 

Mr. THOMAS. Right. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. 

Mr. THOMAS. When you put those in, that tends to round it, but 

it cannot go all the way because those shims are of a constant 

thickness all the way around, and they are not sized to take up the 

total amount of gap around the periphery of the vehicle. So it 

tends to round it, but it can never go all the way toward the rounding process. 

Mr. PACKARD. Would the gentleman yield on that specific point? 

Mr. NELSON. Yes, I will. I want to-before I lose this, I want to 

make sure that the measurements that you gave us at the cape last 

Friday, as well as today that you’ve repeated, where you show the 

same? 
247 

differences in the roundness on the different segments, and you 

show that in the diagram of the circumference-you measured that 

out of roundness before you put the shims in, before you put the 

pins and the shims in. Is that correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. Before we mated. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. So conceivably the shims then, as you just 

stated, will cause more circularizing or rounding, once you put 

them in. Is that correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. To a degree, it is going in the right direction, toward rounding. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. All right. 

Are you saying that by the putting in of the shims in the pins, 

that it does not completely correct the out of round condition? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NELSON. How do you know that? 

Mr. THOMAS. Because dimensionally, the width of the gap of the 

clevis plus the width of the tang in the clevis plus the dimensional 

tolerance variations around the gap, around the circumference, in 

addition to the thickness of the shim, do not present a total, even 

thickness of tang, O-ring, and shim equal to the width of the clevis. 

There is what I call a “rattle space” in there, a small space for the 

tang to move back and forth. And the thickness of the shim is 

thirty-two thousandths, plus or minus a couple of thousandths-- 

Mr. NELSON. I thought the shim was an eighth of an inch thick. 

It’s not? 

Mr. THOMAS. No, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. NELSON. Thirty-two one-thousandths? 

Mr. THOMAS. Thirty-two thousandths. That’s this small clip I’m 

Mr. NELSON. That’s thirty-two one-thousandths of an inch thick? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NELSON. So let me then summarize, and I’ll yield to the gentleman. 

What you’re saying is that when you put 177 shims in 177 pins 

around the circumference of the SRB segment, that it helps solve 

the problem of out of roundness, but it does not completely solve it 

and it very well may be that you’ll still have metal on metal-- 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NELSON [continued]. Caused by the out of roundness of the 

pointing to right here; it’s thirty-two thousandths. 

casing? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NELSON. Is that a fair summary? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NELSON. I yield. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from California. 

Mr. PACKARD. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

To followup, at the same time that the shims do correct as much 

of the out of roundness as it is capable of doing, it creates at the 

same time a strain on the joint, in the metal of the joint, does it 

not? 

Mr. THOMAS. Not perceptively. It compresses where it-- 
248 

Mr. PACKARD. Well, anytime that you correct an out of roundness you are creating some strain on the metal that is out of round, 

when you move it toward roundness. 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. And that-it does produce that, but it’s not 

of a great magnitude. That’s the only point I was making. 

Mr. PACKARD. And that pressure between the metals-and sometimes, where it even gets to metal-to-metal-is what we have been 

shown to be this squeeze problem, create the squeeze problem; and 

particularly, coupled with cold weather, that the O-rings have not 

the resiliency to return back to reseal when there is that squeeze 

as a result of the out of roundness or the stress of metal to metal. 

Mr. THOMAS. It’s the out of roundness. 

Mr. PACKARD. Is the strain at the O-ring point, or is the strain at 

other points in that effort to correct the out of roundness? 

Mr. THOMAS. The only strain that one might see-and I think, 

again, it’s imperceptible-is the amount of strain that you might put into the motor case wall by having it flexed slightly to install 

the shim. The predominant squeeze that is put into place is squeezing of the O-ring, which does not induce any stress at all int:, the 

tang or clevis. 

Mr. PACKARD. In the design of the O-ring under these very conditions, where we’re trying to mate the two parts together, and if 

there is strain or if there is the creating of a roundness in the 

mating process with the shims, is there movement of the O-ring in 

there as that takes place, as the seating takes place, so that if 

there is strain, that the O-ring has the capacity to adapt itself to 

that strain? 

Mr. THOMAS. The O-rings are, of course, elastomeric material 

themselves, and they have good strain capability. But more impor- tantly is, they are completely covered with grease, and that grease 

will allow the O-rings to move as-- 

Mr. PACKARD. So in the groove that the O-ring is placed in, it can 

slide in that groove rather freely? It is not kind of pressed in there 

and locked in, into a single position, without the flexibility of movement? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Mr. ROE. All of that notwithstanding, the state of the art, as you expressed it so well, it still is moveable? 

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I’m not through yet. 

Mr. ROE. Just a moment. The gentleman from Texas has a question, but I believe that-are you finished yet? The gentleman from 

Florida? 

Mr. NELSON. No, sir; I had yielded. 

Mr. ROE. Oh, OK. Well, the gentleman from Florida is recognized. 

Mr. NELSON. Ijust want to get some additional clarification on 

this. 

Since you have told us that the measurements that were report- ed in this handout-that’s not the one. There’s a chart like that 

someplace where you’ve got each of the segments, and you’ve got 

the gap. And if I recall, in some it was four one-thousandths of an 

inch; in others, it is twenty-one thousandths. Is that correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir; I think. 
249 

Mr. NELSON. All right. But you said that is a measurement 

before you put the pins and the shims in? 

Mr. THOMAS. Right. 

Mr. NELSON. Since we’re concerned with the gap at the time of 

ignition-which is, in fact, once the pins and the shims are inwhere do you have that kind of calculation? What is the gap then, 

in inches? 

Mr. THOMAS. We could not tell precisely what the gap was at the 

ignition point of 51-L. What we did during the investigation process was destack STS-61-G. And our intent there was, No. 1, we 

knew what the measurements were as we stacked the vehicle; and 

then, before we began the destacking process and during the destacking process, we made several hundred measurements of all of 

the joints on the vehicle. And what our intent was, was to determine, No. 1, were we inducing any strange or unusual stresses into 

the clevis legs or other parts of the joint? And more importantly, 

could we predict where this maximum squeeze might take place? 

On the left hand, I believe, is the one we spent so much time 

on-on the left hand, we determined that there was, in fact, some 

maximum squeeze, almost metal-to-metal, on that joint as would 

have been predicted based on the premated measurement. But 

what surprised us a little bit is that we could not precisely pinpoint 

its location circumferentially. It was dislocated 90 degrees from 

where we would have thought it would have been. 

Mr. NELSON. And in measurement of inches, what was that gap 

where you called it the maximum squeeze? 

Mr. THOMAS. About a thousandth of an inch. 

Mr. NELSON. About one one-thousandth of an inch. And you interpolate from what you measured on 61-G, when you destackedyou interpolate that to 51-L? 

Mr. THOMAS. We think there was the same type phenomena 

there. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Texas. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. These are technical questions. This is the last technical 

question before the Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 

York. 

Mr. BARTON. No, my question is not a technical question, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. No, no. This gentleman from Texas. Mr. Andrews. I beg 

your pardon. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I accept. My question is technical. 

On June 11, the committee submitted some written questions to 

NASA. One of those, I’d like to ask the group, if you would expand 

on it a little bit for us. 

The question was, “Was there a qualification test call-out in the 

design specs for the solid rocket booster joints?” Your answer was, 

“There were no qualification test call-outs in the design specs for 

the joint per se. There are, however, design specs and verification 

requirements for the performance of pressure seals and the structural elements.” 
250 

Now, I guess the question is, were there any qualification specifi- cations for the joint seals? Yes or no? 

Mr. THOMAS. I did not pursue that particular question during the 

analysis process. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Well, can you answer that question? 

Mr. THOMPSON. We’re going to cover that a little later in Jack 

Lee’s discussion. But in the qualification tests of the assembled 

motor, obviously that thing-after the firing in the inspection, then 

you should pick up any anomalies in that area at those joints. 

Mr. ANDREWS. All right. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Now, specifically what was done in the joint area 

relative to the qualification, I believe that that’s probably going to 

be covered in Jack’s discussion in terms of what the specification 

calls for, what was done by test, and what was then augmented by additional analysis. So I believe if you can wait on that, we’ll get to it. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I’ll be glad to wait to expand on it, but do you know the answer to the question? Is the answer yes, or is it no? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Were there specific qua1 tests done on the joint? I’m not aware of them at a large scale-you know, at the full 

motor scale, no. To my knowledge there were not. 

Mr. ANDREWS. So your answer is no. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, let’s just take a minute and let Jack come 

up and directly answer it. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. 

Mr. LEE. Would you repeat the question exactly? 

Mr. ANDREWS. We submitted a written question on June 11. The 

question was, “Was there a qualification test call-out in the design 

specs for the solid rocket booster joint?” 

Mr. LEE. OK. The answer to that question is, in the design spec there is not a specific qualification test requirement for the joint. 

However, there is a requirement for certifying that the joint meets 

certain specifications. You do this in a number of different ways- qualification tests; you may do it by similarity; you may do it by 

development tests, or analyses. So there is a requirement for certification of that joint, and this joint was in fact certified to those 

requirements, with some qualifications. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Well, just to be sure I understand. If you had a 

motor here-you’re suggesting that there was a test made of the 

entire motor; but that in terms of the joint itself, the critical joint, 

no tests? 

Mr. LEE. There was no qualification test. There were a number of 

special tests and development tests associated with the joint, but 

not associated with the full qualification-the qualification to cover 

the full regime of all requirements. There were a number of tests 

performed, either in development, qualification, and special tests. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Would the gentleman yield on that? 

Mr. ANDREWS. I’d be happy to yield. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Could you furnish the committee copies of all docMr. LEE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And the criteria and certification? 

Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. We’d like to have those. 

umentation of the qualifications for the joint? 
251 

Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you. 

[Material available from committee files.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. All right; we’ll have that file for the record. 

Now we have just one-- 

Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Chairman, are you still on technical questions? 

Mr. ROE. If the members would give the Chair a chance, they 

have all been given ample opportunity to be heard, and I will get 

to the next witness. Yes, we’re still on technical questions. What 

I’m trying to do now is seal off the technical questions so we can go 

on and start from there on the processes that were handled. 

Now that the gentleman from Texas has concluded, the Chair 

will now recognize the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Monson, who has 

a technical question he’d like to ask. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

With regard to the field joint temperature, do you have a specified limit as to what that can be before launch is allowed to go forward? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, that’s my understanding. 

Mr. MONSON. It’s a calculated temperature? It’s not a temperature that is taken through some mechanical means? 

Mr. THOMAS. For STS-51-L, those temperatures are calculated, 

placed on an ambient measured value. 

Mr. MONSON. Obviously, those limits were not exceeded on that 

flight, then? 

Mr. THOMAS. To my knowledge, the calculated limits-or the ambient conditions-were used for the launch process. 

Mr. MONSON. Now, the chart indicates that, at the location of the 

leak, the temperature was somewhat less than 30 degrees; I don’t 

know how to interpolate it exactly, but it’s my understanding it 

was to be qualified to fly at 31 degrees. Is that correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. Pardon me just a second. 

Admiral TRULY. Mr. Chairman, while we are getting the answer 

to that question, I thought it might help to point out that the 

reason-the conversation between the two gentlemen who were 

head of the task teams was the way we organized the investigation. 

Mr. Thomas’ team was to determine the cause of the accident, and 

Mr. Jack Lee’s team was to get into the development and the pro- duction; in other words, the requirements and the certifications 

and so forth. 

Mr. ROE. I understand that, but we’re bound to have a little overlapping so that we can get on with it, to a point. 

Now, are you finished, Mr. Monson? 

Mr. MONSON. I need my answer. 

Mr. THOMAS. It’s 26 degrees. 

Mr. MONSON. It’s 26 degrees? 

Mr. THOMAS. That’s the specification value, and the-- 

Mr. MONSON. And the chart indicates it was somewhat very close 

Mr. THOMAS. The calculated values at the joints were approxito that. 

mately 28 degrees, thereabouts. 
252 

Mr. MONSON. Now, you also indicated earlier that you’ve discov- ered that the casings expand after flights, and I assume that they don’t return to their original size; is that correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. That is correct. 

Mr. MONSON. Does that in any way indicate that you will not get 

as many flights out of these casings as you originally thought you might get? 

Mr. THOMAS. We don’t believe that to be the case right now. We 

think that this growth that I have described is a function of the 

proof pressure testing; that is, bringing the motor up to the maximum-in excess of the maximum-expected operating pressure 

right after the manufacturing process to screen out flaws. In doing that, we think that after approximately the first three to four proof cycles, that the growth will cease to exist, and then they can be 

used as usual throughout their normal life. 

Mr. MONSON. You don’t have any experience in that area, 

though, yet? Is that correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. We have not completely resolved that issue. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from-1’11 give the gentleman from California an opportunity in a moment, but Mr. Lujan from New 

Mexico, please. 

Mr. LUJAN. I am confused as to what Mr. Lee’s answer was. My 

understanding-and part of your briefing will show qualifications 

not accomplished to the required spec limits-my understanding 

was that there was no analysis made on the effects of temperature 

on that joint, that Thiokol was supposed to do an analysis but that 

when you went back and checked all the data, you found that that 

analysis had not been made. 

Now, did I understand your answer just a little bit ago to Mr. 

Andrews that that analysis had been made? 

Mr. THOMAS. Sir, could I defer that until Mr. Lee comes up, im- mediately following me? 

Mr. LUJAN. Well, he’s answered the question, and apparently it 

is completely different than my understanding is. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair would ask Mr. Lee to come up here now because if this is in limbo, let’s get it squared away right now. 

Mr. LEE. OK. Let me go through a little more explanation. I understand some of the confusion here. 

There is a requirement on Thiokol in the contract, in the specification, to certify-design and certify-the joint to a number of requirements. Now, to certify, you can do that by qualification testing, development testing, special testing, or by analyses. In the case 

of the seal joint per se, the requirement to certify, if you will, the 

joint to the full range of specification requirements imposed on 

them-and this is by a Johnson Space Flight Center document 

which is imposed on all of our contractors-it’s around a natural 

and induced environment. The natural environment requirement 

ranges from 31 degrees Fahrenheit to 99 degrees Fahrenheit. The 

induced environment, which means after you’ve got the external 

tank loaded and so forth-this can range, under those same environmental conditions, from 26 degrees Fahrenheit to 120 degrees 

Fahrenheit . 
253 

Now, in reviewing this process with Thiokol, they did not interpret these requirements, either the induced requirements or the 

environmental requirements, to mean for vertical flight. They interpreted these requirements to be in a storage configuration. 

And then to take it one step further, in reviewing how they satisfied all of their requirements relative to performance, sealing capability, and so forth, we found that an overall performance of this 

joint was required to be demonstrated by qualification tests, by de- velopment tests, and by flight tests. That requirement was associated with a temperature of 40 degrees to 90 degrees mean bulk temperature of the propellant from sea level to 200,000 feet. That’s an 

overall system requirement; we didn’t take issue with that. There’s 

a requirement for the sealing capability-and by the way, they did, 

in fact, qualify these; they did it with about six demonstration 

motors, full scale motors, and three or four qualification motors, 

and the lowest temperature of any of those was, I believe, 36 degrees. Another requirement for verification of this seal was associated 

with the sealing capability of the O-rings themselves, and this requirement did not impose a temperature limitation, if you will, but 

was more to demonstrate that the O-rings did, in fact seal; they 

were redundant; and that they had a leak test port to be able to 

verify, from an acceptance standpoint, the integrity of these seals. 

The third part of this systems specification, if you will, has to do 

with the imposition of the natural and induced environments, the 

31 to 99 and the 26 to 120. This was specified to be accomplished by 

analyses. Now, the contractor proposed that, Thiokol, and the Marshall Space Flight Center accepted that. The issue comes in on the 

fact that they did not interpret that to be an in-flight requirement. 

They did not do a detailed analysis or test to verify that during the 

flight regime. There was, in fact, analysis done that turned out to 

be, in hindsight and in light of the issue of the lack of understanding of the joint and the temperature issue and so forth-the analysis that was performed was not adequate, and I think the Commission report points that out; not specifically about this issue, but the 

inadequacy of the overall certification and qualification program. The analysis that was in fact performed was the review and insurance, by inspection, that the 0-ring-the O-ring material 

itself-met a certain MILSPEC, and I have that number but a certain MILSPEC. The significant part of that MILSPEC is that it 

should meet-be able to be usable from a temperature range of 

minus 30 to 500. And on that basis, they considered that analysis to 

be-that is part of an analysis which should, in fact, qualify or certify that particular joint. So the issue here-I mean, if you want to look at the uncertainty 

of why this issue was brought up relative to the qualification, is 

that in light of today’s understanding, that was not adequate and 

the fact that the Thiokol Corporation misinterpreted or did not interpret that range as NASA did. 

Mr. LUJAN. Mr. Chairman, you’re pushing me-and that’s fineso we can move on ahead, but we’ll pursue that this afternoon, I 

guess. Mr. ROE. I would suggest the following. We’re getting out of 

kilter here a little bit. We’ve had a good continuity and want to 

64-295 0 - 86 - 9 
254 

keep continuity. I knew this was going to happen, and part of the 

question was, when? There are obviously other technical questions that other members wish to ask, and the Chair is going to recognize all of them in due course, and I want to assure each member 

that his interest or her interest is respected. It is almost 12:30 and, 

as I promised I’m going to do, I’m going to defer now to my good friend from New York, Mr. Scheuer. When Mr. Scheuer is concluded, we will break from our hearing, return at 1:30. If Mr. Scheuer 

needs additional time at 1:30, he will be up, No. 1. If he wants to 

suspend and wait for other members to bring more of the technical 

matters out, that’s what we’ll do. 

And the second point, as far as our witnesses are concerned, we 

would then defer to Mr. Lee because I see it’s now important to 

bring in your next phase because it’s overlapping, and I think 

that’s-in fact, I don’t think-that is the direction that we will 

follow. 

The Chair now recognizes the distinguished gentleman from New 

York who has been eminently patient, the distinguished Mr. 

Scheuer. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I must confess 

that I have a sense of abiding inferiority in not being able to cope with all these technical and scientific questions. 

Mr. ROE. But the redeeming factor is, you have the floor. [Laughter.] 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, I’ve never been very good at science or math; 

as a matter of fact, I have to take my shoes and socks off if I want 

to count to 20. But here we are, and let’s get back to some of the 

policy questions we have been wrestling with. I think we were discussing a few minutes ago that since the accident 18 weeks ago, and since the task force on the O-rings was set 

up, over a 6-week period we spent about $5 million, and about 200 

scientific and technical personnel produced this extremely impres- sive body of evidence that we now have that really answers an 

awful lot of questions about the O-rings and the failure to achieve 

adequate sealing. Is that more or less what we’ve decided? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Yes. That was my estimate, in terms of the resources-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Very good. And I think the record also was clear, 

and I think Admiral Truly testified to this yesterday, and without 

putting words in your mouth I would assume you all agree that if 

we knew before the launch what we know now, after this expenditure of $5 million that was put together-this technical knowledge base by 200 scientific and technical people, that there never would 

have been that tragic launch, OK? 

Now, what I’d like to ask is-the perfectly predictable follow-up to this, after the repeated warnings of maybe 14 or 15 failures of 

the O-ring on a number of flights, and after these three warnings in February or March of 1983 and in July of 1985 and in August of 

1985, warnings that went right up to NASA’s nerve center in 

Washington, how much in the way of resources, both funding and 

personnel, did you apply to solving the perfectly self-evident prob- lems of the seal and the O-rings before launch? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Scheuer, I’d like to start out again on that 

one, even though I wasn’t here. I think we want to differentiate be- 
255 

tween dollars and numbers of people, and the quality of people. Yesterday we talked about the new giants in NASA; the folks that 

are here today are those new giants. Admiral Truly has picked people from all over NASA to do this investigation, and these are 

truly unusual people. 

Mr. SCHEUER. With all respect, Doctor-- 

Dr. FLETCHER. Answering your questions, sir-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Yes, let’s get to the specific answers. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I think we very likely should have, with all those 

alerting signals, put that kind of talent, because it was available-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, I’m asking a simple question. I’m asking how 

much in the way of funding and how much in the way of person- nel, scientific and technical personnel, was applied to develop specific answers to the problems of the failed O-ring that had ap- peared on a dozen or more launches, information about which was 

conveyed at least three times to NASA headquarters in Washing- ton? What was the specific response to that in terms of funding to 

find the answers and application of scientific and technical personnel? How much? How many people? How many dollars? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, if we don’t have anybody here that can 

answer the question we can supply it for the record. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, now, Dr. Fletcher, with respect, you weren’t 

there and these people were there. Why don’t we give them a 

chance to answer it? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Right. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, there was one of the four of us here. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Thomas, it looks like the bee is on you. 

Mr. THOMAS. As I understand the question, sir, you are asking after the period in mid-1985 when the presentation was made to 

headquarters on the seriousness of the seal situation, how many resources were applied between then and January on trying to fix 

the seal? 

Mr. SCHEUER. You had a big fat question mark that was articulated on three different occasions, warnings coming from Marshall 

to NASA Headquarters in Washington-in early 1983, in July 

1985, and in August 1985-that described at least a dozen failures 

of the O-ring. Now, what did you apply in the way of resources, 

both in trained scientific and technical personnel and in dollars, to 

remediate that problem before the tragic launch 18 weeks ago? 

Mr. THOMAS. I’m sorry, sir. I think we’re going to have to present that for the record because the people who have to provide that are 

not in the room today. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would request that the 

people who have that information be requested to testify-- 

Mr. ROE. Well, in view-I think that the gentleman makes a 

very valid point. In view of the fact that we’re going to break shortly, is there a possibility that you could contact some of your folks 

and maybe put something together for this afternoon? 

Dr. FLETCHER. We’ll do our best, Mr. Chairman, between the 

lunch hour. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I would just like to make one more comment. Apparently there was a redesign task force on the O-rings at Morton 

Thiokol. 
256 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir; I understand there was. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I want to know what they had in the way of funding and what they were able to put together in the way of trained 

manpower, scientific and technical manpower, to address this lifethreatening problem of the O-rings and the joints between the 

three warnings culminating in July of 1985 and August of 1985, between that point in time and the time that this tragic launch took 

place. What kind of resources were made available to Morton Thiokol, either out of their own funding or out of separate-perhaps 

emergency-funding of some kind, discretionary funding of some 

kind, to remediate this problem? And I have to just pinpoint that, 

footnote that by saying that you really have achieved a notable 

knowledge base in the 6 weeks that you worked on the problem 

with insignificant resources. I don’t know how you would quantify 

the cost to the American public of this tragic disaster. Leaving 

aside the acute pain that we’ve all suffered from the loss of those 

seven noble, great Americans, but just looking at it financially, as 

against the $5 million cost of preventing it, the Challenger-the 

hardware itself cost $3 billion or $4 billion, and if you crank into 

the computer the additional cost to the public and to NASA, the 

delay in the program, the upset, the loss of morale, all of these intangibles, you would probably come out to $5 billion or $6 billion. 

So you’re talking about what would have been a cost benefit calculus of 1 to 1,000. If you had spent that $5 million before, you would 

have saved $5 billion afterward and, of course, those seven great 

lives. 

So you can see the point that I’m getting to. Why didn’t we 

spend this $5 million and why didn’t we have these 200 scientific 

and technical people assigned to this problem after the ample and 

repeated warnings that NASA central headquarters had, up to and 

including July and August of 1985? What went wrong? What went 

wrong, and why didn’t we make this remedial effort before the 

launch instead of having this excellent scientific attack on the 

problem that was perfectly self-evident before the launch after the 

tragic event, after the horse had fled the stable? And this is the 

information that I would like you to get us this afternoon. 

Mr. ROE. All right. Well, we will defer that to this afternoon. 

I’d like to put just one more technical question on the table 

before we break, again for continuity. 

We mentioned, Mr. Thomas, relative to the burning of the NRB 

insulation from NASA’s drawings, the insulation is in contact with 

the burning propellant. What evidence is there from previous flight 

exhaust gasses that the insulation burns? Is there any? 

Mr. THOMAS. From the past static motor tests, I would presume 

there to be none. But from lab tests which we conducted during the 

investigation to determine the materials that were present in the 

joint, which one of those would burn and which one would produce 

black smoke, the NRB and the grease are the ones that produced 

black smoke. 

Mr. ROE. So that’s been ascertained since you’ve done your investiga tion? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. OK. 
257 

The Chair now calls for a recess. We will return at 1:30, and may 

I suggest to members, please be here on time if you will, because 

we are going to begin immediately at 1:30, and we’ll begin with Mr. 

Lee and your presentation at 1:30. 

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene 

at 1:30 p.m., the same day.] 

AFTERNOON SESSION 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene, and as announced this 

morning by the Chair, our afternoon session will be devoted initially to a presentation by Mr. Jack Lee of NASA, followed up by Mr. 

Holloway of NASA and then Mr. Utsman from NASA, which 

brings then into clear focus the items and the areas of expertise 

and study that the different task forces have carried out in their 

review of the accident and other peripheral data. 

Having said that, the Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman, Mr. Jack Lee, from NASA. 

Mr. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. 

Could I have the first Vu-Graph, please? The second? 

With your permission, sir, I’d like to follow the agenda as displayed on the screen. 

Mr. ROE. Well, wait until we get the lights out, somebody around 

here. And I think it would be helpful, Mr. Lee, if you would pull 

your microphone closer, please. 

Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. 

First, by introduction, I would like to give the organization which 

we used in accomplishing this effort, and the review schedule 

which we used during the process, then a little on the review approach for our team. And then I would like, by way of indicating 

the findings, I would like to present the significant findings of this 

team. We did not make recommendations; we came to the findings. 

Next Vu-Graph, please. 

The Commission members on our team were made up of Mr. Joe 

Sutter, who was the lead for the Commission; he is from the Boeing 

Aircraft Co.; Dr. Arthur Walker from Stanford University; Mr. 

Robert Rummel, who is now consulting and has been an executive 

with TWA; Dr. Gene Covert from MIT; and Mr. A1 Wheelon from 

Hughes Aircraft. 

Could I have the next Vu-Graph, please. 

By the way, in way of support to me in supporting this team, I 

utilized primarily a small staff within the agency plus predominantly the project offices within the Marshall Center and the Johnson Space Center. 

The contractor visits-by the way, the approach we took was to 

visit each of the contractors to accomplish our mission, plus a visit 

at the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Johnson Center. On 

the 5th of March we had an introductory session at Johnson, primarily to familiarize the Commission team with the overall requirements, the level 2 system requirements as imposed on the 

shuttle program, and how they are divided to be introduced into 

each of the elements of the shuttle, the elements being the orbiter, 
258 

the external tank, the shuttle main engine, and the solid rocket 

boosters. 

We started our contractor visits first with Thiokol and we were 

there on March 17 and 18. We were at Rocketdyne, the developer of the shuttle main engine, on April 2 and 3. We were at Rockwell 

on the 3d and 4th of April, primarily to discuss the orbiter; then at 

Marshall Space Flight Center, where we reviewed a number of spe- cific questions that had been posed to us in advance by the Commission team members, and to review the solid rocket booster por- tion of the-the solid rocket booster, if you will. To distinguish between the solid rocket motor and the solid rocket booster, the 

motor is, per se, the propulsion system; the solid rocket booster includes the recovery system, the avionics, the thrust vector control 

system, and that sort. 

On April 8 and 9 we visited the Martin Marietta Corp. near New 

Orleans, and that was for the external tank. 

The review approach we took since we were primarily interested 

in looking at the production and development aspects-next slide, 

please-we were specifically looking at the production and development aspects of the shuttle in its entirety, as that effort relates 

to-could have been related to the accident. You have to recognize that we were performing this somewhat in parallel with the analy- sis effort, and it was not-the conclusions that Mr. Thomas presented earlier were not available to us at that time. We did this in 

parallel, so what we were looking at is specifically the concept or 

the approach to establishing design requirements, how these requirements were controlled, the review process, the certification of 

those requirements, the development and qualification-the development meaning component and subsystem testing as opposed toand verifying design parameters, if you will, as opposed to qualifi- cation of an entire system to meet specifications. This also included 

the transportation mode, since the solid rocket motor segments are 

produced in Utah and they have to be transported across the country by rail to the launch site at the cape. Not only the transporta- tion mode, but how this transportation mode was verified. 

We looked into the design and production controls, the manufacturing aspects of these elements. In addition, we looked at the 

launch services, how the development contractor becomes involved 

with the launch activities, if you will, in overseeing his hardware 

and introducing requirements and ensuring that the tests and acceptance and checkout requirements at the cape, in fact, are met. 

One of the areas that we knew that we were concerned about at 

the time we started in March was the critical items list. We reviewed the-CIL, by the way, is critical items list; FMEA is failure 

modes and effects analysis, and hazard analysis is, in fact, hazard 

analysis. Our intent here was to understand and to recognize and to comment on, if necessary, the process through which these failure 

modes and effects analyses were generated, how they related to the 

identification of a critical item, and what category of critical item 

it was; and then, how that dealt with the hazard analysis. 

The last item was in response to a number of specific questions 

that were, in fact, submitted to us in advance of the start of this 

process. 
259 

Could I have the next Vu-Graph, please. 

We knew-we’ll start now with the significant findings, and with 

the solid rocket motor in particular. These were findings that resulted from our review at the Thiokol Chemical Corp.-Wasatch. 

We know, of course, by March that the solid rocket motor was 

pretty well implicated in the accident, and we were in fact aware 

of a lot of things that had gone on by that time, recognizing that 

failure analysis had been proceeding for about 2 months before 

this. So we were aware of the fact that the solid rocket motor was 

very much involved, so we did in fact-and we knew, by the way, 

that it was pretty well isolated; it could be isolated to the joint 

area. We thought that that was the case. 

So by having that fact and recognizing that our charter to look 

into the design and development or production and development 

aspects of the solid rocket motor-we were more thorough in reviewing not only their whole process from the development standpoint, but specifically, we focused on the solid rocket motor joint. So we took as examples, to verify or to prove the approach to the 

development process, we took as examples how they dealt with the 

joint from a qualification/certification/verification standpoint. So 

we were, in fact, more specific in that area, as you might expect. 

The significant findings with the solid rocket motor at Thiokolthe first one has to do with the subject we discussed this morning, 

and it has to do with the qualification of the motor. The qualification testing was not accomplished to the required specifications. 

And I gave you-I attempted to give you-an explanation of the 

process, from the requirements introduction by specification, the 

method, the areas that require certification, and the method to be 

utilized for that certification this morning. 

Maybe if I can give one more example it will help clarify this 

thing. 

In the-classically, the best thing we could do to ensure that that 

entire motor was qualified, completely qualified to all environments, would have been to encase it with an environmental chamber, if you will, taken it to the lowest possible temperature that 

had been established, and introduce as we fire the actual loads, liftoff loads, if you will. And that would then-if we accomplished that 

full-scale testing, that would in fact have qualified-tested the entire 

motor, including the joint. 

Now, the way we did this, because we didn’t have an environmental chamber and we did not determine it to be necessary to 

have an environmental chamber, we qualified the motor to the environments that were available to us. And by the way, this did 

range from some 40 degrees to close to 90 degrees, so we were in 

the area of most concern; that is, the mean-bulk temperature requirements. We did-in that same logic, in order to be able to certify that the joints did meet the requirements, we chose to do that by 

analysis, and I explained that this morning. We chose to perform 

that analysis, and in that analysis we used the specification for the 

O-ring, which does specify it can be used from a range of minus 30 

degrees Fahrenheit to 500 degrees. 

Now, the reason that issue was brought up is that in today’s environment, the thing was not qualified-tested to that full range, as 

I explained. And based on the interpretation of the specification by 
260 

Morton Thiokol, enough effort, I would say, did not go into completing this complete verification by analysis. And again, in hindsight, you would say that our selection process-and that would be 

NASA’s involvement here, too-the selection process for that analysis was somewhat inadequate. 

The next point is the adequacy of the O-ring process and quality 

control. Now, we did not find in our investigation, nor did Mr. 

Thomas find in his analysis investigation, that the O-rings used in 

this flight were in fact not acceptable or were not of good quality control, nor that they were not properly processed. But in our reviewing in detail this process, we found it had not been identified 

as a critical process, which we believed it should, and there were a 

number of things and areas that we believe could be changed to 

give a better assurance that in the future that O-ring did, in fact, 

get processed properly and that there was no way that you could have a quality escape, if you will. And again, I would like to 

remind you that we did not find anyplace where we had an improperly processed O-ring; but the process itself-and we felt we had 

that charter to look to that-and so we did, in fact, believe-or I’m 

not sure that’s the particular recommendation that came out, but 

we did feel strongly that that process should be beefed up. 

The next point, it is questionable whether the horizontal hot fire 

testing compromises flight simulation. Now, we knew of this possible concern on the part of Mr. Sutter’s team, so we had started-a 

month or so ago-a pretty detailed evaluation of the merit or requirements, if you will, first of whether the solid rocket motors 

should be fired in the vertical or the horizontal; and in doing so, we 

are assessing facilities available around the country. We are looking at the requiremeats which we are trying to impose on ourselves 

to ensure that the motor is properly qualified, and we are weight- ing these to determine which we believe would be the proper route 

to go. Once we complete this, we will make this information available to Admiral Truly who, in turn, will make a decision on that 

part of the future testing of the solid rocket motor. 

The next item is in somewhat the same category, but it’s a little 

different. There’s a difference-there was, in fact, a potential difference between the certification testing and the flight configura- tion. And specifically, what happened here is when the motor is installed in the vertical, there is some adjustments, or changes, if you 

will, in the famous putty configuration. It tends to not assume the 

same shape necessarily that it would when the vehicle is stacked in 

the vertical. And by this, we mean that when we’re ready to static 

test the motor, it would not be in the same configuration we assumed it would be in the vertical. So there was some adjustments, 

if you will, some tamping of the putty, some fixing of the configura- tion which we believe could, in fact, make a difference in the results of the static test. 

The fourth item is in case reuse. Now, we did not find this only 

with this production and development team; we had the benefit of 

some of Mr. Thomas’ earlier analyses. And the situation which 

exists here is, by going back to remeasuring cases which had been 

reused-now, these are the solid rocket motor cases; you remember 

that once we fire these, we bring the solid rocket motor back in, 

and as part of the refurbishment we clean the motors out and we 
26 1 

recast, if you will, the propellant. We found, in measuring some of 

these reused cases, that the dimensions had changed. Now, this 

was somewhat of a surprise to us because it was not anticipated or 

understood that this should have happened during the reuse. Our 

understanding of the characteristics of the material, the way it was 

processed, should not have allowed this change in dimension. 

Now, let me quickly say that in Mr. Thomas’ analysis and our 

understanding of this dimensional change, there is no indication 

that the reuse of the-the possible growth of cases due to reuse had 

an effect on 51-L, but it was characteristic of the change in the 

cases and it’s something that was of surprise to us or change to us, 

and we recognized that we had to make the determination. 

We think we understand this and it is being properly analyzed 

now, and I have no doubt that we will solve that problem of the 

lack of understanding of case reuse. 

The next point is inadequate understanding of the field joint operation as designed. We came to pretty much the same conclusion 

that Mr. Thomas’ analysis team arrived at, and he did this through 

additional testing and analysis and development testing, if you will. We came to that conclusion by just assessing the design and 

the process and the understanding as the design was-as the joint 

was designed and tested. 

The last item is the case configuration changes resulting from 

transportation in the horizontal. Because of the length of these 

cases where they are cast, we transport them across country in the 

horizontal position. As they are-they stay in the horizontal for 

long periods of time. The case tends to become oval. Now, we think 

that this is a potential contributor, this becoming oval, when it gets 

to the cape to the possible out of roundness. Now, we have seen in 

the Commission’s report, this is addressed where there is some consideration for that-for either fixing the transportation mode or 

being able to properly assure that the roundness is in fact adequate 

or correct prior to stacking. 

May I have the next one, please? The next area is that for the shuttle main engine, and these are 

the significant findings we arrived at from our review at Rocketdyne. We found that the engine itself is a high-technology, highpower density state-of-the-art engine, a very, very precision instrument. We found that because of this, and because of the long relationship, I guess, in working with the liquid propulsion engines at 

the Marshall Space Flight Center, our people at NASA and those 

of the contractor had a very good understanding of not only the 

programmatic, but of the technical requirements. The third item was a consideration for margins of critical components that were not demonstrated by test. Now, this does not have 

to do with the acceptability or the certification for flight. Our concern here is, over the long reuse of the engine, we believe that we 

are going to have to develop or introduce some test that will allow 

us, by actual test results, to recognize the margins that are in some 

of these components. The way we do it today is, we test around the 

nominal, and we analyze or compute what we think those margins 

are. We believe that we’re going to have to extend our test pro- gram in the margin area to be able to recognize these margins; as 

such, we will understand the performance of the engine better as it 
262 

relates to performance over the long period of time, the possible 

reuse, the overhaul, the refurbishment of the engines themselves. Could I have the next one, please? 

At Rockwell, on the orbiter, we also found that there was a very good understanding of the programmatic and technical requirements between NASA and Rockwell. We also found that Rockwell 

had some concern relative to the level of involvement that they had with the orbiter as it is processed and turned around, if you will, at KSC. And the emphasis here was more of involvement in 

that process in a way that their technical knowledge, their background, their corporate memory from a technical standpoint of the 

orbiter could best be brought to bear on any potential problems or 

foreseeable problems on the orbiter itself. 

The next item was the number of the critical components, and 

I’ve listed two because they’ve been used before, the 17-inch disconnect and the brakes, and there was a list of these-a number of 

components within the orbiter; and this, by the way, is not only in 

the orbiter. There are some others in the SSME; there are some in 

the external tank, and I’m sure there are some others in the SRB, 

which we will ferret out. But in particular, there are a number of 

critical components like these that require some reassessment. This 

activity has already started; in fact, it had started before the accident. 

The last one has to do, again, with a concern on the part of Rockwell that the critical payloads like the Centaur, which are relative 

hazards because they are, in fact, cryogen propellants within the 

orbiter bay, possibly were not receiving as much of an overall 

safety system assessment as you look at the orbiter in totality with the payload attached, and in order to be able to assure that all 

safety aspects were covered. These, by the way-in fact, all of these 

findings are being-actions are being taken by the Orbiter Project Office at JSC to start effort on these. 

Could I have the next one, please? 

The last one is the external tank. We also found there is a very good understanding by both NASA and Martin on program and 

technical requirements. Martin had some concern, not quite to the 

degree of Rockwell, that they didn’t have quite the direct involvement at KSC on their hardware, if you will-and “their hardware” 

meaning the development contractor’s hardware-they did not 

have the same involvement or adequate involvement that made 

them feel comfortable that everything that happened to that hardware, in fact, was getting the proper assessment, again based on 

their knowledge through the years of development qualification. 

There was no problem, by the way, identified by the Martin people, though. 

And then the last item has to do with the range safety destruct 

system. Today we have the range safety destruct system on both 

SRB’s-or both SRM’s-and the external tank. And it has beenthis has been a question that has come up over the years, and we 

are in the process of working with those people who established 

that requirement. If we can safely-or within the bounds or within 

the requirements established-if we can eliminate a destruct 

system, if you will, from the external tank, we’d all feel more comfortable about that. 
That concludes the significant findings. I would like to summarize one point. We did not find, in any of our reviews with these 

contractors, a real deficiency in the basic processing of establishing 

and identification of requirements, how those requirements are introduced by contract, how the specification identifies those, the requirements for certification and verification, configuration control, 

acceptance. We found that the procedures, if you will, the mechanism for being able to accomplish the production and development 

programs of all these vehicles were, in fact, sound and only in some 

areas where that has appeared to break down, particularly in the 

case of the qualification testing-and I won’t say that exactly broke 

down; there was some misunderstanding, and possibly, in light of 

today’s environment, we should have put more emphasis on the 

certification aspects of that seal-but the procedures and the implementation of these procedures seemed to be sound throughout 

all the contractors. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman, and I would like to welcome 

Mr. Thomas Holloway of NASA’s mission planning and operations 

team. We welcome you, Mr. Holloway; go ahead with your presentation, please. Mr. HOLLOWAY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

First chart, please; second chart, please. I am reporting on the mission planning and operations team, and 

first I’ll introduce the members of the Presidential panel of the 

same title. Dr. Ride was the leader of that group; Mr. Rummel participated;.Mr. Hotz, and Mr. Acheson. 

Next chart, please. 

First, let me characterize what our group did, the Mission Planning and Operations Panel. There was not a focus for our group 

because there was not any obvious relationship to the accident 

itself, so we were in the process of looking at a large number of 

activities that go on in the process of preparing for and executing 

the flight operations during a shuttle mission. And as such, we established a fairly large group of individuals to go off and examine 

multiple areas in flight operations to see if, one, we could find anything that contributed to the accident; and second, if we saw any 

indicators in those functions and activities that needed attention to 

prevent future accidents. 

First, I will say that I will not discuss each one of these things in 

detail today because I don’t think they are important for your purpose here, but I would like to characterize generally what we did 

find. 

First of all, we did not find any concerns that were a total surprise to the system and to the people involved. I would characterize 

what we did find in three ways. First, there were many of the 

areas that we examined that we found that all was proceeding very 

well for the medium-to high-fly rate that we were looking toward, 

and the procedures and processes were working very well. 

Second, we found situations where the functions and activities 

may not have been what we would have liked for them to be for a 

medium- and high-fly rate, but the procedures and plans and budgets were in place that would allow that to evolve to more than a 

satisfactory situation. 
264 

And the third area were areas of concern that perhaps require 

some emphasis on the part of the program as we go forward to 

ensure that evolves properly, to ensure that we have everything in 

place that we’d like to have. 

Next chart, please. 

I might add that the dominant portion of the activities we looked 

into fell in the second category. 

We met with the Presidential Commission 11 times, presented 22 

formal briefings and numerous data packages and formal reports. 

That amount of time spent with that group was on the order of 65 

to 70 hours in technical briefings, and some 320 to 350 people at 

one time or another participated in the generation and the presentation of that information. 

Starting at the top, we discussed that group the 51-L mission 

preparation, including the crew training, the crew activity planning, the trajectory design, the ascent abort modes, and how that 

worked out on 51-L. We also talked about payload, our cargo manifesting, and providing opportunity for the SR&QA people to be 

interviewed on March 12. 

March 20, we had our joint session to put together plans and 

schedules. On March 24, we discussed the range safety history that 

Mr. Lee has previously discussed briefly with you; the history of 

that program, how it evolved on the shuttle itself; what the current 

procedures are; what the flight rules are that control its utilization, 

and where we are today. 

We discussed the milestone history; in other words, how well we 

had been doing with schedules in terms of mission preparation, and 

how we anticipated we would be able to perform in 1986, had that 

flight schedule been allowed to evolve. 

We reviewed our weather flight rules; RTLS rain damage assessment; and again, on March 25, we provided information on shuttle 

main engine failure containment, and an opportunity for the Commission members to interview some safety, reliability, and quality 

assurance personnel. 

On March 31 we reviewed orbiter testing, what we thought that 

the operating base was for the flight operations group; payload 

safety; crew training, and the state of our crew procedures program 

that maintains flight crew procedures. 

On April 7 we participated in a meeting at Marshall, again to 

allow the Commission to interview some SR&QA personnel at that 

location. 

On April 8, we reviewed workload assessment, how much overtime and how the annual leave was being used and so on and so 

forth, particularly for the Mission Control Center personnel in 

Houston. We reviewed the state of the orbiter software program 

and how we develop software and test it and prepare for each 

flight. We reviewed the cargo manifesting, the process and procedures associated with putting a cargo together, and the history of 

how well that’s gone and how many times we have changed those 

cargoes and those payloads as a function of each flight. 

On April 9, in a 9-hour meeting, we reviewed the landing considerations, KSC landing considerations relative to rain and brakes 

and nosewheel steering, and also transatlantic abort landing considerations of the same nature. 
265 

On April 14, we reviewed the ascent envelope expansion, or the 

state of the ascent envelope in terms of flight design and trajectory, and spent the afternoon reviewing the history of the first stage abort options from RFP days up through 1983. 

On April 15, we provided an opportunity for the Commission to 

continue their review on safety, reliability, and quality assurance. 

Next chart, please. 

On April 18, we submitted to Admiral Truly our report; it was 

later submitted to the Commission by Admiral Truly’s office. I 

won’t review those in detail, but it included all those things I’ve 

previously discussed. 

Now I’d like to review the major findings of the group. Before I 

do that, I need to tell you that they are not all related subjects, so 

they don’t flow very well. They are all individual subjects, or most 

of them are individual subjects, and as such they don’t have continuity, one from the other. 

First, under mission planning and preparations, the 51-L mission 

manifesting, mission operations, flight crew preparations, pre- launch, and launch were typical and satisfactory and had no effect 

on the accident. Furthermore, the flight crew and the ground crew 

were well trained; they had fulfilled all of the training requirements and, more importantly, we all believe that the crew, both 

ground and flight crew, were indeed well trained and well qualified 

to fly the mission that would have occurred had the accident not 

happened. Under 51-L mission preparation, first, there were no actions possible that could have resulted in the survival of the 51-L crew. As 

has been stated before, during first stage the SRB’s simply must 

work. There’s no possible procedure that can allow us to separate from a thrusting SRB with the current configuration that would 

allow survival of the orbiter. 

Second, the range safety system that Mr. Lee previously discussed did not contribute to the accident, and the actions of the 

range safety officer were important. As you remember, the range 

safety officer destroyed the SRB’s in flight, and he had the 

proper-he took the proper action based on the conditions of the 

day in the situation that he had on his hands at that particular time. 

Also, we have initiated a joint NASA/DOD review of the range 

safety system, and we will be reviewing those issues, many issues, 

in that system, including the one that Mr. Lee discussed earlier 

today. Under NSTS mission planning, we found that the operations maintenance inspection program-that’s the program in which the 

requirements to inspect and maintain the orbiter from structural 

equipment to line-replaceable units, and the process of getting those requirements introduced into procedures at KSC that the 

technicians can execute, including a methodology that allows the 

feedback to the appropriate people in terms of accomplishment of 

those procedures-were immature and did not provide what we 

would like to have in the future to make sure that all the requirements are met and, in such cases when waivers are entertained, 

that they are identified very early in the process and can be dealt 

with at the technical level in time to make timely decisions. That 
266 

work has been in progress for a year or so at this time, and we 

expect that it will evolve satisfactorily in the future. So it’s a 

matter of emphasis in completing the work that was in progress at 

the time of the accident. 

Under NSTS mission operations, one of the major findings was 

that the current program commitments precluded devoting adequate resources to developing a capability to support the increasing flight rate. And what I mean by that is, that either because we 

were more interested in flying the flights or because the flight rate 

demanded all of our attention, we were spending all of our resources toward flying-a majority of our resources, at leasttoward flying the flights rather than looking toward the future 

flight rate and the requirements that it would take to develop the 

flight products and the procedures and the details to fly at the 

higher flight rate. 

Additionally, at the time of the 51-L launch, KSC landings-one of the favorite subjects that’s been discussed by many people-did 

not constitute an unreasonable safety of flight risk based on known 

failures. 

Next, statistical weather and forecasting uncertainties have resulted in several wave-offs from KSC and dictate a need for multiple landing sites for end-of-mission. We will always need multiple places to land the shuttle regardless of what the planned landing site is, and we ought to put those in place and have plans in place 

to utilize them and turn the vehicle around and prepare for the 

next flight. The current-the next item speaks to the current landing and 

deceleration systems, which have not demonstrated an adequate 

margin for routine KSC and transatlantic abort landings. We believe that for a long-term program we need a better landing and 

deceleration system; and, in fact, the program has in place many of 

the elements of what we believe are required to cause that to 

happen. Crew escape systems-we reviewed the history of the crew escape systems from the inception of the RFP back in the early 1970’s 

through 1983, and there are very many varieties of crew escape, including augmenting the basic shuttle to allow it to perform a recovery-type operation and allow it to land on a runway, from ejection 

seats to escape pods, to situations where a group of crewmen might bail out of an opening in the cabin during glided flight before 

impact. During that review, we found that these systems were all 

reviewed numerous times throughout the history of the shuttle program; and because of what at that time was considered to be limited utility-and what I mean by that is that the systems that were 

envisioned to be put in place would not cover an adequate number of the envisioned scenarios that might happen, such as 51-L-it 

was not found to be a usable system; the technical complexity; the 

ability to build such a system and ability to monitor the impending 

failures and execute the escape system in time to make it useful; 

and cost and schedule and performance impacts, performance 

impacts being primarily payload-to-orbit-no system was implemented. 

Last in this group, we reviewed the astronaut office involvement 

in the program and found that they play a significant role in all 
267 

activities associated with the development, flight preparation, and 

flight execution, and they and their management are members of 

all major decisionmaking boards and panels. 

Under flight rate and scheduling, we found that the 1985 mission 

operations were successful in spite of significant remanifesting perturbations. We did take on a number of challenges in 1985 outside 

of the scheduled manifest; we had a number of upsets, one including an engine shut-down on the pad; we remanifested the cargo and flew a new mixed set in a matter of 6 or 8 weeks. We took on 

the challenge of flying the 51-L mission and rescuing the Navy 

Syncom satellite in about 4 months, and executed that and, in my 

opinion, did all of that quite well. 

However, the trends indicated that the milestones required to 

support the preparation for the 1986 flight schedule would have 

been extremely difficult. We may have arrived at the point where 

our schedules did not meet our capabilities. 

We had four major conclusions that coincided with those 11 

major findings. 

First, we believe the NSTS program should develop a bottoms-up 

strategy for expanding our flight rate. And as a start, rigid manifesting criteria need to be established and enforced. 

Also, we believe that an inspection and maintenance program 

should be implemented that will ensure that we get the job done as 

long as the shuttle flies, and work is in progress to make that 

happen. 

Third, the NSTS program should focus attention on defining and 

providing an adequate margin for end-of-mission and intact abort 

landings, and that work is in progress and it includes both ground 

facilities and flight hardware. 

And last, the program should evaluate the options and utility of 

providing crew escape systems and augmenting orbiter abort modes 

using the technology of 1986 with the understanding of the program as we know it today. 

Mr. ROE. I thank you, Mr. Holloway. 

Now we’ll hear from Mr. Utsman, who is the final witness on the 

Pre-Launch Activities Team. Mr. Utsman. 

Mr. UTSMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The first chart, please. Next chart, please. 

This chart depicts the organization that we used in order to 

carry out the task of supporting the prelaunch team of the Commission. 

The prelaunch team’s jcb was essentially in three areas. One was 

to look at the NSTS processing that had been done for 51-L; the 

second part was to look at the flight readiness processes that led up 

to the launch decision, and the third area was to look at the security aspect and determine if there were any problems in that area. 

In carrying out those three tasks, we organized into three teams, 

as shown on that chart. 

I would like to say that the purpose was always to support the 

Commission’s activities, looking for causes of 51-L problems since 

this activity was primarily started immediately after the accident, 

but we also realized that due to the comprehensiveness of the 

review that there would be many lessons learned and many things 

that we could find that may not be associated with the accident 
268 

and we wanted to capture those so that we could use those and 

make improvements on those. So that was always in our minds. 

Next chart, please. 

We felt the review was comprehensive. It involved about 900 of 

our people. It involved all levels of-- 

Mr. ROE. Is it 900 people just-I hate to interrupt you, but is it 

900 people en toto or just for your area of review? 

Mr. UTSMAN. It was in this area of review. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. UTSMAN. It involved all levels. We had from engineering 

management all the way down through technicians; we wanted to 

have technicians involved for their viewpoints. We had all the disciplines involved. It did involve our NASA people and our contractor people, and the 900 did include both NASA, Civil Service, and 

the contractor. We had participation with some members of the Air 

Force, and we had an active participation by members of the flight 

crew, which was important to us. 

In conclusion, we had several significant, relevant findings which 

we’ll discuss in a few moments. We did find that our operating procedures do require correction in some areas in that there are some 

processing practices which can be improved. We document the results, and it was in a large amount of volumes due to the amount 

of work and review that went on. What we tried to do to simplify 

that was to summarize it into a single document that would capture the essence of those other documents, the 6,000 pages, and 

that was submitted to the Commission along with a copy of all the 

background material which was used. 

Next chart, please. 

I’m going to move into the first area, the NSTS processing 

review. 

The job there, right after the accident, we impounded all the 

data, which included all the paper, any data that was associated 

with the 51-L processing. And what we did then was formulate 

into teams-which I’ll show you in just a minute-and went into 

the process of reviewing every bit of that documentation in the 

records, as well as interviews, to ascertain whether we had had any 

problems associated with any of these activities. We looked at how 

the flight hardware met with our mobile launch platform; we 

looked at pad B, our launch complex pad B, since this was the first 

use of it, to look for-if there were latent defects that could have 

been in our processing or in bringing that activation on board; we 

looked at the GSE that interfaced with the vehicle and the facilities that interfaced with the vehicle, looking for anomalies. 

We reviewed all our payload processing. We looked at the ICE 

team. We, along with DOD, did look at the range support that does 

support the activity, prelaunch, at KSC, and analyzed all our problems and documented these findings. 

Next chart, please. 

These are the teams that we did put together that did support 

this activity. As I mentioned, these started early on; and when the 

task force was formed, we went back and did a quick check to 

make sure that we did have a degree of independence. We didn’t 

want to have people reviewing their own work, but we wanted 
269 

people who were familiar with the work to be able to review it, and 

we found that to be the case. 

The outside members working with us, such as the flight crew 

members as well as the staff from the Commission, gave us the 

feeling that we had a degree of independence since we recognized 

that these were mainly KSC people looking at KSC work. And so 

we felt comfortable that that was the case; we did have an objective look. 

Now I’ll go into the major findings concerning the processing. 

Next chart, please. 

Our first major finding was that, in conjunction with what had 

gone on on the accident analysis team, we in looking at our activities could find nothing that led up to or contributed to the 51-L 

accident. 

Now, I’d like to hesitate and stop there. There is one, in the area 

of the SRB joint-the way the joint is put together, it is what we 

call a “blind mate;” that is, you can’t see the internals once you’re 

done with it. We do know that you can put the joint together correctly. We know this from tests, and that you can have some joint 

sealing degradation; and the type of things that you can have, even 

though you have tested it and put it together properly, is that you 

can find some minor, small contamination-for example, when a 

pin goes in, as you saw in the earlier joint, there may be a metal 

sliver in there in that, and there’s no way to tell it. The O-ring 

could be damaged but yet still pass the seal test under some extreme conditions. And we know that we can have water in the 

joint, and we have no way to test for the water in the joint, as has 

been attested. 

When it was looked, it weighed-even though the processing was 

done properly, as Mr. Thomas said earlier, it was felt that there 

was any low probability that there was any problem associated 

with the-contributed by the processing. 

Next chart, please. 

One of the problems that we did find was that our work control 

documentation system does require revision. This system has been 

in place and is a derivative of the system that was installed and 

instituted in early manned flight. What has happened to it is that, 

due to the activity, it has become cumbersome; and, to use a term, 

it’s not very user-friendly. This led to two problems. One was that 

people became sloppy in their practices, and this is an area that 

you can often say is just a discipline problem among our people. 

When we looked at it we found that we had given them what we 

thought was a task and a system that was too cumbersome to 

really work with effectively, so what we’re doing right now, we are 

in the process of looking at it. We have several teams bringing in 

all levels of the workforce, looking at how we can streamline it and 

make it what we would call more user-friendly. We are also going 

to be emphasizing on the importance of the system as well as how 

to use it, and we think that those will lead to an improved system 

with more rigor in it and more discipline. 

We did not have a problem at the time with the paper system, 

assuring that there were no contributors to the accident, because 

with the effort we put into it we could find where the records were 

inadequate by talking with people and working in that manner; 
270 

with special analysis, we knew that we were all right. This is not 

what you want for a normal operation, and we intend to correct it. 

Next chart. 

Launch complex 39-B requires additional modification. This 

wasn’t really a surprise to us; in fact, the complex turned out to be 

what we consider very good. However, we know we’ve got some 

hardening modifications to be made, and these are just where, in 

some cases, panels bulged due to negative pressure that we hadn’t 

anticipated. We’re going to have to put plugs and things like that; 

it’s not a major item. 

The major thing we did find was that this freeze plan that we 

had instituted this time, which was also the first time it had been 

used, was inadequate, and that led to the significant amounts of ice 

on the launch complex. This is going to be corrected, and it’s underway right now, the definition of its correction. 

Next chart, please. 

One of the findings when you went through with the 900 people 

was that there were cases where we had had some inefficiencies in 

our processing due to high workload. The high workload contributed to a peaking of work that was somewhat more than we had anticipated. The four orbiters being processed was a new time for us, 

and when we got into it, it is not something-due to the short-term 

nature of what we saw of the problem-that you could add people. 

I might say that in most of our cases, to get people fully up to qualification requires some 18 to 24 months, so you can’t just go out 

and hire people, bring them in, and then have them be able to get 

the job done. 

So what we’re looking at now is, very carefully, how we can approach our shifting and our manpower mix, along with our contractors, to assure that we have as much flexibility to unforeseen 

problems as we can in the future. 

Mr. ROE. For clarity, will the gentleman hold at that point? 

On the top of that chart, you’re referring to manpower limitations due to high workload-created scheduling difficulties. You’re 

speaking now to the launching process itself? 

Mr. UTSMAN. That’s correct, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you. 

Mr. UTSMAN. Next chart, please. 

We did find a few test team errors that were caused by not following established procedures. Most of them were related to work 

control documentation systems as we discussed earlier, the lack of 

being user-friendly; however, we did have a couple of very serious 

cases. The most serious one was that we had an undetected slamming of the 17-inch disconnect. We know it’s a critical problem. 

The rebson it occurred-well, there were many reasons, but the 

fellow who did the-who slammed it is an experienced person who 

took the judgment onto himself that this was not a problem since 

he had seen it before and understood the background. Our system 

is such that if you do something that is out of the ordinary, you 

should document it, and this was not documented so therefore it 

went undetected through the system. There was no indication of a 

problem. It was reported during the post-review of the data, but 

again, it was a very serious-in our view-situation of not following established procedures. 
27 1 

What we’re doing is obviously-I think the seriousness of that is 

being stressed throughout the work force. We’re also going in to 

look at situations where-have we been as rigorous in ferreting out 

places where human errors can occur on critical hardware, and see 

if there aren’t ways that we can preclude those? We feel, with that, 

that we’re going to reduce the propensity for this type of situation. 

Next chart, please. 

Mr. Holloway reported that the test requirements system re- quired revision from their view of it. This is a similar type of finding that our team had, looking at it from a KSC processing standpoint. Between the people in the program, there is work underway right now to make the correction to both of these findings. 

Next chart, please. The orbiter logistics system supporting 51-L was found to be inadequate, causing significant LRU cannibalization. I think this has 

been well-reported. It was created by just a lack of parts and the 

level of degree of activity. And we ended up, out of some 300 parts 

required for the processing of 51-L, that 45 of them had to be removed from another vehicle and placed into Challenger for use in 

Besides the manpower implications of that, there is an implication that you just don’t like to be working on vehicles because any time you get into a vehicle, it creates a potential safety hazard. 

The program has been working-Admiral Truly has initiated 

action already to try to beef up the spares program. 

Next chart. 

Additional analysis will be required to assess environmental effects upon launch capability. 

From the ground systems standpoint, we had not developed adequate modeling, in my view, to know comprehensively all the problems that we might have through the launch complex. We had one 

cylinder, for example, that reacted slower. We had qualified it to 32 

degrees, but when we looked at it, even though the ambient temperature was above 32 degrees, we hadn’t run the modeling to find 

out exactly the temperatures there, and it was below freezing and 

it reacted slower. It didn’t create a problem, but it meant-it was 

an area where we need to improve our information. 

Also, the instrumentation and analysis of the temperatures all 

over the launch complex, we feel, is going to have to be improved in that, as has been pointed out, you just can’t take a temperature 

measurement at one spot and have that be representative of the 

total complex. So we’re looking at modeling techniques so that we 

can have an improved assessment, really. 

Ice debris was greater than predicted. There was much discussion on the prelaunch activity about the ice debris and where it 

would go. We did review that and we found that when you reviewed the films postlaunch, that the aspiration effects were greater than had been anticipated by the people who, prelaunch, had 

participated in that discussion. 

There was-again, the ice did not create a problem, but it did 

show us that there is a need for improved modeling-if not for ice, 

to look at the aspiration effects as it may affect all debris. So this 

is an area of reassessment. 

51-L. 

Next chart, please. 
272 

That was the final finding that we had that summarized all the 

10 teams’ activities as far as the STS processing. At this point I 

would move into the flight readiness review process as it led to the 

launch decision. 

The way we handled that, due to the nature of it, it was one 

where I think, in all fairness, the Commission took the larger lead 

and we worked off of data, somewhat, that the Commission had 

provided us. 

What we did, we analyzed the policies and procedures and found 

that essentially we were in compliance with them. 

Next chart, please. 

That was our first finding; and again, as has been stated several 

times, the process itself-the structure of the process-is a consistent, fair process. 

Next chart, please. 

However, in all honesty, the flight readiness process did not address the critical SRB flight safety issues. And part of the rationale 

that you get, I think, in our determination it was the lack of understanding of the full certification process. So therefore, when it 

came forward-even though the indications were coming forwardwhen it came down to the launch decision, there was not a clear 

understanding of the mechanism that was going on in operating at 

the low temperatures in the joint. And so consequently, we’ve got 

to review our whole system and how we lead up to that and decide 

what action should be taken. 

Next chart, please. 

This is another area that, I think, has been well documented. 

The communication during the launch decision process was inadequate, and that may be a poor choice of words on my part. What I 

was trying to portray is, it was obvious in the after-effect that 

there were people in Morton Thiokol at the engineering level 

whose concerns didn’t reach those who said that if they had known 

of them, they might have taken other actions. I don’t know, other 

than that says that there has to be something wrong in the communication there, for improvements. 

Also, with regard to the ice debris and Rockwell, we had the 

senior officials of Rockwell believing they were talking on a flight 

safety issue, while the senior officials of NASA believed they were 

talking about an issue that was not safety of flight, but a refurbishment issue. And again, that type of communications indicates there 

was a problem with the communication. 

Next chart, please. 

That was all I had on launch decision, in that there is a lot of 

review in that whole activity. But that is all that we were asked to 

look at as the prelaunch team. 

The final area we have is the prelaunch security. In that activity, the assessment, again, was initiated right after launch, and the 

review was done in conjunction not only with KSC, but aspects of 

local, State, and Federal agencies to assure that all aspects of the 

security problem were looked at. And the next chart documents 

our major finding, in that there were no factors contributing to the 

51-L mishap that were found as part of the security assessment. 

Next chart, please. 
273 

However, we did say that based upon our look-see, or looking at 

that whole activity, that we wanted to reassess our national resource protection to assure, in light of all that we looked at, that 

we were doing a proper job, and this type of review is ongoing. 

And that’s all I had, and that was the end of our findings, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you, Mr. Utsman, and your other colleagues for 

an excellent presentation and one of candor. And without objection, the Chair would move that testimony, the written testimony 

accompanying the charts and graphics, be incorporated as part of 

the committee’s records at this point in the record. No objection; so 

ordered. 

[Materials to be supplied.] [See Appendix 2 p. 662.1 

Mr. ROE. In the preagreed discussion we had this morning as to 

our process this afternoon, Mr. Scheuer, the distinguished gentleman from New York, was proceeding upon a particular course of 

questioning, and we decided it would be apropos and workable to 

finish the testimony first of the distinguished representatives of 

NASA, which we have done at this point, and therefore the Chair 

now defers to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Scheuer. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Fletcher, we were discussing this morning the remarkable 

body of evidence, the remarkable data base that NASA achieved in 

a comparatively short period of about 6 weeks after the tragic accident by the application of approximately $5 million and approximately 200 scientific and technical people. 

And I asked you if you could get for us this afternoon the resources and the personnel that were applied to addressing the problems that were enumerated in the February 1983 warning, the July 

1985 warning, the August 1985, warning, before launch. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Scheuer, as you know, we did look at that 

very hard during the lunch period, and I think we have some answers for you. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Good. 

Dr. FLETCHER. There was a study started after a flight readiness 

review when the joint problems were discussed quite extensively. 

The study was started in early 1984, and it looked at things like 

margin assessments, new designs, and new materials to be used in 

the joint. Additionally to that, at the Marshall Space Flight Center, 

there was some internal Marshall effort that looked at modelling of 

the joint, things like putty layup, et cetera, that was ongoing. And 

also, after each mission, when an incident occurred with the joint, 

there was some manpower and some dollars associated with doing 

a postflight analysis. 
274 

The total of this, with the information that I could gather over 

the lunch hour, was approximately $3.5 to $3.8 million. I don’t 

know exactly how many people were involved, but I can supply 

that for the record. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 

Material Requested for the Record on Page 126, Line 2088, By 

Mr. Scheuer on June 12, 1986. 

Approximately 40 MTI and MSFC engineers were involved in the early 

redesign assessment during the months preceding the accident. The 

initial studies, in early 1984, utilized approximately 17 

engineers. 

lay-out, subscale testing and other structural and mechanical 

analyses. 

Additional personnel were added as needed for putty 
27 5 

Mr. SCHEUER. Over how long a period of time did this effort take 

Dr. FLETCHER. This was over a period of about 2 years. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Starting when? 

Dr. FLETCHER. In early 1984. 

One thing that I have not been able to quantify that I think is 

worth pointing out is that the-because the problem had been recognized earlier-but as the Commission’s investigation quite clearly shows, we did not deal with it to the extent that we should-we 

did institute a design change into the joint, the metal for the joint itself, which has been referred to as a capture tang, that was designed to reduce the joint rotation that has been discussed here 

today. That capture tang, that metal in that captured tang was designed into the design for the filament-wound case; that’s a new 

version of the solid rocket motor that is designed and is under development to be used out at Vandenberg Air Force Base for west 

coast launches. And in the summer of last year, the decision was 

made-- 

place? 

Mr. SCHEUER. The summer of 1985? 

Dr. FLETCHER. The summer of 1985, yes, sir. 

The decision was made, in the case billets, the raw billets that 

were being produced to later be machined, that enough metal 

would be-the design of those raw billets would have enough metal 

so that the steel cases could also have such a capture tang. I don’t have a dollar number to put on what went into that particular design change, so I guess I would, in summary to answer 

your question, it was less than $5 million; $3.5 to $3.7 million over 

a period of the last 2 years, plus the cost of that capture tang, and 

I can get that. But I don’t have it now. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, now, as of August of last summer, in the 

third of these three early warning signals that all was not well, the 

recommendation was made in this final briefing to the NASA 

people, through Michael Weeks and others, the recommendation 

was made that efforts need to be continued at an accelerated pace 

to eliminate seal erosion, and that additional tests needed to be 

conducted for establishing margins of safety for eroded O-rings. 

Now, this was 1Yz years into that 2-year effort that you’re talking about, so apparently it was quite clear as of 18 months into 

that period that there was vast additional data that had to be accrued before launch could be effective. 

Let me ask you, do you agree with the statement made in this 

Presidential Commission report, on page 148, that-I refer to item 

5 in the second column--“The O-ring erosion history presented to Level I at NASA Headquarters in August, 1985”-the briefing that 

I just referred to-“was sufficiently detailed to require corrective 

action prior to the next flight.” Do you agree with that? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I accept that. I’m sure that it is correct; it was a 

conclusion of the Commission. I think it is quite clear, in hindsight, 

that the O-ring problem should have been dealt properly with, and 

that’s a point that you made earlier and I’m very glad that you did-is that the fact that this problem was missed was not only a 

problem at the Marshall Space Flight Center, but also at NASA 

Headquarters. The signs were there; the Commission-in retrospect, the Commission and our task force and this tremendous 
276 

amount of effort that we’ve put on it, which is the nature of accident investigations, has shown that improper attention to this crucial problem was given, and it was not limited to the people at the 

Marshall Space Flight Center. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Chairman, we have in the audience, the 

Deputy Associate Administrator of Flight for NASA, Mr. Weeks, 

and I wonder if we could ask him to come to the witness table. 

Mr. ROE. I believe Mr. Weeks is here. If we may, Dr. Fletcher, 

we’d like to have him come to the table for some questioning. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Chairman, this is Mr. Michael Weeks. He was 

the Deputy Administrator at the time of the accident. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Deputy Administrator for Flight? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I’m sorry-Deputy Associate Administrator (Technical) for Office of Space Flight-or for the STS. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Weeks. Go ahead, Mr. Scheuer. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Weeks, in February 1983 you signed a waiver 

of the fail-safe requirement for the joints, correct? 

Mr. WEEKS. That’s correct. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Right. And then in July 1985, you were alerted to 

the problem of the joints when Irving Davids wrote a memo, which 

you were copied, right? 

Mr. WEEKS. That’s correct. 

Mr. SCHEUER. OK. Then in August 1985, you were present at a 

briefing about the repeated failure of the O-rings in which you 

were urged-you, I mean the collective group-were urged to make 

efforts to continue at an accelerated pace, efforts to eliminate this 

seal erosion, and to conduct additional tests for establishing a 

margin of safety for O-rings, OK? Right? 

Mr. WEEKS. Yes. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Now, what I’d like to know, at that point in time 

in August 1985, with a launch date set for Challenger staring you 

in the face not many months hence but with these critical warnings in your possession, what kind of resources did you spend to address yourself to the problems that this memo urged you to address 

at an accelerated pace? How many people? How many dollars? 

What did you learn, and what did you do about it? 

Mr. WEEKS. As Admiral Truly spoke to you, I think I should-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Weeks, I’m asking you a couple of very simple questions-- 

Mr. WEEKS. Iunderstand that. 

Mr. SCHEUER [continuing]. Which demand a factual answer. 

Mr. WEEKS. The effort after that August meeting that we had, 

which was quite an important one-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. What was important? The meeting or the effort? 

Mr. WEEKS. No, the effort and the problem of the erosion of the 

secondary O-ring-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, we know the problem was important. What 

we want to know is, what did you do about the problem when you 

were warned about it for the third successive time? What happened 

after that August meeting? 

Mr. WEEKS. The key items that happened after that was the 

studies that Admiral Truly has already spoken to. 

Mr. SCHEUER. What did you learn from those studies? 
277 

Mr. WEEKS. That there was, essentially, as we have found nowit’s about a 2-year program-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. That essentially what? 

Mr. WEEKS. That it’s about a 2-year program to bring the capture 

tang and any changes into that joint, to eliminate all of those problems that Mr. John Thomas talked about. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Now, I don’t understand that. It was a 6-week program that just took place to put together the data base that tells 

you that under no circumstances should this launch take place. 

Now, what I want to know-- 

Mr. WEEKS. Now, wait a minute. 

Mr. SCHEUER. What all of us want to know is-- 

Mr. WEEKS. Wait a minute. “Under no circumstances”-I believe 

really, Mr. Scheuer, you-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Scheuer. 

Mr. WEEKS. Scheuer, excuse me. 

The conclusion of that briefing given to us on August 19 was, it 

is safe to continue flying the existing design as long as joints are 

leak-tested with 200 PSI stabilization pressure, and are free of contamination in the seal areas, and meet the O-ring squeeze requirements. 

Now, Marshall did proceed with a number of hardware things 

that were put into the filament-wound case qual test motor. They 

were basically three; in addition to all this study effort, there were 

three changes made in the qual motor of the filament-wound case 

because that was coming along and was an opportunity to put 

them in. And so we inserted into the qual motor program the fixes 

that I will now relate. There were basically three of them. 

As Admiral Truly said, in July 1985 we ordered those 72 forgings 

with the extra material so that we can now, for the fix that we’re 

going to have to do, provide the captured tang to stop the rotation. 

And that decision-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Let me cut you off there-- 

Mr. WEEKS. I really think that to get the three things that were 

quite fundamental as a result of that-- 

Mr. ROE. If the gentlemen will both suspend. There is a bit of 

excitement in the air because we are trying to get to certain facts. 

I think Mr. Scheuer had asked you in the initial question, which 

you really didn’t answer-but if I could impose on the distinguished gentleman from New York to allow the witness to make 

his observations, then let’s go back then and restructure our questions. Is that satisfactory? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Very good. 

Mr. ROE. So we’ll give you the courtesy of giving you the time to 

answer. 

Mr. WEEKS. Very good. I appreciate that. 

So these-in addition to those studies that Admiral Truly spoke 

to, there were these three things that we put into the hardware. 

The 72 forgings were ordered because we knew the rotation problem was serious, and we had changed the design in the filamentwound case so that it did have a captured tang. That decision of 

proceeding with those 72 forgings is now saving us 6 to 9 months in 

the implementation program that Mr. John Thomas is heading up 
278 

that would have delayed us more had we not made that decision. 

These forgings, in fact, are already at Rohr in San Diego-- 

Mr. ROE. Can the gentleman, just for clarity, explain to the committee what he means by forgings and where the forgings are located? 

Mr. WEEKS. OK. The solid rocket motor is composed of a lot of 

spun forgings that are 146 inches in diameter and 12 feet long. I 

think Mr. Lee showed that. It takes two of those forgings, properly 

machined, to make up a single segment that can then be poured 

with propellant with, I think, as you, Mr. Roe, spoke to, of the joint 

that is covered over that is the same sort of joint. And so that’s 

what those forgings are. They’re spun; they’re done by the Ladisch 

Corp. up in Milwaukee, and then they are shipped to Rohr in California for machining. And already, with that decision that we 

made to move out on those forgings, we’ve gained ourselves 6 to 9 

months that we would otherwise have due to this terrible accident. 

And we changed two of the three case joints as a research project, 

changing the O-rings in two of the three in this qual motor, which 

was for the filament-wound case, and that was to improve the sealing. 

And the last change of the hardware that was put into the qual 

motor, into the filament-wound case qual motor, and that stops the 

rotation, and that one is down in the throat area. The basic idea of 

the captured tang, which is a very likely candidate for the way we 

will fix the joint for the final-for when we get flying, is a captured 

tang that forbids the rotation to exceed more than about nineteenthousandths of an inch. And that, in addition to the study effort, 

are very positive things that were done by Marshall and by Thiokol 

to move forward in this area of improving the O-ring erosion which 

occurred many times during the past 2 years. 

Mr. ROE. All right. Now, if we can get back to our continuity, 

Mr. Weeks. We thank you for your explanation, but I believe what 

Mr. Scheuer is about to do is to evolve a set of questions that really 

are not looking for long, technical explanations, and I mean no effrontery to your expertise, but what actually happened? What did 

we do? And that’s what-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Can I rephrase my questions, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. ROE. Yes, sure. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Let’s rephrase the questions because maybe I 

wasn’t sufficiently clear. 

Following the meeting on August 19, where you were urged to 

make efforts to continue at an accelerated pace the elimination of 

the seal erosion, where you were urged to make additional tests for 

establishing margins of safety for O-rings, conditions which apparently impelled the Commission to write that: The O-ring history 

presented at level I at NASA headquarters in August 1985 was sufficiently detailed to require corrective action prior to the next 

flight.” 

Now, having been urged to make an accelerated research and development effort to eliminate seal erosion and to establish margins 

for safety for eroded C-rings-for eroded O-rings-what did you do? 

Mr. WEEKS. The accelerated program was very clear in those 

three things I just told you that were put into the dual motor test 
279 

for the filament-wound case, which were genuine improvements to reduce the probability of erosion occurring in those joints. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield at that point for a point of 

clarity? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. Did you not say two things, as I understand it, when 

the discussion took place that the results of the-the review of the 

discussion indicated that if you were to correct the system, that it 

would take 2 years? Mr. WEEKS. At the time period that we were doing that, the best 

estimate that we had for capture tang design configuration was 

about 2 years. Mr. ROE. All I’m simply trying to get at is just simply to elucidate your specific statements and facts you made; either they are 

correct or not. Therefore, do I assume from that-if the gentleman will indulge me further-do I assume from that that if I m talking 

to you and we’re decidinjg we have a problem, and you say, well, we 

do have a problem, weve discussed it-well, OK, now. I’m concerned about that; what I want to do is get that totally corrected so 

that we do not have any more problems. In order to pursue that 

course of action, how long approximately do you think it would 

take? And then you respond to me and you say, well, from my best 

judgment it would take approximately 2 years. 

Is that an accurate observation of your point? 

Mr. WEEKS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Can I take it from there, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. ROE. Yes, you can, of course. I just wanted to clarify that. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Now, there was a life-threatening condition there 

which the Commission said should have been corrected prior to the 

next flight, OK? Do you disagree with this conclusion? Do you feel 

that research should have gone on over the 2 years that you suggest it would take, while 25 or 30 additional space flights were being carried out? Should those two things have happened simultaneously or concurrently? 

Mr. WEEKS. Well, Mr. Scheuer, it is much easier to look at this 

thing with 20/20 hindsight, but I still remind you of the following things that we knew at that time. 

When the briefing was presented to us on August 19, 1985-as 

you will look in the briefing that was provided to the Commission 

on February 10-there was no temperature data presented that 

showed that the resiliency was such a critical factor. It wasn’t until 

after the disaster of 51-L that I actually saw the resiliency data 

that showed that Viton, which is the O-ring material that we’ve 

been using, is so slow to recover at very low temperatures-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Will the gentleman-- 

Mr. WEEKS [continuing]. That was not brought out-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Weeks-Mr. Weeks, we are engaged here, and 

let us admit an effort at Monday morning quarterbacking. Should 

we be doing something else? Should we not all be trying to find out 

what the problems were and what should have happened that 

didn’t happen that produced that awful accident? 

Mr. WEEKS. I-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Of course we should; there’s no point in debating that. 
280 

Now, what I’m suggesting is that you had in your possession-I 

mean the decisionmakers, the corporate decisionmakers at NASA 

headquarters-three separate warnings that should have given you 

notice that this launch shouldn’t take place until these problems 

that were identified were solved. That’s what the Commission says. 

Let me read it to you over again. I read it to you once before; I’ll 

read it again. 

“The O-ring erosion history presented to Level 1 at NASA Headquarters in August of 1985”-at the meeting at which you were 

present-“was sufficiently detailed to require corrective action 

prior to the next flight.” 

Now, do you disagree with that? 

Mr. WEEKS. In 20/20 hindsight, I totally agree with you. 

Mr. SCHEUER. OK. Now, we’re looking at this from 20/20 hindsight. We’re all trying to learn some lessons. We’re all trying to 

learn some lessons, and frankly, there may be some lessons on this 

whole tragic series of events that Congress could learn from. 

Maybe we didn’t do as much as we could have in funding, in encouragement, in oversight. There’s probably enough blame to go 

around for everybody. There are no superpeople here, no supermen 

or women who are pointing the blame at anybody else. We are all 

in this together; we are all trying to learn how to avoid this awful 

catastrophe in the future and move forward successfully, to retake 

America’s supreme place in space. 

Mr. WEEKS. Icannot disagree with you, sir. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Pardon? 

Mr. WEEKS. Icannot disagree with you, that it would be extremely wise if we could have seen to do this $5 million effort that took 6 

weeks-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, what I’m asking you-- 

Mr. WEEKS [continuing]. In September of 1985. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Right. What efforts did take place? 

Mr. WEEKS. Iwish I could relive that history and do it. 

Mr. SCHEUER. That may be enough for my purposes. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield? I want to get another point 

Mr. SCHEUER. Let me ask one more question. 

Mr. ROE. Well, it’s a point of clarity that’s not clear, Jim. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I yield to my chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman, in making his earlier testimony-we solidified the point of view of the 2 years, which we agreed on. 

You made another statement, which I think is important. The 

second statement that you made, that it was determined in the 

course of that discussion-as I recall what you said-that even 

though the severity of the issue was understood, that it was decided 

that it wasn’t that severe that you could not proceed with additional launchings, or whatever that meant, even though you would be 

doing some redesigning as you went along. Did I not understand 

you to make that comment? 

Mr. WEEKS. That’s correct, and I think that the statement at the 

conclusion of the briefing is quite significant in that it is safe to 

continue flying the existing design as long as we did those three 

things that are in that briefing. 

on the record. 
28 1 

Mr. ROE. Well, if the gentleman would expand on that further. 

Therefore, there are a group of people-whomever they were-that 

participated at this particular meeting, reviewed these facts that 

were available, and they determined two things, according to your 

testimony. One, they determined that if everything-if they had 

their “druthers,” or whatever the case may be, it would take 2 

years in their judgment to be able to correct that; but in spite of 

that decision, they took and made the second judgment. And the 

second judgment, well, we can continue to fly. We’ll start the 

mechanisms going to get this corrected, but we can continue to fly 

until we get that done. Isn’t that the decision that was made, according to what you’re saying? 

Mr. WEEKS. That is correct. 

Mr. ROE. Therefore, some people who were at that specific meeting had to be the people who made that specific decision. 

Mr. WEEKS. That’s correct. 

Mr. ROE. Is that a fair commentary? 

Mr. WEEKS. That’s correct. 

Mr. ROE. Could we have a list of the people who participated? 

Mr. WEEKS. Ihave it right here. 

Mr. ROE. Would you submit the list for the record, please? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Was Jesse Moore at that meeting? 

Mr. WEEKS. No, sir. Mr. Moore was-- 

Mr. ROE. Well, let me finish the first parliamentary issue first, 

Mr. Scheuer, if I may. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Right. Right. 

Mr. ROE. Therefore the gentleman would submit for the record a 

list of the names of the people that participated in that meeting. 

[Material referred to follows:] 
August 19, 1985 - 0-Ring Briefing at NASA Headquarters 

Morton-Thiokol, Wasatch Division 

J.E. Mason Senior Vice President and General Manager 

C.C. Wiggins Space Division Vice President 

and General Manager 

J.C. Kilminster Space Booster Program Vice President 

A.J. McDonald Solid Rocket Motor Project Director 

C.A. Speak Fi lment Wound Case Frogram Manager ' F.J. Ross Washington D.C. Office - Marketing Manager 

George C. Marshall Space Flight Center 

L.B. Mulloy Solid Rocket Booster Program Manager 

R. Schwinghamer Materials and Processes Laboratory Director 

NASA Headquarters 

L.M. Weeks Office of Space Flight Deputy P.ssociate 

D.L. Winterhalter Shuttle Propulsion Division Bctizg Director 

W.H. Hamby STS Program Integration Deputy Director 

P. F. Wet ze 1 Solid Rocket Booster Programs Chief 

P.N. Herr Solid Rocket hlotor Program Manager 

H. Quong Reliability, Maintainaoility, and Quality 

Administrator (Technicel) 

Assurance Director (Chief Engineer's Office) 
283 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I’d like a point of clarification. I thought we were operating under the 5-minute rule here, 

and it’s been a half an hour and there have been a lot of other 

members that have been very patiently waiting. 

Mr. ROE. Well, that’s probably the Chair’s fault because this 

afternoon the Chair had decided, because of specific questions 

where people had been waiting all day, that we’d give people a 

little more latitude. But it is not the intention of the chairman to 

turn anybody off, and we’ll give the gentleman the same courtesies 

in return. 

The gentleman from New York. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Thank you. 

Mr. Weeks, you were telling us about Jesse Moore’s presence. Mr. WEEKS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Was he at the meeting? 

Mr. WEEKS. No, sir. He had planned to go to the meeting, but he 

was-some other prior pressure caused him to go to another meeting. But I did brief Mr. Moore that evening, as we were wont to do 

in the early morning and evening. I briefed him on the results of 

that and told him about the briefing and showed him the briefing, 

and as we left that evening I said I was still not quite satisfied and 

I wanted to call someone that I had great trust in, and I so did do 

that, to Mr. George Hardy of the Marshall Space Flight Center 

who had headed up the SRB for many years and then had moved 

up to be deputy engineering. And I had great faith in his judgment, 

and I asked him, how bad is it? And he allayed my fears, and I 

think it came from the fact that we did do a test that showed that 

we had a factor of safety of four on the 0.032-inch erosion that occurred. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Isn’t it clear that we really didn’t know enough at 

that time to really come to any conclusions about a factor of safety 

except to know that we had life-threatening conditions to which we 

ought to have achieved answers before we went ahead? Isn’t this 

what the report is all about, that corrective action was required prior to the next flight? And the fact is that you have learned more 

in this 6 weeks of collective effort through the expenditure of $5 

million and the application of 200 trained scientific and technical 

minds, than you knew through that entire 2-year effort up to the 

date of launch? Isn’t that true? You really didn’t know what the 

problem was with the seal erosion and with the margins for safety for eroded O-rings as of the time that that launch took place? Isn t 

that true? 

Mr. WEEKS. Iessentially agree with you, sir. That joint, with the 

putty problem, with the rotation problem, with the-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Let’s not get into technicalities. 

Mr. WEEKS [continuing]. Temperature problems, are all very 

complicated and I agree that the effort after was extremely effective and we learned immensely after the accident. 

Mr. SCHEUER. You learned immensely. Wouldn’t you say that, 

with the benefit of hindsight, that following the warnings of that 

August 19 meeting to accelerate the pace of research into seal erosion, and to accelerate the tests for establishing margins of safety for eroded O-rings, the simple, clear message of that briefing was, 
284 

do your homework before going ahead with another launch because 

you have life-threatening conditions that are there which must be 

faced and for which solutions must be found? Wasn’t that the clear 

meaning of that briefing on August 19? 

Mr. WEEKS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Why wasn’t that done? Your boss knew about it; 

you reported to him that evening. 

Looking at it in hindsight, what have we got to learn? Why 

didn’t you and Mr. Moore and the other decisionmakers follow up 

on those recommendations and either do the work in the next 6 

weeks-which would have been a replica of what you did in the 

last 6 weeks or so-or why didn’t you postpone the launch until 

you had done your homework? 

Mr. WEEKS. If we had known that clearly how crisply to do this 

problem, we certainly should have done it. 

Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Chairman, may I just-would the gentleman 

yield for just a moment? 

Mr. SCHEUER. I’ll be happy to yield. 

Mr. ROE. He was just finishing. 

Mr. PACKARD. So that we can conclude this matter and not 

hammer on something that’s not redoable, I think that the Commission’s report makes a rather cogent statement that reflects directly on what the gentleman from New York is pursuing. 

It says, “If the decisionmakers had known all the facts, it is 

highly unlikely that they would have decided to launch 51-L on 

January 28, 1986.” And I think that that’s what we’re hearing from the witnesses. And I think that’s what we’re trying to determine, is how to avoid repeating this problem again. And I’m not 

sure that it would be productive to pursue it further. 

Mr. ROE. Well, the Chair has allowed this discussion to go this 

far simply because of the point of view that I believe that it’s a 

subliminal issue-Mr. Weeks, you have become quite, what would 

you say, well known throughout the Nation-what Mr. Scheuer 

wants to do, and the gentleman from California understands, is 

just to get on the record the sequence of events that took place. And I think you’ve done a good job in making that presentation. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Chairman, may I add one more sentence? 

Mr. ROE. Yes. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I think this has been very helpful, and I wish to 

express my feeling that Mr. Weeks has been forthcoming in his testimony. It took a little time, but he’s given us what seems to be a 

NASA view. They should have known a lot more before they proceeded, in hindsight. Any other conclusion would be difficult to 

come to. 

There’s been a lot of fingerpointing here at Marshall, but I think 

it’s fair to say that central headquarters, also, has played a major 

role in this, and I think that we shouldn’t forget this as we proceed 

with these hearings, Mr. Chairman. I hope we’ll have a chance to 

ask Mr. Weeks to come back. He’s been very helpful today. I appreciate his forthcoming testimony, and I hope I will have the chance 

to ask him further questions. Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from New York. 

Mr. PACKARD. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Can I yield to my colleague, Mr. Nelson? 
285 

Mr. ROE. If I could just chair the meeting, then I will let you 

yield. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Very good. 

MI. ROE. I would like to make it clear to all of our Members that 

there’s no one that’s going to-we seem to have-I don’t know; 

maybe it’s the Ides of June. There seems to be a little testiness 

today, unnecessarily. I think the Chair has been overabundantly 

generous to every Member about any particular issue, any particular area that they chose to make their points, to be able to make 

them. And I intend to see that the hearing continues under that 

decorum and under that direction. And no one will be precluded 

from their point and their opportunity. I want to make that point 

abundantly clear. 

I want to make another point clear. I think it ought to be said at 

this point, in this stage of the hearings, we have work yet to do and 

very important work to do. And I think we’ve successfully come to 

a point where, as far as the obligations and responsibilities of the 

Commission, they have made a report. We are now very, very carefully and very legitimately following up on it, point to point. Everybody, practically, at this table one time or another has said there’s 

plenty of blame to go around. There is for everybody. That is not 

our mission. Our fundamental mission is to understand what happened, why it happened, and how we correct it and what policies 

we set for the Nation. That is the purpose of this hearing. 

Now, there will be some blood and some scar tissue, I’m sure, 

when we’re done. But it’s going to be fair and it’s going to be 

honest and it’s going to be just, and I think that’s the direction in 

which we have been continuing and that’s the direction in which 

we will continue. 

Now, having said that, I will yield to the distinguished gentleman from Florida, Mr. William Nelson, because he has a series of 

questions he would like to ask. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. NELSON. Iappreciate it. The reason I had asked the gentleman from New York to yield was that I just wanted to follow up, 

just with a question or two, to Mr. Weeks. 

After this famous meeting that occurred in August, did you or 

anyone else issue instructions to Marshall or to Kennedy to take 

care of those three problems that were noted in the Thiokol report? 

Mr. WEEKS. Yes, Mr. Paul Herr sent a memo to Marshall following up on the August 19 meeting, and I can’t remember the date of 

Mr. Herr’s memo. 

Mr. NELSON. All right. May we have a copy of that, please? 

Mr. WEEKS. We will find it for you. Yes, it’s available. 

Mr. NELSON. Fine. Send that to me personally, please, and to Mr. 

[The information follows:] 

Scheuer. 

64-295 0 - 86 - 10 
286 

Material requested for the record on page 149, line 3651, by 

Mr. Nelson on June 12, 1986. 

Memorandum dated August 23, 1985, singed by Paul Herr reference 

Headquarters, meeting on SRM "0" ring briefings is enclosed. 

MP S August 23, 1985 

TO : Marshall Space Flight Center 

SA41/Manager, Solid Rocket Booster Project 

FROM: MPSIManager, Solid Rocket Motor Program 

SUBJECT: Headquarters SRM FWC-STA/"O" Ring Briefings 

As a follow-up to the SRM briefings to Headquarters on August 19, 

1985, please provide the following: 

1. FWC-STA 

a. pre-launch loads at WTR and ETR with and without 

winds . b. inspection plans for VLS-1 pre and post FRF. 

c. rationale for new FWC segment - could DM-7 

segment be used to avoid costs? 

d. results of forward segment inspection. 

e. pictures of failed aft segment. 

11. "0" Rings 

a. provide a copy of "0" ring validated (TWR-14952) 

b. schedule and cost to incorporate the captive 

feature on future segment buys. 

c. data on pre launch loads causing joint rotation. 

d. results of post flight torque tests of nozzle 

and ingiter bolts. 

Thanks again for two well done briefings on the SRM here at 

Headquarters. 

Paul N. Herr 
287 

Mr. NELSON. All right. Now, Mr. Weeks, what specifically does it 

mean in the Thiokol report when it says, “meet O-ring squeeze requirements?” 

Mr. WEEKS. The basic limit, Mr. Nelson, on the minimum 

squeeze is 7Y2 percent of the diameter of the O-ring itself, so that 

means roughly that you shall not have a squeeze less than 20 thousandths, approximately, on the 280 thousandths O-ring. 

Mr. NELSON. Were those requirements met on 51-L? 

Mr. WEEKS. I believe so. In fact, I think that John Thomas could 

probably answer that, but I believe it was in the vicinity of .035. 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir, that is correct. They were met. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. Now, was there a concern about excess squeeze 

or maximum squeeze? 

Mr. WEEKS. Yes, I believe so. But as I understood the problem 

then-and I guess as I do now-the more serious one is when you 

get the rotation with the minimum squeeze, which then, if you 

don’t have good resilience, doesn’t fill up the gap and contain the 

gasses. But I believe there is a concern at the high one, but I don’t 

believe it’s the crucially serious one. 

Mr. NELSON. All right. Were these squeeze requirements met on 

all of the flights after August 19, 1985? 

Mr. WEEKS. Ican’t be totally authoritative, but I’ve never heard 

anyone say that they did not. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. 

Mr. Thomas, do you have any information with regard to that? 

Mr. THOMAS. No, I don’t. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. 

Supply that for us, Mr. Weeks, if you will. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 
Material Requested for the Record on Page 151, Line 3684, By Mr. 

Nelson on June 12, 1986. 

The calculated O-ring squeeze, using actual measured case tang and 

clevis dimensions for 51-1 (flew on August 27, 1985) and subsequent 

missions are shown below: 

- STS 

51-1 

51-5 

61-A 

61-6 

61-L 

51-L 

- FWD 

FIELD JOINT 

- CTR - AFT 

LH 11.2% 11.5% 11.5% 

RH 12.8% 15.3% 14.6% 

LH 9.8% 16.0% 16.6% 

RH 13.9% 16.1% 14.3% 

LH 11.5% 12.5% 17.0% 

RH 16.0% 15.6% 15.6% 

LH 13.9% 15.3% 13.2% 

RH 8.8% 16.5% 12.9% 

LH 14.6% 10.5% 16.3% 

RH 13.9% 16.3% 14.2% 

LH 10.2% 13.2% 13.4% 

RH 12.5% 13.1% 14.3% 
289 

Mr. NELSON. OK. Mr. Chairman, I want to now pick up the ques- tion that I asked in Dr. Fletcher’s absence yesterday morning. I 

asked Admiral Truly, and he said that Mr. Lee would supply the 

answer today, so if Mr. Lee would come up. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Lee, please. Mr. NELSON. Ifurther privately discussed this with Dr. Fletcher, 

and it gets into the questioil of the testing and analysis requirements on the whole SRB-not just the joint, the whole SRB. Under 

the design specs it was to go down on natural environment down to 

31 degrees, and under induced environment it was to go down to 21 

degrees. And there were supposed to be testing and analysis on 

this, and the reason this was raised was when you briefed this committee down at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday, you told us 

that you had no evidence that such testing and analysis in fact was 

done. 

Would you restate that for the record, as to what you told us 

Friday? Mr. LEE. Yes, sir, Mr. Nels) 

With your permission, you sbated that the lower limit on the induced temperature was 21-was 26, I believe, 26 degrees Fahrenheit? 

Mr. NELSON. No, sir; not in these documents. It says 21 in there, 

but be that as it may, let’s go on. 

Mr. LEE. It is, in fact, 26 degrees. The finding that the Commission’s production and development-- 

Mr. NELSON. Well, let’s just clarify that. I have a document 

here-as long as we’re going to get specific-NASA Technical 

Memorandum. Is this the cover page for it? 

Mr. LEE. I believe so. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. Dated November 19, 1973, Marshall Space Flight Center. It gives temperature, degrees Fahrenheit; talks 

about the aft attachment; talks temperature in degrees Fahrenheit; 

hot, max of 96; cold, minimum of 21. 

Mr. LEE. I’m not familiar with that particular document. I was 

referring to the overall systems specification that is from the shuttle-overall specification which is imposed on our element contractors, and that is in fact 26 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, induced. 

Mr. NELSON. All right. It’s a minor point; we’ll clarify it later on 

between the exchange of paper. 

Dr. FLETCHER. MrNelson, did you say 1973? 

Mr. NELSON. That’s correct. That’s the date. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I’m not sure, but that could have been before 

Morton Thiokol was selected. I think we ought to check the date, 

but I believe that was an early spec that may have been changed by the time we had the solid rocket contractor on board. 

Mr. NELSON. All right, we’ll check it. 

Go ahead. 

Mr. LEE. Mr. Sutter’s commission team, which I supported, found 

that the requirements for that specification were satisfied by the 

Morton Thiokol Co. through either qualification testing, analysis, 

or inspection or acceptance testing. Now, in the case of the seal 

joint itself, for the certification-the acceptance of the certification 

of that joint-it was specified to be do ie by ,inalysis. That was pro- 
290 

posed by the Morton Thiokol Co., and the Marshall Space Flight 

Center accepted that, by analysis. As I stated this morning, the interpretation of that induced requirement by Morton Thiokol was not associated with vertical 

flight, but more as a storage temperature. So, given that situation, 

their limitation or band, range of temperatures for qualification, to 

them was that associated with the mean bulk temperature, which 

they believed encompassed all environmental requirements for the 

motor from a qualification standpoint-was 40 to 90 degrees. Now, 

that’s what they did in fact state to our team when we reviewed 

this. 

It is my interpretation and the writer of the specification, the 

keeper of that spec at JSC, and the project office-the solid rocket 

booster project office-at Marshall, that the intent was to be 26 to 

120 through vertical flight. Now, that makes a difference in the 

way you go about satisfying or certifying them. In any event, the 

certification method was by analysis, and the data presented to certify that environment to the Government, if you will, was a MILSPEC on the O-ring which states clearly that the O-ring can be operated between the temperatures of minus 30 and 500. Now, the interpretation of the meaning of that certification on the part of the 

Government was that the O-ring was the critical part; it did, in 

fact-was usable through those ranges. 

Now, in hindsight it is determined by Mr. Sutter’s team that the 

proper imposition, if you will, for the method of certification probably should have been by test, which it wasn’t, in light of the accident; and the stated satisfaction, if you will, by analysis of using 

only the O-ring spec was inadequate or improper. 

So the issue is around the interpretation of the specification and, 

in light of the accident, we should have gone through a full-scale 

qualification through all those environments. So there was a misinterpretation and probably a lack of imposition, if you will, or inadequate imposition of the method of qualification. And that was, in 

fact, the issue that our team came out with, is that under items of 

this type of criticality, the method of certification and qualification 

should be further scrutinized and ensure that they do in fact go 

through the full qualification range. That was the intent of the 

whole thing. Not to imply that Morton Thiokol did not satisfy their 

contractual requirements. 

Mr. NELSON. Friday, you showed us this same chart that you 

showed us today, which said “significant findings,” and the first 

one is, “qualification not accomplished to required spec limits.” 

Mr. LEE. That’s right. 

Mr. NELSON. You explained that Friday at the Kennedy Space 

Center, and you said that the adequate testing and analysis had 

not been done. And when I asked why, you said nobody knows why. 

Mr. LEE. I’m sorry, I don’t remember giving exactly that answer. 

I believe, in answer to the question, I stated that the people who 

were there at the time in the development program, back in the 

late 1970’s who were in fact required to interpret the adequacy of 

that certification, who actually signed off on the certification and 

qualification, are no longer with us. I believe that was the intent of 

my answer, as opposed to “no one knew.” 
29 1 

Mr. NELSON. OK. So what you are saying today is that analysis 

was required, which in fact the documentation shows, for both the 

natural environment and the induced environment; and you’re saying that the interpretation of what analysis should be was that 

it would go down to 26 degrees in a stored condition; is that correct? 

Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NELSON. But that’s not what the design specs call for, and I 

read from 3.2.2.1.17.2, which is on a document entitled, “Space Shuttle Flight and Ground System Specification,” dated September 30, 1983, from the Johnson Space Center, and let me read for you: 

“Induced environment: Each element shall be capable of withstanding the induced environment imposed during transportation, ground operations, handling, and flight operations.” Flight operations, OK? Now, how could they come to an interpretation that 

that meant only for storage? 

Mr. LEE. I don’t know that, Congressman. I only know that the 

people on my team who evaluated it interpret it the same way you 

do. The writer of the document interprets it the same way you do, 

and I think the project office does. I cannot answer for why Morton 

Thiokol did not interpret it that same way during the development 

program. Mr. NELSON. Well, first of all, we have two verification completion notices that have been signed. This induced environment is in 

fact one of the verification requirements completed and signed off. 

One verification completion notice is done just before STS-1, and 

the second one is done just before STS-5. So the obvious question 

is, why were they signed? 

Mr. LEE. Are they Government signatures? Mr. NELSON. Yes. There’s a whole raft of signatures here. 

Mr. LEE. Well, again, the basis for that certification was, in fact, 

what was interpreted to be the completion of the analysis, and that 

was the O-ring itself was in fact a MILSPEC designed to go from 

minus 30 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Mr. NELSON. Well, you’re talking about the-that doesn’t answer 

the question. The answer to the question-what you’re saying is that you don’t know why these were signed because the analysis was not done according to the design criteria. 

Mr. LEE. No, sir. I’m saying that it was established that the certification would be completed by analysis. I’m also stating that the 

analysis in this case was the recognition that the O-ring itself was 

good to be used between the temperatures of minus 30 and 500 degrees; that’s the documentation which I have seen that was used to 

say this is, in fact, certified for those temperatures. Mr. NELSON. If the design specs say otherwise, then who made 

that determination that they were going to test-or analyze, in this 

case, analysis-to a different standard than in the specs? 

Mr. LEE. Well, the determination to certify it by analysis was 

proposed by Thiokol and approved by NASA. The method for that 

analysis happened to be the MILSPEC, and the MILSPEC calls for 

a temperature range which encompasses the 26 degrees to 120 degrees. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield for a clarity, please? 

Mr. NELSON. Certainly. 
292 

Mr. ROE. The question that’s being asked, and the distinguished gentleman, Mr. Lee, comes back and says “they decided that we 

would do an analysis.” Then we would have him carrying on about 

20 minutes of dialog relating thereto. But the fundamental question is, Who decided we would use the analysis approach? Who 

made that decision? 

Mr. LEE. That was approved at the project office level within 

Marshall and our project office level at Morton Thiokol. 

Mr. ROE. Now, think what you said. It was approved by, and I 

asked you who made the decision. 

Mr. LEE. Oh. 

Mr. ROE. Did it come from Thiokol? Did it come from NASA? 

Was it from Thiokol-NASA corroborative? 

Mr. LEE. I’m sorry. It was proposed by Thiokol, by the company. 

Mr. ROE. So are we saying, for the record, that that initial decision to use the analysis approach was suggested or recommended 

by Thiokol; but however, after review, the NASA authorities-whoever had the jurisdiction-approved that approach. Is that correct, 

for the record? 

Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Florida will proceed. 

Mr. NELSON. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think another hindrance in our conversation here-and, you 

know, isn’t that interesting? You know, it’s just a human foible of 

communication; and that, in large part, Dr. Fletcher, is what the 

Rogers Commission has pointed out. It’s a mistake in communication that occurred in so many areas. 

So in trying to hone in the clarity of our communication, let’s 

make sure. You’re talking about-that an analysis was determined 

on the basis of the O-ring itself. But that’s not what the design requirement was. The design requirement is for everything on the 

SRB, not just the O-ring. If in fact this document that I have is an 

accurate one, here, entitled-from Johnson Space Center--“Space 

Shuttle Flight and Ground Systems Specification, Level 2 Program, Definition and Requirements,” September 30, 1983, and it clearly 

says what are the design environments, the natural environment 

as well as the induced environment. And it clearly includes flight 

operations, and it says each element. It doesn’t say just the O-rings. So when you get into your analysis and then you start signing off 

on these verification completions-Mr. Lee, I’m not picking on you. 

You all have done an excellent job. By the way, Dr. Fletcher, I 

wanted to compliment you; you know, what we learned on Friday and subsequent, my private conversations with Chairman Rogers, 

he thought that your NASA investigatory team did an excellent 

job, the ones that we’ve heard the reports from each of the people 

today, and basically, you know, what you all concluded and reported here today and reported to us last Friday is in fact the same 

facts that the Commission reported. 

But now we find a specific question here. Why were these verifications signed off on for a requirement in the design specs? Does 

anybody have any clues? Anybody? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Nelson, of course, this happened when I 

wasn’t here, but I’m sure you are aware that there’s a difference 

between a component requirement-which is the O-ring, which had 
293 

the MILSPEC on it and which was accepted as an analysis-and the system of which it is a part, which includes the O-ring and the 

groove into which it fits and the whole seal. And I think what 

we’re seeing here is, we accepted the MILSPEC on the O-ring but 

we didn’t have adequate verification that tests were made on the 

whole system, which is the seal. 

Mr. NELSON. Including the putty. 

Dr. FLETCHER. That just plain fell through the cracks. 

Mr. NELSON. Including the putty. 

Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NELSON. The putty wasn’t tested down to 26 degrees, was it? 

Mr. LEE. That’s true. 

Mr. NELSON. Well, I’ll just yield to my friend from California. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from California. 

Mr. PACKARD. I appreciate that. My line of questioning doesn’t 

necessarily follow on the gentleman’s from Florida, although 

that-- 

Mr. NELSON. Well, you don’t want to break my train of thought, 

do you? Mr. PACKARD. I don’t and so let me yield back. That was one of 

the questions I had, but he’s pursuing it adequately. 

May I ask the chairman to allow him to go ahead and complete? 

Mr. ROE. Of course. You’ll be next. 

Go ahead, the gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. 

How-anyone; Admiral Truly, Dr. Fletcher-how do we go about 

determining whether or not such analysis was ever made? Do we 

know in fact today that the analysis was never made down to 26 

degrees? 

Mr. LEE. I think I can answer that. Because it was a concern to 

our group, when we found that particular situation around the 

joint, we did in fact review or attempt to find all documentation, 

all analyses, all tests to help support that, and we could not find 

any analyses other than that which has been stated relative to the 

MILSPEC for the O-ring. And that is, again, Mr. Nelson, one of the 

reasons that we, as our team, identified this as a finding, because 

we believed that it was in fact inadequate in the system. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. Assuming that that is the case, that you all did 

not uncover this analysis-documentation of this analysis-assum- ing that it does not in fact exist, then what can we do to crawl 

inside the minds of these people, some-looks like about 24 signatures on this page before STS-1 in March 1981, and again in November 1982, before STS-5? What can we do to crawl inside their 

heads? 

Dr. FLETCHER. I guess I’m the experienced manager in terms of 

team motivation, but basically it doesn’t matter, Mr. Nelson, how 

many signatures are on the document as long as at least one of 

them has understood the problem, feels responsibility for pursuing 

the problem in the depth that is necessary, which I indicated was a 

systems problem, not just a component problem. We need to tight- en up and make sure there are at least one-plus a checkup on 

that person-to make sure that it is done satisfactorily. 

Mr. NELSON. OK. If you would do that, and if you would report 

back to us, I would appreciate it. And, while you’re doing that, Dr. 
294 

Fletcher, there are some other people that you could perchance go 

to for additional information, and that is that we understand that 

a thorough review was made by a group of experts headed by Dr. 

Walt Williams, and that-so you had on these design specs, you had a lot of people overseeing it. You had Thiokol, you had Marshall, you had this outside group of experts, and the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. So let’s see if we can crawl inside their 

heads, as well, and see if we can get any clarification on it. 

OK. Mr. Chairman, if I may continue? Mr. ROE. Yes. Are you on the same vein? 

Let me give you a break and let’s hear a little bit from-- 

Mr. NELSON. If you’d like to give me a break, Mr. Chairman, 

Mr. ROE. Well, you’re going to be here for a while and so am I, so 

Mr. NELSON. I’d be happy to. 

Mr. ROE [continuing]. For the distinguished gentleman from CaliMr. Packard. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to go back to the O-ring problem and ask some specific questions as to where we go from here, and I need a little background before we do. 

In your judgment, as you’ve reviewed the Commission’s report and as you ve reviewed your own teams’ research, do you feel that 

cold weather alone, devoid of water and ice in the joint, would have 

caused the accident? Without water and ice in the O-ring joint, but 

still having the cold weather, in your opinion would there have 

been an accident? 

Mr. THOMPSON. I think the cold weather was probably the most 

significant influence in the four or five that John Thomas described today. It took us over the edge. That’s my own judgment. Mr. PACKARD. The cold weather, not the ice? 

Mr. THOMPSON. That’s correct. 

Mr. PACKARD. Of course, the cold weather caused the ice, but 

Mr. THOMPSON. The effect of the cold weather on the O-ring-- Mr. PACKARD. The temperature at 28 degrees or 29 degrees was 

Mr. THOMPSON. That would certainly be my judgment. 

Mr. PACKARD. How many O-rings are there on the entire SRBMr. THOMPSON. Two per joint, six field joints-- Mr. PACKARD. I don’t mean O-rings, I mean joints. How many 

Mr. THOMPSON. There are six field joints. Mr. PACKARD. Six? Total joints I’m asking, now, both factory and 

Mr. THOMPSON. There are 14 total, I believe. Let me-- 

Mr. PACKARD. Well, all right. It’s not critical, the number. 

The factory joints-has there been any problem with the factory joints in the history of the equipment and our launch system? Have we had any history of problems as we’ve returned and recovered and refurbished? Have we looked at the factory joints? 

that’s fine. 

let’s defer for a moment-- 

fornia. 

that would be-- 

more critical than the fact that it was ice? 

O-ring joints, excuse me? 

joints are there on one of the SRB’s? 

field. 
295 

Mr. THOMPSON. Yes, sir. They’ve been looked at and none have 

any-- 

Mr. PACKARD. And as we’ve looked at those factory joints, have 

any shown any deterioration of the O-rings? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Let me check and make sure we’ve got no evidence of any erosion-I believe the answer is no, we have not. But 

in terms of being precise on that and making sure there’s absolutely none on any factory joint, I’d like to be able to come back and 

confirm that there are none. I believe that to be the case. 

Mr. PACKARD. So it’s anticipated that if you find no history of deterioration of factory O-rings-- 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman yield for-- 

Mr. PACKARD [continuing]. Then you would not anticipate any redesign of those particular factory joints? 

Mr. ROE. Let me add a point that I think is necessary for clarity 

right at this point. The question, so that we all understand what we’re talking about 

as I understand it, if the gentleman would yield, is that the configuration of the factory joints is identical with the O-ring configuration, as is the field joint. Is that a correct assumption? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. All right. So therefore-just for clarity-what we’re 

saying is that, regardless of what the issues are involved, factory or 

field, it’s identically the same mechanism, same structure? 

Mr. PACKARD. Is that correct, Admiral Truly? Because I’ve gone 

on that assumption. 

Admiral TRULY. The configuration of the O-rings, which was 

your question, is identical between factory and field joints. There is 

a design difference, however, because the factory joints are covered 

with insulation at the factory, with propellant poured over that insulation, and that is the single difference. 

Mr. ROE. Well, if the gentleman from California would yield, one 

of the issues that emerged in the discussion today that related to 

where that extra smoke came from, came from the exchange of 

views that the interpretation-I believe Mr. Thomas-that in testing further-I believe it was Mr. Thomas; I don’t remember-that 

it was the insulation that added to that issue. Is that a correct remembrance? The insulation is above and beyond the oil and the 

grease and whatever and the organic material, Viton rubber or 

whatever, in the O-ring was part of the smoke. But in addition, 

what created a more volumetric amount of smoke involved, as you 

indicated, was some of the burning of the insulation. Is that a correct point? That’s what you said. And the question of the gentleman, if I may, is that this same type of insulation that’s used in 

the field 0-joint insulation is the same kind of insulation that’s 

used in those joints that are factory sealed. Is that a fair commentary, the gentleman from California? 

Mr. PACKARD. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. That’s what we’re trying to find out. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Would you give us a minute and let us get the 

Mr. PACKARD. Please. Let me pursue with my questions and then 

vu-graph-- 

come back, if I may. 
296 

The thrust of my question-or the end result-is to find out if 

we’re having a different history with the factory joints than we are 

the field joints. I think we are; is that correct? Obviously, we’re not 

showing a problem with the factory joints. 

Two questions that I would like answered, one very simple. If we 

see no real problem and have no real history of problems with the 

factory joints, will they be included in any redesign? Will it be necessary to redesign those, along with the field joints? 

Mr. THOMPSON. I know that’s all being looked at, but let’s get John Thomas to answer that. He’s heading up the redesign team. 

Mr. THOMAS. First, to clarify the configuration. The field joint 

from here outboard looks identical. From here inboard, the insulation comes right down this way-the edge of the insulation comes 

right down this way-and back against the case, and all this area 

here is then filled with propellant. So there is no gap in the insulation at this joint; it’s a continuous path of insulation over the joint. 

Mr. PACKARD. Let me pursue it a little bit, then. 

The rotation has proven to be one of the problems under cold 

weather conditions relating to the accident. Do we find the same 

rotation problems at the factory joints as we do at the field joints? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir, just to a little bit lesser degree because of 

the influence of the continuous insulation across the skin. But it is, 

for all intents and purposes, the same. 

Mr. PACKARD. And do field joints have the same-are they subject to the same problems of the cold weather as the field joints? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir, they are. 

Mr. PACKARD. And so they could fail under a set of circumstances 

similar to what we found failure, here in this accident? 

Mr. THOMAS. It is conceivable that they could fail under that set 

of circumstances. However, the joint is susceptible to the same 

degree of hazard as is the case, about 6 inches away from it. And 

that is that if the insulation burns through, or for some reason is 

fractured to the case, even at the point where there is not a joint, you would have erosion of the metal and weakening of the metal 

and a failure just as you would a joint. So in this case, where you have insulation over it, it is essentially a continuation of the membrane. 

Mr. PACKARD. Well, certainly, we know that-we’ve seen no 

breakdown or evidence of failure of other joints other than the one 

that ultimately has been identified as the cause of this accident. 

I’m intrigued by the fact that all of the problems in combination 

that caused this accident, or the accident-causing joint and those 

that contributed to the cause of the accident, all fell into one specific area. I’d like to know if that’s by chance, by coincidence, or 

whether in fact that is predictable and was predictable. We’re looking now at about the 307-degree point on the field 

joint in the rear right booster. It was the coldest spot on that booster at that particular time of day when launch took place. It was 

the most-it had the most stress because it was next to the strut, 

and also because it happened to be the point of the maximum 0- 

ring squeeze. All of that came at the same point, or essentially the 

same general area on that joint. Is that simply coincidental? Or in 

the shipping of it, where it goes out of round, do they ship that section, that particular section of the SRB, in the same configuration 
297 

so that every section for every flight would be out of round and put 

the same kind of squeeze pressure around that same strut, that 

307-degree area? 

Mr. THOMAS. The cases are shipped-all are shipped in the same 

orientation, that is, with the 90-degree or tunnel position up on the 

rail car. They’re all shipped in that configuration. 

Mr. PACKARD. So that every out of round correction would put 

the stress or the maximum O-ring squeeze at the same point, flight 

after flight? 

Mr. THOMAS. I would say not precisely at the same point, but on 

that side of the vehicle. 

Mr. PACKARD. So that it wasn’t coincident that all things seemed 

to zero in to that one specific area? 

Mr. THOMAS. I think there-excuse me, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD. It certainly wasn’t designed that way, but that’s 

the way it happens to be. OK. 

I’d like to pursue if I may, Mr. Chairman, just briefly, this whole 

question of cannibalism and the extra workload-and we can turn 

the lights on if we like. 

It is alarming that 45 parts out of 300 had to be cannibalized 

from another shuttle or another piece of equipment. That has to 

mean that there was a significant amount of cannibalism from 

flight L-51 to the previous flight, which I think our gentleman 

from Florida was on. Is that true? 

Mr. UTSMAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD. I have to assume that the very process, the human 

process, of removing from one and putting it onto another simply 

geometrically increases the potential for error, for problems. Is 

that correct? 

Mr. UTSMAN. That’s correct, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD. It not only increases the possibility of error, but it 

certainly contributes substantially in this case, where it became 

almost a graduating process of increasing the workload of the 

people. As we increased the amount of cannibalism, the amount of 

change from one flight to another to get the flight off on schedule, 

that became-and that was exacerbated by increasing the flight 

schedule from what was initially planned to be 16 and then up to 

24, or over a process-that must have put incredible pressure on 

the crew-not the crew of the flight, but the personnel involved in 

making these changes. Is that correct? 

Mr. UTSMAN. It was one of the frustrations that did get to our 

launch teams. 

Mr. PACKARD. It came back to this committee long before the accident that this was becoming a problem, that we were overworking, possibly, the personnel. That, in addition, could create enough 

of a problem for where-well, when people are overworked, sometimes things can be overlooked. 

Is that because we have not had adequate spare parts in inventory? 

Mr. UTSMAN. Yes. The reason you cannibalize is because you 

don’t have a spare part to draw from the shelf. 

Mr. PACKARD. And not having adequate spare parts, did we find 

that in this particular case that we had to remove from other 
298 

pieces of equipment, parts that were-that are now in retrospect 

attributable to the accident, the O-ring joint and any of that area? 

Mr. UTSMAN. No, sir. All those attributed to the joints are expendable parts. 

Mr. PACKARD. I would have assumed that. 

So what parts generally are cannibalized? 

Mr. UTSMAN. It’s normally parts that are high value, critical 

parts on the orbiter, and the common thread that normally runs is 

that there has been some problem where they are in a repair cycle, 

or the repair rate may have been slightly higher than anticipated. 

Mr. PACKARD. What effect will that have, or would that have 

had, on the Galileo and Ulysses missions that were scheduled to fly 

in May, this past May? Would that have reached a point-it was a 

progressive point and getting worse and worse as far as the cannibalism and also the extra workload that that was creating? Would 

that have created a possible delay in those two flights, which had a 

very narrow window? 

Mr. UTSMAN. Obviously, the answer to that is speculation. My 

own personal feeling is it would have created large frustrations 

with the work force. I think that it would have forced us to look at 

priorities and work arounds. My own personal belief, we would 

have found work arounds, but it certainly would have been a 

higher work factor and a frustration factor. 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman yield on that point? 

Mr. PACKARD. I’d be happy to yield. 

Mr. ROE. For the record, why-just two points. Why don’t we 

have enough spare parts? Is it inadequacy in funding by Congress? 

Or has there been some other decision process that gets in the way 

there? For the record. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I’d like to start, Mr. Chairman, with that because 

I have had a chance to look into that, both in my former capacity 

and more recently. 

We have to recall that this is really an R&D Program; sometimes 

we call it an operational system, but it’s really an R&D system. 

And for R&D systems, you don’t really have enough data to go on 

to get adequate spare parts. Also, you only have four orbiters and 

the spare parts problem in that kind of a system is a lot different, 

say, than for a 100-aircraft fleet, especially a mature fleet where 

you’ve had some experience on spare parts. I don’t want to say we 

couldn’t have done better, because I’m sure we could have; but 

spare parts is not a trivial issue on any kind of an R&D program of 

this sort. 

Now, having said that, I’m sure there are experts that are closer 

to it than I am. 

Mr. ROE. Well, I think what I’m really trying to get at-if the 

gentleman will yield further-just for the record purposes, has 

Congress not provided adequate funding to provide the resources 

for spare parts? Or has part of the decision been made-whatever 

the reason may be-on NASA’s part? 

Dr. FLETCHER. To the best of my recollection, since that has come 

up before, Congress has provided adequate funds for spare parts. 

Whatever actions were taken to reduce the number of spare parts, 

if it was done, was done within NASA. 
299 

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, may I elucidate you further on that 

subject? 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman from California will yield. 

Mr. PACKARD. I’d be happy to yield to the gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. NELSON. Indeed, what Dr. Fletcher says is accurate. A case 

in point is last year. There has been a diversion of some of the 

funds that were authorized for spare parts by this committee. The 

specifics of that we can provide through documentation. This committee has come forth, recognizing continually that spare parts is a 

problem and going to continue to be; and yet, there was an administrative decision within NASA last year, as a case in point, that 

diverted some of the funds. 

Mr. PACKARD. Letme just-if I can reclaim my time-- 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from California. 

Mr. PACKARD [continuing]. Pursue that for just one further question. 

If the policy decision is made, or if budget constraints force that 

decision, that we would live with three orbiters, and cannibalism 

continued at the levels that they’ve been in the past, what kind of 

problems would that create for us in keeping any kind of a schedule like what we’re talking about now, 17 flights per year? 

Mr. UTSMAN. It would have created a large problem. We did look 

at it. Some of our people feel that we would have not been able to 

meet the schedule. 

The key to it would have been to be able to generate a rapid 

turnaround response on repairs with the various vendors in order 

to compensate for things not on the shelf. We were working to be 

able to do that, and that was our only hope of being able to meet 

the schedule. It would have been extraordinary efforts in the 

repair cycle. 

Mr. PACKARD. Certainly that’s going to be a decision that this 

committee is going to have to grapple with in the future, as to how 

we deal with the spare parts problem and the cannibalism problem and the additional work that puts onto the personnel that get these off of the ground. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield at that point? Mr. PACKARD. I would be happy to. 

Mr. ROE. I know that both the gentleman from California and 

the gentleman from Florida are going to generate another series of 

questions, but I just want to-if I can intrude on that dialog. The one thing I’m thinking about is the relationship of reusable 

parts as it relates to spare parts, as it relates to testing, which 

they’re going to get into next. I think that becomes very important because of metal fatigue and so forth and so on. I don’t know 

whether you want to start that or whether-- 

Mr. PACKARD. Let me just ask two short questions before we get 

into that, Mr. Chairman. 

I’m interested in the putty because it’s a part of this failed joint, 

and I want to make sure there’s not any portion of that joint that 

we leave unattended in this hearing. The putty is placed in Utah, Brigham City, UT; it is much colder 

there. It is a much different climate, different atmosphere and altitude and so forth. Have you, in our review and any tests or re- 
300 

search, found that the putty acts differently at the factory there in 

Utah compared to there at the cape? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir, the putty will react differently at different 

temperatures. 

Mr. PACKARD. In what way? 

Mr. THOMAS. It will become more dense at cooler temperatures and lower humidity than it does at warmer temperatures and 

higher humidity. 

Mr. PACKARD. Now, is the testing generally done in Utah on that 

joint? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, it is. 

Mr. PACKARD. So the putty is tested in Utah? 

Mr. THOMAS. Right. 

Mr. PACKARD. Have there been any efforts to test the putty and 

its function, the way it functions, whether it meets the design specs 

at the cape? Mr. THOMAS. Yes. We have taken, during the investigationtaken the putty and conditioned it to the conditions that one would 

expect at KSC, and the conditions that one expects at Brigham 

City, UT and tested those and compared the results. We were using 

80 percent relative humidity at 75 degrees and 10 hours for the 

conditioning of KSC putty and slightly less than that for Utah 

putty. We have not been, however, able to create-or produceenough tests to create a trend that one is significantly worse than 

the other. 

Mr. PACKARD. Well, at the factory-in your factory joints, obviously, the putty has remained much more-the integrity of that 

joint and the putty has been much more successful than it has at 

the field joints, where they have to put the putty in there at the 

cape. 

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Packard, there is no-- 

Mr. PACKARD. But tests have not shown where there has been 

any-well, maybe I have misunderstood that process. 

Mr. THOMAS. There is no putty in the factory joints. 

Mr. PACKARD. There is not? 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield for a minute? 

I think it might be helpful to your question on the putty, and 

help the committee, in the following way if I may. There is some dialog going around, as the gentleman from California is pointing out, in reference to the putty issue itself per se, 

that originally-purportedly-NASA used one particular manufacturer of a particular type of putty which uses asbestos as part of 

the base, as I understand it. That company purportedly went out of 

business or wasn’t going to make the putty any more, and another 

company was selected to do that. And there was a question as to 

whether or not the same formula was identical in the same putty 

issue. 

Could you give us-the gentleman from California is here, and 

we think it’s important to get it on the record-could you give us 

just a little background and a rundown on the putty issue? Because 

I think that bears upon what the gentleman is speaking to from 

California. 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. What factually happened there? 
301 

Mr. THOMAS. Your scenario that you just stated is correct in that 

the original supplier of the putty, which was a-I’m trying to recall 

the trade name for it-anyway, it was an asbestos-field vacuum 

putty that was-Fuller-O’Brien, I believe, is the name of it. They 

went out of-or they stopped making putty, and the putty that 

the-the new vendor for the putty, although it is asbestos-field as 

was the other, it is made by Randolph. And it has essentially the 

same consistency. It reacts a little bit more to humidity; that is, it 

gets a little less dense or a little bit less viscous with higher humidities, but it essentially serves the same purpose. 

Mr. ROE. Then to finalize this point-- 

Mr. VOLKMER. Will the gentleman yield? The gentleman from 

California? 

Mr. PACKARD. Yes, I’d be happy to yield. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I would like to know, were any viscosity tests ever 

run on the putty at higher temperatures, or temperatures at the 

interior of the SRB, during firing? Mr. THOMAS. We have run viscosity of the putty at varying levels 

of temperatures, but I don’t believe we ran it up that high. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I mean, the putty is subject to those temperatures 

when the SRB is being fired, is it not? 

Mr. THOMAS. Initially, at the very end of the putty path between 

the two motors, initially there is the high heat rate. It will erode 

back with the propellant as it comes back toward the joint, but at 

the time that the propellant stops burning and then progresses up 

the bore, it becomes relatively cool. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Well, you still didn’t answer my question. Does 

the putty-is the putty subject to that temperature of the inside 

while the SRB is being fired? 

Mr. THOMAS. It is subjected to that temperature. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I know for a relatively short period of time, but it 

is subject to that temperature? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And we don’t know what the viscosity of it is at 

those temperatures? 

Mr. THOMAS. Well, I think at those elevated temperatures, the 

putty just chars along with the propellant as it goes back. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Itchars? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Do you know if it gets real runny, almost like real 

soft butter, anything like that? 

Mr. THOMAS. No, sir, we don’t believe it does because it stays a 

relatively cool temperature a short distance from the burning surface because it dissipates its heat back into the insulation. I can 

provide that for the record. 

Mr. PACKARD. Let me reclaim my time and just ask a question 

and conclude this item on the putty. 

Were any tests run on the putty before the accident? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir, there were a series of tests run at the time 

that this transition took place from the Fuller-O’Brien to the Randolph putty. 

Mr. PACKARD. And does-do we know the difference between the 

reaction of the putty when its being tested in the horizontal in 

Utah versus how it reacts at the launch pad? 
302 

Mr. THOMAS. I think it-I can’t say that we’ve tested that specifically in the large motor. We have tested it in the small motor 

during the investigation, although we have-in the static motor 

tests at Utah, the putty has been examined from the inside to determine its characteristics. It has been repaired a number of times 

prior to test, and from that standpoint we understand its characteris tics. 

Mr. PACKARD. My perception is that perhaps NASA would do 

well to be more familiar with the actual formula for putty and how 

it operates. We may be leaving that to the manufacturers and to 

the contractors without us being fully familiar, and I can understand that, because we’re certainly not. 

One last question, Mr. Chairman. It’s bothered me for the last 2 

days; in fact, since we were down there and I saw the pictures of 

the launch pad, for the first time today I came to realize that pad B was used for the first time with 51-L, and I wasn’t aware of that. 

And that means, then, that the failure of the freeze plan happened 

on the very first usage of the pad, and the water system. Would you have launched-the decisionmakers for go or no gowould ‘you have launched had the rains fallen and created the 

amount of ice, both in the joint and on the pad, to the same extent 

that the failure of the sprinkling system created? Would you have 

had a decision to launch had you had rain that would have caused 

those same kind of icicles and the same kind of water problems and 

ice problems in the joint as the sprinkling system did? That’s a hypothetical question, but I think it’s interesting. 

Mr. UTSMAN. Well, I guess from the viewpoint-the analysislet’s take the ice on the fixed service structure and that. I think 

the analysis would have indicated, because the source of the icicles 

would have been the same, and so from that basis the decision 

would have been the same from that aspect. 

As far as water in the joint, we did not know of the phenomena of water in the joint until after, as part of the investigation. And so 

I’m not sure I know what we would have done in that case. There 

may have been many other factors, though, on a cold night, raining like that, that would have much precluded that. 

Mr. PACKARD. Well, I think you have seen the picture, of course, 

that we’ve seen in the report. And as you look at it, it becomes incredible that we would feel inclined to launch with that kind of environmen t . In our briefing on Friday at the cape, one obvious way to prevent 

water-and thus ice-into the joint, which I think the Commission’s report certainly indicates had a profound effect upon the resiliency of those 0-rings-in fact, the report says that, perhaps not 

contrary to Admiral Truly’s comment that the cold weather had 

more adverse effects than the ice and the water did, but at any 

rate, this report says that the ice did displace the O-rings, that it 

actually displaced them, which had an effect upon the ultimate 

seal. 

Simply turning that seal over, reversing it so that it does not 

point upward-thus water and ice flowing down into that jointwould appear to be a simple way, although probably a costly way 

now to redesign. But certainly, it is an open trough; that clevis 

points upward; that allows the water to flow right down around the 
303 

tang fitting into the clevis. But we’re not in the redesign business, 

but certainly that ice and water can easily be prevented from entering into that. 

Admiral TRULY. Mr. Packard, you are exactly right. I think that 

probably, at this stage, would be a very costly fix, but I can assure 

you that the redesign fix will not allow water into that joint. 

Mr. PACKARD. MrChairman, I will yield back my time. 

Mr. ROE. One of our colleagues suggested to the distinguished 

gentleman from California, praise be to the Lord to see a spaceship 

designed by the Congress. [Laughter.] 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished lady from Tennessee. 

Mrs. LLOYD. I thank the Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, we’ve been talking about safety throughout our 

hearings. I really think another thing we might revisit is how well 

we do manage risks, because certainly this determination has to be 

made on every flight. The Washington Post had a very descriptive diagram, if you 

didn’t see it, an article on May 25 that really gives us a very succinct description of the steps that are used to determine your risk 

management program. I’d like for Dr. Fletcher if you would, or 

someone else if you might like to just defer to someone else, to describe the elements of NASA’s risk management activities, what 

really supports your risk management decisions. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Well, I will start, Mrs. Lloyd, but risk management is a pretty generic term. Risk management is decided in 

headquarters in terms of what are the chances of an overall failure 

of the system under a given set of circumstances. When you get 

down to the flight team, the launch crew in those last several 

hours or couple of days, risk management is an entirely different 

thing. They have to look at the factors that have come up just 

before launch and assess whether this is a risk we want to take. 

This is a judgment question; you can’t make calculations at this 

point. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Well, I realize that on the day of the launch that 

might be the case, but Dr. Fletcher, I do think there are procedures 

and methods that are used to assess risk. I think Dr. Silveira testified before my subcommittee as well as Mr. Nelson’s at a joint hearing last March on this subject, and if you would like me to 

speak to Dr. Silveira to address this question, it would be fine with 

me. 

Dr. FLETCHER. Yes, I guess so. 

Dr. SILVEIRA. As we had mentioned in the testimony that we had 

given previously to yourself and Mr. Nelson, the only time that we 

had gone into trying to assess a probability, if you will, or a risk, 

was as a result of a request that was made by DOE for their analysis that they were performing at that time, to assess the probability of failure of the vehicle, to assess the danger when we are flying 

the RTGs, the radioactive material. 

As far as in our program and any major decisions that we would 

make, we have a number of reasons why our past history had indicated that that was not a good way of doing it. As a result, we 

don’t use it generally in our risk management. We prefer using 

things like the failure effects and analysis that we do; the technical 
304 

engineering judgment, using things to control our failures rather 

than depending on a probability analysis to assess it. 

Mrs. LLOYD. But basically, what do you do beyond the failure 

modes and effects analysis, Dr. Silveira? 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Yes, ma’am. Any time, of course, that we do have a 

failure component, and we track these very carefully from our 

ground test program as well as our flight test program, we go back 

and make sure we thoroughly understand that failure and, of 

course, effect a redesign to ensure that that failure will not repeat itself. 

Mrs. LLOYD. And you test the components at that time? 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Dr. Silveira, what was the basis for NASA’s assign- ing a probability of 1 in 100,000 to a catastrophic SRB failure? 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Well, as I say, as a result of a request from DOE to 

assess a number, we went back and attempted to look at various 

parts of the vehicle, various systems to establish a probability of 

failure of those particular components. When that was added to a 

statistical analysis-and indeed, a lot of these things don’t lend 

themselves to statistical analysis; for instance, as I say, every time 

you have a failure you repair it, so you destroy your data base and 

you really don’t have a good data base to go against. So as a result 

of trying to come up with these numbers for use in the safety analysis, our people developed numbers, went back and combined them, 

and then came out with a number that said it would be more like 

10 to the minus 5 in our analysis, 1 in 100,000 cases. 

Now, there are verbs that were in the shuttle data book that was 

the official transmission of that data, which I think that we had 

provided the staff earlier to look at, which said that indeed that 

was a case where a failure would be highly unlikely, that it was 

remote to happen. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Well, yesterday, if you remember, reference was 

made to the report by Teledyne and Sandia and the Wiggins c0.-- 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. LLOYD [continuing]. And this claimed that the probability number would be somewhere between 1 in 34 to 1 in 10,000. So I 

just wanted you to explain this discrepancy for the record, Dr. Silveira. 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Yes, ma’am. As you recall, back in about the 1977 

time period NASA had commissioned the Wiggins Group to go and 

conduct a study for range safety purposes. Now, at that time we 

weren’t looking at the vehicle with a Centaur vehicle on board and 

the like. And their analysis went back and looked at all the statistical data of all vehicles at that time and said that the probability of failure was like 1 in 57, in that order. Of course, we said that’s 

like comparing apples, oranges, and things like that; there are a lot 

of vehicles in that family that don’t relate to our vehicle. We think 

we’re somewhat unique, both in the way that we operate and in 

some of the redundancy that we’ve provided and increased safety 

factors that we’ve provided in our design. And as a result, we felt 

that that study was not proper. Since that time, the Air Force has 

conducted additional studies with the Wiggins Group, that is now 

another group, plus Sandia and other people to try to assess what 
305 

they would figure-using, again, the statistical data base from previous experience with solid motors-and come up with a number 

that they had. Where we left the study, their statistical numbers would come 

out like about 1 in 100. They said, we think it’s really better for the 

reasons of more conservatism in the design and the like; they said 

it would be about 1 in 1,000. We said we still adhere to our number 

because we think a failure is highly improbable in the shuttle. We 

agreed that we would plug in the range of numbers, their 1 in 

1,000 and our 1 in 100,000, and see how that would affect the end 

numbers as far as the safety as far as flying the radioactive material. And that was about the place we were headed at that time. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Well, do you intend to revisit this decision? I certainly think we should make the very best risk management analysis 

that we could. 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Yes, ma’am. Of course, we’re going back and looking particularly at the “Challenger” tragedy to look at yields, how 

the vehicle failed; as you recall, another big discussion that we 

were having with the people that were reviewing us was the 

matter of how the vehicle broke up and the forward bulkhead analysis and-- 

Mrs. LLOYD. Well, are you looking at a statistical data base? It 

might really help you in your analysis. 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Well, of course we will go back and look at whether 

there is anything else we can pull out there. But of course, we will 

still have a hard time in changing our statistical data base from 

anything we know as far as the Challenger is concerned right now. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Well, could you establish a data base? 

Dr. SILVEIRA. As far as probability of occurrence? 

Mrs. LLOYD. That’s right. 

Dr. SILVEIRA. I think we would still have a hard time doing that 

and saying that we were going to use it for any management decision. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Well, it would be an expensive project. 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Well, if you mean go back and do testing on the 

thing-- 

Mrs. LLOYD. That’s what I mean. 

Dr. SILVEIRA. As we had in the shuttle data handbook, if we per- formed a certain function a thousand times, the only thing that we 

would-and did it successfully, tested a thousand times successfully-that would only give us a confidence factor that we would pos- sibly have three failures in the next thousand events, with a 95- 

percent confidence factor. So we don’t think that we could do that 

much testing. Of course, as soon as we saw any anomaly in that 

testing, we would go back, redesign, try to fix it, and then you’d have to reestablish your data base and start testing again. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Well, it didn’t work for the Challenger, and I feel 

that this is an area where we need to really revisit and look at it 

again. 

Dr. SILVEIRA. Yes; ma’am. 

Mrs. LLOYD. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Walker. 
306 

Mr. WALKER. Let me say first of all, I admire the stamina of all 

of you, sitting there and so on for all this time and so on. You’ve 

done a remarkable job of testifying and so on, but you’ve also 

shown great stamina. 

Let me ask just a couple of questions about whether or not you 

now see, as a result of the investigations done by your technical 

people, and also as a result of the Commission report, whether you 

now see changes in what you are going to do in flight rules. That 

may not be the best term, and that may not be a precise term, but 

I’m thinking about-you obviously are not going to fly in low temperatures now. You now know that very low temperatures are 

probably a reason not to fly on a particular day. There were other 

things that caused you not to fly in the past; if you had wet weather, for instance, you didn’t fly because of the possible problem with 

the tiles. 

Have you now developed another set of things growing out of the 

Challenger incident that will give you new points of departure each 

time that you fly, things that you will decide not to fly? 

Admiral TRULY. As a result of the accident-and one of the 

things that I directed be done-was a complete reassessment of 

mission rules in the launch and abort mission phases, and the Mission Operations Directorate at Houston has taken that chore. 

Frankly, in the things that we’re doing-No. 1, they’re not 

through; they’ve not finished that, and if any specific mission rule 

changes have made to this point, I’m not aware of them. But I 

intend to review their work. 

On your point about cold weather, I think there’s certainly going 

to be an emotional reason not to launch in cold weather. I would 

put it a different way. We’re going to make sure that whatever 

weather we launch in, be it temperature or environment-or 

clouds is one that we’re totally confident that we have certified and 

tested to, and there is no doubt in anybody’s mind, whether it be 

level 4, 3, 2, or 1, that we’re ready to launch, no matter what the 

temperature is. 

Mr. WALKER. Would it be helpful if this committee were to help 

you get a doppler radar at the Cape for better local forecasting? 

Mr. ROE. Don’t kick the gift horse in the face. 

Dr. FLETCHER. I wish I was the one that is doing the weather 

analysis. Could I get Mr. Aldrich to come to the microphone if he’s 

here, and answer that question and tell you where we are on our 

attempt to upgrade weather forecasting capability? 

Mr. WALKER. Sure. 

Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. Walker, we’ve been discussing doppler radar 

systems for better real-time understanding of the upper level winds 

for some time. And as I answered Mr. Nelson’s question yesterday, 

we intend to pursue those systems for direct application for that 

use. My understanding so far is that it will be even more useful for 

the kind of upper level winds that we regularly see at Vandenberg 

than for Florida, and we have approved recently, with the Air 

Force, a test program of a doppler radar there. We are very encouraged that these will add to our capability, and certainly, we would 

be appreciative of support in providing these systems, as we can 

understand what they will contribute to our overall system. 
307 

Mr. WALKER. As I understand it, they would at least provide us 

with a better handle on wind shear; is that correct? 

Mr. ALDRICH. We need to test to be sure we understand what 

they will tell us, and it’s very promising and hopeful that they will, 

yes, sir. 

Mr. WALKER. And when I talk about flight rules, the one thing 

that concerns me, having viewed your time line, and I raised a 

question briefly this morning on it, is that it appears as though the 

launch of 51-L-that at the time the maximum dynamics were on 

the craft, it was also a period of time when it was experiencing a 

wind shear problem, a fairly strong wind shear problem. 

Will we be reviewing a pattern of not launching if we have 

reason to believe that we have significant wind shear at altitudes 

where the ship would be undergoing its most massive loads? 

Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Walker, as you know, we’ve always had 

launch rules which depend on wind shear at altitudes. What we’re 

talking about with a doppler radar is having a better fix on that 

wind shear. We mostly have estimated wind shear from the magnitude of the winds and so forth, and estimated the wind shear. 

Measurement precisely will, of course, be improved somewhat by 

doppler radar, and I imagine that’s what we’re talking about. We 

have to really test and see how much better that is before we implement a doppler radar system. 

Mr. WALKER. Well, I really do think that the wind shear question 

becomes an important one, at least in my mind. For example, have 

you correlated the winds aloft on 51-C with the winds aloft on 

51-L, since 51-C is where I understand we also had fairly significant O-ring problem? Has that, as a contributory problem, been 

correlated at this point? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes; sir, we have correlated the-not specifically; I 

don’t recall whether we did 51-C or not, but we looked backward to 

see if we could see any correlation that would show that this one 

was worse than any of the previous flights, and we selected the 

worst previous flight to compare. And unfortunately, I don’t remember which one that was, whether it was 51-C or not. 

Mr. WALKER. OK. When you went back and looked, did you find 

that on the two flights you had a fairly similar wind shear problem 

at the time that the load design on the ship was the greatest? 

Mr. THOMAS. Idon’t recall that, Mr. Walker, I’m sorry, whether 

we did that or not. I would have to review the data. I just don’t 

recall. 

Mr. WALKER. I would appreciate if you would, letting us know on 

that, and getting back to us, because it seems to me that the fact 

that you had the initial failure that you see in the black puff of 

smoke, then the resealing, and then the understanding, now, that 

at the point that the ship was under the greatest dynamic stress 

loads, that it then failed a second time, or the failure became catastrophic, that it may well be that the winds also contributed to 

that particular problem and it would be, I think, very advantageous to know whether or not there is a correlation to past failures 

because it would certainly play a role, it seems to me, in some 

design conditions if we’re finding that the buffeting of that ship by winds has a role to play. And it certainly would seem to me that 
308 

that then becomes a question on launch rules. Does that all seem 

logical? 

Admiral TRULY. Mr. Aldrich would like to add a comment to 

that. He is very familiar with what happened on 51-L with the 

wind shears, and I think it would help you resolve this issue. 

Mr. ALDRICH. All of these conditions we’ve discussed with 51-L 

were the result of a major cold front that came down from the central part of the country across Florida, and the conditions on 

launch day were the temperatures and the final winds at the back 

of that front. 

The system we use currently involves balloon launches and some 

very elaborate calculations to try to predict the winds based on the 

conditions we know and see, and I think your point is well made, 

that there were some unique weather-related shear conditions 

here, potentially, that could not be predicted through those approaches. And we are certainly reviewing that, both in terms of 

other indicators that we might have had that would be in addition 

to the doppler weather, and in terms of changes and more conservatism in the rules for those kinds of weather patterns. And I think 

yes, all of those points are well made, and we are and will be looking at those. 

Mr. WALKER. So that what you’ll end up doing is establishing 

some different weather parameters for the launch director to use 

in making his decision, and they’ll be more conservative than those 

you have used in the past; is that what you’re saying? 

Mr. ALDRICH. We will be looking at doing that, yes. I understand 

the weather community now assesses the general conditions to indicate a higher potential for shear, and we were in fact dealing 

with what our balloons and our calculations on that day-and you 

can’t prove what was there at the exact time of the launch, but you 

can postulate that shears could have been more prevalent or more 

significant than what was expected. 

Mr. WALKER. I thank the chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. 

The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Volkmer. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I have several areas. First is a technical one. Can you tell me 

how it’s possible to maintain a tolerance of plus five thousandths 

and minus three thousandths on a piece of rubber roughly onefourth inch in diameter and 37 feet long? 

Mr. THOMAS. The process is that the O-ring is formed, and then 

it is ground with precision instruments to that diameter. It is actually ground that way. 

Mr. VOLKMER. All right. Now, at what temperature is it ground? 

Mr. THOMAS. Ambient temperature. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Inthe plant or factory, wherever it’s done? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And that could be 75 degrees or 80 degrees or 60 

degrees? Somewhere in that area; I’m sure that they don’t work 

when its too cold. And we do know, as I asked down at Kennedy, 

we do have some loss in coldness, do we not? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir; we do. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And doesn’t that then affect the amount of tolerance? 
309 

Mr. THOMAS. When we compute the squeeze-computed the 

squeeze numbers on 51-L, we took into account the differential coefficient of expansion of the rubber down to the lower temperature. 

And as I recall, that amounted to approximately three thousandths 

of an inch on the diameter. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Now, is that three thousandths of an inch additional smaller in diameter? That’s three thousandths smaller than 

it was in the factory? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Now, if it was already down three thousandths because of the tolerances permitted, then you’re three thousandths 

under, are you not? 

Mr. THOMAS. When we compute squeeze on the O-ring, we use 

the minimum specification diameter, which is three thousandths 

less, or 0.277 O-ring, so it would be three thousandths below the 

0.277. 

Mr. VOLKMER. But if it came out of the factory with three thousandths less-- 

Mr. THOMAS. We assume that it does that in any case. We 

assume, in computing squeeze, that it is of a minimum diameter. 

Mr. VOLKMER. All right. But what I’m trying to get out, the cold 

also reduces it three thousandths in addition? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. So now you’re actually under the specifications, 

the tolerance level? 

Mr. THOMAS. Maybe I should explain that the minimum O-ring 

squeeze is 7.5 percent of the diameter. And in order to assure that 

we have that, we take all of the worst case dimensions for the asmachined configuration of the metal and the minimum specification number for the O-ring, and then be sure that the shim that is 

installed into the clevis produces more squeeze on the O-ring than 

the minimum. And on 51-L, we still met the minimum squeeze 

condition with the 0.277 presumed O-ring and the three thousandths shrinkage due to temperature. 

Mr. VOLKMER. All right. 

To continue on with the O-ring, on page 158 of the Presidential 

Commission report, there is a document known as the SRB Critical 

Items List. On this it says, “A more detailed description of SRM 

joint testing history is contained in TWR-13520, Revision A.” Have 

you all reviewed that, that testing history? 

Mr. THOMAS. I’m sorry, sir. I don’t recall which one that is. That, 

I believe, is attached to the Critical Item List revision of about a 

year ago. I don’t recall-- 

Mr. VOLKMER. More than a year ago, because this document is 

dated December 17, 1982, so it has to be prior to 1982. 

I’d like you to furnish us a copy of that document. 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Dr. FLETCHER. We will do so, Mr. Volkmer. 

[Material to be supplied follows:] 
310 

Material requested for the record on page 201, line 4926, by Mr. 

Volkmer during the June 12, 1986, hearing. 

A copy of the requested document TWR-13520, REV. A is attached. 
311 

'DOC NO. TWR-19520 

TITLE 

'REThTTION RATIONALE. SRn SIMPLEX SEAI. 

Howard'Mc1nto;h 

1 December 1982 
312 

zuAo&/ . W1617CY olvlsIoI Y.11"" v I"*y.,A IoI-l* 

RETENTION RATIONALE, SRM SIMPLEX SEAL 

Tha SRM mtccl CODC joint dosign im coarmon to tho rogulrt weight eaaa and tho liehtwcight cass. All dimensions are the same and tha aaaamblica art iclencicnl, fncluding 

the shimming after assembly. 

Titan tang and clevia joint with the some tolerancas, but allowing mnre clevis gap for 

horizontal assembly. 

0-ringo, eo vcrify the O-ring meal after assembly. 

outer leg and the tang to obtain thc maximum amount of O-ring squeeze for eealing. 

The jolnc is basically a modifirntion of the single 0-rint 

A second O-ring provider a leak check refit to be made, between 

Shima are used betvenn the clevis 

This report contains a summary of numaroua 

provide the rationale for 

to date includes: 

6. Similar joints 

b. Leak checke at 

c, Hydrocests 

d. Hydrobursts 

the retention of 

joint assembly 

tests and w.aR of the SRM joint to 

the simplex seal. Total experience 

e. Static motor firings 

f. Motor flights 

g. Laboratory banch teats 

Expcrlcncc hoe shown positive functionine of the primary O-ring in all instances 

of uee in the SRN tong and clevis joint. Testing ha8 indicated positive sealing 

under advcrsc conditions beyond the requirtd singla pteasurization for motor 

operation. 

sufficicnt rational exists co retain thln deaign with assurance of performance. A 

data bame ia also bcins established in support nf the Recondary O-ring positive 

It is concluded that con6idering the SRM joint as a ringle 0-rlng eeal, 

arallug. 

A. Similar Joint Use 

1. Thc Titan cane joint conralnn H single O-ring bore seal. 

tang-clevis-pin jnint desifn of the SKM uses the ume design 

The 

h 

NO. TwR 13520 @+-Lz+ 
313 

toloroncei as thio well proven joint. 

a record of over 1100 joint use data pnlntR during the testing 

mnd throughout its flight0 with no loan of prescure. “ha SRM 

joint differences includo: 

assembly, socond O-ring added to verify slnglc O-ring presence 

and uniform shhing to center tang and clnse the clevis gap. 

Initial aescmbllcs of SRM jointi coatainod no ihlms and a11 routine 

hydrotesta arc conductod without shim. 

Titan joints have 

Increased clovii gap for horizontal 

2. 

B. Leak Checks (Over-all total of 930) 

1. All new segmcnto have leak chock. beforo hydrotcec on nll tangs 

and clcvlsee. No loiki experiencod. 

a, Incromcnt I 28 dae + 2x122 regments - 272 tests - 

b. Incrcment I1 12 domei + 2x73 aogments * 158 tests 

Total 430 tests 

Notec Vcrticol assembly 

no leaks cxpcriencod 

2. All plant joints have leak checks on came fabricatlon arrembly 

and refurbishment proof test (in camting ergment configuration). 

Vertical. 

a. Fabrication of 8 static tosti - 56 

14 flight case8 - 98 

4 GTM $. STA-1 - 31 

TOTAL 185 

- 

Two lenkcrs experiencod and debris found as CLUIC 

b. Refurbiohmcnt hydroproof of 

7 static tests - 49 

26 GTMa - 14 

G Flight Caaer - 42 - 

TOTAL 105 plant joint 

No leokcrs exporlonced. 

joint leak upon doproimurizstion). 

(One stiffener to stiffener 

3, Field jointa are temted horizcntRlly at Thiokol for atatlc 

firings only. 

vertical assembly. 

All other leak checks are conducted with 

a. Static teats 8 x 3 24 checb 

Rcpeatu- 8 minimum 
314 

Four leakera expericnccd with 2 on DM-1 and one each on DM-3 

and DM-5. No lenks nftcr rcosficmbly. 

b. CTMe were asocmblod ot MSFC and KSC 

4 x 2 x 3 - 24 checks 

C. Flight chccks at KSC 5 x 3 x 2 - 30 checko 

extra 1 - 1 

Total 31 

Onc lcakor experienced and debris idontified. 

d. Refurbishment hydrotest 17 x 6 - 102 checks 

4. Extrn chcckrr on hydroburse, joint verification and STA-1 efforts 

produced approximately 20 checks with no leokera on first cycle joint.. 

C. Hydroteats at Rohr, Thiokol and MSFC have bean conducted at prosourem 

above 1037 paig with no leakers. 

1. Ac Rohr 150 + 85 - 235 tcstfi on segments 

2. At Thiokol 17x4 - 68 tests 

Extra 9 - 3 

71 Testa 

No lenkcro cxperiencrd upon or at preaaure, 

joint leaked upon dcproasurirntlon). 

MSFC torts on STA-1 pressurization with nev O-rings produced no leaks 

even aftar 4 pressure cycles (experienced O-ring "pinching" 

during dcprcssurizotion and nibbling after cycling). 

(Om stiffener to stiffener 

3. 

I 

D. Hydrobursts - 

1. Regular weight case. jointo were cycled with proof prersurizations 

ond experienced leakage pnet tho "nibbled" primnry O-ring after 

cight cycles. After twenty cycles, the O-ring8 Were raplaced and 

mnximum design pressurization was achieved (1.4 snfety factor) 

however lenkogo paet the rotatad joint O-rings occurred rat high 

prconures (1,480 paig or 1.58 x MEOP). 

Lightweight case joints passed nll te6tS which included four cycles 

to MEOP (one with a planned defective primary O-ring) and an 1.4 MEOP 

prcocurization. 

vulcanized rubbcr to enable tho burst to take place at 15.50 ;Sign 

2. 

The joints were then enatad on the insidt with 

E. Static Motor Firing6 

No joint leaks have been experienc.ed during eight horizontal Static 

motor firings. Adveree conditinnu of joint movement from a "sagged" 

04 TWR 13520 

CORM TC NO. llOS 

0 I ' 33tid ZW IlW WSWN E2:tI 98. PI 833 
315 

poritiun to flisht poeition upon prosourization wora oxporioncsd without 

joint leakrge. A pressure reading. taken on each test, b.tw.en the O-rings 

of thc ccntcr ficld joint, showed variations in presaure traceable to 

joint movement (from vacuum to preeeure above ambient). 

P. Fivc Shnttlc €lights hmc flwn involving ten SRM cases with no 

evidence of a prcseure leak past the primary O-ring of tho jointo. 

G. Laboratory Bench Tests. 

1. High preaourc cxtruoion tcsts hnve shown pressure retention of 

J standard .280 in. dia. O-ring in a gap of 0.125 in. et 1600 poi. 

2. Low pressure check with the sealing ourfaco dafects testing 

device show remarkable sonling paror of the single O-ring with 

lnrgc, dccp nnd rough surface defects using minimum squeeze. - 

REDUNDANT SEAT. DATA BASE - In order to establish a redundant seal data base. additional 

data are being obtained on all refurbishment hydrotoste by checktng tha actid joint 

movamanc due to preenurizntion with a direct reading din1 indicntor through the preastrre 

port. 

ohwo a total movement of only .030 in. at 1004 psig in the centntjnint (dial 

indicator in tang against lnnd between O-ring grooves on the clevie inner leg). 

test conducted in the normal vertical mode, indicatoo that the tang to clwir movement 

will not iineeac tho secondary O-ring at operating pressures. This one point data blse 

will be up to ten point8 after DH-5 and STS-5 CPOCS hnvc bcen refurbished. 

Initlel information generated in a lighweight cylinder to cylinder proof test 

This 

CORM TC WO. 1801 

I 1 ' 39Ud 
316 

Diacribution 

E. Doraey 

J. Kllminatrr 

C. Speak 

R. Boiajolly 

J. Leavltt 

R. Bcrte 

B. Brinton 

H. Melntoeh (5) 

R. Lancy 

REVISION - 

CORM TC 110. l8D8 

2 I ' 39rd 
317 

Mr. VOLKMER. Specifically, I’d like to have a copy of it. 

I know we have a vote going on. I have several more questions. 

To get into the question of temperature, what is more important, ambient or air temperature, or the temperature at the joint? 

Mr. THOMAS. The temperature at the joint. 

Mr. VBLKMER. Then why don’t we, when we make a determination of whether we meet criteria in order to launch, require certain 

temperatures to joint? 

Mr. THOMAS. That should have been a mission rule. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Itshould be in the future? 

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER, Now, does the-earlier we had testimony, yesterday, about the 31 OF temperature for the SRB itself. That only re- lated to, as I understand it, to the total SRB or the ambient temperature at the time of the launch. Is that correct? 

Mr. THOMAS. Let me ask Mr. Lee to respond to that. I’m not 

aware of it. 

Mr. LEE. That is the natural environment, outside temperature, 

if you will, the 31 to 99 degrees. That’s right. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Right. That’s the-so yesterday, when I asked a 

question on what the temperature was at time of launch, that was 

36 degrees, that’s the outside temperature also? 

Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. That does not relate necessarily to the temperature of any part of the SRB, including the joints? 

Mr. LEE. That’s true. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And as I guess we found out, it’s more important 

to worry about the temperature of the SRB and joint temperature and other things, is that not correct? 

Mr. LEE. Absolutely. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Now, I’d like to ask anyone who wants to answer 

this question, if you want to do so-- 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman yield? 

Is anyone planning on voting? 

Mr. VOLKMER. Well, I’d like to. 

Mr. ROE. Well, we’re on the second call. Why don’t you and I 

vote and come back again? 

Mr. VOLKMER. OK, fine. 

Mr. ROE. Why don’t we suspend for about 10 minutes? We’ll be 

right back. We should finish up in about 20 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. We will reopen this hearing for only a short period. We’ve just learned that there will be at least two to three more 

votes, and they’re imminent. I’ve talked to Mr. Nelson and Mr. 

Volkmer, and we’ve agreed that we do have some additional questions but we will put those in writing and forward them to you. And should there be an occasion that we think we need additional 

personal testimony, then we’ll be back in touch with you to see 

what we can work out. 

Mr. ROE. Meantime, on behalf of the committee, I want to-and I 

know you have an observation you’d like to make, Dr. Fletcher, so 

if you would proceed. Dr. FLETCHER. Mr. Chairman, I’d like for the record to personally 

express our sincere thanks from all of NASA to Princeton Univer64-295 0 - 86 - 11 
318 

sity for making J.R. Thompson available to the task force for these 

past months. I recognize the importance of his position at Princeton, and I’m sure his availability to us was not without significant 

impact to his work at Princeton. As you know, he’s deputy director 

of the Tokomak Program down there. NASA and the Nation 

should be grateful; and I might add, I appreciate your forbearance, 

Mr. Chairman, for all of us in answering your questions. 

Mr. ROE. Well, I appreciate that. And on behalf of myself and the 

committee, I want to thank you, Dr. Fletcher and Admiral Truly 

and Dr. Thompson and all of the other distinguished representatives of NASA that have testified over the last 2 days. I think your 

contribution to the record and your contribution to educating members of the committee and providing the substantive information in 

candor and right up front was what was necessary at this point of 

our proceedings. So we want to thank you for your patience, your 

forbearance, and your indulgence. It’s been very productive. 

Now, for the benefit of the other members that are here and the 

staff people, we will now, in effect, adjourn today, but we will reconvene on Tuesday at 9:30, and our first witnesses up will be Thiokol. And then we’re going to have in the afternoon the representatives from your Marshall Space Center. So that is what our schedule is. 

Again, many thanks. We appreciate it. The hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:02 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene 

at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, .,Pane 17, 1986.1 
INVESTIGATION OF THE CHALLENGER 

ACCIDENT 

(Volume 1) 

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1986 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in room 2318 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Roe (acting chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Mr. ROE. The committee will come to order. 

We begin our second week of hearings in the Science Committee’s investigation of the shuttle Challenger accident. 

In following our schedule, this morning we will hear from witnesses from Morton Thiokol, the designer/manufacturer of the 

solid rocket booster’s motor joint. 

The design and functioning of this joint has been identified by 

the Rogers Commission as the prime cause for the shuttle’s failure 

on January 28. 

Charles Locke, chairman of the board and chief executive officer 

of Morton Thiokol will be accompanied by Edwin Garrison, presi- dent of the Aerospace Group; Joseph Kilminster, vice president; Carver Kennedy, vice president of the Space Booster Programs; 

Allan McDonald, director of the SRM Verification Task Force; 

Roger Boisjoly, staff engineer; and Arnold R. Thompson, supervisor 

of structures design. This afternoon we will hear from Marshall Space Flight Center personnel. The committee considered it extremely important that 

we juxtapose the appearance of the Morton Thiokol witnesses with 

those from Marshall because it is this center that has the safety 

oversight responsibility for NASA’s SRB Program. The aerospace contractors have a major role and responsibility in 

the development of our Nation’s space programs. The relationship 

between NASA and these contractors is a critical element in how 

these responsibilities are fulfilled. 

We are anxious to hear from and to question this morning’s witnesses. There is much ground to cover in a limited amount of time, 

so gentlemen, welcome. 

I have a few other comments I want to make for the benefit of 

the members, but I will defer to our distinguished ranking 

member, Mr. Lujan from New Mexico. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

( 319) 
320 

I, too, want to take this opportunity to welcome today’s witnesses 

to our committee’s investigation of the Challenger accident and to 

thank them for their appearance before us. 

I believe that what we hear from them will be of critical importance in our search for the chain of events which led to the Challenger accident. 

I encourage our witnesses to lend us a willing hand in determining the precise history of the field joint, the reaction of corporate 

management to design and operating problems as they became apparent, and the responses of the Marshall Space Flight Center to 

those problems. 

It is important for us to determine to what extent NASA, including its field centers and its contractors, understood the problems of 

the solid rocket booster joint. 

Both the Marshall Space Flight Center and personnel at Morton 

Thiokol will be afforded the opportunity to participate in a fair and 

open review of the facts today. 

As this committee conducts its investigation, it is imperative that 

we determine who said what to whom, when, and where, and what 

was then done about specific problems relating to the joint. And we 

must understand exactly what went wrong in the chain of communications between the contractor for the solid rocket booster and 

NASA. 

For my part, I want to understand how key personnel executed 

their responsibilities. All of us need to understand whether we are 

dealing with a compound failure in implementing a highly complex 

management system or whether the system itself is, in the words of 

the Rogers Commission, flawed. 

Further, I am deeply concerned by an apparent failure in the 

certification process. NASA believed that the SRB was certified for 

flight temperatures of 21 degrees Fahrenheit, and apparently it 

was not. During the course of our hearings we will find out how 

much of this was due to contractual ambiguities, misinterpretation, 

a failure of the contractor and/or a failure of NASA to monitor the 

contractor properly. Our investigation will not be complete until 

we have the answers to these questions. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico. 

[The prepared opening statement of Mrs. Lloyd follows:] 
321 

STATEMENT 

HON. MAR ILYN LLOYD 

JUNE Id 1986 

,Y 

-. 

MORTON M I OKOL 

MARSHALL SPACE FL I GHT CENTER 

MR. CHAIRMAN. LAST WEEK THE COiinMITTEE HEARD FROM THE ROGERS' 

COW4 I SS I ON AND NASA OFF I C l ALS ON THE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER ACC I DENT, IT 

WAS CLEAR TO ME THAT THE MAJOR GOAL FOR THE COMMITTEE WHICH CAME OUT 

OF THOSE HEARINGS IS THAT WE WST INSURE THAT NASA CAN FLY SAFELY IN 

THE FUTURE. IT IS CLEAR TO ME THAT FOR TH IS GOAL TO BE ACH IEVED THERE 

ARE TWO M4JOR REQUIREMENTS: 1) THE SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER (SRB) DESIGN 

MUST BE FIXED, AND 2) INSTITUTIONAL FIXES WST BE MADE IN NASA IN 

TERMS OF R I SK MANAGEMENT COMMUN I CAT IONS AND RELATED DEC I S I ONMAK I NG I 

PURSU I NG THE QUEST I ON OF I ND I V I DUAL CR I MI NAL NEGL I GENCE AND RELATED 

LIABILITY SEEMS TO ME TO SERVE NO USEFUL PURPOSE. IN FACT, SUCH AN 

APPROACH CAN ONLY SERVE TO DISCOURAGE PROGRAM MANAGERS IN NASA AND 

MNG HER CONTRACTORS FROM MAKING HARD DECISIONS IN THE FUTURE. MIS 

COUNTRY IS ALREADY IN THE THROES OF A LIABILITY CRISIS. I HOPE THAT 
-2- 

NO ONE ON THIS COMMITTEE WILL POISON THE ATMOSPHERE THROUGH PLAYING 

"WHO SHOT JOHN" IN TERMS OF THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT AS NASA ATTEMPTS 

TO TURN TH INGS AROUND. 

I AM OF THE OPINION THAT SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN THE MANAGEMENT STYLE 

THAT HAS CHARACTERIZED NASA'S APPROACH TO DIRECTING THE SHUTTLE 

PROGRAM ARE REQUIRED IN AT LEAST THREE AREAS. 

FIRST, IT SEEMS TO ME THAT SENIOR MANAGEMENT MUST HAVE A BETTER MEWS 

FOR AUDITING NASA'S OVERALL CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AS IT 

APPL IES TO THE SHUTTLE ACT I V I T Y , THERE IS A H IGH DEGREE OF TRUST 

IMPLICIT IN THE MANAGEMENT STYLE AND THAT IS GOOD. HOWEVER, IT SEEMS 

TO ME THAT LEVEL 1 MANAGERS HAVE VERY LITTLE UNDERSTANDING OF THE 

DECISIONMAKING PROCESSES THAT GO ON AT THE LEVEL 3 FLIGHT READINESS 

REVIEWS, FOR EXAMPLE. THEY DEPEND UPON THE FLCW OF INFORMAT ION BE ING 

ACCURATE AND CONCISE: HCWEVER, IT IS CLEAR THAT EACH CENTER HAS ITS 

CWN MANAGEMENT STYLE. THUS, IN CERTAIN CASES, COMWNICATIONS RLM 

UPWARDS CAN GET DISTORTED OR MIS INTERPRETED VERY EAS ILY I HEADQUARTERS 

MUST HAVE A MEANS FOR ASSURING ITSELF THAT THE DECISIONMAKING PROCESS 

AS IT PROMULGATES THROUGH THE WHCCE CHAIN OF COWD FROM THE 

CONTRACTORS THROUGH THE FIELD CENTERS, PROGRAM MANAGEMENT, AND FINALLY 
323 

-3- 

TO HEADQUAQTERS, IS ACCOMPLISHED IN A UEAR AND CONCISE MNER. IN 

TH IS WAY, THE CONTROL PROCEDURES, CR IT I CAL I TY I SSUES AND ENG I NEER ING 

CHPNGES SHOULD BE FULLY UNDERSTOOD AT ALL LEVELS AND ANY PROBLEMS THAT 

ARISE ARE CLEARLY COMMUNICATED TO AND AT ALL LEVELS, 

SECONXY, THE AUTONOMOUS OPERATING STYLE THAT HAS CHARACTERIZED 

CERTAIN OF THE NASA FIELD CENTERS INVOLVED IN THE SHUTTLE PROGRAM HAS 

S IGN I F I CANTLY REDUCED THE OVERS I GHT CAPW I L I T I ES THAT WST RES tDE AT 

THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF NASA MPNAGEKNT. THUS, I BELIEVE THAT THE TIME 

FOR F I ELD CENTER D I RECTORS DOM I NAT I NG THE DEC IS IONMAK I NG PROCESS 

WITHIN THE PGENCY HAS PASSED, PND IT IS NECESSARY TO STRENGTHEN THE 

PROGAM MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES AT HEADQUARTERS. 

I HAVE LEARNED, FOR EXAMPLE, THAT A FIELD CENTER SENIOR MPNAGER WITH 

EXTRAORD I NARY RESPONS IB I L I T I ES IN THE SHUTTLE PROGRAM RECENTLY V IS I TED 

HEADQUARTERS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NEARLY FIVE YEARS IN ORDER TO 

PARTICIPATE IN A BRIEFING TO COMMITTEE TASK FORCE STAFF, I AM NOT 

QUESTIONING THE COMPETENCE OF THIS MP~VAGER, BUT amLY HIS VISION AS 

IT RELATES TO THE OVERALL DECISIONMAKING REQUIREMENTS OF THE SHUTTLE 

PROGW MUST BE S IGN IF I CANTLY L I MITED. THE FACT THAT SUCH AUTONOMY 

RESIDES AT ANY ONE LOCATION OUTSIDE OF WASHINGTON DOES NOT Do THE 
324 

-4- 

OVERALL NASA PROGRAM MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE JUST ICE, 

THIRDLY, I BELIEVE IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT NASA, ALONG WITH THE CONGRESS, 

REVIEW AN EARLY SHUTTLE PROGRAM OBJECTIVE TO ENHANCE THE 

COMRC IAL IZAT ION POTENTIAL OF THE SHUTTLE BY PERFORMING NEARLY ALL 

M4JOR SHUTnE ACTIVITIES THROUGH THE USE OF CONTRACTORS. TODAY I 

THINK THAT NASA MUST MODIFY THIS APPROACH IN ORDER TO STRENGTHEN ITS 

IN-HOUSE CAPABILITIES, ESPECIALLY IN THE AREAS OF SAFETY, RELIABILITY 

AND QUALITY ASSURANCE IN ORDER TO MAKE THE PROCESS WOW. 

MR. CHAIRMAN. TODAY WE SHOULD LEARN MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE DEGREE TO 

WICH NASA REQUIRES INSTITUTIONAL FIXES IN MANAGING SHUTTLE RISKS. 

LET US TAKE THESE "LESSONS LEARNED" AS A BASIS FOR OUR FUTURE 

OVERSIGHT OF NASA'S SPACE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM. THE WAY IN WHICH 

THEY IMPLEMENT THESE FIXES WILL DETERMINE WHEN THEY CAN SAFELY FLY 

AGAIN, IN THAT LIGHT, THIS CAN BE A CONSTRUCTIVE HEARING, 
325 

Mr. ROE. Now for the benefit of both our witnesses and our members, let me make the following comments: We will operate today 

because of the complexities and the in-depth relationship of both 

groups cf witnesses under the 5-minute rule. We will follow that 

procedure at least until we unfold the basic questions that people 

want to ask. 

I think the second thing I should mention this morning is that in 

reviewing your testimony, Mr. Locke and your associates and the 

order of magnitude of the questions that are emerging that I am 

not sure we can finish everything by noon today, which was our 

original plan. We are going to try. 

The same thing goes with the people from Marshall this afternoon, to try to bring it together. 

Why did we select your company and Marshall at this juncture 

of the hearings? We want to nail down the facts involved in the 

relationship of what happened in the decision to fly or not to fly. 

That is what we are trying to ascertain. 

The Chair is not interested in the points of view of placing blame 

at this point. That is not our purpose. Our purpose is to determine 

exactly what happened, why it happened with the background information to get it on deck so everybody understands that we are 

not dealing in what may have been. What happened is what we 

want to know. 

The reason for that and why your testimony and the testimony 

of the representatives from Marshall become important is because 

we are looking to the second step of our investigation which has to 

do with management failure or a review that management didn’t 

work in the company or in combination together to help forestall 

some of the decisions that were made. 

That is a key issue that the Commission brought up in their findings and we want to find out what happened and what do we do to 

not let that happen again. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I think that we are getting 

down to the nubbin of what happened on January 28 and I would 

request that for this morning’s witnesses and this afternoon’s witnesses that the Chair place them under oath. 

Mr. ROE. Let’s take a 5-second break here. 

What is the general opinion of the members? I think the gentleman makes a very, very valid point. We could do that for all witnesses. We expect everybody to tell the truth in the first place. 

Without objection, I ask unanimous consent that television 

broadcast, radio broadcast, still photography, and other means of 

coverage shall be permitted during the full committee hearings on 

the Rogers Commission report and the investigation of the Science 

and Technology Committee. 

So ordered. 

Why don’t we have all of the witnesses that are here-we have 

Mr. McDonald, Mr. Locke, Mr. Garrison, and Mr. Kilminster, and 

you have who else? Mr. Boisjoly and Mr. Thompson and Mr. Kennedy-all stand, please. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his suggestion. 
326 

Now, the first witness the Chair recognizes this morning is Mr. 

Charles S. Locke, chairman and chief executive officer of the 

Morton Thiokol, Inc. 

We have your statement, but I want you to go through it in full, 

if you will. 

Mr. Locke. 

STATEMENTS OF CHARLES S. LOCKE, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD 

AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, MORTON THIOKOL, INC.; U. 

EDWIN GARRISON, PRESIDENT, AEROSPACE GROUP, MORTON 

THIOKOL, INC.; JOSEPH C. KILMINSTER, VICE PRESIDENT, 

DENT, SPACE BOOSTER PROGRAMS, MORTON THIOKOL, INC.; 

ALLAN J. McDONALD, DIRECTOR, SRM VERIFICATION TASK 

FORCE; ROGER M. BOISJOLY, STAFF ENGINEER; AND ARNOLD 

R. THOMPSON, SUPERVISOR, STRUCTURES DESIGN, MORTON 

THIOKOL, INC. 

Mr. LOCKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and good morning. 

I am Charles S. Locke, chairman of the board and chief executive 

officer of Morton Thiokol, Inc., and seated with me at the table 

here are Ed Garrison, president of our aerospace group; Joe Kilminster, division vice president; and A1 McDonald, director of our 

solid rocket motor verification task force. 

Also with us, and seated here in the front row, are Carver Kennedy, division vice president, space booster programs; Roger Boisjoly, staff engineer; and Arnie Thompson, supervisor of structures 

design. 

We have two prepared statements to make and then would be 

happy to answer your questions and those of the other committee 

members. 

We at Morton Thiokol share the anguish this country feels as a 

result of the Challenger tragedy. Indeed, the accident and loss of 

the crew have been particularly painful for each of us since, in the 

final analysis, it was our solid rocket motor that failed. Nothing we 

can say or do will bring back those extraordinary people whose 

lives were lost, but I pledge that Morton Thiokol will do everything 

in its power to be sure that such a tragedy does not happen again. 

We congratulate the Presidential Commission on an excellent job 

in reviewing the shuttle accident and establishing the framework 

for a safer space program in the future. We are in full agreement 

with the Commission’s recommendations. 

Throughout the investigation by the Commission, our company 

cooperated fully and responded candidly. Our employees were advised to speak the truth, and I am confident that they did so. 

Early on, Mr. Garrison and I met with Dr. Keel, Executive Director of the Commission, and pledged Morton Thiokol’s total support. 

Thus, we were gratified to note Chairman Rogers’ acknowledgement of our cooperation when he testified before you last week. 

I should also say that we take pride in the contributions of our 

employees who testified-Joe Kilminster, A1 McDonald, Roger Boisjoly, Arnie Thompson-as well as many others. The Commission’s 

report is evidence that the candor of these men and their engineerMORTON THIOKOL, INC.; CARVER G. KENNEDY, VICE PRESI- 
327 

ing knowledge were of great value. This policy of openness will not 

change as the space program regroups and moves forward. 

We want to openly address the criticisms and questions surrounding the Challenger accident. We recognize that the decision to 

launch any shuttle flight is an awesome one. In today’s light, there 

can be no doubt that the whole process must be reviewed carefully. 

We must ensure that our procedures give full consideration to all 

factors, with safety the overriding one. Therefore, we welcome the 

opportunity to appear before this committee, to comment on the 

Commission’s report, to discuss events prior to the launch, and to 

explain what we have done since January 28 to move toward redesign of the solid rozket motor joint and seal. 

With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that some decisions 

made the evening of January 27 were wrong-that mistakes were 

made. Our space program experts, confronted with reports that the 

weather would be substantially colder than for any previous 

launch, reviewed the available data and initially concluded that a 

launch should not occur at an O-ring temperature lower than 53 

degrees Fahrenheit, the lowest previous launch temperature. 

But we all know that NASA questioned Morton Thiokol’s decision. Our engineers could not prove that it was unsafe to fly at less 

than 53 Fahrenheit. Thus, after reviewing the data further and 

evaluating the concerns of a number of engineers, our managers, each of whom has a technical background, came to the judgment 

that it was safe for our booster motors to fly. 

I might add that, had we known how very cold the right aft joint of the motor really was-it may have been, in our opinion, as low 

as 16 degrees Fahrenheit-we believe our judgment surely would 

have been different. 

Others here with me this morning represent the various views 

expressed that evening, and they can speak more fully on this 

topic. 

Our focus since January 28 has been first, to assist the accident 

investigation, including conducting analyses and tests in support of 

that effort; and second, to develop solutions for the future. We reorganized to accomplish these objectives, and quickly shifted our efforts away from a production mode. 

One key move we made was to obtain the valuable assistance of 

Mr. Dorsey, who came back from his recent retirement to become 

vice president and general manager of our space division. Mr. 

Dorsey, before his retirement, had had many years of experience in 

the development of our solid rocket motors. 

We also knew he could restore the confidence of our employees 

at a time when we were both supporting the investigation and 

moving into redesign. All together the duties of several hundred 

people have been changed to recognize the nature of the work 

ahead. I believe that we are now well positioned organizationally to 

face the tasks of the future. 

Before I leave this subject, I do want to comment specifically on 

some of the personnel changes that followed the accident. Besides 

bringing in new management, we did substantially reorganize the 

responsibilities and jobs of many others in the division. 

In the course of these changes, we came to believe that A1 

McDonald, who had spoken candidly, but harshly, about NASA in 
328 

the investigation, should operate in an environment where he 

could continue to do important work, but in which he would be less 

likely to interact directly with the agency. 

We could not afford the possibility of friction, which would be 

counterproductive to the important work ahead. 

Similar concerns existed concerning Roger Boisjoly, one of our 

seal experts. In retrospect, we must criticize ourselves for not being 

sufficiently sensitive to how these actions would be perceived. 

I should also say that I am sorry about some remarks I made, 

which were reported in the press. Those remarks grew out of my 

frustration over the misperception of the actions we took with respect to these two gentlemen. 

I hope subsequent events have demonstrated that we had no intention of punishing anyone. Such action would be totally contradictory to what our company has ever done or stood for. 

The task force which A1 McDonald heads will lead the redesign 

effort. It has already begun to coordinate with NASA and the National Research Council oversight committee. Solving the problems 

in design will be a complicated process. 

Our management is charged with coming up with the best possible recommendation on how to proceed with the design. But we 

want each of our people to know that, if anyone has an idea on 

how to make a better joint, or a better seal, we will listen carefully. 

And if the company’s final recommendation in any way differs 

from a particular individual’s viewpoint, we will provide a mechanism for such individual viewpoints to be made known directly to 

NASA and the oversight committee. 

Mr. Chairman, the Presidential Commission concluded its report 

by observing that its findings and recommendations are intended 

to contribute to the future NASA successes that the nation both expects and requires as the 21st century approaches. We embrace the 

report with that goal in mind and pledge that we will do our part 

to support NASA’s efforts. 

Thank you very much. 

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I now would like to ask 

Joe Kilminster to present some details of the joint design and the 

prelaunch situation as we experienced it. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Locke follows:] 
329 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES S. LOCKE, 

CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

OFFICER, MORTON THIOKOL, INC., 

BEFORE THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE, 

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 17, 1986 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and members of the 

Committee. I am Charles S. Locke, and I am Chairman and 

Chief Executive Officer of Morton Thiokol, Inc. Seated 

with me at the witness table are Ed Garrison, President of 

our Aerospace Group: Joe Kilminster, Division Vice 

President; and A1 McDonald, Director of our Solid Rocket 

Motor Verification Task Force. Also with us, and seated 

here in the front row, are Carver Kennedy, Division Vice 

President, Space Booster Programs: Roger Boisjoly, Staff 

Engi-neer; and Arnie Thompson, Supervisor of Structure 

Design. 

We have two prepared statements to make and then 

would be happy to answer your questions and those of the 

other Committee members. 

We at Morton Thiokol share the anguish this 

country feels as a result of the Challenger tragedy. 

Indeed, the accident and loss of the crew have been 

particularly painful for each of us since, in the final 

analysis, it was our solid rocket motor that failed. 

Nothing we can say or do will bring back those extraordinary people whose lives were lost, but I pledge that 
-2- 

Morton Thiokol will do everything in its power to be sure 

that such a tragedy does not happen again. 

We congratulate the Presidential CO~~6S~On on 

an excellent job in reviewing the shuttle accident and 

establishing the framework for a safer space program in 

the future. We are in full agreement with the 

Commission ' s recommendations. 

Throughout the investigation by the Commission 

our company cooperated fully and responded candidly. Our 

employees were advised to speak the truth, and I am 

confident that they did so. Early on, Mr. Garrison and I 

met with Dr. Keel, Executive Director of the Commission, 

and pledged Morton Thiokol's total support. Thus, we were 

gratified to note Chairman Rogers' acknowledgment of our 

cooperation when he testified before you last week. 

I should also say that we take pride in the 

contributions of our employees who testified -- Joe 

Kilminster, A1 McDonald, Roger Boisjoly, Arnie Thompson -- as well as many others. The Commission's report is 

evidence that the candor of these men and their 

engineering knowledge were of great value. This policy of 

openness, will not change as the space program regroups and 

moves forward. 

We want to openly address the criticisms and 

questions surrounding the Challenger accident. We 

recognize that the decision to launch any shuttle flight 

is an awesome one. In today's light there can be no doubt 
-3- 

that the whole process must be reviewed carefully. We 

must ensure that our procedures give full consideration to 

all factors, with safety the overriding one. Therefore, 

we welcome the opportunity to appear before this 

Committee, -- to comment on the Commission's report, to 

discuss events prior to the launch, and to explain what we 

have done since January 28 to move toward redesign of the 

solid rocket motor joint and seal. 

With the benefit of hindsight it is clear that 

some decisions made the evening of January 27 were wrong 

-- that mistakes were made. Our space program experts, 

confronted with reports that the weather would be 

substantially colder than for any previous launch, 

reviewed the available data and initially concluded that a 

launch should not occur at an O-ring temperature lower 

than 53OP, the lowest previous launch temperature. 

But we all know that NASA questioned Morton 

Thiokol's decision. Our engineers could not prove that it 

was unsafe to fly at less than 53'P. Thus, after 

reviewing the data further and evaluating the concerns of 

a number of engineers, our managers, each of whom has a 

technical background, came to the judgment that it was 

safe for our booster motors to fly. I might add that, had 

we known how very cold the right aft joint of the motor 

really was -- it may have been, in our opinion, as low as 

16OF -- we believe our judgment surely would have been 

different. 
-4- 

Others here with me this morning represent the 

various views expressed that evening, and they can speak 

more fully on this topic. 

Our focus since the 28th of January has been 

first, to assist the accident investigation, including 

conducting analyses and tests in support of that effort: 

and second, to develop solutions for the future. We 

reorganized to accomplish these objectives, and quickly 

shifted our efforts away from a production mode. 

One key move we made was t o o b t a i n the valuable 

assistance of Ur. Dorsey, who came back from his recent 

retirement to become Vice President and General Manager of 

our Space Division. Mr. Dorsey, before his retirement, 

had had many years of experience in the development of our 

solid rocket motors. We also knew he could restore the 

confidence of our employees at a time when we were both 

supporting the investigation and moving into redesign. 

All together the duties of several hundred people have 

been changed to recognize the nature of the work ahead. I 

believe that we are now well-positioned organizationally 

to face the tasks of the future. 

Before I leave this subject, I do want to 

comment specifically on some of the personnel changes that 

followed the accident. Besides bringing in new management, we did substantially reorganize the responsibilities 

and jobs of many others in the Division. In the course of 

these changes, we came to believe that A1 McDonald, who 
333 

-5- 

had spoken candidly, but harshly, about NASA in the 

investigation, should operate in an environment where he 

could continue to do important work, but in which he would 

be less likely to interact directly with the agency. We 

could not afford the possibility of friction, which would 

be counterproductive to the important work ahead. Similar 

concerns existed concerning Roger Boisjoly, one of our 

seal experts. In retrospect, we must criticize ourselves 

for not being sufficiently sensitive to how these actions 

would be perceived. 

I should also say that I am sorry about some 

remarks I made, which were reported in the press. Those 

remarks grew out of my frustration over the misperception 

of the actions we took with respect to these two gentlemen. I hope subsequent events have demonstrated that we 

had no intention of punishing anyone. Such action would 

be totally contradictory to what our company has ever done 

or stood for. 

The task force which A1 McDonald heads will lead 

the redesign effort. It has already begun to coordinate 

with NASA and the National Research Council oversight committee. Solving the problems in design will be a complicated process. Our management is charged with coming up 

with the best possible recommendation on how to proceed 

with the design. But we want each of our people to know 

that, if anyone has an idea on how to make a better joint, 

or a better seal, we will listen carefully. And if the 
334 

company s f i na 

-6- 

recommendation in any way differs from a 

particular individual's viewpoint, we will provide a 

mechanism for such individual viewpoints to be made known 

directly to NASA and the oversight committee. 

Mr. Chairman, the Presidential Commission 

concluded its Report by observing that its findings and 

recommendations are intended to contribute to the future 

NASA successes that the nation both expects and requires 

as the 21st century approaches. We embrace the Report 

with that goal in mind and pledge that we will do our part 

to support NASA's efforts. 

Thank you very much. 

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I now would 

like to ask Joe Rilminster to present some details of the 

joint design and the pre-launch situation as we 

exper i enced it . 
335 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes Mr. Kilminster for his further testimony. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and members of 

the committee. I am Joe Kilminster, vice president of Morton Thiokol. As Mr. Locke has already mentioned, all of us at the company 

share in the Nation’s grief over the loss of Challenger. At the same 

time, this tragedy has intensified our resolve to go forward in 

making the space program as safe and successful as it can be. 

Until recently, my specific area of responsibility was the space 

booster programs for our company; and over the past 12 years I 

have been directly involved in the development and production of 

our solid rocket motors. Prior to that, I held engineering positions 

in structures, preliminary design, and ordnance project engineering. 

I would like to describe briefly Morton Thiokol’s testing and development programs and to share with you the events and thought 

processes that affected the decisions of January 27. Before I discuss 

these two topics, let me take a few moments to review with you the 

operation of the solid rocket motor field joint and its components. 

Mr. Kennedy will assist me on the diagrams that you see on the 

left. As you can see from the motor drawing, the solid rocket motor 

is made up of four segments. Each segment is connected to the next 

segment by a field joint. There are three field joints for each solid 

rocket motor. Shown on the left is a cross section of the field joint, 

and shown at the bottom left is a cross section of the nozzle joint. 

Additional detail of the field joint is shown on the next figure. 

The segment tang-the yellow section-and segment clevis-the 

blue section-connect the segments, which are held together by 177 

clevis pins. The joint is sealed by two rubber 0-rings-the black circles. The top one is identified as the primary O-ring, and the 

bottom one is the secondary O-ring. The purpose of the O-rings is 

to prevent the combustion gases from escaping from inside of the 

motor to the outside. 

The gap between the tang and clevis-the white space in between the two-determines the O-ring compression, or squeeze. 

Shims are used to minimize the gap and increase O-ring squeeze. A 

shim is a piece of metal that fits between the tang and the outside 

leg of the clevis to adjust the spacing between the tang and the 

clevis where the O-ring is. 

The size of the gap is determined by a number of factors, including the dimensions of the metal parts themselves, the O-ring diameter, and the loads on the segment. A design feature unique to our 

solid rocket motor is the leak test between the two O-rings. The 

leak test determines whether the O-rings will properly respond 

after assembly to pressure or whether there is some assembly 

damage or contamination. 

The putty-which is identified by the diagonal lines-is intended 

to act as a thermal barrier to prevent hot gases from coming into 

contact with the O-rings. At the same time, during pressurization, 

the putty is displaced-moved-by gas pressure compressing the 

air between the putty and primary O-ring. Air pressure forces the 

O-ring into the gap between the tang and clevis. This process 

occurs early in the ignition stage stage. Also, during ignition, pres- 
336 

sure loads are applied to the joint, causing the tang-clevis gap to 

open. 

With that introduction, let me turn to the history of the solid 

rocket motor field joint design. 

In 1974, NASA selected us to design and manufacture the solid 

rocket motors for the space shuttle. The basic joint/seal design of 

the solid rocket motor is similar to the Titan solid rocket motor, 

which has a single bore seal O-ring, and which has had a successful 

history. In 1976, NASA completed its critical design review and accepted the design. Since its acceptance, we have learned even more about the complexities of this design and have responded whenever our experiences indicated a need for improvement or change. As part of our testing program, we discovered in June 1977 that 

the gap between the tang and clevis opened under pressurization loads, sometimes referred to as joint rotation. Immediately, we discussed the problem with NASA and commenced analyses and testing to determine how to increase the squeeze on the O-ring and 

thereby reduce the effect of gap opening. We eventually incorporat- ed three design changes to accomplish this. First, we reduced the 

joint metal tolerances. Second, we increased the diameter and 

tightened the tolerances of the O-ring. Third, we incorporated the 

use of shims. 

These changes resulted in increased O-ring squeeze, which both 

we and NASA believed was necessary to counteract the gap opening we had observed. Later on we increased the shim thickness to 

improve O-ring squeeze even more, based on analysis work that 

was done. 

Testing of these modifications reduced concerns about the gap opening. A number of successful tests and qualification procedures 

established that the seals would function safely as expected. Another area to which Morton Thiokol devoted significant attention was evaluation of the performance of the secondary O-ring. In 

1980, a number of tests were conducted which established that the 

secondary O-ring would seal if it were required to do so. 

Even though actual tests demonstrated the integrity of the 

second seal, analytic calculations suggested that if the hardware 

tolerances were all in the wrong direction-in other words, narrow 

tang, wide clevis, and small-diameter 0-ring-the secondary seal would not have what is called positive squeeze. This means that it 

would not be squeezed, or compressed, at all. 

Therefore, at that time we instituted procedures to select actual 

hardware to avoid these worst-on-worst conditions. Because the 

solid rocket motor was assembled based on hardware measurements, we believed the secondary seal would in fact be redundant 

to the primary seal. 

O-ring erosion, which occurs when a hot gas jet strikes the 0- 

ring, is another area that received significant attention. Morton 

Thiokol began addressing this issue in November 1981. It was at 

that time that erosion was first detected in the postflight seal inspection of the shuttle flight, STS-2, which flew on November 12. 

I should point out that sealing of the joint does occur, even with 

erosion. Testing was conducted that showed significant amounts of 

O-ring material could be removed, and the O-ring would still seal. 
337 

On those flights that experienced varying amounts of erosion, the 

primary O-ring sealed. Nevertheless, erosion is clearly undesirable, and we devoted resources to minimizing this problem. Our efforts regarding erosion cannot be described without discussing putty. Putty is intended to keep heat and gas jets, which 

cause erosion, away from the O-rings. Most of our early efforts to 

eliminate erosion, therefore, revolved around studying how the 

putty is applied to the joint areas, and various putty characteristics. 

We intensified our joint analysis efforts early last year because 

of the erosion and blowby experienced on the January 24, 1985 

flight, STS 51-C. Blowby is when gases pass by the O-ring as the 0- 

ring seals. Numerous activities were undertaken in the first part of 

the year, including analytical and test efforts. In August, at the 

urging of some of our seal experts, a joint/seal task force was 

formed to investigate and solve the O-ring erosion and blowby prob- lem. Approximately 40 people devoted substantial time and energy 

to this effort. 

I should emphasize that at no time after the second flight in 1981 

did we experience field joint erosion that was outside out experience base or that might jeopardize safety of flight. They were less 

than we had observed on STS-2. All of our testing and other efforts 

to deal with the erosion issue were communicated to Marshall 

Space Flight Center in a timely fashion. 

While we had previously considered the role of temperature on 

overall flight performance, blowby observed on the January 1985 

launch prompted us to consider the effect of temperature on O-ring resiliency. We conducted laboratory O-ring compression and resiliency tests between 50 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and evaluated environmental exposure of putty and subsequent O-ring erosion. 

Again, all of our findings were reported to Marshall Space Flight 

Center . In July 1985, we ordered long lead steel billets to accommodate a 

redesigned case joint. A detailed presentation on all of our experiences with solid rocket motor seals was made to NASA headquarters in August of last year. I hope this brief summary of some of our efforts helps to demonstrate two important points. First, we evaluated and reevaluated every component and process of this design. We responded in a timely fashion when we 

became aware of an anomaly. And, most importantly, we always sought to satisfy ourselves that safety-of-flight risks were evaluated 

and minimized. This was a continuing process. 

Second, the events help to explain that frame of reference within 

which both Morton Thiokol and NASA were working on January 27, 1986. 

As one of the participants in the events of January 27, 1986, let 

me review briefly with you my thoughts. On that day, we were informed that launch time temperatures were expected to be substantially lower than any previous launch. As launch was scheduled for early the next day, our engineers immediately commenced 

evaluating the available data, focusing particularly on past flight experiences and recent test data. All of the information was discussed among the staff engineers, their supervisors, and the vice 
338 

president of engineering. Because our engineers did not favor 

launch outside our experience base, we communicated our reservations to NASA officials and recommended against launch. 

Two NASA officials-Mr. Mulloy and Mr. Hardy-questioned our 

conclusions from the data that was presented. Mr. Mulloy pointed 

out that he could see no correlation of blowby and temperature. A 

comment was also made that the secondary O-ring is located in the 

desirable sealing position because of the leak check. Because of the 

observations and analysis made by Mr. Mulloy and others, we felt 

it necessary to reassess the data. 

To do so effectively, I asked for an offline caucus so we at Morton 

Thiokol could review our initial no-launch recommendation in the 

light of some perceptive questions raised by NASA. During the 

caucus, at which all of the knowledgeable employees were present, 

we reevaluated the data. We also considered facts that were not 

taken into account before making our initial recommendation; for 

example, Mr. Mulloy’s comments about the conclusiveness of our 

data, the position of the secondary O-ring, and the fact that we 

could fly safely even if the O-rings had three times as much erosion 

as that experienced on the previous coldest launch. 

Based on all the data we had considered, including the subscale 

tests at 30 degrees Fahrenheit, which showed no O-ring blowby, the 

managers-each of whom is technically experienced-concluded 

that a launch recommendation would be made. As the telefax I 

signed shows, we considered all of the available data. We concluded 

that O-ring erosion would not compromise the primary O-ring. If 

the primary O-ring were slow in seating and blowby occurred, the 

secondary O-ring was in position to seal. 

Obviously, we were wrong. We did not have the safety margin 

necessary to cover some things we were not aware of-temperature 

of the point lower than 29 degrees Fahrenheit, perhaps as low as 

16 degrees Fahrenheit, potential for ice in the joint, putty behavior 

at cold temperature, and the effects of violent wind-shear conditions. 

In hindsight, we all wish we could reverse the judgment we 

made. The decision we made that night has been constantly on my 

mind since the morning of January 28. I know it has also been on 

the minds of everyone who participated in the discussion and decision of the evening of January 27. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I do have a 

model of the joint here. If you would like to pass that around to 

committee members, you are free to do that. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kilminster follows:] 

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH C. KILMINSTER 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I am Joe Kilminster, Vice President of Morton 

Thiokol. As Mr. Locke has already said, all of us at the company share in the na- tion’s grief over the loss of the Challenger. At the same time, this tragedy has intensified our resolve to go forward in making the space program as safe and successful 

as it can be. 

Until recently, my specific area of responsibility was the Space Booster Programs for our company; and over the past 12 years I have been directly involved in the 

development and production of our solid rocket motors. Prior to that I held engineerjng positions in Structures, Preliminary Design, and Ordnance Project Engi- nee r 1 n g . 
339 

I would like to describe briefly Morton Thiokol’s testing and development programs and to share with you the events and thought processes that affected the decisions of January 27. Before I discuss the two topics, let me take a few moments 

to review with ym the operayion of the solid rocket motor field joint and its components. 

As you can see from the motor drawing, the solid rocket motor is made up of four 

segments. Each segment is connected to the next segment by a field joint. Shown on the left is a crosss-section of the field joint, and shown on the bottom left is a cross- section of the nozzle joint. Additional detail of the field joint is shown on the next figure. The segment 

tang-the yellow section-and segment clevis-the blue section-connect the segments, which are held together by 177 clevis pins. The joint is sealed by two rubber 

0-rings-the black circles. The top one is identified as the primary O-ring, and the 

bottom one is the secondary O-ring. The purpose of the O-rings is to prevent the 

combustion gases from escaping from the inside of the motor to the outside. 

The gap between the tang and clevis-the white space in between the two-determines the O-ring compression, or “squeeze”. Shims are used to minimize the gap 

and increase O-ring squeeze. A shim is a piece of metal that fits between the tang and the outside leg of the clevis to adjust the spacing between the tang and the 

clevis where the O-ring is. 

The size of the gap is determined by a number of factors, including the dimensions of the metal parts themselves, the O-ring diameter, and the loads on the segment. A design feature unique to our solid rocket motor is the leak test between the 

two O-rings. The leak test determines whether the O-rings will properly respond 

after assembly to pressure or whether there is some damage or contamination. 

The putty-which is identified by the diagonal lines-is intended to act as a barrier to prevent hot gases from coming into contact with the O-rings. At the same time, during pressurization the putty is displaced-moved-by gas pressure com- pressing the air between the putty and primary O-ring. Air pressure forces the 0- 

ring into the gap between the tang and clevis. This process occurs early in the ignition stage. Also, during ignition, pressure loads are applied to the joint, causing the 

tang-clevis gap to open. With that introduction, let me turn to the history of the solid rocket motor field 

joint design. 

In 1974, NASA selected us to design and manufacture the solid rocket motors for 

the Space Shuttle. The basic joint/seal design of the solid rocket motor is similar to 

the Titan solid rocket motor, which has a single bore seal O-ring, and which has a successful history. In 1976, NASA completed its Critical Design Review and accepted 

the design. 

Since its acceptance, we have learned even more about the complexities of this 

design and have responded whenever our experiences indicated a need for improvement or change. 

As part of our testing program, we discovered in June, 1977 that the gap between 

the tang and clevis opened under pressurization loads, sometimes referred to as 

joint rotation. Immediately, we discussed the problem with NASA and commenced 

analyses and testing to determine how to increase the squeeze on the O-ring and 

thereby reduce the effect of gap opening. We eventually incorporated three design 

changes to accomplish this. First, we reduced the joint metal tolerances. Second, we increased the diameter and tightened the tolerances of the O-ring. Third, we incorporated the use of shims. 

These changes resulted in increased O-ring squeeze, which both we and NASA believed was necessary to counteract the gap opening we had observed. Later on we increased the shim thickness to improve O-ring squeeze even more based on analysis 

work that was done. 

Testing of these modifications reduced concerns about the gap opening. A number 

of successful tests and qualification procedures established that the seals would 

function safely as expected. Another area to which Morton Thiokol devoted significant attention was evaluation of the performance of the secondary O-ring. In 1980, a number of tests were conducted which established that the secondary O-ring would seal if it were re- quired to do so. Even though actual tests demonstrated the integrity of the second seal, analytic 

calculations suggested that if the hardware tolerances were all in the wrong direction-in other words, narrow tang, wide clevis, and small-diameter 0-ring-the sec- ondary seal would not have what is called “positive squeeze.” This means that it 

would not be squeezed, or compressed, at all. 
340 

Therefore, at that time, we instituted procedures to select actual hardware to 

avoid these worst-on-worst conditions. Because the solid rocket motor was assembled 

based on hardware measurements, we believed the secondary seal would in fact be 

redundant to the primary seal. 

O-ring erosion, which occurs when a hot gas jet strikes the O-ring, is another area that received significant attention. Morton Thiokol began addressing this issue in 

November, 1981. It was at that time that erosion was first detected in the post-flight seal inspection of the shuttle flight, STS-2, which flew on November 12th. 

I should point out that sealing of the joint does occur, even with erosion. Testing 

was conducted that showed significant amounts of O-ring material could be re- moved, and the O-ring would still seal. On those flights that experienced varying 

amounts of erosion, the primary O-ring sealed. Nevertheless, erosion is clearly undesirable, and we devoted resources to minimizing this problem. 

Our efforts regarding erosion cannot be described without discussing putty. Putty is intended to keep heat and gas jets, which cause erosion, away from the O-rings. 

Most of our early efforts to eliminate erosion, therefore, revolved around studying 

how the putty is applied to the joint areas, and various putty characteristics. 

We intensified our joint analysis efforts early last year because of the erosion and 

blow-by experienced on the January 24, 1985 flight, STS 514. Blow-by is when 

gases pass by the O-ring as the O-ring seals. Numerous activities were undertaken 

in the first part of the year, including analytical and test efforts. In August, at the 

urging of some of our seal experts, a Joint/Seal Task Force was formed to investigate and solve the O-ring erosion and blow-by problem. Approximately 40 people devoted substantial time and energy to this effort. 

I should emphasize that at no time after the second flight in 1981 did we experience field joint erosion that was outside our experience base or that might jeopardize safety of flight. All of our testing and other efforts to deal with the erosion issue 

were communicated to Marshall Space Flight Center in a timely fashion. 

While we had previously considered the role of temperature on overall flight per- formance, blow-by observed on the January, 1985 launch prompted us to consider 

the effect of temperature on O-ring resiliency. We conducted laboratory O-ring com- pression and resiliency tests between 5O0-1OO0F and evaluated environmental expo- sure of putty and subsequent O-ring erosion. Again, all of our findings were reported to Marshall Space Flight Center. In July 1985, we ordered long lead steel billets 

to accommodate a redesigned case joint. A detailed presentation on all of our experi- ences with solid rocket motor seals was made to NASA headquarters in August of 

last year. 

I hope this brief summary of some of our efforts helps to demonstrate two important points. 

First, we evaluated and re-evaluated every component and process of this design. 

We responded in a timely fashion when we became aware of an anomaly. Andmost importantly-we always sought to satisfy ourselves that safety-of-flight risks were evaluated and minimized. This was a continuing process. 

Second, the events help to explain the frame of reference within which both 

Morton Thiokol and NASA were working on January 27, 1986. 

As one of the participants in the events of January 27, 1986, let me review briefly 

with you my thoughts. On that day, we were informed that launch time temperatures were expected to be substantially lower than any previous launch. As launch was scheduled for early the next day, our engineers immediately commenced evaluating the available data, focusing particularly on past flight experiences and recent 

test data. All of the information was discussed among the staff engineers, their su- pervisors, and the Vice President of Engineering. Because our engineers did not 

launch outside our experience base, we communicated our reservations to NASA officials and recommended against launch. Two NASA officials-Mr. Mulloy and Mr. Hardy-questioned our conclusions 

from the data that was presented. Mr. Mulloy pointed out that he could see no cor- relation of blow-by and temperature. A comment was also made that the secondary O-ring is located in the desirable sealing position because of the leak check. Because 

of the observations and analysis made by Mr. Mulloy and others, we felt it neces- sary to reassess the data. 

To do so effectively, I asked for an off-line caucus so we at Morton Thiokol could 

review our initial “no-launch” recommendation in the light of some perceptive questions raised by NASA. During the caucus-at which all of the knowledgeable em- ployees were present-we reevaluated the data. We also considered facts that were not taken into account before making our initial recommendation; for example, Mr. 

Mulloy’s comments about the conclusiveness of our data, the position of the second- 
34 1 

ary O-ring, and the fact that we could fly safely even if the O-rings had three times as much erosion as that experienced on the previous coldest launch. 

Based on all the data we had considered, including the subscale tests at 30°F 

which showed no O-ring blow-by, the managers-each of whom is technically experienced-concluded that a launch recommendation would be made. As the telefax I 

signed shows, we considered all of the available data. We concluded that O-ring ero- sion would not compromise the primary O-ring. If the primary O-ring were slow in 

seating and blow-by occurred, the secondary O-ring was in position to seal. 

Obvously, we were wrong. We did not have the safety margin necessary to cover some things we were not aware of-temperature of the joint lower than 29°F (perhaps as low as 16"F), potential for ice in the joint, putty behavior at cold temperature, and the effects of violent wind shear conditions. 

In hindsight, we all wish we could reverse the judgment we made. The decision we made that night has been constantly on my mind since the morning of January 

28th. I know it has also been on the minds of everyone who participated in the discussion and decision of the evening of January 27. 

Thank you very much. 
342 

SPACE SHUTTLE SRM JOINTS 

Nozzle-to-Case Joint 
343 

DETAIL OF SPACE SHUlTLE 

SRM FIELD JOINT 

EXTERIOR 

Path 

INTERIOR 

345 

Mr. ROE. I want to thank you, Mr. Kilminster, for your testimony, and I think it would be profitable to clarify a little bit further, 

if I may, before we go into our interrogatories, what really happened during that discussion. There has been all kinds of conjecture in the media and so forth, and I think it is important, and 

how it is interpreted in the Commission’s report. 

So I think it is very important while we have the key people here 

that participated in the decisionmaking process that we ask those 

questions, but I would like to hear the reflections first from Mr. 

McDonald. You have been vocal and candid in your observations, 

and hindsight is 20/20 vision and all that, but that notwithstanding 

it is important to the committee to understand what your motivating factors were in this decisionmaking process and see if you can 

portray to the committee what really made you change your mind 

if you did change your mind as to whether the launch should take 

place or not. 

If you could give us reflections, as I understand from Mr. Kilminster’s testimony, the Thiokol leadership went on its own and called 

its caucus together and said “We have a different position coming 

through from NASA and Marshall saying we don’t think you are 

interpreting this correctly, have we done the proper tests?” 

On the basis of that kind of dialog, as I understand Mr. Kilminster’s testimony, that is where the decision was made by Thiokol to 

reverse the position on the flight, particularly as far as the cold 

weather was involved. 

Mr. MCDONALD. First I would like to clarify that I was at the 

Kennedy Space Center that evening. I was not in the caucus at 

Utah where the final decision was made. 

Mr. ROE. Did you communicate with any of these folks? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Only the telephone conference that occurred 

before the caucus. I did not communicate with them during the 

caucus, no. Prior to the end of the telephone conference, in fact I 

was the one responsible for setting that up, I had requested that 

Thiokol assess the situation, their engineering people assess that 

situation, and come back with a recommendation as to what temperature, not just whether we launch or not, but at what temperature we would be willing to launch, and that decision should be 

made by the vice president of Thiokol Engineering. 

That telephone conference was conducted over about a 2-hour 

time period, the charts relative to the assessment of what temperature we would launch at were made by the individual engineers 

preparing the charts, Mr. Bob Lund, the vice president of engineering, went through the conclusions and the recommendations made, 

which were not to launch below 53 degrees Fahrenheit. When that 

rationale for launching, notably 53 degrees, was challenged by the 

NASA people, we had agreed to hold a caucus to reassess that data. 

I had made a comment at that time, said if we are going to reassess the data, then we must re-assess the effect of the temperature 

on both the primary and secondary O-ring. Mr. Hardy had commented earlier we had not addressed that, and I reiterated that is 

an important consideration because, in my mind, it was very clear 

that we made the 53-degree recommendation based on our experience. 
346 

The year earlier, we had experienced the worst condition we had 

seen in a field joint, a condition where we eroded two of the O-rings 

in field joints, and we saw heavy black soot behind the primary 0- 

ring and some sheen taken off the secondary O-ring, even though 

there was no major erosion from it. It was clear that even though 

we presented 13 charts on our concerns of going at lower temperatures, it was the basis of that previous flight which we didn’t 

expect to experience again, because at that time those were reported as the 3 coldest days in Florida history prior to that launch. So 

we didn’t expect to see that condition again. 

Mr. ROE. But you recognized that the cold weather created the 

condition? 

Mr. MCDONALD. We concluded that was the reason we saw the 

blowby. We didn’t attribute that to anything else. We concluded 

that it was the cold temperature. 

Mr. ROE. But you were aware at that point it was the temperature issue and that was on January 27, so there was some recognition by our folks and yourself that there was a temperature problem that apparently had caused a problem before as far as the two 

O-rings are concerned, and on January 27, you did recognize that 

temperature may play some role. 

Is that a fair comment to make? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. That is a fair assessment and 

that is why we really held the conference. I felt that if we were 

going to recommend anything other than 53 degrees, we were going 

to have to assess it analytically to say what temperature can we 

launch at and how does temperature affect that O-ring seal. 

I felt that if we went off line to take a caucus if we wanted to 

calculate a new temperature based on how we knew that 0-Ring 

would respond, and we knew that the O-ring in the primary seal, 

which was hit by the gas first, it had to travel across the O-ring 

groove. 

It so happened that the squeeze in that O-ring was such it didn’t 

have to do much of that, but in theory it has to move from one side 

to the other because the leak check on primary O-ring does check 

it on the wrong side of the O-ring groove. We knew that and it was 

in that kind of position at the time. 

So I knew that it took some time for that to happen and some 

time for the O-ring to be extruded into the gap and the issue that 

we had discussed that night was that the concern by the engineers 

was the timing function. 

We could not allow the time for that O-ring seal, the primary 0- 

ring seal to seal past about 170 milliseconds because that was the 

time when the metal parts really started to rotate and once rotation occurs, which it separates the sealing area, the O-ring from 

the metal parts, that the resiliency of the O-ring comes into play. 

That is the ability of the O-ring to recover from the temperature. 

If we didn’t get a good seal on the primary at that time, we could 

not depend on the secondary O-ring because it had the same resiliency problem, but if the primary O-ring did not seal in the first 

milliseconds before that metal part separated, there was a good 

chance the secondary seal would seal, because it was at least in the 

proper position and did not have to travel. 
347 

My comment that was finally used as one of the pieces of rationale, is somebody needs to assess that if we are going to use any 

temperature other than 53 degrees and it was at that point in time 

when the caucus was held at Utah and they said they would go off 

for 5 minutes and it ended up for about half an hour and as a 

result I didn’t participate in the caucus because I felt the right 

people were there to discuss that information, all the engineering people were there and I was not aware of what happened in that 

caucus at the time. 

Mr. ROE. I want to call on Mr. Boisjoly in a minute, but let me 

ask you one question. When the decision came back to you from 

the caucus that lasted approximately half an hour, were you satisfied with that decision or did you still doubt in your mind whether 

that was the wise thing to do? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I was not satisfied with that decision. I was a bit 

taken back and surprised because the rationale that was presented did not indicate to me that we had run the calculations to convince 

me that we had a good number again and we didn’t come back 

with a number, which kind of bothered me a little bit. It just said 

that we would recommend to proceed on with the launch. 

In reviewing the chart that Mr. Kilminster eventually had to 

sign, there are about nine items on that chart and I believe five of 

the nine were reasons not to launch. They were the concerns raised 

earlier in the telecon and only four of those were items that you 

could say may say it is all right. There were still more unknowns 

than knowns. That is when I raised the issue with both Mr. Mulloy 

and Mr. Reinartz, my concern that I don’t think that they can 

accept that recommendation. 

Mr. ROE. I have a couple of other questions I would ask when the 

question period starts. 

Mr. Boisjoly, would you give us your observations, and then we 

will have closed the circle here, and all the people who were part of the process from the Thiokol group will have spoken, and then 

we will go to questions. What is your observation, sir? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Our primary concerns that evening were for the 

cold temperatures, and those primary concerns were rooted in the 

launch the year before in 1985. 

Mr. ROE. Run that by me once more. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Our primary concerns were rooted in the launch 1 

year before in 1985, as A1 had mentioned. That was the most 

severe blowby that we had ever witnessed on a joint, and the main 

emphasis of the discussion from an engineering standpoint that 

evening was the resiliency of the seals and the witness of that 

blowby from the year before, that temperature was indeed telling 

us something. 

I had prepared a chart that broke the ignition transient during the pressurization cycle into three distinct zones, the zero and 170 

milliseconds. I had stated that we had a high probability of a reliable secondary seal. And the basis for that statement was that we 

had a bench test that showed that at 50 degrees, we could maintain 

O-ring contact when we separated the surfaces in that regime; in 

other words, just a little bit of separation, the O-ring still had the 

capability of following the metal surfaces and had the ability to be 
348 

sealed. That was the only-the lowest temperature data that we 

had at that point in time. 

Mr. ROE. No other tests had been made at that point below 50 

degrees? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That is correct. I had another zone defined between 170 and 330 milliseconds, and I said we had a reduced probability of having a secondary seal. We weren’t sure whether it would 

or would not seal because it would be beyond our experience base 

at that point. 

Then I had a third zone which took us from 330 to the end of the 

ignition transient cycle of 600 milliseconds, and I said we had a 

high probability that we would not have any secondary seal. That 

was based on the fact of the same type of testing, which showed at 

50 degrees, if we open the gap to the full amount, the seal not only 

lifted off but stayed lifted off for 10 minutes, and we had terminated the test after 10 minutes, so we had a pretty fair assessment 

that temperature did have an effect on resiliency of the seal at that 

point. 

I also went through a series of qualitative assessments based on 

observations. I was the one that was at the Cape and appeared in 

the disassembly of 51-C which occurred in 1985. I was the one that 

tracked the soot, defined it, took the samples, had them brought 

back to the plant for analysis and so forth, and had that soot analyzed, and there was no doubt that they were the products of combustion, products of O-ring, products of putty between the two 0- 

ring seals. We had a case where, on that particular flight, we had 

on the 15-A vehicle, we had an 80-degree arc of black grease between the O-rings and the grease was homogenous color and it was 

black, jet black. We had never seen anything like that before. 

On the other joint on that same vehicle, we had 110 degrees of 

black grease between the O-rings. I also pointed out that we would 

have lower O-ring squeeze due to the lower temperature. I had run 

a calculation during the day to ensure that we would still have 

squeeze as a result of the lower temperature. 

Earlier in the day, I didn’t know what the temperature exactly 

would be so I ran a calculation on the basis of temperature drop 

from ambient of 50 degrees which would have put us in the 25- 

degree region from ambient of 75. I ran the calculation and it 

worked out to be a relatively benign difference of three-one thousandths of an inch, which is not a major change in squeeze. 

However, a major factor was that as temperature goes down an 

elastometric material, the material becomes harder, so we pointed 

out that the shore hardness, which is the measure of the hardness 

of the O-ring, would be harder, and I used a brick and sponge analogy to explain that. 

It would be more difficult for the seal to attempt to seal in the 

gap as it was being pressure-energized. We would also affect the 

grease, causing the grease to become thicker. I mentioned that 

higher O-ring pressure actuation time may occur as a result of all 

of those that I mentioned before. 

Now, here is the two bottom lines that we were trying to drive 

home that night from an engineering standpoint. 
349 

Mr. ROE. Before you do that, let me ask a question for clarity. 

Did you advise your superiors of these tests and your observations 

on January 27? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes; I am reading from the actual charts that we 

used. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman will proceed. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. The bottom two statements basically summed up 

in effect what I have just stated. The results of what I just stated 

could result in the following action. 

If action time increased, and that action time being the time it 

would take an O-ring to seal, the threshold of the secondary seal 

pressurization capability approach-to amplify on that and explain 

it to you, the longer it takes the primary seal to go into position 

and affect a seal, rotation effects occur in the metal parts such that 

the longer that time, the more the probability the secondary seal 

would not be capable of being pressure actuated, because it would 

unseat. If the threshold is reached, then the secondary seal might 

not be capable of that pressurization, and that was the sum and 

substance of the discussion that night. 

We had charts in there that showed that we had a static test fixture that showed that at 30 degrees, we experienced no blowby but 

that was a static test fixture that had no gap opening; its purpose 

was just to evaluate the blowby phenomena in the seal, to evaluate 

it in the regime of 5 to 50 pounds per square inch, and that was a 

direct outcropping of the flight readiness review from the year 

before in which I made the statement that all seals have a certain 

amount, maybe a teaspoon of gas that goes through, and it is a 

question of when that gas goes through whether it is hot or ambient gas compressed prior to the hot gas coming through, and that 

mechanism has in an O-ring attempting to go across the groove 

and seal. That test was run for that purpose and that chart was 

used to demonstrate that the seal would seal at 30 degrees. However, that was a static condition. The joint was not moving at that 

time. 

The major point is we used pictures to show that the SRM-15, 

which had the major soot between the seals, as I described, versus 

an SRM-22, which had soot blowby at a higher temperature and 

much less arc degree and much less blackness, it boiled down to 

that major issue, that temperature on one side of the argument 

was not a discriminator, and on the engineering side of the argument, it was a discriminator, and physical evidence was indeed telling us that temperature was a major effect. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. 

I thought it was important to have the input of two of the gentlemen who worked very diligently on this issue. 

Now we will go to questioning. I am going to have three questions, but I want to make a summary first and then I will defer to 

my minority leader from New Mexico. 

I would like to make the following observation at this time, and 

place in space, if you like, in our investigation. We have heard very candid testimony from Mr. Locke, who is chairman of the board of 

the company. We have heard an extensive technical-and very 

well-done, by the way-presentation by Mr. Kilminster giving the 

64-295 0 - 86 - 12 
members a better understanding of precisely how the technology works. We feel that was very successful. 

We have talked to Mr. McDonald about his observations, being 

the representative at the Cape and making some of these decisions, 

or translating these decisions into action. And, Mr. Boisjoly, on 

your engineering points, we have determined two things, as I see it, 

in the testimony so far, and the facts before us. No. 1, that NASA 

knew over a long period of time, as did Thiokol, that there was a 

problem with this particular seal and the O-ring situation. We 

knew that. It wasn’t something new that came to us. 

The second point that I think we have established in fact is that 

in the course of the shuttle launches that took place, the subsequent review of those launches and the situation, the impact upon 

the O-rings and the seal and the putty were known, and were very much concerning many of the key engineering personnel, as you 

have testified to. 

The third thing that we have learned today is that from Mr. 

McDonald and Mr. Boisjoly’s point of view, that you were knowledgeable, therefore, the company was knowledgeable on the 

evening of January 27 before the launch that there was serious 

concern with the situation, particularly relating to the low temperatures and what effect, if any, it would have upon the O-rings, 

the pliability of the material and so forth, so there were legitimate problems, and you have continued to maintain that position. 

Now I will go to my questions. We have not determined what 

happened in that discussion. We know what the result of the discussion was in the caucus discussion. 

There has been an allegation made, and I think it is tough to 

bring it up, but it has to be laid on the table, I think. One of the 

allegations that has been presented and conjectured on is that 

during that half hour of the discussions in caucus by Thiokol, et al, 

that Thiokol or NASA in effect-let me get that correct now-that 

in effect, when Thiokol had taken its original position of no go because of the temperature and the concerns of your field engineers, and that was reviewed, that part of the discussion process was 

based upon the point of view that NASA was a great customer for 

Thiokol, so the allegation goes, and that factored in as one of the 

major parts of the decision above and beyond the safety and engi- neering facts that were available at that point, that Thiokol was 

bending to NASA’s position based upon the fact NASA was a good 

customer of the Thiokol Co. Tough question; has to be asked. 

So I would like to hear from Mr. Locke on that if you would like 

to respond. 

Did you participate in the caucus, Mr. Locke? 

Mr. LOCKE. No, I did not, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. Is there someone here who did participate in the 

caucus? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I did. 

Mr. LOCKE. Neither Mr. Garrison nor I participated in that conference that night and really had no knowledge of this decisionthe decisions being made. 

Mr. ROE. Would you pull the mike closer, it is very important. 

Mr. LOCKE. Neither one of us had knowledge. 

Mr. ROE. Neither you or yourself. 
351 

Mr. LOCKE. Mr. Garrison. 

Mr. ROE. You were not there. 

Mr. LOCKE. No. But I think Mr. Garrison might make some interesting comments on that point and we will hear from Mr. Kilminster. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Garrison. YOU understand where I am coming from. 

I want to know preciself what the feeling of the company is on 

that issue. 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes, sir. I interviewed of course all of the people -- involved. 

Mr. ROE. Were you there? 

Mr. GARRISON. I was not there. But afterward I did talk to all the 

people. It’s my belief in talking to those people that they made a 

decision that they thought was a reasonable technical decision and 

each one of them told me personally that they did not feel pressure 

from NASA. I don’t think that is true of the engineering people 

that were in the caucus. I believe most of those people have testified that they did feel pressure. 

But from the-my perception at this point in talking to my 

people, the people that actually made the decision is that they did 

not feel the pressure. They felt they were making a logical engineering decision. 

Mr. ROE. Could you do something for the committee, could you 

give us a list if we don’t already have it-I am not sure we do or 

not-of precisely the people that participated in that caucus, their 

names and what their official positions were. 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes, sir, I believe that information is listed in the 

Shuttle Commission report. 

Mr. ROE. OK, fine, I don’t recall that. 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. The second question I want to ask, I think it is a very 

important point to develop at this point; the engineers to me are 

the people who are the knowledgeable ones in the sense of the 

technology involved and the issues. If the engineers felt that there 

was some legitimate technical problems they were concerned with, 

what motivated other than the engineering staff, namely administrative people or managers in that caucus, how was the decision of 

the engineers’ overridden? There has always got to be some leader. 

Was there someone in charge of the caucus? Was there someone 

who, as I am chairman of this particular venture and all our 

people are capable of course, was there somebody who tilted that 

decision? That decision had to be made from a basic point of view 

of technology available versus the point of view of a business discussion or something, something had to happen there. Because the 

engineers have testified that they were not satisfied with the decision even after it was made. 

Mr. GARRISON. I don’t want to pretend to put myself-- 

Mr. ROE. I understand you were not there. 

Mr. GARRISON. In the minds of the people who were there, because I could not feel the emotions and did not know what was 

transpiring, but I would like to make a couple of comments and 

clarify the fact that these were not administrative people. They 

were all engineering people. 
352 

They were all from engineering background, although they were 

management people they had worked up through the ranks. So 

they do have enough technical background, I think, to follow logically some engineering analysis. 

Second, there was really no incentive for the company to be anything other than conservative. I have read some articles in the 

press that seem to insinuate that we had some incentive that 

caused us to make that decision and that is not true. As a matter 

of fact, our incentives are in the opposite direction. We have tremendous losses, financial losses if we have a problem with the 

shuttle flight. 

So I wanted to make those two comments and other than that, 

Mr. Chairman, I am not able to put myself in those people’s shoes 

but I have talked to all of them and Mr. Kilminster, of course, was 

a member of the four people that we considered the management 

group that made the decision. 

Mr. ROE. Could we hear from Mr. Kilminster? What was your observations at the time? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir, I think that the data was not conclusive relative to blowby. For instance, the data that was presented 

indicated that a flight at 75 degrees had also experienced some 

blowby although it was not as extensive as it was in the previous 

cold launch. In addition we had conducted some static test motors 

that as we knew at that night had been fired with O-ring temperatures in the range of 48 to 47 degrees, and there was no O-ring 

blowby observed on those. 

As Mr. Boisjoly had mentioned, they had conducted subscale 

tests with the right seal gaps, full diameter O-rings and as a 

matter of fact, at lower squeeze condition than what we had in the 

51 LSRM’s and observed no blowby. The other two aspects that 

were looked at and were discussed in that caucus were the fact 

that the secondary O-ring by nature of the leak test was in the 

downstream desired position so that even if there was some blowby 

to occur of the primary O-ring that seal would be in position and 

would be capable of sealing. 

The other aspect that was discussed was on that previous coldest 

launch where we did observe erosion blowby, there was thirty-eight 

one-thousandths depth of erosion on that primary O-ring. So whatever caused it, whether it was jet impingement or blowby, thirtyeight one-thousandths was there. We had previously run tests that 

demonstrated that he could have one hundred and twenty-five onethousandths at least erosion on the O-rings and have them successfully function. So it was based on those technical judgments and 

that technical background that the decision was made as far as I 

am concerned. 

Mr. ROE. Let me ask you one followup and conclude before I call 

on the gentleman from New Mexico, for the benefit of the committee did everybody jump up and say how many people participated, I 

don’t remember the number, 12, 14, in the caucus? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I think there was 12 or 13. 

Mr. ROE. Twelve or thirteen, yes, the Apostles. The point in question, did everybody then say now that we have reviewed all the 

technical data available and we feel pretty much this is the right 
353 

thing to do, let’s go ahead with it. Or were there still people that 

documented whether that direction should be taken? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. As far as I was concerned, I felt there was four 

people in the room that still felt that from a conservative basis 

that it was not a rational thing to do to describe that. 

Mr. ROE. Was a decision made then at that point and your people, whoever was the head of that caucus, had the right to make 

that decision and telegraph that to Mr. McDonald and go with it, 

or did it have to go higher leadership, did it go to Mr. Locke, did it 

go to Mr. Garrison. Who made that decision to go. What was the 

chain? 

You had your caucus, everybody wasn’t all together on this 

thing, they were concerned. There was legitimate misunderstandings or lack of engineering data and so forth, what happened then 

specifically. Did you call up Mr. McDonald or someone call Mr. McDonald 

and say, we analyzed it and we are going to go with it. What happened? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. At that point in time a management poll was 

conducted. 

Mr. ROE. What does that mean, a management poll? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Mr. Mason, who is the senior vice president, 

asked for an assessment by the managers. The managers included 

Mr. Lund who was vice president of engineering, Mr. Wiggins who 

was the space division general manager and vice president, myself, 

and Mr. Mason. 

Mr. ROE. OK. That management group made the decision? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is correct. 

Mr. ROE. So it didn’t get to Mr. Locke or higher people. That was 

the management group that was responsible to make that decision, 

is that correct, yes or no. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That was the decision that was made at that 

level, yes, sir. 

McDonald or what? 

Mr. ROE. And how did you, just for clarity, did you telephone Mr. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. We reopened up the net of the telecon. 

Mr. ROE. OK. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. We had been on caucus where everybody was 

on hold. And we reopened the net and at that point in time, I summarized the basis for our decision to proceed with the launch and 

then during that portion of the telecon we were requested by 

NASA to put that in writing and sign it and send it down. 

Mr. ROE. And you did. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. And we did. 

Mr. ROE. And the decision was made. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

New Mexico. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. In one point you make, would you yield just a 

moment? 

Mr. LUJAN. I would yield. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. During that off-line caucus, Mr. Lund apparently 

was one of those rather persistent in recommending against proceeding. 
354 

Could you tell me and the committee if Mr. Mason, as has been 

reported, said to Mr. Lund, take off your engineering hat and put 

on your management hat. 

And if he did say it, could you interpret for us what he meant by that? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I can confirm that he did say that. I cannot interpret what Mr. Mason meant by it but I can tell you what my 

interpretation was. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. That would be helpful. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. My interpretation was that there was perceived 

to be differences of opinion amongst the engineering people and 

that as is common when you have a number of different viewpoints, someone has to collect that and make an engineering decision and that would be in Mr. Lund’s role to do that. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. He was the key man in terms of the engineering 

decision, is that right? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is correct. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. And he was recommending against proceeding. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir. He initially he covered prior to the 

caucus he did cover charts that recommended against the launch. 

And then subsequent after the caucus then he was one of the four 

managers that was polled and agreed to launch. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. After it was suggested that he talk-- 

Mr. LUJAN. I have only 3% minutes left. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. All right. 

Mr. LUJAN. I did want to pursue something with Mr. McDonald. 

You said you were taken back, surprised with that decision. You 

were down at the Cape. Is it considered not proper-first of all let 

me ask you, do you know Mr. Aldrich and Mr. Moore? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes, I do. 

Mr. LUJAN. Is it considered not proper for you to go to them. 

They are the ones that have to make the final decisions. Once they 

had said that you should go ahead with the launch, you felt very 

strongly I gather that you should not. 

Is there something in the protocol that says you shouldn’t go to 

Moore and Aldrich and tell them, hey, there is a real big problem 

here? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes, I think it is unwritten in the protocol but I 

didn’t really think there was any need to do that because I knew 

that Mr. Reinartz was a member of the Mission Control Team with 

Mr. Aldrich and Mr. Moore, and in fact until the testimony I was 

under the impression that Dr. Lucas was also a member of that 

team. 

I found out later he was not. I knew that was Mr. Reinartz’ boss 

and he was going to talk to him about it. Of course Mr. Mulloy was 

there who I communicate with and who Mr. Reinartz takes his recommendations on any problems associated with the solid rocket 

boosters, and I felt I was talking to exactly the right two people 

about voicing my concerns even after the decision was made as to 

why I didn’t feel good about this launch and I was surprised that 

they would accept that recommendation because-- 

Mr. LUJAN. Do they have a meeting every-in the morning to my 

understanding right before the launch to go over last minute 
355 

things and decide whether you are going to launch at that point or 

not?- 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I was unaware that they did. I guess 

maybe they do, but I was-- 

Mr. LUJAN. So you were not there. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I was not there. I was sure that they would pass 

that on. 

Mr. LUJAN. By that time they could see the ice on the pad and 

everything and it might have been a good time to raise the question, but if you were not there, no way. Mr. Kilminster, you say they had you put it in writing that you 

had made a decision to launch. Was that normal? Did you have 

to-every time you had a disagreement did they have you send a 

telegram or wire or put it in writing or sign off that we ought to do 

this or was this unusual because there was so much dissention? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Well, in this case the whole operation was unusual in that we had not previously had an issue come up so late in 

the launch process. However, it is normal during the flight readiness review process for me to sign off at various stages that the 

solid rocket motors are acceptable for flight, and I normally do 

that. 

Mr. LUJAN. How soon before the day of the flight? This is the 

only-this is the first time you had to do it just the day before, is 

that correct? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is correct. 

Mr. LUJAN. Before that if you can remember, how far away from 

the day of flight did you have to sign something? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I think it was approximately 3 weeks. 

Mr. LUJAN. Three weeks, and this was the first time otherwise. 

So there was a realization that it was a very serious matter and to 

put it very bluntly, probably put the monkey on your shoulders 

rather than accept that responsibility if anybody questioned why did we launch, they could say well, Kilminster told us it was all 

right and here’s the proof. 

Did you feel that way? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, I was not really surprised when I was asked 

to send down a piece of paper with my signature on it. However, I 

have to say that it was unusual because the whole operation was unusual. 

Mr. LUJAN. One final-- 

Mr. ROE. Go ahead. 

Mr. LUJAN. One final question, Mr. Locke, and one of the things that we look for in the committee is what changes need to be made 

in policy. In your testimony you say: 

Our space experts reviewed the available data initially and concluded launch 

should not occur at O-ring temperatures lower than 53 but we all know NASA questioned Morton Thiokol’s decision and our engineers could not prove that it was unsafe to fly at less than 53 degrees Fahrenheit. 

That seems to be a reversal of past NASA criteria where in the 

past you had to prove that it was safe, not that it was unsafe. Is 

that just an unfortunate use of words or did you feel that this was 

a different circumstance? 

Mr. LOCKE. Well, remember that we are making these judgments 

now after the fact. 
356 

Mr. LUJAN. Yes. 

Mr. LOCKE. And that selection of words was deliberate. 

Mr. LUJAN. That was basically what NASA asked you to do, to 

prove that it was unsafe rather than that it is safe to fly? 

Mr. LOCKE. It seemed that way, yes, sir. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from New 

York, Mr. Scheuer. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Locke, you are quoted as saying to a newspaper man recently-as a matter of fact on your first page of your statement you talk about the pain and anguish of this tragic accident. Is this what 

you were referring to when you mentioned to a newspaper correspondent recently and I quote, “This shuttle thing will cost us 10 

cents a share this year.” 

Mr. LOCKE. Yes, sir, it was. And I would like to clarify the circumstances under which those remarks were made. 

This was-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Make it very brief because we only have 5 minutes 

and I have some other questions to get on with. 

Mr. LOCKE. This was an article by the Wall Street Journal who 

asked me to give them a financial analysis of where the company 

stood as a result of the shuttle incident, as well as all other factors 

of the company. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Allright. 

Mr. LOCKE. So I was simply responding directly to his questions. 

Mr. SCHEUER. From the national point of view, would you agree that it cost every shareholder in the American company, every 

man, woman and child in the United States, not 10 cents a share 

but perhaps $20 or $25 a share? And that is not counting-- 

Mr. LOCKE. Well, sir-- 

Mr. SCHEUER [continuing]. Not counting the incalculable loss of 

time that we cannot put a monetary value, the trauma to the 

American people, the incalculable loss in lives, the seven lives that 

were lost? Would you say that is a true financial loss of the accident, $25 per shareholder in the American enterprise? 

Mr. LOCKE [continuing]. Sir, I don’t believe you can put a financial value on this tragedy at all. 

Mr. SCHEUER. You certainly can’t. And I would say that your 

statement that this shuttle thing cost us 10 cents a share, has to go down in the annals of history. In 1882 William Vanderbilt, in 

answer to another newspaper reporter’s comment, said “The public 

be damned.” Now, for over a century that remark has stood unchallenged and unparalleled for its gross insensitivity, for its banality and tastelessness, but I believe you have finally done it. You 

have finally moved Mr. Vanderbilt over in that corporate dealership hall. You have done it. 

Let me ask you another question, on the first page of your statement you said it was our solid rocket motor that failed. Flat statement. 

In your contract with NASA, the Morton Thiokol contract with 

NASA, it provides that in the event of a failure of the solid rocket 

motors to perform in compliance with the specification require- 
357 

ments of the contract, there will be a fee reduction of $10 million 

and the loss of the flight success incentive fee. 

Would you say that your failure as you described it, the solid 

rocket motor that failed, would trigger that $10 million fee and the 

loss of your flight success incentive fee? 

Mr. LOCKE. Sir, that is a contractual matter that I will just have 

to defer to other people to conclude. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, what is the clear meaning of those words and 

the clear meaning of your words this morning? This morning you 

said it was your rocket motor that failed. Now let’s leave all the 

Philadelphia lawyers out of this. You said our solid rocket motor 

failed. OK? 

In this contract it is perfectly clearly stated that in the event of 

a failure of the solid rocket that $10 million penalty would be triggered and the loss of your success incentive fee, flight success incentive fee would be triggered. 

Is that a fair reading of the contract and a fair reading of your 

words this morning? 

Mr. LOCKE. The contract is a very complex document. 

Mr. SCHEUER. It is not complex. It is very straightforward, Mr. 

Locke. 

Mr. LOCKE. I don’t have any other comments. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Locke, you have said on page 2 of your testimony that this policy of openness in which you respect the candor 

of these men and their engineering knowledge will not change as 

the space program regroups and moves forward. Yet you told this 

same reporter that once-I quote, “Once this Commission issues its 

report and this thing is closed, it is going to be a different situation 

because people are paid to do productive work for our company and 

not to wander around the country gossiping with people. 

You were also critical of engineers “who travel all over the country at our expense to appear before commissions or just take idle 

trips to talk to somebody in Washington.” 

Now, here you have taken a trip. I hope you don’t think it is an 

idle trip to come to Washington to talk to someone and a number 

of your staff have come, too. Your words are open but I detect from 

these comments to the Wall Street Journal that you don’t consider 

commission hearings and you don’t consider congressional hearings 

to be a very constructive part of the legislative process, you don’t 

look on them favorably. 

Now, which is it? 

Mr. LOCKE. Well, sir, as I said before the interview with that particular reporter was a very long interview and they selected certain 

parts of the comments to report. They did not report the entire-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. They never do, but we don’t write the stories, do 

we? We found that out up here. Apparently you were not misquoted and you said that travel all over the country at our expense to 

appear before commissions or just to take idle trips to talk to somebody in Washington is not what you consider a legitimate corporate activity. 

Do you really believe that? Are you here today just to talk to 

somebody? Is this an idle trip just to talk to somebody in Washington? 
358 

Mr. LOCKE. Those remarks were made in connection with the 

conclusion of the Presidential Commission’s report and the conclusions of all of the investigations. All I was simply trying to say was 

that after all of the investigations are over, we have a very big and 

very complex job to do and we have got to get on with it. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Does this mean that you will cooperate with whatever continuing ongoing oversight there will be and that you won’t 

cast a damper or cloud or bring any pressure on outstandingly fine 

Americans buying Mr. Boisjoly and Mr. McDonald in their efforts 

to help us understand what happened and to prevent coming like 

this from happening again? 

Mr. LOCKE. Sir, I think our record is very exemplary. In fact, Mr. 

Rogers himself said before this committee that he had gotten complete cooperation from this corporation during his investigation. He 

was very, very complimentary of us and I am very glad that he did 

say that to this commission. We have-we will continue to be. 

Mr. ROE. I think we have pursued that line far enough. I think 

that we are at a point where we have sown in our witnesses, we 

expect the facts to be on the table, plenty of room to look in hindsight but I think your testimony is clear, and we expect that kind 

of cooperation. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman, distinguished gentleman 

from Missouri, Mr. Volkmer. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to ask Mr. Kilminster, in your statement you state 

that approximately-page 6-approximately 40 people devoted substantial time and energy to this effort, and that was on the joint/ seal task force. Can you give me in writing the names of the persons who were on that task force, the job performance they were 

performing, and the amount of time that they individually spent 

on that task force from August 1 through January 1 last year? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The task was initiated in August 1985 and continued on through January of 1986. I do not have those detailed information here. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I don’t ask for it now. I want you to submit it to 

me in writing. [Material available from committee files.] 

Mr. VOLKMER. To be honest with you, Mr. Kilminster, after reviewing the Commission’s report-and I am sure you did, did you 

not? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Did you see the statement in there, the activity 

report for Mr. Boisjoly dated October 4, 1985. He asked, “I should 

add that several of the team members requested that we be given a 

specific manufacturing engineer, quality engineer, safety engineer 

and forward this to six technicians to allow us to do our test on a 

noninterference basis with the rest of the system.” 

“This request was deemed not necessary when Joe”-I believe 

you are Joe-- 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER [continuinq]. “Joe decided that the nursing of the 

task approach was directed. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. We will supply you with a summary of the activity that was conducted over that time period. 
359 

Mr. VOLKMER. I don’t want a summary, I want it detailed. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. We will provide it. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I just don’t believe you. I don’t believe that you 

devoted substantial time and energy to that effort. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I would like to refer to Al. Would you comment 

on that? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I don’t know the-I can’t give you the 

names of those 40 people. There were some conflicts in getting 

some things done in the plant and I shared Mr. Boisjoly’s frustrations, I think we all did. I think what one has to remember in this 

particular instance in the shuttle, because the hardware is so large, 

when you have problems you normally can solve an engineering 

type problem and go in the laboratory and solve that problem because the hardware is small, you can go test. 

Here we have to use very large pieces of equipment. We have to 

use flight hardware to run some of these tests and we have to be 

very careful that we don’t do anything to that hardware that 

makes it unusable for the flight. Mr. Boisjoly was getting very frustrated that we were handling 

the engineering assessment effort just as if we were getting ready 

for a flight. In many cases we have no option but to do that because the hardware may go back into flight. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I would like to ask Mr. Boisjoly to take the witness table and ask him if he ever received those personnel that he 

asked for in that activity report of October 4, 1985? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. No, we did not. We were told that if the problem 

required nursing it all the way through to completion, then that 

was our task, to nurse it. I believe I made a statement that there 

just wasn’t enough time or personnel available to nurse those types 

of problems, and I was referring to laboratory tests as well as fullscale tests at the time, and I just felt as Mr. McDonald said, very, 

very frustrated that we were not proceeding ahead in a timely fashion. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Isn’t that because of the administrative paperwork, et cetera, it takes to get things done within Morton Thiokol? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes, yes, not just Morton Thiokol but let me explain something. For instance, I was frustrated in procurement. We 

had a piece of equipment that we needed that was on the shelf at a 

company in San Diego that we could have simply gone down and 

picked it up and brought it back and used it and we had arranged 

to do something similar to that, while the procurement process and 

the rules that govern Government contracts are such that it is just 

not as straightforward as that, and I was frustrated that we 

couldn’t go down and just pick it up and use it because we had arranged the use of that equipment in our laboratory and by the 

time we got the piece of equipment through the procurement process and the paperwork process, we had lost our window in the lab. 

That was just one of many instances where I worked out procedures with the vendors to give us equipment, O-rings, materials, et 

cetera, and we just couldn’t get the purchase orders written and go 

down and get them. Part of that was due to the rules and regulations of going out and getting single sources so we were operating 

in a mode that we couldn’t operate like a development program. 

That was the basis and source of those memos. 
360 

Mr. VOLKMER. Now, you have earlier in your testimony-let me 

ask you this. Did you have any assistance from management in cutting this redtape, getting through it so you could get these things? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Some, but I still felt as a result of our trying to get 

this work done that it was not sufficient. I didn’t think there was 

any reason why we couldn’t get the technicians asked for, and we 

couldn’t go outside the regular production program and do this on 

the side and let the regular system work in and of itself. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman from Missouri will hold. There is a 

point we have to check on. I will give you extra time. 

You used the word single sources. Could you explain what you 

mean? Was it a decision of single sources from the Thiokol or 

single sources through the NASA process or what? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. No, and I am not familiar with the purchasing regulations that the Government imposes but apparently we are not 

at liberty as a vendor-- 

Mr. ROE. “We,” Morton Thiokol? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. We, Morton Thiokol, are not at liberty to go out to 

single companies and purchase an item without going through a 

bid process. When you are trying to get a development program 

and test program going, they-- 

Mr. ROE. “They” being NASA? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. The purchasing people in Morton Thiokol, go out 

and get bids. We have to get bids to get these materials from this 

particular company in a timely manner to run these tests. That all 

took time. 

Mr. ROE. What I am trying to get in the record-you are confusing us here. At least this member. What I am trying to get into the 

record is that this is not a Thiokol process per se as a company, it 

is a governmental process, is that what you are saying? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That is correct. 

Mr. ROE. All right, so the agency you deal with is NASA, so it is 

a governmental process that was creating this frustration, not that 

you couldn’t get the material through the Thiokol leadership, is 

that correct? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That is correct. 

Mr. ROE. If they had authority to do it? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That is right. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Missouri. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to ask you, Mr. Boisjoly, because you have in earlier 

testimony referred to data from it on the August 9, 1985 memorandum to James Thomas from Bryan G. Russell in regard to the secondary seals. Did that raise a red flag to you for any further 

flights? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Are you talking about where he explained the 

time periods of-- 

Mr. VOLKMER. Yes, at 100 degrees Fahrenheit the O-ring maintained contact, at 75 degrees the O-ring lost contact for 2.4 seconds, 

at 50 degrees Fahrenheit the O-ring did not establish contact. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That is essentially the same data we presented on 

the 27th) the evening before the launch, yes, sir. 
361 

Mr. VOLKMER. That is the basis now. That was sent to Garrison, 

Kilminster, Evans, Brittan, McBeth, Boisjoly, Thomas, and Stein, 

they all had it. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Well, the other question I have is because it 

seemed to be confusion between Morton Thiokol and NASA, at 

least individuals that I talked to about the purpose of the putty; is 

or is not the putty intended as an insulation to the O-rings from 

the hot gases from the motor? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes, it was intended as a thermal barrier. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thomas, when we were at Kennedy a week ago Friday at a briefing, and I specifically asked him he said no. So I 

am just curious, it was intended as that. 

Now, it is known that-a memorandum from John Q. Miller 

dated February 20, 1984 states that the putty served as a thermal 

barrier. A memo from George Beer, dated March 9, 1984 is no one 

really claims putting to be part of the insulation or sealing system 

and advised Marshall and Mulloy to consider removing it. Has that 

confusion existed throughout the development of the solid rocket 

motor? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. I wasn’t at the beginning, but we did have almost 

a year of discussions, I believe it was, in the 1984 timeframe about 

removing the putty from the joints. We had discovered that the 

blow hole, especially a single blow hole in the putty was providing the source of jet impingement on the O-ring seals and eroding 

them. If we could remove that source of jet impingement by either 

substituting another material or putting many interruptions in the 

putty purposefully we could take the sting of the jet away and the 

erosion would be minimized. 

There was approximately a year’s worth of discussions on that 

particular issue and we had proposed at one time to put putty in 

the joint of one of our tests and that was disallowed by Marshall. 

Mr. VOLKMER. In your opinion should the sealing pressures have continued when it is known that after those started at 200 pounds 

per square inch that the erosion problems even became more great- er? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. I guess I don’t understand your question. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Well, you have a pressurized sealing, the jet, the 

Mr. BOISJOLY. The leak check. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Yes; for the leak check. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. How that came about was that we were leak 

checking originally at 50 lb/in2. We discovered just through many 

conversations and telecons, that we have got to check the putty because the most important thing to determine in a leak check is 

whether or not the seal is in fact in position to seal and doesn’t 

have any contamination underneath it. 

So we did a series of laboratory tests, I believe it was in 1983 

which demonstrated that 50 lb/in2 could indeed be masked by the 

putty. In other words, you might not even need a seal in the joint and you could pass the 50 lb/in2 leak check. So we determined at 

what temperature-excuse me, at what pressure we would blow 

through the putty and we determined that 200 lb/in2 under all circumstances of minimum tolerances would blow through the putty. 

test-- 
362 

So we instigated a double leak check, namely 200 lb/in2 to check 

and make sure the putty did not mask a leaking seal and then 50 

lb/in2 subsequent to that test to actually test the seal. Fifty Ib/in2 

is a very difficult test on an O-ring seal. So that you have the best 

of both worlds, first of all the 200 lb/in2 ensures that the putty is 

not masking a leak, secondly that the 50 Ib/in2 proves the seal is 

indeed going to seal. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The distinguished gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Henry, please. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to try to approach some of the contractual questions 

which were raised, I hope, in a little more objective and fair basis 

and change the climate. 

It seems to me that what we have here is a supplier, the contractor of a Government agency, and there are contractual obligations 

on both sides, the supplier provides a service, produces a product, 

the Government reviews it, finds it acceptable or it doesn’t, and 

has contractual obligations to pay-to put it in elementary terms. There are obligations on both sides. 

The supplier has obligations, legal obligations not to deliberately misrepresent the certification of the product that is supplied to the 

Government, likewise the Government agency-in this case 

NASA-has obligations that are equally important under the law 

not to deliberately circumvent either in collusion or not in collusion with its suppliers the specifications of its own contracts. 

I think the emphasis has to be on the second side of this equation 

every bit as much as on the first side of the equation. Pursuing the 

question, I think that has to be said given some of the other questioning earlier this morning. I guess one of the questions that 

would lead me to then is first of all, to Mr. Kilminster, my understanding is that the contract certifications require as a general 

standard that the solid rocket motors and the systems for which 

you contract be operational, safe, reliable, down to a standard of 31 

degrees, is that not correct? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The original requirements were established 

during our proposal submittal and a model specification was provided to us by NASA. We interpreted that model specification and 

submitted back to NASA after we were on contract a development 

and verification plan which identified what we proposed to do or 

planned to do through the development program to meet all of the 

requirements. 

Mr. HENRY. You are not answering my question. Doesn’t the contract or the specification require a 31 degree performance standard 

on the bottom end? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. As far as the motor performance is concerned, 

we do not believe it does. We believe that the motor performance 

specification is identified at 40 to 90 degrees and that is what the 

calculations and analytical work was based on for motor performance. 

Mr. HENRY. We were told 31 degrees by Mr. Tully, so I would 

certainly appreciate if staff or someone would come to some determinative issue. Obviously we have, given the resiliency of the 0- 

rings at lower temperatures, we have a tremendous gap in understanding. 
363 

I mean, on the record before this committee last week, we were 

told that it is a 31-degree standard that was an inadequate testing 

for subsystems for the system standard on the rocket motor. You 

are telling us your understanding was 40 degrees. 

Even if your understanding was 40 degrees average, that would 

mean that when you personally signed the certification of flight 

readiness, your understanding of specification requirements was a 

40-degree specification. Yet your concern was that we not launch at 

anything under basically the 50-degree threshold because of the experience on two other lower temperature flights down in the 50 degrees area, not wanting to get below that 50-degree threshold. Is 

that not correct? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Fifty-three degrees was the previous coldest 

launch. 

Mr. HENRY. How could you sign a flight readiness certification 

and then come back and say we don’t want to fly it below 53 degrees when you signed a specification, in NASA’s interpretation, 

that certifies it as flight ready at 31 degrees, and your interpretation is at 40 or 41? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. What we were doing is attacking on a real-time 

basis the information that was made available to us from the flight 

program and we were alerting the system that based on what we 

had observed on the previous coldest flight, and if we were to stay 

within our experience base, we had to stay within that 53 degrees. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman hold a moment for clarification? 

I believe what we are trying to develop here in part, which I 

think is important to this part of the record, in Thiokol’s opinion 

and their best judgment of the contractual agreements they have 

with NASA for the particular-you will have more time-what is 

the temperature range which you would consider to be your responsibility in your existing contractual agreements with NASA? 

What degrees? From what degree to what degree? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. We have a number of components that are 

qualified over the range of 20 degrees to, I believe, 110 or 120 degrees. We have flight and insulation structural matters that are 

qualified for storage down to 32 degrees and we have operation, 

motor operation 40 to 90 degrees. So there are multiple temperature ranges there. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman will yield further, we will protect your 

time. 

If you have a variable group of temperature gradients to deal 

with, there has got to be one-you got a motor, you have got to 

have one particular thing, something has to govern that. You can’t 

have this little piece here and this little piece there. 

What do you consider to be your range of temperatures you were 

responsible for to be able to say, go with that particular engine? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. For motor operation? 

Mr. ROE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That was 40 to 90 degrees. 

Mr. ROE. Yes, 40 to 90 degrees. That is the point I wanted to 

The gentleman from Michigan. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

make. 
364 

What I am trying to indicate is clearly we have discrepancy in 

terms of at least the way the presentation was made to us last 

week by NASA, which argued that every major subsystem, in this 

case, the solid rocket motors, was to be certified down to a 31- 

degree standard. 

Even if it was, they still launched this then below their own specifications. That has to be said, too. I just don’t want to dump on 

one side here. 

I think it looks to me like there was a lot of waffling on the 

standards almost in a collusive environment where basically it is 

as if I were buying shoes for a major retailer and going to a manufacturer and I knew they came back and it didn’t quite meet the 

specifications but I needed them for my sales and the manufacturer basically said, we will make it up to you later, and this kept 

going on and on and I had a sole-source vendor and spring sales 

were coming up with new shoe styles. These things happen. But in 

this case, you had contractual obligations that, because they are 

public force of law. 

One question to Mr. Boisjoly following up on Mr. Volkmer’s question, because I am not sure you got quite to what he was asking. I 

think the nature of my colleague’s question to you was, were you 

aware of the fact that when you were increasing the pressurized 

testing on the O-rings, that you were inadvertently blowing out the 

putty or pushing back the putty in such a way that you were inadvertently increasing the likelihood that there would be gas bypassing the putty? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes, we discovered that on the testing of the filament wound cases in 1985. We actually walked down the bore of 

the motor in a horizontal position. We had looked at blowholes that 

were formed by assembly and we also found some blowholes that 

had been formed by leak checks. 

So at that point, we knew that there were two mechanisms that 

could form blowholes in the joint in the putty, assembly and the 

leak check itself. 

Mr. HENRY. Did you ever do any testing to see whether or not 

the leak testing with increased pressurization was perhaps a greater risk than just keeping the leak testing at the lower pressure? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. No, because we all felt from a technical standpoint 

that it was more important to make sure that the seal had the 

major integrity and the putty above that was secondary to that, 

even though it was not an erosion problem; it was limited at that 

time in our thought process to an impingement of erosion, which 

was not a resiliency problem in the O-ring itself. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Florida, Mr. Nelson. 

The gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

That is where I want to pick up, Mr. Walker, what NASA told us 

Friday a week ago at the Kennedy Space Center, and what NASA 

again told us last week. That was my line of questioning I wanted 

to follow up specifically with you all as to what was your contractual obligation in certifying that in fact the motors would operate 

under what is called the natural temperature which was specified 
in the contract down to 31 degrees, and then what was called the 

induced temperature which is defined in the contractual documents for the skin of the booster down to 25 degrees, and for the 

attachment joint down to 21 degrees. 

Now, the question is, since NASA said that analysis on those 

contractual specifications was never done as it was required in the 

contract, the question is, Why? Anyone? 

Mr. GARRISON. I would like to make a few summary comments 

on this issue. I think what we have to realize that about 12 years 

ago, we got a stack of documents and specifications and which our 

review lately of those determines that there was some room for interpretation. There were many levels of specifications. 

We read those specifications and constructed a development, verification, and qualification program which we felt met the intent. 

Those plans were approved by NASA, and we proceeded and successfully completed those programs, and our article was bought off 

as being completed and having met all the requirements. 

One of the problems I think we have, Congressman Nelson, is the 

interpretation of the people in the early part of the program. Now, 

we have gone back and read some of those documents now naturally, and we still have some confusion in interpreting the intent. 

Now, if you would like, I would like Mr. McDonald to address 

some of the specific documents and what we think they mean, and 

some of the problems we have with them. 

Mr. NELSON. Before he does that, let me try to understand how 

you could have confusion, because the document that you supplied, 

Morton Thiokol, dated February 17, 1984, to the Marshall Space 

Flight Center entitled “Performance Design and Verification Requirements” specifically makes reference to the natural environment and the induced environment, and makes reference to the appendix 10.10, and for the induced environment makes reference to 

the interface temperatures, so how could there be any confusion on 

that? Anybody want to respond to that? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Let me-I wasn’t there in February 1984, but I 

went back to look at this subject because I came on the program about 2 years ago. I have been involved in the past year of certifying the filament wound case rocket motor for a flight out at Vandenberg, so I went back to see what the steel case motor was certified to. 

It was my distinct impression from what went on and what was 

signed off by both the people at Thiokol and NASA that the motor 

was never intended to operate outside the 40- to 90-degree range. In 

fact, I wrote a paper on that-subject, delivered it to the AIAA last 

July and it was approved by NASA that that is what it said. 

Mr. NELSON. Let me interrupt you right there. You are talking 

about the requirements for the propellant of 40 to 90 degrees. But 

that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the 

overall design environment requirements for the operation of the 

SRB’s. We are not talking about the propellent requirement. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Let me address that one. 

First of all, you must understand there is a difference between 

the SRB and the SRM. Our contract is the solid rocket motor. 

There is another contractor that Marshall monitors, USBI, that 

has a contract for the solid rocket booster. 
366 

Mr. NELSON. That is correct, but I am talking about what was in 

your response to Marshall entitled “Performance Design and Verification Requirements,” prepared for Marshall by Morton Thiokol, 

dated February 17, 1984. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Right. I think the confusion there is if you go 

and look at those documents, and I went and looked at them, it 

never says anything about operating the motor; it is exposed to 

those kinds of environments just like we have in storage and in 

hand 1 in g . If you look at the JCS-07700, there is a table in there called 

ground thermal environment, and it says it must withstand that 

and that is the one that has the 31 to 99 degrees. In that table, it 

has two columns, one column says ferry sites; clearly nobody is 

going to launch anything in a ferry site. The other column says 

vertical flight. 

Now, the interpretation, in my opinion, because below that is all 

the solar radiation factors, is that means the vehicle is sitting in a 

position ready for vertical flight. The right booster facing the ocean 

where the sun comes up, the left booster facing inland, the time for 

the exposure from solar radiation is a function of course, whether 

it is morning or evening, and the tail facing south. 

There is no time duration on those exposure temperatures, which 

tells me that if, since there is no time on any of those, it can sit 

there indefinitely in that attitude and nothing bad can happen, but 

it doesn’t say it is necessary to launch it, because clearly if you had 

that sitting there for a long time at 31 degrees, the propellant 

would start being 31 degrees, also. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield for clarity? I will give him 

more time. 

Mr. NELSON. I will yield in just one second. 

I can understand your response to that, Mr. McDonald, save for 

the definition from which you derive that 31 degrees. And the definition is this: Induced environment, “each element of the shuttle 

flight vehicle shall be capable of withstanding the induced environments imposed during transportation, ground operations,” which 

you are describing, “handling, and flight operations.” 

Now, flight operations indicates one thing to me. So I can understand where you are coming from with respect to your answer, but 

that is not what the definition is. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, clearly in vertical flight, if you are flying 

the flight, you are flying to 40,000 feet and you are down to minus 

50 or minus 60, that is a lot less than 31. 

Why isn’t that in there? It is totally unclear that is the worst 

temperature one will experience in flight, because it is not. So the 

interpretation that I made from that, and that is after the fact, by 

the way, because I wasn’t here, as I said, in February 1984, because 

I can’t conclude that that is what the vehicle is to be exposed to 

during operation. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The Chair would like to get a clarification for the record, Mr. 

McDonald. There seems to be a, obviously, a lack of understanding, 

and it is not coming through clear to the committee as to what role 

the temperature plays. 
367 

You testified earlier when we asked you to respond in your observations that both yourself and Mr. Boisjoly had a concern and a 

continuing, nagging concern even though decisions were made that 

those extremely low temperatures that existed at that point gave 

you reason for concern based upon other data, technical data that 

was available to us and so forth and so on. 

Forgive me, I did not put my own question in the order I wanted 

to. 

But you are making a very telling point. You are coming back 

and saying there is no such thing as a static temperature per se, 

because it is continually variable-the sun, the clouds, the temperature itself, so there is no such thing as a continuing environment of a continuing temperature. 

What you are saying is, as I understand it, depending on how 

that temperature fluctuates, if the vehicle remains standing, the 

whole vehicle will rise or fall to that temperature. 

Is that a fair engineering comment to make? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is right, depending on how long you are sitting there. 

Mr. ROE. It could be a variable depending on if you got bad 

weather coming in on this side and the sun shining on that site. 

So, in effect, you make another point. You say once the craft is 

launched, you have variable temperatures that take place because 

of the level that the flight is at; is that correct? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. 

Mr. ROE. So we have a whole set of variable temperatures, is the 

point I think that is being developed here. Is that a correct statement to make? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes, it is. I think the specifications, for the 

motor is a lousy one. 

Mr. ROE. OK. Let me finish the point. I don’t want to break you 

off on that point. 

Where I am coming from is this fundamental question, and I 

think everybody has been skirting around it, but haven’t nailed it 

down yet. All we are trying to do is to determine the facts. 

You recognize, in spite of the decisionmaking process, you expressed your concern as an engineer vis-a-vis the low temperatures 

that morning. The question really that should be asked in my opinion is, Is there a launch temperature at a given time that something that we are striking for? In other words, is there a decision 

that could be made as a launch temperature? I think it is a cockamamie point of view, from my point of view, 

to have this part at this temperature, this part at that temperature, this part at that temperature. How the heck can you run anything that way? It would seem to me you have to get to a point and say, at 42 

degrees, hey, baby, whether that likes it or not, that is the way it 

will fly or it is not. That is the question we are trying to nail down. 

Is there some magic on the temperature issue, on launching a vehicle? That is the question. 

Mr. NELSON. May I support the Chairman on that point. 

Mr. ROE. Let me get the answer. 

Go ahead. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I agree with you 100 percent. That is exactly-- 
368 

Mr. ROE. Thank God we are making progress. 

Now, what is the answer? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is exactly the argument that I had that 

night after the recommendation came back in not to fly at 53, to go 

launch with Mr. Mulloy and Mr. Reinartz, because Mr. Reinartz 

had made the comment in the caucus when we made a 53-degree 

recommendation that that didn’t seem to be consistent with what 

he understood the motor was qualified for, which he understood 

was qualified from 40 to 90. I did, too. 

So I argued with them afterwards as, how in the hell can you 

accept a recommendation to go fly this thing outside of what you 

think it is qualified for and what I think it is qualified for. 

Mr. ROE. What was the response? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I didn’t get one. I told them I wouldn’t want to 

be the person to stand up in front of a board of inquiry if anything 

happened to this vehicle, and explain why I did that. I didn’t get a 

response. 

Mr. ROE. There was no response. 

Mr. MCDONALD. There was no response. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North CaroliMY. NELSON. May I follow your particular point just for a second? 

Mr. ROE. If you get time from Mr. Cobey, I will be delighted. 

Mr. NELSON. May I talk 10 seconds, Mr. Cobey? 

Mr. COBEY. I yield. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. NELSON. The Chairman’s point is well taken, Mr. McDonald, 

of saying there is a range of temperatures and you say, well, what 

happens high in the atmosphere where it is a lot colder-that is 

not the question. 

The question is, What is the temperature and the distinctions 

made at the time of launch, because that is when that critical seating of the O-ring is supposed to take place. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Oh, I agree with that. But what 1 think the 

question was before us was, what did we qualify all of the elements 

of the solid rocket motor for to behave properly, at what temperatures? 

As far as I was concerned-that was part of my discussion with 

the Marshall people that night-as far as I was concerned, we 

didn’t qualify all those elements even at 40 degrees, which I 

thought was the operating temperature ranges for every single element; that we had qualified some by analysis, some by test and 

some by neither, including the O-ring seals. 

Mr. NELSON. Is that an abrogation of the contract? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, I think it was a matter of what people interpreted what that contract meant. It referred to those other documents and as I said it is a bad specification because it doesn’t distinguish between operating environments and exposed environments the vehicle has to tolerate, but not do anything bad and that 

was the breakdown I think in those specifications. It is hard to interpret that. 

na, Mr. Cobey. 

Mr. NELSON. I thank Mr. Cobey for yielding. 

Mr. HENRY. Would the gentleman yield? 
369 

I would like for the record a copy of the speech you gave in July 

1985, apparently to a professional engineering society which is a 

matter of public record, that your interpretation and understanding is that is a 40-to-90 degree launch system and also presumably 

that speech you said was checked clear through NASA. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Itwas and was approved and with a couple of 

minor changes they wanted made for it. 

Mr. HENRY. Thank you. 

Mr. COBEY. Mr. Kilminster, in your testimony, you indicate that 

after the July 1985 launch, that you conducted O-ring compression 

and resiliency tests between 50 and 100 degrees to evaluate theand evaluated the environmental exposure of the putty and subsequent O-ring erosion. 

Why did you pick 50 to 100 degrees and why didn’t you test it 

below 50 degrees, the resiliency, any reason? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I would like to refer that question to Mr. Boisjo1Y. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That testing was a direct outcropping of the SRM 

15 or 51-C flight in January 1985. When we were going through 

the flight readiness reviews, we were addressing that temperature 

could have been a factor in that large amount of soot that we had 

seen. 

So subsequent to that, like in the February to March timeframe, 

the testing proceeded on a very limited basis and we established 

three levels to get some very preliminary data and the three levels 

were 50 because it was around 53 degrees, 75 because that was 

pretty much normal and 100 to get a high bound on the testing. 

Mr. COBEY. You didn’t have the resources or the time-- 

Mr. BOISJOLY. No, we were trying to specifically get data on a 

flight that had just occurred to try and tie in the statements we 

had made on the flight readiness review for the next vehicle on the 

basis of our judgment and we were trying to get laboratory data to 

back up that judgment which we did. 

Mr. COBEY. Then you were in no position to make any statement 

on resiliency and the compressing of the O-ring below 50 degrees? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Other than the fact that the trend was obvious. At 

100 degrees, it never unseated. At 75 degrees, it unseated for 2.54 

seconds and at 50 degrees, it never attached. So the conclusion was 

it was getting progressively worse and we did develop a matrix for 

testing later in the year. 

Mr. ROE. What is puzzling me if we established a task force that 

was to review this issue of the O-ring, going back to earlier flights and we knew this so far in advance, why didn’t we pay attention to 

it, because-I am getting myself involved, that is obvious. I am 

sorry. 

The gentleman from-- 

Mr. COBEY. My next question would follow up on what you have 

just said. I am a little bit troubled by what I call committee decisions. I know, Mr. Kilminster, you signed the document that went 

to NASA to launch, but in a sense, there were four people that 

signed off and it was almost like a committee decision, there was 

no one person responsible. 

In these unusual circumstances, why didn’t your group contact 

Mr. Garrison, Mr. Locke? It seems like it was an awfully important 
370 

time in the history of your company, not just from 20/20 hindsight, 

but this last-minute, critical decision had never occurred before as 

to whether to launch or not launch. 

I think there ought to be someone who ultimately-one person 

needs to sign off on something that critical. 

Mr. GARRISON. It is troubling to me that I was not advised or 

brought into the decisionmaking process. I think I should have 

been and I think the people thought it was a real time technical 

issue, something that could be resolved. It was a decision that was 

compatible with the NASA position and they proceeded with it. 

I am disturbed about that. We are looking at procedures in the 

past that will eliminate this problem in the future. It is a gap in 

our management system, I believe. 

Mr. COBEY. Do you think that then you should have presented 

with their feelings at that time what this group, after they caucused and that you as a person should have made a decision yes or 

no, and then you would as a person be responsible rather than this 

responsibility being spread? How would you have handled it? 

Mr. GARRISON. I am not sure at that level-I believe that this 

had such potential impact that it should have been brought to a 

higher management position. I don’t want to put myself in a position that says I have to make and sign off on every decision because I have very competent management people who do that. 

Mr. COBEY. But this was such a critical and unusual situation 

that it seems to me that it would have been proper for even Mr. 

Locke to have had to take a look at it. 

Mr. GARRISON. I agree with that. 

Mr. COBEY. And sign off. 

Mr. GARRISON. Secondguessing or make a-- 

Mr. COBEY. Or make a decision, go or no-go. 

Mr. GARRISON. I am sure if the people who made the decision 

and were involved could have anticipated the results of that decision, it would have come to us. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the dist,inguished gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Sensenbrenner. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I have some questions of Mr. Kilminster. 

Were there any minutes taken at the caucus where the decision 

to launch was made on the night of January 27? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, no minutes taken as such. Notes were made 

as we developed the rationale and those notes were used then to 

transcribe into the telefax that I signed and subsequently sent. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Were the notes turned over to the Rogers 

Commission? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I don’t believe I retained those notes after we 

typed them on to the-they were essentially the same. I was reading from notes-- 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Werethe notes destroyed after you signed 

the telefax? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. After we had it typed. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Were those typewritten notes essentially 

verbatim of what was taken down in longhand at this caucus? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Essentially, yes. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Were there any exceptions? 
371 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Not that I can recall. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. If I may, I believe I was the only one that took 

some notes in real time after the meeting and I did hand those into 

the Commission and to my knowledge everything that was taken 

was handed into the Commission that reflected something different 

than presented on the telephone conversation that evening. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I am trying to understand how the decision 

to launch was made that night after Mr. McDonald phoned in from 

the Cape that it was too cold and we should not have a launch then 

and all of a sudden after this mysterious caucus Morton Thiokol 

overrode their professionals on the scene and decided that the 

launch was OK and the launch would take place with great tragedy. So that I know what was done and what was not done, listening 

to some of the answers to the testimony, was there any testing 

done on the joints with that cold ambient temperature? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Mr. McDonald did not call in. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. He was a participant in the conference and 

recommended that there should not be a launch. Didn’t you get the 

impression that Mr. McDonald was recommending against a 

launch? 

Mr. MCDONALD. At the teleconference, I recommended that our 

vice president for engineering and engineering people assess that 

and make a recommendation at what we would launch at. They 

said we shouldn’t launch below 53 degrees and I agreed with that. I 

didn’t recommend it. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. How did that get changed? The recommendation against launching suddenly became a recommendation to 

launch. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. When we went on to caucus, we evaluated additional data. Specifically we took into account the testing that had 

been done. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. What testing was that? Because we have 

had testimony here that there was no testing that was ever done 

with the ambient temperature that cold and Mr. McDonald in his 

speech and testimony has said that the testing was sufficient to operate the solid rocket motor between 40 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit 

and here the ambient temperature was 38 and the temperature in 

the joints was much colder than that. 

What testing are you referring to? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. To the testing done to identify that with erosion, you could lose 125 thousandths of material and still seal. That 

testing had been done some time earlier. 

We compared that with how much erosion had been lost from 

the previous coldest launch, which was 38 thousandths. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Locke says on page 3 that Thiokol’s engineers could not prove it was unsafe to fly at less than 53 degrees 

Fahrenheit. Saying that you couldn’t prove that it was unsafe to 

fly at less than 53 degrees Fahrenheit is not the same as saying 

that it was safe to fly at less than 53 degrees Fahrenheit. 

We then get testimony that there has never been any testing 

that was done at temperatures as cold as what were existent at the 

Cape at the time of the launch, that there wasn’t an engineering 
372 

computation, and it seems to me that you opened a heck of a big 

crack for the Challenger to fall through, and it did. 

Now how did that happen? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. There was testing conducted at 30 degrees in a 

subscale vessel which Mr. Boisjoly talked about. That subscale 

vessel is 6 inches in diameter, but it has the full O-ring diameter 

and the O-ring gap or groove. That was done at 30 degrees and 

those tests indicated that there was no blowby in that test rig. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. You said it never seated at 50 just a minute 

ago. We are getting all this conflicting evidence. Wasn’t that 

enough for Thiokol to say, ”Hey, something is wrong here,” and 

you didn’t say it? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I believe that we did point out all of the data 

that was available to us. We had shown that we had blowby at 75 

degrees on one launch and we had blowby at 53 degrees. We had 

subsequently or prior to that conducted static tests down to 47 and 

48 degrees with no blowby. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. My time is up and I observe that after listening to your testimony, Mr. Kilminster, with 20/20 hindsight, you would do it all over again the same way. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentlelady from 

Kansas, Mrs. Meyers. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am trying to get a clear idea of 

exactly the procedure that night. 

Mr. McDonald, you were at Cape Kennedy? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. 

Mrs. MEYERS. And you recommended, you said, to whom that the 

launch not be undertaken if it was under 53 degrees? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I had recommended to Mr. Mulloy and Mr. 

Reinartz that I didn’t understand how they could accept a recommend below 40. I did not know what happened back at Thiokol that 

changed the original recommendation which I agreed with at 53 to 

one of launch the next morning with no specific other temperature 

on there. I did not know what transpired. 

As far as I knew, they had run new calculations or found new 

data or something that would support a lower temperature, but 

when I saw the statement with the information on it that he read 

from, I couldn’t find anything really substantial there that would 

support a launch at those colder temperatures and I was frankly surprised that NASA would accept it because of what I thought 

was my interpretation and theirs is also of what the motor was 

qualified to. 

Mrs. MEYERS. And so it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that we 

have a lack of clear, unambiguous language. You recommended in, 

I assume, terms such as you just used to Mr. Mulloy and Mr. Reinartz, who are at Marshall? 

Mr. MCDONALD. They were from Marshall. They were at the 

Kennedy Space Center in the same room I was. 

Mrs. MEYERS. They were at Kennedy, all right, and they in turn 

took your language and made the recommendation to Mr. Kilminster and the group, who were where? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, they didn’t recommend to Mr. Kilminster. 

They had questioned the earlier information which had come to 

the conclusion that we shouldn’t launch below 53 degrees Fahren- 
373 

heit. They had raised questions about that, and it was then that 

the Thiokol people headed by Mr. Kilminster had a caucus to reassess that data. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Where was Mr. Kilminster? 

Mr. MCDONALD. He was in Utah. 

Mrs. MEYERS. So it went from you to Mr. Mulloy to Mr. Kilminster and his group in Utah? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I transmitted the temperature data to the people 

in Utah, but the conversations I had with Mr. Mulloy and Mr. 

Reinartz about the lower temperature recommendation was after 

Mr. Kilminster had made the recommendation to proceed on with 

the launch, after Thiokol had changed their mind from the original 

53-degree recommendation. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Mr. Kilminster just said in response to Mr. Sensenbrenner that he did not get the word from you that you had recommended not to launch, and you replied than that that was because 

you had not talked directly to them, you had talked to Mr. Mulloy. 

Am I confused? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, not totally confused. That is correct. I talked 

to Mr. Mulloy. I did not talk to Mr. Kilminster. 

Mrs. MEYERS. All right. You said, Mr. Kilminster, I think it was, that you requested an 

off-line caucus. Can you tell us exactly what that means? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I requested to go off the telecon net by putting 

the telecons on mute on our end of the telecon so that we could 

more effectively discuss the items that had been brought up during 

the earlier discussion and see if there was any additional information we wanted to take into account in formulating a decision. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Had you ever gone off line before during a launch? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Well, this was not during the launch. This was 

a separate telecon set up and we typically can go off line, go on 

mute when we are having a teleconference on technical matters or 

whatever. 

Mrs. MEYERS. But had you ever requested such a caucus in prior 

launches? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No. This was unique in that regard. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Mr. McDonald, you recommended against the 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Had you ever done that before? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, I had not. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Prior to January 27, was it ever stated to NASA in 

clear, unambiguous language that the shuttle should not fly until 

that solid rocket motor joint had been redesigned? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Ithad not been stated by me to that effect. I believe someone, Mr. Thompson may be able to answer. He wrote a 

memo or something, but his recommendation never went to NASA. 

I don’t know of anybody that made that statement to NASA. 

Mrs. MEYERS. In the testimony of Mr. Kilminster, it says in July 

1985, we ordered-a detailed presentation on all our experience 

with solid rocket motor seals was made to NASA headquarters in 

August last year; that is, August 1985, by A1 McDonald. 

If you conveyed all of your experiences with solid rocket motor 

seals, was there a recommendation made at that time? 

launch. 
374 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would like to address that since I am the one 

that made that presentation. 

Yes, there was a recommendation at that time, and I think you need to understand how that meeting came about. We had flown at 

the end of April-I think it was STS-51 Baker, a flight where we 

received the aft segment back at our plant in Utah and removed 

the nozzle from that aft segment in the latter part of June. 

On that nozzle, we found the primary O-ring seal on the nozzle 

had eroded completely through and eroded approximately thirtytwo one-thousandths of the secondary O-ring. 

As a result of that problem, we were asked to come down to the 

Marshall Space Flight Center to address what we observed and understood about it and why it had happened and in July we did that 

in great detail. 

As a result of that meeting with the people at Marshall Space 

Flight Center, the people at NASA headquarters had asked us to 

come to Washington to review that situation with them and to 

combine it with a couple of other already scheduled meetings with 

the people at NASA headquarters. When I sat down with the engineering people to put together the 

presentation as to what happened on that flight and why we 

thought it happened, the engineering people and myself decided 

that even though that was a very bad thing to happen on the 

nozzle that the secondary seal on the nozzle is much better than 

the one we have in the field joint and it clearly worked. 

It is a face seal around a corner rather than a bore seal that we 

have one in line after each other in the field joint. We concluded 

that had we have had an incident like that occur in the field joint 

we may have lost the vehicle. 

So we decided that I would make the presentation on the whole 

SRM pressure seal issue, what have we seen on every seal and 

every joint and to identify very clearly that even though this hap- pened on the nozzle our greatest concern was on the field joint, 

which we did and we went through that presentation with all the 

detailed history of every anomaly that we had observed, what we 

understood about it and the conclusion was that on the nozzle seal 

that that .. was a quality problem-not a design problem, but a quality problem. 

We had concluded that we had missed the leak check on that 

nozzle, and that by the way goes back to why we went. up to the 

200 lb/in for the leak check, even though we knew that in some 

cases a leak check can blow holes in the putty. 

We also knew you didn’t need a leak check to blow holes in the 

putty. The assembly itself would cause that. 

When you put the assemblies together as soon as the O-ring hits 

the metal parts, the air trapped in the pressure blows up through 

the putty. We know if we get blowby during the leak check, it can 

blow holes in the putty. 

We had found that the putty indeed can hold 100 lb/in2 sometimes 

and were worried it may be masking the leak check of whether the 

O-ring was good or not. It so happened the flight set that we had a 

problem with was the last nozzle flown that had a leak check at a 100 

lb/in2. 

We found out later that putty could hold pressure as high as 100 

lb/in2 so we went to 200 lb/in2. We concluded the reason that 
375 

primary O-ring had burned through is it never sealed in the first 

place and the O-ring had to erode enough material to the jet impingement and blowby to end up in the condition it was and we 

had just missed that leak check and therefore we needed to retain 

the 200 lb/in leak 

check. 

and all flights afterward had the 200 lb/in 

Mr. VOLKMER. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Did Mr. Mulloy tell you that after 51-B there would be a launch 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, he did not. 

Mr. VOLKMER. After 51-B? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No. We addressed each launch any time we had 

an anomaly on every launch, we had to get up and explain what 

that anomaly was, what we knew about it and why we felt that 

that anomaly was acceptable to fly with if it should occur again 

and what have we done to fix it and that is the way every launch 

was conducted. 

I did not know that there was a launch constraint that was imposed subsequent to that problem. 

Mr. VOLKMER. You were never informed of it? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I was not. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you. 

Mrs. MEYERS. To get back to the meeting in August again, Mr. 

McDonald, did you make a specific recommendation that the shuttle should not fly until that joint was redesigned at that time? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I did not. The recommendation we made was to 

accelerate our efforts to try to solve the problem. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentlelady has expired. The chair recognizes Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Kilminster, Mr. Locke in his opening statement says that our engineers could not prove that it was unsafe to 

fly at less than 53 degrees Fahrenheit. Is that a correct statement? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, I believe it is. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Was that the standard that was imposed upon you 

by NASA? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No; I don’t believe so. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Who imposed that kind of burden on Thiokol? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Well, as a member of the team, our job is to recommend to NASA based on the data base that we have our recommendations relative to the acceptability of those motors for flying. 

And the data that we had that evening was inconclusive. In fact, 

that is what it said on some of our earlier charts that we used in 

the earlier part of the telephone conversation. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Previous launches-was it not the case that the 

burden of Thiokol was to prove that it was safe? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes; that is correct. 

Mr. ANDREWS. And Mr. Locke seems to imply that on this launch 

NASA suddenly flipped that burden, that you suddenly found yourselves having to show that it was not unsafe to launch; is that correct? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I believe Mr. Lund has testified that he felt that 

way. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What did you think? 

constraint? 
376 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I felt that this was not uncommon to the way 

that we normally made our recommendations to NASA. When we 

got on the loop and discussed the technical data that was there to 

be discussed, we were asked in my opinion to take a good look at 

that data and rationalize from that data what we were recommending. And the point was that there was data that was not absolutely 

conclusive that O-ring blowby was a function of temperature. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I would like to ask Mr. Locke-Mr. Locke, please 

tell us what you mean by this burden of proof. In your opinion, was 

there a change imposed on you by NASA €or this launch that you 

did not have on other missions? 

Mr. LOCKE. Your honor, as I have said to you before, I was not 

there. That is an interpretation of mine after having learned what 

I have learned up to this point, that there seems to have been a 

change in order. But that is a judgment. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Well, that is what your written testimony is. Why is that? How could that have happened? 

Mr. LOCKE. I don’t understand what you mean how could that 

happen. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What kind of contractual relationship did you have or do you have with NASA that imposes a burden to show 

that it would be unsafe to fly? For you as opposed to on NASA? 

Mr. LOCKE. I don’t think there is such a contractual requirement. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Kilminster, is that your understanding too, 

there is no written policy that exists? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I don’t believe there is a written policy that 

exists, no, sir. 

Mr. ANDREWS. But it is your testimony this morning that the impositions placed on you by NASA on the fatal launch were no different than previous launches; your obligation was to show that it 

wasn’t unsafe to fly? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is what I believe. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. McDonald, my understanding was exactly I 

think what Bob Crippen stated, that you always had to prove that 

it was safe to fly, and I had to argue why I felt our rocket motor 

was safe to fly and all of a sudden we reversed roles. I couldn’t understand that. It was a total role reversal and all I had ever seen in 

the 2 years I had been in this program. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield? Is there anybody that we 

know of with your group or NASA’s group that made that decision? In other words, our thesis and understanding is that everything we are doing is safety first based upon qualification tests of 

tests and parts and pieces to meet certain temperatures, and therefore the assumption would be if we meet the tests it is OK to fly. 

That is the positive approach. 

What the gentleman from Texas is developing now, we have a 

negative approach and we are coming back and saying we don’t 

know whether it is going to fail or not but we have no evidence to 

show that it will or will not fail at a lesser temperature or whatever the variance may be. Therefore it has never been tested for 

that, so somebody made an arbitrary decision someplace. Did 

NASA do that, did Thiokol? Where did it come from? 

Mr. ANDREWS. Even worse, we have the man on the ground at 

Kennedy saying that it was his understanding on all previous mis- 
377 

sions up to this one that the burden was to show that it was safe, 

and that was your understanding, Mr. McDonald, and that is why 

you were so shocked during those conversations. 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. 

Mr. ANDREWS. We have the man who was in the room at Thiokol 

that was in charge of that meeting, saying the burden of proof is 

on Thiokol to show that it is not unsafe to fly, and that your understanding is on every previous mission that has been the burden. Is 

that what you are saying? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir; I am saying I didn’t detect any difference in the assessment that we had to make of the data that was 

available in order to make a recommendation to NASA. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Which is it? Does Thiokol have the burden to 

show that it is not unsafe to fly or is it the burden to show it is 

safe to fly? Is it the positive or the negative? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I believe it is the latter. 

Mr. ANDREWS. The negative? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. It is our job to show that it is safe to fly. 

Mr. ANDREWS. It is the positive, then. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes. 

Mr. ANDREWS. You are saying now that you agree with Mr. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That it is our job to show that it is safe to fly; 

McDonald. 

yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. But who shifted the burden? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I think that is a matter of definition. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Locke stated in his statement and reaffirmed 

that your engineers could not prove that it was unsafe to fly at less 

than 53 degrees Fahrenheit. So, now, that burden, according to 

you, as I understand your statement, Mr. Locke, changed on your 

company on this mission. Mr. McDonald is basically saying that is 

exactly what did happen. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman will suspend for a moment, I am going 

to protect your time. We have this following information. Mr. Boisjoly testified to the commission, the Rogers report, page 93, that 

the offnet caucus was a meeting where the determination was to 

launch and it was up to us to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt 

that it was not safe to do so. This is the total reverse to what the 

position usually is in a preflight conversation or a flight readiness review. 

Do you agree with Mr. Boisjoly’s characterization of this meeting? If so, what caused this change in attitude by Thiokol and 

NASA? In other words, Mr. Boisjoly, would you elucidate here? 

You testified to that degree to the commission and that the offnet 

caucus was a meeting where the determination was to launch and 

it was up to us to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not 

safe to do so. Immediately there was a change, we had to prove 

that it wasn’t safe to do so. 

This is in total reverse to what the situation usually is in a preflight conversation or a flight readiness review. 

Do you agree with Mr. Boisjoly’s characterization of this meeting 

and, if so, what caused the change? Does anybody here have the 

answer? 
378 

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Boisjoly has been nodding his head. Would 

you confirm that the statement just read by Chairman Roe-- 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes; that is true, and the reason I made that statement is because I have been in flight readiness reviews at Marshall, specifically the one after the flight in January 1985, and I 

took a lot of flak, a major amount of flak, in trying to prove that 

the next flight was safe to fly. And so here we were presenting 

some information from an engineering standpoint that said one 

thing, and it was being interpreted as inconclusive, and yet we 

were never allowed to make judgments like that before. 

Mr. ROE. Where did the flak come from? You said you took enormous flak. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. From the flight readiness reviews, from the individual levels at the Marshall Space Flight Center. 

Mr. ROE. From NASA? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes. That is where flight readiness reviews are 

held. We are not allowed to use things like “we feel that” or “we 

think that.” We are always challenged and asked to present the 

data base, present the proof, present the information that supports 

the statement that you are making at the time. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Texas. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I am still confused by Mr. Kilminster. I want to 

respect your comments but I read the statement by Mr. Locke and 

I hear the testimony of these two gentlemen, and yet you in the 

room-you don’t seem to sense that there was a difference in the 

decisionmaking process on this mission and any other mission. We 

are trying as a committee to determine, as Mr. Rogers said, where 

do we go from here in terms of having the proper criteria so there 

is not a confusion. 

I think we need a better understanding from you as to what the 

burden was on that group that made that decision in that room. 

You seem to imply that, frankly, there was just not any difference 

in this mission and any other mission. 

When these other gentlemen, including the CEO in his written 

statement, says that suddenly the burden changed, that you were 

under the impression you had to show it was unsafe to fly-which 

is it; do you appreciate what these gentlemen are trying to say this 

morning? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I hear what they are saying and I think it is a 

matter of perception. My perception was with the data we had to 

show what our rationale was that it was safe to fly. 

Mr. ROE. Therefore, that goes 360 degrees back to the first question asked, how do we deal with the issue that NASA is a good customer for Thiokol, and what forced that change of decision? The 

question to force the change of decision or to put in more information to the caucus came from NASA. That is the only place it could 

have come from, is that correct? Therefore, all the information that 

you had to consider-if the gentleman would yield further-in the 

caucus was a combination of the information that you had generated partly in response from the people in the field at Kennedy because of the temperatures and based upon the point of view that 

you were questioned on that data by NASA and then you had to 

reconsider at that point, which you did reconsider obviously. 
379 

Isn’t that what you testified to? So someplace in that mix the decision changed from we are not going to fly, we don’t think it is 

safe, the testing hasn’t been proper, and now the reverse decision is 

made, we have no way to prove that we shouldn’t fly. That is the question. How did that creep into the decisionmaking 

process? 

Mr. ANDREWS. I am not convinced Mr. Kilminster believes that 

that did change. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Garrison. 

Mr. GARRISON. As I mentioned before, I was not involved that 

night, but I would like to give you my feelings based on having 

lived with this thing since the failure. I think the problem may lie 

in the fact that the Marshall engineering and the Marshall program management people had made their analysis and they felt 

that it was safe to fly and they were surprised when we came back 

with the recommendation not to fly. 

I think that puts different kinds of pressures on different people 

who are exposed to that. I think the engineering people were 

shocked because they have always been on the other side, so to 

speak, to prove that we have enough data that says this is OK. I 

think Mr. Kilminster interpreted it as just another instance where 

we have to prove in great depth to NASA why we have established 

a position. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I think this is very important. 

Mr. ROE. The chairman agrees. Before this hearing is over, I 

hope you understand where this questioning is leading to. The commission said that we don’t want to pin blame on an individual, that 

is what the commission said, and the Secretary has time and time 

again, on different news broadcast, reiterated that point and so 

have other people. Let me make one more point. Should this committee be holding oversight? 

If the commission has done its work, what are we doing this for? 

For a specific reason. First, to totally acquaint the American 

people with what has happened here so we can put it behind us 

once and for all. And not necessarily to pinpoint blame but what 

happened in the management process between the companies involved and NASA. Macy doesn’t tell Gimble, nobody knows. Who 

was in charge? Who did make the decision? 

The question remains either Thiokol protects its own by the facts 

involved in the decisionmaking process and the facts involved. Marshall will testify this afternoon as to specifically what happened, 

because we could be having another launch someplace along the 

line and Macy doesn’t tell Gimble. That is not going to happen as 

far as this committee is concerned. We are trying to get to the 

point of view that somebody made some decision someplace. Either 

it is all Thiokol’s fault because you didn’t follow the directions, or 

all NASA’s, or a joint problem because we didn’t communicate. 

That is why we are trying to get these facts on the table as best 

you know them. I am trying to say that is the only way we can 

deal with the issue. 

The gentleman from Missouri. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am a little concerned 

as the gentleman from Texas is and the gentleman from New 
380 

Jersey. What is becoming apparent to me, Mr. Kilminster, is that 

your group believed that you came to the conclusion that it was 

safe to fly that flight before the next morning; is that what you are 

telling me? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. How did you come to that after the previous discussion had been to the opposite effect? What I am concerned 

about-my question in my mind now is whether you first arrived 

at the fact that Marshall wanted you to say it was safe so you put 

that conclusion up here, and then you went through the process of 

finding the hypothesis to come to that conclusion and after reviewing your charts that you used and the two charts that were used in 

the first conference and the second one, I find an absence of those 

things that were in the first one in the second one. I am greatly 

concerned whether that is the way that you arrived at your conclusion. Could it have been that way? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No;, not as far as I am personally concerned. 

What I thought we were asked to do by NASA was to look at that 

technical data that we had presented earlier because they did not 

arrive at the same conclusion that we did looking at the same data. 

I think that they were asking us is there’s something else that is 

involved that maybe you didn’t present to us. We don’t arrive at 

that same conclusion. 

Mr. VOLKMER. How come in the second chart you do not include 

the information that you had in the first charts? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. If you are talking about the first charts being in 

the first telephone conversation, they already had that information. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Did you include that information in your thought 

processes and discussions when you came to the conclusion finally 

that it was safe to fly? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. One of those charts, for instance, described this 30-degree test that I had mentioned. That was on the 

earlier chart. 

Mr. ROE. We will continue that further. I would like to hear from 

Mr. Boisjoly. What is your observation-obviously there is a different relationship between the two observations. Give us your observation. What caused the change in the attitude? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. My observation is that when we as engineers presented our data and were unable to quantify it, it left it somewhat 

open from the standpoint of we only had data down to 50 degrees. I 

had thought we made it quite clear that the 30-degree test was a 

static test and did not simulate the gap opening. I also thought we 

made it clear that the problem was one of resiliency and that was a 

function of temperature. 

When the Marshall folks on the other end of the line challenged 

a lot of things that were said specifically by me, asked me to quantify it and I told them I couldn’t quantify it but I had enough data 

to show that we were going away from the direction of goodness, 

and that is the terms I used, and they challenged that at some 

length and wanted quantification over and over again of the terms 

I was using. I just couldn’t. We didn’t have the data necessary to do 

that other than the data that had already been presented. 
381 

Mr. ROE. Isn’t it true that you didn’t have the data because the 

tests were never made below those temperatures? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. Is it true on the record from a technical point of view 

you could give them no other answer, there wasn’t any other 

answer because the question should have been we have never 

tested the equipment as a unit, as a vehicle below those temperatures? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is correct. 

Mr. ROE. Was that said, by the way, was that specifically said? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. We specifically talked to the 50-degree data, the 

75-degree data, and the 100-degree data in the resiliency tests. 

Mr. ROE. Because under the plans and specifications there never 

was a test made below that. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The plans and the specifications and the temperatures relative to the specifications were not discussed that 

night. We were discussing subscale test data. 

Mr. ROE. But you couldn’t respond any other way because tests 

were not made? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is correct. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Boehlert. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. I have difficulty in fully understanding all the aspects of this matter and even greater difficulty understanding the 

decisions of the technocrats, given all the information discussed in 

the prelaunch conference. The commission says on page 104 of the 

report: 

The commission concluded that the Thiokol management reversed its position and 

recommended the launch of 51-L at the urging of Marshall and contrary to the view 

of its engineers in order to accommodate a major customer. 

Mr. McDonald, you were at the Cape and I get the impression 

that you felt the pressure building up down there. Would you expand upon that a little bit? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes; I definitely felt the pressure and it was because this role had been reversed. I had stood up probably in front 

of more readiness reviews in the past 2 years than anyone, and 

always had to justify why my hardware was ready to fly. I personally sign all the defects in the hardware, criticality defects outside 

of our experience; I have to explain why it is OK to fly with those, 

what data and tests do I have. 

My feeling was these were more minor than what we were facing 

that night. So when I heard comments like they are appalled at the 

recommendation, and comments that when are we going to fly this 

thing-in April? 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Who made those comments? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Mr. Hardy from Marshall made the comment he 

was appalled at the recommendation, and Mr. Mulloy about not 

being able to fly until April. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. So you had the distinct impression that pressure 

was being applied from NASA to Thiokol? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes; I did. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Kilminster, you must have felt that same 

pressure because you requested to go off line in the teleconference. 

What prompted that request? 

64-295 0 - 86 - 13 
382 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The thing that prompted my request is that any 

pressure that I felt was one of going back and reassessing the technical data. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. You asked for a 5-minute break. Was that “May 

we have 5 minutes” casually or did you think it could be quickly 

wrapped up? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That was my assessment of what it would take 

to review the data. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Ittook 30 minutes, is that correct? Who was the 

senior engineer in that conference that you had at Thiokol? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The vice president of engineering, Mr. Lund. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Did Mr. Lund have serious reservations and recommend against launch? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Not during the caucus. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. What prompted Mr. Mason-I am asking you to 

give us your best guesstimate. Mr. Mason allegedly said to Mr. 

Lund, “Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.” My interpretation of that is that Mr. Lund was arguing based upon facts, engineering data that you should not proceed. 

What do you think motivated Mr. Mason’s comment to Mr. Lund? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I think that as the discussion ensued during 

that caucus that there were different aspects reviewed relative to 

the data that we had presented earlier and the new data that we 

had considered during the caucus. And there was a perception that 

there was not unanimity of opinion amongst the engineering 

people. 

Mr. EOEHLERT. Did you feel any pressure as that caucus was underway from NASA, your internally talking to the boys trying to 

make a prudent decision, did you feel under great pressure; did you 

feel in your mind that NASA wanted you to proceed with launch 

come hell or high water? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No. My perception was that they wanted us to 

look at the technical data and come to a technical recommendation. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Then you had a different perception from that of 

Mr. McDonald because I think he had the distinct impression from 

his vantage point that NASA wanted to go, no questions asked. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, my opinion is different from Mr. McDonald 

in that regard. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. You said there were 12 people in the caucus? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Twelve or thirteen, yes. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Did you go around and count heads or hands, 

have vote, go or no go? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No. We had an open discussion and during the 

course of that discussion Mr. Boisjoly and Mr. Thompson again reiterated their concerns. We talked about the second seal or the secondary O-ring being in the proper position to seal even if the primary O-ring was slow in getting across and sealing. We did the calculation based on the previous coldest launch. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. I know all that because you have testified to that 

before. But before you went back on line, what did you do as a 

practical matter? You have got 12 people sitting around, all technical people, knowledgeable. Did you take a head count? Did you vote 
383 

or did you just draw a conclusion yourself and then go back on 

line? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No. Mr. Mason requested that we have a decision made, and he polled Mr. Wiggins, Mr. Lund and myself based 

on the information we had discussed during the caucus and asked 

if we would recommend a launch. And we all recommended that 

we would launch. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. And then you went back on line? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Then I made notes in order to cover the points 

that we had discussed and then we went back on line. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. So Mr. Lund then was on two sides of the issue 

during that conversation; initially he was no, finally he was yes? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Initially being before the caucus, yes. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Well, during the caucus. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, I think that during the caucus he was listening to-- 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Just prior to Mr. Mason saying to him, “Take off 

your engineering hat and put on your management hat,’’ what 

would you say Mr. Lund’s frame of mind was then, go or no go? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I don’t know. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Why do you think Mr. Mason said that? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Because there was a perceived difference of 

opinion among the engineering people in the room, and when you 

have differences of opinion and you are asking for a single engineering opinion, then someone has to collect that information from 

both sides and make a judgment. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. If there was a perceived difference of opinion 

among the engineers in the room, some said yes, some said no, I 

assume Mr. Lund was among people in the room-there was a perceived difference of opinion among people in the room. So there 

was obviously a change of heart there. Who had the change of 

heart within the conversation? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I guess all of us, based on the additional information we looked at. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. All of you were against and eventually said yes? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I stated prior to the caucus that based on the 

engineering information, that I could not recommend a launch decision. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Did anyone within the caucus argue for initially 

the launch? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Excuse me? 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Was there anyone in the caucus arguing initially 

for the launch as soon as you went off line? In any group dynamic 

situation like that, there are opposing forces and someone takes 

the lead. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I don’t know that anyone was pushing the 

launch. We were relooking at the data. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. So you are telling me after a thorough, objective, 

very technical analysis, you all came to the same conclusion? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The managers came to that conclusion. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. All 12 of the people there? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, the managers. 
384 

Mr. BOEHLERT. The four, and did you disagree with what the 

Rogers Commission report says on page 104, and let me repeat 

that. 

This is an exact quote: “The Commission concluded that the 

Thbkol management reversed its position and recommended a 

launch of 51-L at the urging of Marshall and contrary to the views 

of its engineers in order to accommodate a major customer.” 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I don’t agree with fiat finding. 

Mr. WALKER. Will the gentleman yield? 

I want to go back to Mr. McDonald for a minute, because I think 

it ties in. 

Mr. McDonald, you were feeling pressure at the Cape. You have 

testified that a statement of Mr. Mulloy and a Mr. Hardy-both of 

them made statements to that. Were they making statements 

based upon orders that they got from above? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I don’t know what they made their statements 

on. 

Mr. WALKER. Who was responsible for the change of attitude you 

were feeling at the Cape? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I don’t know who was responsible for the 

change of attitude. It came from two different sources. Hardy was 

at Marshall and Mr. Mulloy was at the Cape, and they both made 

statements that surprised me about their reluctance to accept our 

recommendation. 

Mr. WALKER. So the pressure was from those two people? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is right. 

Mr. WALKER. Was there anybody else you felt pressure about the 

change? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Mr. Reinartz made a comment that our 53- 

degree recommendation wasn’t consistent with what he thought 

the motors were qualified to, 40 to 90, which was a third person, 

and he was from Marshall and the Cape also. 

Mr. WALKER. Those three people were applying pressure to you? 

Mr. MCDONALD. As far as I was concerned, yes. 

Mr. WALKER. Were any of them involved in applying pressure on 

the people in Utah? 

Mr. MCDONALD. They heard the same comments because we 

were on a network where the comments came over the network. 

Mr. WALKER. So those are the three people that you would identify that have changed the evidentiary proof from positive to negative? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes. In my opinion, yes. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. One last question to follow up. 

Mr. McDonald, you were there and you can tell us-a lot is lost 

when a transcript is printed in black and white, but allegedly Mr. 

Mulloy said, and I will read the words exactly without any particular inflection: “My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launchnext April?” 

Would you estimate that was said in heat-my God, Thiokol, 

when do you want me to launch-next April? Or was it, Come on, 

guys, when do you want me to launch-next April? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Itwas the louder of those two. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 
385 

We are going to call on Mr. Lewis from Florida, and then we are 

going to quit for lunch after Mr. Lewis finishes his interrogatories. It is apparent, and many members have mentioned this to me 

today, that there is a great deal of additional questioning that they 

want to propound to the distinguished group of witnesses we have, 

so we would request that you would return tomorrow morning at 

9:30 to conclude your testimony tomorrow, because there is just no 

way we can get it all done today, and we are going to talk to the 

Marshall Space Flight Center people this afternoon. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. Lewis, who will be our concluding member at the moment. 

We will reconvene at 1:30 with the Marshall Space people witnesses. 

The gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think, gentlemen, that we have heard a lot of discussion this 

morning and I believe we all recognize we have had a problem 

since 1977 with the seals in the joints. We had a design review ap- parently in August 1985 to redesign the joint and nothing was 

really done. People were looking at it. 

I guess, Mr. McDonald, I would like to ask you, who in NASA did 

you basically feel that you reported to, if anybody? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I felt that my normal contact was Mr. 

Larry Wear, and he is the manager of the solid rocket motor 

project at the Marshall Space Flight Center. He works for Mr. 

Mulloy. 

Mr. LEWIS. What are your responsibility and purpose at the 

Cape? What were they? 

Mr. MCDONALD. My responsibilities at the Cape is that all of the 

contractors, including ourselves, have a representative from senior 

management; I was the director of the solid rocket motor project, 

to be at the Cape to give approval for the launch in case something 

came up that needed resolution, either that individual could get the resolution or have it done some way, and that is why I was 

there. 

Mr. LEWIS. Did you personally feel that the problem that had 

been observed with the field joints was a possible detriment and 

would have the possibility of losing a vehicle? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I felt that if we continued to try to expand 

the boundaries on where we had been flying, that we were running risks in that direction that we didn’t have to take. 

Mr. LEWIS. And the boundaries were expanded that morning ap- parently when we had the temperature problem, is that correct? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That was my concern and those of the engineers, 

yes. 

Mr. LEWIS. And you told Mr. Mulloy, I understand, that-did you tell Mr. Mulloy after the caucus conversation with Mr. Kilminster 

that you did not want to fly? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes; I told Mr. Mulloy, you know, that I not only 

was surprised he accepted the recommendation because of this 0- 

ring problem and that if I were the launch director, I would cancel 

the launch for three reasons, not just this one, and they wouldn’t 

accept the one, which was bad enough. 

Mr. LEWIS. What were the three reasons? 
386 

Mr. MCDONALD. The first was the O-ring problem. The second reason being that I had just returned from Mr. Kennedy’s house, and he had been in contact with the ships at sea, and 

they reported that they were in an absolute survival mode out 

there; they were steering in shore at about 3 knots in about 30-foot 

waves, and that they wouldn’t be in a position to support an early- morning launch, and as a result, we were putting, in my opinion, 

the boosters at risk and it was rather important on this launch because this was the first time I told them that we are going to separate the nozzle at the apogee, which we had not done before, and it 

was the first time we were going to separate the parachutes on 

impact of the frustums. In my opinion, you could kiss those good- bye, the parachutes, and I thought we were putting the boosters at 

some risk. 

The third reason was I told them that I am concerned about ice 

all over that launch pad in the morning, which I suspect there will 

be because I knew we used a water system for sound suppression 

and I was afraid it would change the acoustics and debris and all 

other kinds of problems, that it didn’t seem prudent that we would 

want to launch in that condition. 

It was at that time that they told me these problems weren’t 

mine. I shouldn’t worry about those, but that they would pass those 

on, my concerns, not as recommendations but as concerns, and I 

was under the impression that they passed all three of them on because I think it was Congressman Lujan who asked why didn’t I 

talk to Jesse Moore or Arnie Aldrich or something. They called Arnie Aldrich, and we were waiting for this dispatch from Mr. Kilminster after they said they wanted that signed and,faxed in with 

the rationale when I was talking about the subject waiting for the 

fax. 

Mr. Mulloy asked me where it was, nearly a half hour had 

passed, and the fax machine was at the other end of the building. So, I went to get the fax and it wasn’t there and I wasn’t sure it 

was working. In 10 to 15 minutes, it came through. I came back and they were on a telephone call with Mr. Aldrich. 

I caught the end of that because I had come back with the fax and 

made copies for everyone and went in and they were talking about 

the problem at sea and the risks associated with not recovering 

some of the hardware. And I was under the impression they had 

already discussed the first issue, which was the O-ring seal issue, 

and were discussing the second. 

They also discussed a bit of the third about my concern on the 

ice, and the conclusion was, they had gone over that earlier in the 

day and they had concluded that even though there was a high 

probability of losing the parachutes and the frustums on the flight, 

they would have to accept that as a good possibility. They didn’t 

feel they were putting recovery of the boosters at much risk because they would have aircraft in the area and could get them 

later, and they would certainly float. 

I remember Mr. Aldrich asking Mr. Mulloy if he could afford 

from inventory to lose that kind of hardware and still support the 

flight schedule, and he said that he could, and so they accepted 

that risk of losing that hardware, and they briefly discussed the 

issues. 
387 

I didn’t hear them talk specifically about the O-ring seal issue we 

discussed for 2 hours, and I presumed they had done that already. 

Mr. LEWIS. Let me go a little further. How many launches were 

you at the Cape for, how many shuttle launches? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I have been alternating with Mr. Kilminster in the past couple of years since I have been on the program. He goes to one and I follow to the next one. 

Mr. LEWIS. Did you have a real gut feeling that this flight should 

not launch? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I was more concerned of what we didn’t 

know than what we knew. 

Mr. LEWIS. You didn’t answer my question. Did you have a gut feeling that this flight shouldn’t go off with all the data available 

to you? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I had a gut feeling that it wasn’t prudent 

to launch this and we could wait a day or two and get rid of any 

concerns. 

Mr. LEWIS. You stated to the Rogers Commission, “I am the one 

that has to answer, yes, Thiokol is ready to fly. I am the guy who is 

going to have to get up and say, yes, we are ready to fly.” If you felt strongly that you shouldn’t have launched and you had this responsibility, why didn’t you go to make a statement that 

if you launch, I cannot accept responsibility, or make statements 

like this? If you knew Mulloy wasn’t going to do anything about it 

essentially, why didn’t you go to Moore? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I thought they had addressed that with Arnie 

Aldrich on the teleconference. I was sure they had. I was amazed 

that that never went further, because I knew that if I was going to 

have influence on whether to launch or not after management had 

come back and recommended to proceed on that, I was talking to 

the right gentleman to influence that. One was a member of the 

Mission Control team, Mr. Reinartz, so I had no reason to believe 

they hadn’t discussed that thoroughly with Mr. Aldrich and Mr. 

Moore, and was shocked to find they hadn’t. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield? I think the gentleman is developing a very important, I think, 

final point of view, which is, at what level was the decision made, 

and it appears from our earlier testimony from the chairman of 

the board, Mr. Locke, that it never reached-that decision never 

reached that top level of determination, and nor, from what Mr. 

McDonald and Boisjoly are saying, nor did that decision reach the 

top level of NASAs leadership. So, the decision was made some 

place in between. 

I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, we are going to have a constraint on time, but I 

would like to go further with Mr. McDonald. 

Was Thiokol polled by the launch director at the T-minus-1 mark 

in preparation for turning the control over for the ground launch 

sequence? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I was not aware that they were. 

Mr. LEWIS. Were you at that time? Still in the control room? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes; I was in the firing room No. 2. 

Mr. LEWIS. Was Mulloy there with you at that time? 
388 

Mr. MCDONALD. No; I don’t believe he was. I didn’t see him. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to resume my questioning 

tomorrow morning. 

Mr. ROE. Before we break up, I want to get one point clear for 

the record from Mr. Kilminster or Mr. Garrison. Has there ever 

been an occasion in your association with the NASA agency where 

you have been required to provide a certified statement in defense 

of a launch such as this particular experience you have had in the 

accident? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir; not other than the normal flight readiness review sequence. 

Mr. ROE. Did you feel that might be suspect? Why would somebody say we have had all these launches, but when this decision is 

being made, somebody says, go offline and do your thing, but when 

you go back, let us know and we want that in writing from you, 

which you said that was very unique; is that correct? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The whole sequence was unique. 

Mr. ROE. Didn’t you feel that that was a little surprising? Didn’t 

you feel a little bit funny-why did NASA do that? What is your 

conjecture? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I wasn’t overly surprised when they requested 

that in writing. 

Mr. ROE. Why weren’t you surprised? It had never happened. 

If somebody said to me, hey, you know we have been working this way for the last 10 years, but this one we want in writing, I 

would question that. That would have a different connotation to 

me, but it didn’t to you? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. It did not. 

Mr. ROE. You expected them to ask in writing. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I was not surprised, and again, because of the 

flight readiness review process, we do have a piece of paper there 

that is signed that says it is OK to fly, and if some new issue came 

up, it didn’t surprise me. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you for your testimony this morning. 

The committee will stand in recess until 1:30, when we will reconvene and take testimony from the Marshall Space people and 

NASA. 

[Whereupon, at 1240 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene 

at 1:30 p.m., this same day.] 

AFTERNOON SESSION 

Mr. ROE. The committee will come to order. 

I want to apologize to our distinguished witnesses today. We had 

four votes in a row. We resume our deliberations from this morning when we heard from Morton Thiokol. 

This afternoon’s witnesses are from the Marshall Space Flight 

Center. Dr. William Lucas, Director of the Center, is accompanied 

by Dr. Wayne Littles, Deputy Director of Science and Engineering; 

Lawrence Mulloy, Assistant to the Director for Science and Engineering; they are all accompanied by Stan Reinartz and Mr. Gerald 

W. Smith. 

The NASA centers and the aerospace contractors must operate 

in continuous coordination and communication in order for each to 
389 

perform its assigned responsibilities. Today we are exploring how 

this occurs, or fails to occur. 

We also have with us Dr. William Graham, NASA Deputy Administrator; and Thomas Moser, Deputy Administrator of NASA’s 

Office of Space Flight. 

Welcome back to our hearing this afternoon. Before we continue 

to proceed, I would like to hear from our distinguished minority 

leader, Mr. Lujan. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I too am pleased to welcome our witnesses from the Marshall 

Space Flight Center. I welcome this opportunity to hear from them 

to better understand the nature of their attitudes and actions on a 

wide range of issues we have been investigating the past week. 

I am particularly concerned by what appears to be a complete reversal of NASA’s attitude toward launch safety. In testimony from 

Morton Thiokol this morning, we heard that during the debate on 

whether the launch should proceed, the burden of proof to launch 

shifted dramatically from NASA to the contractor. Furthermore, 

where it had been standard operating procedure to prove that it 

was safe to launch, for 51-L this apparently was not the case. 

Our witnesses this morning testified that officials from the Marshall Space Flight Center told Thiokol to prove that it was not safe 

to launch. Clearly, this is an issue we must resolve today. I want to 

know if and why NASA told Thiokol that if they wanted to stop a 

launch, they would have to prove that it was unsafe to launch. I 

also want to know how this shift in attitude came about. 

I am also deeply concerned by the obvious confusion with regard 

to the design specifications, the effects of temperature on the solid 

rocket motors, and how the motors were qualified. We also need to 

know precisely how the lines of communications between the Marshall Space Flight Center, the Johnson Space Flight Center, and 

NASA headquarters operated with regard to the joint in general 

and the launch of 51-L specifically. 

I hope that by the close of business today, we will know exactly 

how serious Marshall officials thought the joint problem was, what 

they did about it, and with whom they discussed these problems 

outside of Marshall. We will be making real progress when we get 

the answers to these questions. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico. 

Before we proceed, we are going to swear in all the witnesses. If 

all the people who are testifying today would stand and raise their 

right hand. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. ROE. This morning’s hearing was very intensive. We are 

trying to bring together that decisionmaking process that took 

place on the go or no-go on January 27. We are trying to draw that 

together and get a response hopefully this afternoon from the representatives of the NASA organization from the Marshall Space 

Center. First I want to call on Dr. William R. Graham, our Deputy 

Administrator for his opening remarks. 
390 

STATEMENTS OF DR. WILLIAM R. GRAHAM, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, NASA, ACCOMPANIED BY THOMAS MOSER, DEPUTY 

ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF SPACE FLIGHT AND ADM. RICHARD TRULY, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SPACE FLIGHT 

Dr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the committee, Dr. 

Fletcher, the NASA Administrator, had hoped to be here, but after 

we had testified here last week, he had committed to appear at this 

time before the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and 

Space. Therefore, I am here today as Deputy Administrator of 

NASA to address your questions. 

As Dr. Fletcher, Admiral Truly, and I explained to this committee last week, NASA is moving forward to implement the recommendations of the Rogers Commission. Since then the President 

has told us that “the procedural and organizational changes suggested * * * will be essential to resuming effective and efficient 

Space Transportation System operations, and will be crucial in restoring U.S. space launch activities to full operational status.” Of 

course, NASA fully supports that direction. 

Admiral Truly, in assuring you that the Commission recommendations would be his road map, gave you an interim report of 

progress last week. This morning in the session that Dr. Fletcher 

attended NASA responded to the recommendation of the Commission to establish an Associate Administrator for Safety, Reliability 

and Quality Assurance, reporting directly to the Administrator and 

independent of other NASA functional and program responsibilities by committing to establish this position and office, which will 

be established with direct authority over safety, reliability, and 

quality assurance, agencywide. 

We have learned that the NASA management organization, in 

this regard, was flawed. I believe that this was an outgrowth of attitudes and procedures that had formed over many years. We are 

changing that system in order to do what the President has said 

must be done: I‘* * * make our space program safe, reliable, and a 

source of pride to our Nation and of benefit to all mankind,” and to 

“retain our leadership in the pursuit of technological and scientific 

progress.” 

We are changing that system because, while great accomplishments have been made in our space efforts, serious mistakes have 

also been made. 

In all programs involving people, errors will be made, errors in 

fact, errors in judgment, and errors in approach. One of the great 

contributions that NASA has made in the past is to blaze the trail 

in establishing how to manage large, complex programs in such a 

way that errors do not persist and grow into disasters, but rather 

are controlled and removed before they can cause serious harm. 

Often we have heard people say “If we can put men on the 

Moon, surely we can do that.” almost whatever “that” was. And 

the statement is true. But putting men on the Moon, or putting the 

space shuttle into orbit-or moving a 100-ton vehicle at 10 times 

the speed of a rifle bullet-is an extremely unforgiving business, 

and demands the most rigorous and constant observation of engi- 
39 1 

neering and management discipline to agree substantially beyond 

every day experience and practice in most other fields of endeavor. 

NASA must learn again things that it learned before, and it 

must learn new things as well-in management communications, 

organization, and engineering. 

Mr. Chairman, with your committee’s help and oversight, and 

the dedicated effort that NASA and the US. scientific and aerospace community are making, NASA in the future will be a strong 

and capable national enterprise. 

At my left today is Mr. Moser, NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Flight and to my right is Dr. William Lucas, the 

Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. 

Dr. Lucas will give a short statement and then we would be 

pleased and prepared to answer your questions. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes Dr. Lucas. 

STATEMENTS OF DR. WILLIAM LUCAS, DIRECTOR, MARSHALL 

SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, ACCOMPANIED BY J. WAYNE LIWLES, 

RENCE MULLOY, ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR FOR SCIENCE 

AND ENGINEERING; GERALD W. SMITH, MANAGER, SOLID 

DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING; LAWROCKET BOOSTER PROJECT; STAN REINARTZ, MANAGER, SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE, AND BILL SNEED, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, POLICY AND REVIEW 

Dr. LUCAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the committee, I 

am pleased to represent the dedicated men and women of the Marshall Space Flight Center in responding to the report of the Rogers 

Commission. 

The distinguished chairman and the dedicated members of the 

Commission were diligent and painstaking in their execution of a 

very difficult assignment. We agree with the findings as to the 

cause of the accident. We have cooperated with the Commission 

from the outset and, so far as I know, have responded to its every 

request as rapidly as possible. Our people have worked very hard 

to devise tests and supply data to substantiate conclusions being 

reached on the basis of analysis and deduction. 

From the moment of the accident, we have been deeply engaged 

not only in finding the cause of the failure, but also in preparing to 

fix the causes of the failure. With the appointment of the Commission, we directed all of our factfinding to the support of the Commission through the NASA 51-L Data and Design Analysis Task 

Force. Our people, living with shock and grief, have been able to 

apply themselves diligently to the identification and correction of 

the problems. 

As soon as the solid rocket motor joint became the most likely 

suspect as to the cause of failure, we organized a team of design 

and analysis experts from the Marshall Space Flight Center, from 

other NASA centers, acd from several industrial contractors, including Morton Thiokol Inc. to redesign the joint. In addition, we 

engaged a panel of senior independent experts from industry and 

Government to overview the design team activity. 
392 

That panel has already held one 2-day meeting, has supplied recommendations in writing subsequent to the meeting, and individual members of that panel have made important suggestions that 

are being considered. It has been encouraging to have received unsolicited offers of assistance from several industrial organizations, 

many of them nonaerospace, and from private individuals. We are 

giving careful consideration to each suggestion. 

In addition to this activity, we welcome the fact that the National Research Council has identified a panel of distinguished individuals to overview the entire effort and report to the Administrator. 

I’m confident that all of this activity will result in a safe solid 

rocket motor joint design that can be verified by test. 

The Marshall Space Flight Center has undertaken a reevaluation 

of the design requirements, failure modes and effects analyses 

[FMEA], critical items lists [CIL], and the launch operations requirements for each of its space transportation system elementssolid rocket booster, space shuttle main engine, and external tank. 

The review of the design requirements includes participation 

with the Johnson Space Center to verify the level 2 system requirements which are the basis of the requirements for the level 3 transportation system elements. Each of the subsystems and components 

within the level 3 elements will be reviewed again to determine 

that they are designed to the requirements and have been verified 

functionally. 

The Government and prime contractors will accomplish this 

review and present the results to a Design Certification Review 

Board for final approval. The element operational requirements for 

each of the Marshall systems are being reviewed to assure that required verification during the launch preparation is included in the 

appropriate document. 

A reevaluation of the failure modes and effect analyses and critical items lists has been initiated for each subsystem of each shuttle 

element assigned to the Marshall Space Flight Center. The evaluation approach requires each prime contractor-Rocketdyne, Martin 

Marietta, Michoud Aerospace, USBI, and Thiokol-to accomplish 

an evaluation of its element and publish an updated FMEA/CIL 

document. 

Additionally, independent contractors have been employed to 

conduct a separate and independent review. The independent reviews and the prime contractor results will be assessed by a Government team and the findings and recommendations will be presented to a senior board. All criticality items will be reviewed by 

the Board and its recommendations will be forwarded through 

level 2 for review and approval by level 1. 

We are reviewing our management delegations and systems to 

assure that they are totally commensurate with the spirit and 

practice of open communication throughout NASA. Where changes 

are indicated, they will be made without hesitation. 

Mr. Chairman, this has been the most painful experience in the 

history of the Marshall Space Flight Center. We will not forget the 

dreadful 51-L disaster, and I’m confident that the men and women 

of the Marshall Space Flight Center, along with their associated 

contractors, will apply to the resolution of the current problems, all 
393 

the vigor and ingenuity that have resulted in the great number of 

successes in the last 26 years. 

We are prepared to exert any effort and make any sacrifice necessary to restore our country’s space program to a position that our 

citizens expect. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you, doctor, for your testimony. I want to first of all compliment NASA for having taken an important step in already establishing an Associate Administrator for 

Safety. I think that is one of the strong recommendations that we 

felt and I think you are to be complimented for moving so fast and 

starting the implementation of the recommendations of the committee and the Commission. 

We want to bring together the thought process that was utilized 

and once and for all, set that to rest because it bears upon many, 

many other areas of concern in the committee, the decisionmaking 

process that took place on January 27. This morning we had the 

Thjokol people in as you know and we spent about 4 hours going through their observations, exactly what happened. We mentioned 

the point of view that it is not our concern to nail somebody, that 

is not our goal. Our goal is to do a number of things, first to ascertain what the actual facts were at that point, that is essential to 

put that to rest, what happened in the decisionmaking process and 

just about where we are going to go from here. 

Those are all the directions we are talking about. Now having said that in the course of events that took place on the 27th, we 

now would like to hear from Mr. Lawrence Mulloy. Is he here? If 

you would come forward, I think you were sworn in. We would like 

to hear from you as we asked two witnesses this morning what 

your recollections and what your intent was and we have a copy of 

the film that was made at the time that the decisionmaking was 

going on, which will show-would you like to see that first? It 

might help you. 

Let’s show that film for the members of the-- 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, may I introduce Admiral Richard 

Truly, the Associate Administrator for Space Flight who has just 

come from another hearing. 

Mr. ROE. Welcome. 

I believe this is a video conference, an earlier flight readiness 

review, is that correct? 

Mr. MULLOY. That is correct. This is an excerpt from the 51-L 

flight readiness review, I think. 

[Film shown.] 

Mr. ROE. Now what we would like-the debate which has arisen 

which we are attempting to put to rest, during this morning’s testimony Mr. Allan McDonald and Mr. Boisjoly both had expressed 

their point of view that they were deeply concerned about going ahead with the launch simply because of a number of reasons, but 

particularly because of the temperature, testing hadn’t been done 

at those lower temperatures and so forth, and so had projected 

their concern to Thiokol. 

I am sure-if I get this out of step somebody correct me. 

The second point was that the Thiokol people then had a caucus 

telephonic meeting and discussed the matters of issue involved, and 
394 

had expressed the point of view that they were concerned about 

launching at a lower temperature and other factors that were involved. 

Now purportedly the Marshall Space people came back and challenged that issue and in effect, reversed the point of view from a 

positive to a negative point of view and in effect tell us why we 

can’t fly. We don’t think your interpretation of the engineering 

technical facts that are before us are correct and therefore you 

members from the Marshall Space Center, including yourself et a1 

purportedly came back and said here is another set of circumstances. We want you to rereview this and then the caucus was 

held and the decision was made after a half-hour review by the 

Thiokol people that were at that conference, 11 or 12 people. 

There are two points, an observation that was in the Commission 

report that we are concerned with the point of view that the decision that Thiokol made was based upon the point of view that 

NASA was one of their best customers. That is one of the observations and it is on page 104, I am sure you have heard it. 

The Commission concluded that the Thiokol management reversed its position and recommended the launch of 51-L at the 

urging of Marshall and contrary to the views of its engineers in 

order to accommodate a major customer. That is an issue that has 

to be dealt with and we dealt with that this morning. 

What we would like to hear from you at the moment, Mr. 

Mulloy, is what your observations are on that issue. That is the 

two areas that we asked Mr. McDonald and Mr. Boisjoly and you 

are credited with certain decisions. What is your remembrance of 

that? In other words, was Thiokol under pressure by you representing NASA to make a decision that it shouldn’t have been making? 

Mr. MULLOY. I would like to relate the tape that you saw to the 

timeframe and to January 27. I think it is best to look at the chronology of the history of this problem which is well documented in 

the Commission report but, I think it focuses where I was coming 

from on January 27. 

As stated there had been O-ring erosion on the second flight of 

the shuttle system, STS-2 were some fifty-two one-thousandths of 

erosion was seen. I took over the SRB program at STS-5. At the 

time we flew from STS-5 to STS-10 with no observation of erosion. 

We first saw erosion in a case joint when I was manager of the 

SRB program at STS-10 and that was covered in some detail in the 

STS-11 FRR. It was explained to me, since that was my first experience with that erosion that that was somewhat less than what we 

had seen on STS-2. 

The contractor developed the technical data where the first tests 

were run to determine what was the mechanism for the erosion 

and how bad could it be. That was presented to me as a rationale 

to continue flying, once we had seen it on STS-2, what we saw on 

the last flight wasn’t as bad, therefore it was an acceptable risk. 

As the project manager, I am in the position of getting data from 

Morton Thiokol and having the data assessed and they present the 

data to me along with a recommendation. I test the data and make 

my own judgment whether or not the data supports the recommendation being made, and that was done on the flight review. 
395 

Subsequent to that, we continued to see this primary O-ring erosion in the field joints, in the case, and in the case to nozzle joint. Each time we saw that observation after a flight, the contractor, 

Morton Thiokol, looked at the extent of that erosion, did additional 

testing as deemed appropriate to further understand the mechanism for that erosion, and came to me with a recommendation to 

continue flying. 

My engineering people supported that recommendation and in 

each case, that that new observation was made in nine instances 

that was reviewed by levels of management above me, starting 

with the basis for that judgment. Both the data and the base for 

that judgment was reviewed by the shuttle project office at the 

Marshall Space Flight Center and by a center board convened at 

the center with senior members of management, engineers at the 

center, and is chaired by Dr. Lucas and then we take that information to level 2 and into level l. 

That was done on STS-11, 414, 41-G, 51, 51-F, 51-1, 51-5, 61-A, 

and 61 Bravo, where an incidence of erosion was seen, and in each 

case the contractor judged that that erosion was acceptable. They 

thought the tests and analysis that they were doing showed that it 

was an acceptable risk. They so recommended to me. I made my 

own judgment on that, and agreed with that recommendation that 

it did indeed represent an acceptable risk, and presented that to 

my management for judgment. 

Mr. ROE. Will you hold a minute? I don’t want to break your 

train of thought, but it seems to us that that goes a little afield of 

what was testified to this morning. I just want to ask you this one 

question: Did they certify to you-in other words, this was the responsibility of Thiokol to come to you and say we have reviewed 

everything, we have reviewed this situation in the O-rings, we have 

reviewed this deterioration or whatever you want to call it, and we 

recommend it is OK and still continue to fly. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes; sir, and in every flight readiness review you 

will find a presentation from Morton Thiokol where this suggestion 

is made. 

Mr. ROE. Did you question that? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, in several specific instances. Now, on the 

first instance that I saw the erosion, that is where we first went, or 

a Thiokol person went, and did some limited testing to determine 

how bad it can be. My question was we had 53 thousandths of STS2 and I forget exactly what the magnitude was on STS-10 but it 

was somewhat less than the 53 thousandths. This is where this 

mechanism was first identified and that was done by Morton Thiokol engineers, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Boisjoly, Mr Russell, and the 

people who were in the program at that time. And yes, I did question it. 

Mr. ROE. It was questioned but then your technical review didn’t 

indicate that NASA should take any different view than what they 

took at that point. 

Mr. MULLOY. That is correct, and that was based on the assessment that I had done as the project manager by the engineering 

people at the Marshall Space Flight Center. 

Mr. ROE. Did you advise your level 2 and level 1 people? 
396 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir; all of those instances I mentioned, were 

discussed at the level 2 and the level 1 flight readiness reviews, 

yes, sir. Now I am trying to relate this to get up to January 27. 

There were a couple of things then that began to happen that were 

different than what we had been seeing on STS-11. What we were 

dealing with first was hot gas impingement on the primary O-ring that was causing it to erode, but it never had any indication it did 

not seal. 

Then, on a nozzle joint, we saw evidence that we had had a soot 

behind the primary O-ring, which was an evidence of blow-by. That 

was something that was different, so that was treated in quite a bit 

more detail on the flight readiness review, and back in April of last 

year, about April 1985, we had something that was of deeper concern to me, and that was on the nozzle joint, where we found that 

we had completely violated a primary O-ring and had indeed 

eroded a secondary O-ring, and Mr. McDonald discussed that in 

some detail this morning, and the history of that, and the rationale 

as to why Morton Thiokol then came and recommended continued 

flying even in light of that, and that was in Mr. McDonald’s testimony this morning. 

I tested that rationale and concluded that was a sound recommendation, and carried that forward that my recommendation was 

that that was an acceptable risk. And then we came, the tape that 

we were seeing here, on 51-E was the one, the flight readiness 

review that occurred right after the next coldest or the coldest 

launch at that time, which was in January 1985. 

In that instance, if you look at the record, you will find that 

Morton Thiokol’s recommendation, after having seen that and the 

recommendation, was based on the following or the same type of 

logic that was eventually developed for the 51-L launch, that we 

can expect to see blow-by, we can expect to see, we have to live 

with blow-by, and we can expect to see some erosion. As a matter 

of fact, the statement in that flight readiness review is that this 

condition may repeat on the next flight, but that condition is not 

outside of our experience base and represents an acceptable risk. 

Now we judged that, I judged it. I assigned in that case I think 

six or seven action items to go back and look more specifically and 

provide more data that supported that position. One of those actions was related to the statement that said cold appears to enhance blow-by, and the analysis that was provided back at that 

time said that the squeeze on the O-ring was reduced 1 percent, I 

believe, and that the O-ring got somewhat harder. However, you 

still had positive squeeze and the hardness of the O-ring was not of 

concern, so now I am going to get to the night of January 27. That 

is kind of the history of everything that we had been dealing with. Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield at that point. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Before we take the 27th, the record is replete, however, 

for over a period of years-years, not just months-years on the 

continuing recurring problem on the O-rings, continuing, so we go 

back 6 or 7 years on that. I mean Mr.-l977-Mr. Locke had testified to the point of view this morning that they as a result of the 

January situation in 1985 ultimately they set up an in-house task 

force, I think it was 40 engineers and people on it going back to the 
397 

middle of 1985, intensively to review this. So people were aware, 

including the agency, of the severity of this problem. Is that a correct commentary? Mr. MULLOY. That is a correct commentary. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman proceed? 

Mr. WALKER. Just one point of information. All this information 

that you had in front of you now getting into January 27, did that 

include the tests run by Morton Thiokol 100 degrees, 75 degrees, and 50 degrees, where at 50 degrees they literally had shown 100 

percent chance of failure? 

Mr. MULMY. Yes, sir; that data was in the 11 or 12 charts that 

Thiokol had submitted for review. 

Mr. WALKER. It was available? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WALKER. You did know that tests had been run and showed 

100 percent chances of failure at anything below 50 degrees? 

Mr. MULLOY. The data shows the O-rings will not track the sealing surface at 75 degrees. 

Mr. WALKER. I understand. But at 50 degrees, there was no seal 

whatsoever and it didn’t take place for 10 minutes and you only used the engine for 2 minutes? 

Mr. MULLOY. That is correct, and at 75 degrees there was a 2.4 

second delay, as was testified by Thiokol this morning. 

Mr. WALKER. What I am trying to say as we get to the 27th, you 

did have data before you that showed that at 50 degrees or below 

there was a 100-percent chance of failure of the O-ring? 

Mr. MULLOY. I had data, sir, that indicated that the O-ring would 

not track the metal surface at 75 degrees for 2.4 seconds, and in 10 

minutes it would never recur to track the metal surface. That was 

the total extent of that test. It was two steel plates with an O-ring between it and then lifting the steel plate at the rate of expansion 

or gap opening that actually occurs in the gap and looking at the 

first light between those and measuring the time. That was the test 

data. 

Mr. WALKER. If it doesn’t track, it doesn’t seal, so therefore it 

fails? 

Mr. MULLOY. That is correct, sir, and those data would indicate it 

would fail at 75 degrees. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman will proceed. 

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, what is the validity of that data, 

then, because obviously the O-rings are sealing at 75 degrees on the 

SRB’s. May I interject that question? Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. MULLOY. You are asking that of me, sir? 

Mr. NELSON. Yes, sir, that data taken by itself cannot be interpolated or extrapolated to determine whether or not an O-ring will or 

will not seal in a dynamic situation, as was subsequently shown by additional tests. 

Mr. ROE. All right, the gentleman will proceed. 

Mr. MULLOY. OK. January-- 

Mr. ROE. January 27, now you are going to say, you are going to 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. OK. 

start to unfold what happened. 
398 

Mr. MULLOY. Now, there was some confusion. I watched the testimony this morning on CNN, and there still seemed to be some confusion about who started things and asked for and who recommended what, so I would like to go into that and I will get to my 

thought process, if I may, sir. When we stood down from the 

launch on the 27th, a request went out knowing that we were going to have cold that night, for all the elements to look at any concern 

for the cold temperature for the night of the 27th. That went to the 

items that I was responsible for, which is the SRB, which is the 

SRM Morton Thiokol and USBI. 

Mr. ROE. Was it in writing? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, that was an oral request over the communication net. The concerns that came back before we went into the 

initial mission management team that afternoon came back to me. 

The only two concerns that came back, there was some concern 

that we would break a launch commit criteria on the temperature of the recovery battery, which is up in the forward skirt of the 

solid rocket booster, and possibly the temperature, low temperature limit on the fuel service module in the aft end of the solid rocket 

booster which contains the hydrazine fuel that powers the auxiliary power unit that provides the power steering for the swivel 

nozzle for the booster. No mention was made at that time of any 

concern for the effect of cold on the O-rings. 

Mr. Wear, who is my Solid Rocket Motor Element Manager, 

passed that request in the case of the solid rocket motor to Mr. 

Boyd Brenton, who is the chief engineer for Thiokol on the solid 

rocket motor, who was at the Huntsville Operations Support Center, at the Marshall Space Flight Center, supporting the 

launch, and said, “DO you have any concern for the cold temperature on the SRM’s at the temperatures predicted for tonight? It is 

supposed to go below freezing. 

Mr. Boyd Brenton, who is in Huntsville, and this is all in the 

Presidential Commission record by the way, called a Mr. Robert 

Ebeling at Thiokol and asked him was there any concern for the 

cold temperature. Mr. Ebeling contacted Roger Boisjoly and some 

other people, Mr. Brenton called Mr. Thompson, who contacted Mr. 

Ebeling, and Mr. Ebeling then I believe the Presidential Commission reports got Mr. Boisjoly and some other engineers together to 

look at the effect or any concerns that the solid rocket motor might have for the cold temperatures projected that night. 

The record shows that Mr. Ebeling then contacted Mr. McDonald 

at KSC, who I believe stated that he was at Carver Kennedy’s 

house at that time and told Mr. McDonald that they were working the request to look at concerns for the cold temperatures on the 

SRM, and one thing they had concern about was the effect that it 

would have on the sealing of the O-rings. 

Mr. Ebeling requested Mr. McDonald to provide him with the 

latest projection on what temperature was going to be that night. I 

believe the testimony shows that actually Carver Kennedy called 

KSC and got that information from KSC. Mr. McDonald then relayed that back to Mr. Ebeling. Then Mr. McDonald called Cecil Houston, who is the Marshall 

resident manager at KSC, and told him that Thiokol had some concerns relative to the effect of the cold temperature on the O-rings, 
399 

that the engineering people wanted to discuss those concerns and 

asked Mr. Houston to set up a teleconference. That is the early 

teleconference referred to in the record where the communications 

were very bad, and the result of that teleconference was to set up a 

later telecon at 8 o’clock, KSC time, whereby the participants, all 

of the principals, could get on a four-wire network where the communications would be better. 

Thiokol, meanwhile, would prepare some charts that better summarized the concerns that the engineers had, and they would 

transmit those from Utah to Huntsville, and from Utah to the 

Kennedy Space Center. 

Mr. Reinartz was involved in that early telecon, Mr. Houston 

called Mr. Reinartz. I was not contacted on that in the first telecon. 

Inadequate communication, so not much information could be 

transmitted. Mr. Reinartz then contacted me, and informed me we 

were going to have a telecon at 8 o’clock. We were going out to the 

Cape, to our resident manager’s office out there where we had a 

four-wire network, and Mr. McDonald was to join us at that location. 

Mr. Reinartz and I went, we were staying at the Merit Island 

Holiday Inn, over to Dr. Lucas’ room, where Mr. Kingsbury, the Director of Science and Engineering, also was. We just told them that 

Thiokol had some concern relative to the temperature, and the 

effect of that on the O-rings on the sealing of the joint, and that we 

were going out to a teleconference to discuss and to better understand that. That was the extent of that communication. 

We then went out to the Kennedy Space Center, the charts were 

a little late coming in. Stan and I arrived there, Cecil Houston was 

there. Some time after that Mr. McDonald arrived, and somewhere 

I think the record shows around 8:45 we finally got the charts that 

had the data on them, not conclusions, no conclusions, but data, 

and we began a teleconference. 

The Commission report shows all the participants in that teleconference. There were a number of them at Marshall. The people that had been assembled at Marshall were under the leadership of 

Mr. Hardy, who is the Deputy Director of Science and Engineering, and my chief engineer for the Solid Rocket Booster Project was 

there, and all other personnel who were available that could be 

rounded up that evening who had knowledge of the history of the 

O-ring erosion. Thiokol, meantime, had assembled 11 or 12 people there, which I 

did not know at the time of the teleconference, but subsequent to that I had found out that included the senior management at 

Morton Thiokol, and as I say, at KSC there was me and A1 McDonald, Stanley Reinartz, and Jack Buchanan, who heads up the Thiokol launch support service organization down there, so the teleconference began, and the 11 or 12 charts that were used are in the 

record, and the Thiokol engineers presented those charts. 

Mr. Boisjoly, I think, presented some of them. I think Mr. Brian 

Russell actually discussed some of them, and Mr. Thompson actually discussed some of them, and the upshot of that data, the data 

that were in there, were the one that the gentleman had asked 

about earlier, was the three specific temperatures in there, and 

then the total record of O-ring erosion that I mentioned going back 
400 

to the STS-10 was also in that briefing, and what the discussion 

really centered around was what was the meaning of those three 

tests, points at 100 and at 75 and at 50 degrees, and a lot of the 

discussion centered around if one expects that the cold temperature per se will cause the joint-will cause blowby, why did we 

have evidence in the rest of the record where we had blowby at 75 

degrees. 

As a matter of fact, the two worst instances that we had, the two 

things that were the most concern to me occurred at warmer temperatures, the first one being the erosion and STS-10 and going 

back to STS-2 where it was much worse and then the one where 

we completely eroded a primary O-ring and eroded a secondary 0- 

ring was not related to that temperature. 

So we assessed those data, and-in real time. There was an engineering discussion. It went on for about 2 hours, and it is a very 

typical kind of discussion that occurs between our contractors and 

Government engineers. 

Mr. ROE. This was going on with the company in Utah. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, and the people in Huntsville. 

Mr. ROE. And that is before they went off the record for the half 

hour. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, yes, sir, and rationale developed during the 

course of that conference, and the rationale generally that was developed stated that we had to be tolerant of blowby on the primary O-ring at any temperature, and the test data that showed that at 

75 degrees it is 2.4 seconds before the O-ring recovers is, could be 

an explanation of why we were having blow-by at 75 degrees, but if 

the concern was as soon as pressure got to the primary O-ring, and 

the joint began to rotate you had blow-by the primary O-ring, that 

jet, that pressure, would immediately get to the secondary O-ring, 

and that pressure on the secondary O-ring test data had shown 

would seal at 30 to 50 pounds per square inch which is down inside 

that 170 millisecond timeframe that Mr. Boisjoly testified to this 

morning, and the conclusion was that, one, the data did not show 

that the primary O-ring would fail due to low temperature, and 

the-but that if you got blowby at the moment of ignition the secondary O-ring was in a position to seal, and that was the logic that 

was discussed that was a prolaunch type of logic. 

Then Thiokol went on, having had that discussion, Mr. Kilminster asked for a caucus, and after he had been off the loop for some 

30 minutes, he came back with the rationale that was later put in 

writing and sent down with the signature on it that was a rationale to fly. 

Now if I may address your concern, sir, was there a reversal in 

my mind to say, “prove to me that you cannot fly,’’ I certainly was 

not conscious of any such reversal. I had no motivation, no driving 

motivation at all, to launch that vehicle on January 28 verus January 29 or February 5. What the people who were on that teleconference were dealing with is what were the data telling us, and I do 

believe, because we had had this history of problems, and because 

we were familiar with all the data that was presented there, our 

conclusion was that the data was saying, or were saying, that it is 

an acceptable risk to fly. 
401 

Mr. ROE. How do we-in the testimony this morning, when we 

heard from Mr. Kilminster and certainly Mr. McDonald and Mr. 

Boisjoly they both, particularly Mr. McDonald and Mr. Boisjoly said they were terribly concerned about the whole idea of flying at 

all because of those low temperatures and made quite a point of 

that. 

I am sure you looked at that on testimony this morning and then 

when we talked and the questions were asked to Mr. Kilminster at 

the time as to what was the general feeling of the engineering 

group that were involved in that caucus, that in going into that 

caucus, the general feeling was that the information they had was 

such that they would recommend not flying. Do you recall that part of the testimony? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. But then apparently from the discussions that they had with your folks, yourself and others, they took that back under advisement in that 30-minute caucus, and then came back and in 

effect made a different decision. Even after the decision was made, 

Mr. McDonald particularly and I believe Mr. Boisjoly said they 

were still not satisfied, very much distressed with that, couldn’t 

possibly understand how that decision could have been made under 

the circumstances. 

The next question was asked to Mr. Boisjoly at the tail end of 

this morning, had to do with the point did we have any substantive 

information recognizing the history of the operation, and that 

whole situation over a period of 7 years, there are all kinds of 

groups being assigned to relook at it and testing every time we are 

flying and so forth, having a series of events take place, where 

even NASA itself came back and was concerned about the extra 

residue and so forth in that joint, and then the question was asked 

at lower temperatures was there any test actually made at lower 

temperatures, and Mr. Boisjoly responded and said beyond the temperatures involved, I believe it was 50 degrees, the answer was 

“No.” And then our concern immediately of the committee arose 

on the point of view that here a decision was made by whomever or 

with a combination, that was lesser than the degrees that had been 

tested and therefore we were in an area that we just did not have a 

substantive fact, is that a fair representation of what was said this 

morning? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir; I believe it is a fair representation. 

Mr. ROE. What would be your response? 

Mr. MULLOY. Of what was said this morning. I would say that Mr. Boisjoly was the leader in expressing the 

concerns. He was the man who had the engineering data, and 

during the course of the 2-hour discussion, Mr. McDonald did not 

enter into that at all. 

Mr. ROE. He was not there? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir; he was there, he was at KSC but he was 

listening as we were-- 

Mr. ROE. I am sorry, he didn’t enter into the-- 

Mr. MULLOY. Into the discussion during the first part of the telecon. That was all being led from Utah, and the engineers were talking, and Mr. McDonald did as his testimony shows, and testimony in the Commission record shows, toward the end of that tele- 
402 

conference he did interject that, oh Mr. Kilminster, that before 

they went into the caucus that they should consider something Mr. 

Hardy had said earlier, and that he thought that was very important, and that was the fact that the secondary O-ring was in a position to seal, should you have blow-by the primary O-ring, and he 

testified, paraphrasing somewhat around that this morning, I believe, so Mr. Boisjoly did have those concerns. 

Now, when we came, when they came out of the caucus Mr. Kilminster was reading from notes which as near as I can recall were 

very close to what was subsequently documented and sent down 

there, and when he expressed his rationale, Mr. Reinartz asked 

does anybody have any comments or any other comments to make 

to this recommendation, and there were none. Nobody at KSC 

made any comment at that point. 

There were no other comments made from Marshall, where 

there were a large group of engineers assembled, and there were 

no further comments made from Utah, so my assumption was from 

that location that there was no dissent to that decision, because 

Mr. McDonald was there and did not take any issue at that point 

with the decision, and there was no decision, or there was no dissent conveyed from Marshall or from Utah. 

Now after the telecon was terminated, Mr. McDonald did state to 

my recollection something to the effect that while he would agree 

there was some doubt, reasonable doubt, as to whether there was a 

problem with the O-rings or not, there were two other reasons why 

if he was the launch director he would not fly this vehicle, and one 

of them was because of the ice that was on the pad that he knew 

about from having conversations with Carver Kennedy, and the 

other was that he had understood that the retrieval ships for the 

solid rocket boosters were in an absolute survival mode and steaming back toward Florida, and that they were just making about 

three knots and just trying to hold their own, and that he thought 

under those circumstances if he was the launch director that he 

certainly would not launch this vehicle. 

He did make another comment relative to temperature, that 

says, as he testified this morning, again related to, “I can understand why you have problems with the recommendation of 53 degrees, but I don’t understand how you fly this vehicle outside of its 

specific limits, which is 40 to 90 degrees;” and I pointed out to him 

that was not the total specifications on the motor, that that was 

the temperature specifications for the propellant mean bulk temperature which Mr. McDonald described in testimony as being an 

asinine comment. 

Mr. ROE. We are going to give you more time. I wanted to set out 

for the committee your observations. I think they are very important here, but I want to ask you just one question and then the 

whole group another question, and then I will yield to the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico. 

It is either true or it is untrue factually. Were any tests of substance conducted at lower temperatures on the parts, the motor 

and so forth and so on? Mr. Boisjoly said on those lower temperatures they were not. That is extremely important for the committee to know. 
403 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, I have some data here on both the temperature specification as well as what was actually done. I would point 

out that on DM-4, that is a development motor which is a full-scale 

motor that is static fired in the horizontal position out in Utah, the 

O-ring temperature on that motor was 40 degrees, by calculation. 

On QM-3, the O-ring temperature was 45 degrees. 

There was an ambient temperature, let’s see, I have some more 

here, the DM-4 where the O-ring temperature was 40 degrees, the 

ambient temperature was 36 degrees. For the QM-3 where the 0- 

ring temperature was 45 degrees, the ambient temperature was 40 

degrees. 

Now on the total specifications, as you gentlemen pointed out I 

think this morning, the propellant mean temperature specifications on the motor is 40 to 90 degrees. The ground firings of the 

actual experience on that propellant mean bulk temperature was 

from 56 to 80 degrees and the flights on propellant mean temperature went from 52 degrees to 80.5 degrees. 

On ambient temperature the specifications are 31 to 99 degrees 

for vertical flight. Ground firings were conducted from 36 to 97 degrees, and flight had been conducted from 55 to 86 degrees up to 

Mr. ROE. Would you say that Mr. Boisjoly was wrong in his statement to the committee this morning that tests have been made 

below the temperatures involved? 

Mr. MULLOY. The data I have here, sir, says DM-4 was tested at 

36 degrees with an O-ring temperature of 40 degrees. 

Mrs. MEYERS. Mr. Chairman, did he not specify, somebody had 

said this morning that they had made it very clear that the testing 

that had been done around 30 or 35 degrees had been only static 

tests, and that that really made a significant difference? 

Mr. ROE. What we are going to do, I realize, because we have got 

a vote in a minute but there are other people who are going to 

have questions, you are coming back and you are leaving the impression with the Chair and with the members of the committee 

that perhaps Mr. Boisjoly’s testimony this morning was not accurate. Now either we did test or we did not. Somebody hasn’t got the 

facts. I may be making that too simplistic, but apparently from 

their point of view representing that company, they came back and 

nobody objected to that, of the Thiokol people, that when the decision was made, they had no substantive data available to them because they had never flown at those lower temperatures. 

Mr. MULLOY. Mr. Chairman, I cannot remember the total context 

that that was made in, but I do recall some discussion. I think the 

question was asked related to the resiliency test at 50 and 75 and 

100. I recall a question being asked was there any testing below 50 

degrees? 

Mr. ROE. We were trying to get across the point of view what the 

temperature was and what was an acceptable temperature and 

launch of a system. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. That is what we are trying to get across. And then the 

question was asked specifically, had there ever been a launch at 

those low temperatures or had there been any testing at those low 

51-L. 
404 

temperatures as far as a shuttle launch is concerned? That is 

where we are coming from. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. There had been no launch at a temperature, let me give you the lowest-- 

Mr. ROE. What was the lowest temperature. It either was or it 

wasn't. Was it not the lowest temperature, you never had experience at a lower temperature because you didn't have any lower 

temperature; is that correct? 

Mr. MULLOY. The lowest temperature for a launch prior to 51-L 

is 53 degrees. 

Mr. ROE. What was 51-L? 

Mr. MULLOY. 51-L is 29 degrees. 

Mr. ROE. Therefore for the record and factually before us none of 

us, including you, the committee or Thiokol had ever had any experience on launching anything at that low temperature, is that a 

fair statement? 

Mr. ROE. Sir, then the question is do you feel that our testing between the 21 degrees and the 52 degrees of the launching of the 51 

launch and the one that was launched the temperature before, did 

we have enough test data, physical test data, not interpretations of 

engineering, not what may have happened or we think so for, oneeighth of an inch or two-tenths of a milligram, did we have enough 

test data to make the magnitude of a decision that was made? 

Mr. MULLOY. In my judgment in hindsight, no, sir. 

Mr. ROE. That is the point. Now nobody is trying to nail anybody 

down here. We understand where this is all coming from. What we 

are trying to do, and some people say, what is this committee pursuing, are we on a witch hunt? We are not. We are going to try and 

come back and make two ultimate decisions. One is the recommendations to NASA in its overall management program, its communications. 

It has obviously got to improve. 

The second point we are going to make is that this committee as 

a Member of the Congress of the United States are going to decide 

what the policies are going to be, and we want to make, what 

would you say, educated recommendations to our fellow colleagues 

as to what happened on the way to the forum, so to speak, and 

what we are going to do. 

Now, we will recess at this point because we have to vote. We 

will start right away with Mr. Lujan as soon as we return. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

We were going to start the questioning of this afternoon with 

Manny Lujan from New Mexico. He is not here, so I will defer to 

the distinguished gentleman from California, Mr. Packard. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Mulloy, this morning Mr. McDonald testified that on the 

evening before launch, that he had conveyed the three major concerns to you. 

Could YOU recount those for the record, what those three major 

concerns"were? 

Mr. MULLOY. Well, sir, the three major concerns that were communicated to me on January 27, was, first, the concerns that engi- 
405 

neers at Thiokol had expressed about the ability of the O-ring to 

seal at the predicted launch temperatures. 

As I said, Mr. McDonald didn’t enter into that discussion during 

the 2-hour teleconference, and I think I stated that subsequent to 

that, he said while he would agree that there was some question 

about the validity of the recommendation of 50 degrees, he didn’t 

understand how we could operate out of what he thought the 

motor specification was. It was 40 to 90 degrees. The second concern expressed was for the ice that was on the 

pad. He understood about those conditions out there. 

And the third was the fact that retrieval ships for the solid 

rocket booster were in an absolute survival mode, and coming back 

toward the shore at a very low speed and that they would not be in 

a position to recover the solid rocket boosters. 

Mr. PACKARD. And which of those three concerns did you convey 

to those above you? 

Mr. MULLOY. Well, Mr. Roinertz, who is my superior, was in the 

meeting and he also heard those, so he knew about it, and we 

placed a telephone call to Mr. Aldridge that night, because there 

was in the launch criteria-there is a statement relative to recovery area, and that if there is a possibility that the boosters cannot 

be recovered, that that is an advisory call. It does not say you cannot launch under those circumstances. I 

took that to be my responsibility to advise Mr. Aldridge that we 

would not be in a position possibly, to recover the solid rocket 

boosters, because they would be some 40 miles from the impact 

area. 

Mr. PACKARD. Was the concern for the O-rings discussed? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir; it was not. 

Mr. PACKARD. Why not? 

Mr. MULLOY. Well, sir, I testified to this in the Commission. It is 

in the record. I will repeat it here. 

The O-ring and other special elements of a level 3 system were 

considered in the management system to be a delegation to the 

level 3 project manager to make dispositions on those, any prob- lems that arose on those. 

Our judgment was that there wasn’t any data that was presented that would change the rationale that had been previously established for flying with the evidence of blow-by, and that data would 

indicate that since that was inconclusive, and the fact we had redundancy at a time when blow-by would occur which is less than 

170 milliseconds, that there was no change in that rationale and, 

therefore, there would not be any requirement to have that rationale approved by level two or level one. 

That was the judgment. 

Mr. PACKARD. Did you share any of this information with Mr. 

Moore at any time? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, I did not. 

Mr. PACKARD. Previous to launch? 

Mr. MULLOY. No. 

Mr. PACKARD. And why did you require of Mr. Kilminster his 

Mr. MULLOY. Well, sir, we had just had a long 2-hour discussion 

written approval? 

where the data were discussed from a number of sides. 
406 

He had read a rationale as to why he was making a recommendation to launch, and I wanted that rationale in writing to be sure 

that it was concise and that I could accept that rationale, other 

than just in an oral transmission. 

Mr. PACKARD. And that rationale was different than what he had 

expressed just the night before. 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir. 

This whole telecon took place from 8:45 to 11 o’clock on the same 

night, the 27th. There had been-we had cold temperatures on the 

27th, as a matter of fact, well below the, you know-well, 50 degrees. I don’t recall exactly what the temperature was, and there 

wasn’t any concerns expressed at that time. 

Mr. PACKARD. In your judgment, why did Morton Thiokol change 

their position on launch? 

Mr. MULLOY. Well, sir, this is speculation on my part, since I was 

not involved in the caucus, but I have to speculate that upon 

having all of the information discussed in that 2-hour telecon, and 

what the meaning of those data were, and what conclusions you 

could and could not draw from those, that during that 30-minute 

caucus, that they concluded they were in a go-for launch position. 

Mr. PACKARD. When they conveyed the decision or the recommendation not to launch, you were involved in the receiving of that 

information? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD. What was your reaction? 

Mr. MULLOY. My reaction to that was that the recommendation 

not to launch below 53 degrees had not been-the basis for that 

had not been established, and during the course of the discussion, 

several flaws in an argument that would say that you conclude 

from these data that you cannot launch below 53 degrees, that that 

would be a valid argument. 

Mr. PACKARD. My time is up? 

Mr. ROE. If you have one more question. 

Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Mulloy, you testified to the Commission that 

the context of the Thiokol presentation the night before the launch 

was that primary O-ring with the reduced temperatures and reduced resiliencies may not function as a primary seal, and would 

be relying on the secondary seal, the redundancy. 

Yet, the primary O-ring was changed form a critical l-R, which 

incorporated the redundancy to a critical 1, long before this, the 

launch time. 

How could you accept the rationale of the redundancy and authorize this launch when, in fact, it was not a critical l-R? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. The category of the joint-of the case joint 

was changed from criticality l-R to criticality 1 back in late 1982, 

and approved in level one in March 1983, I believe. 

As Mr. Boisjoly has testified and he said this again this morning, 

at the moment of pressurization, from zero to 170 milliseconds, redundancy does exist. 

From zero to 170 milliseconds, redundancy does exist. From 170 

to 330 milliseconds, whether or not you have redundancy, is an iffy 

proposition. 
407 

Above 330 milliseconds, I believe he said, under a worse case 

stack-up of tolerances-either he or Mr. McDonald mentioned this 

this morning-you may not ever have a secondary O-ring. 

The rationale that was developed by-this wasn’t developed by 

me. This was developed by the engineers during the course of this 

discussion, or at least the point was made during the course of this 

discussion-that should you have blowby, the primary O-ring which was the concern that was being expressed, that the O-ring 

would be sluggish, because it is cold, that the grease would be viscous, that the timing functions in getting that O-ring across its gap 

and in there might be somewhat longer than what it had been at 

warmer temperature. 

The conclusion was that should you have blow-by, during that 

period, that blowby would seat the secondary O-ring and cause the 

seal. The rationale that was presented in written form was that the 

data did not indicate that the primary O-ring would not function. 

However, should blowby occur at pressurization, the secondary 

would, because you have redundancy from zero to 170 milliseconds. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield, that is assuming, however, you were testing within a certain temperature range, because 

you didn’t know it was going to happen in a lower range, you 

stated that yourself. 

Mr. MULLOY. I am sorry-- 

Mr. ROE. You are talking about redundancy, and you are saying 

that at different levels and temperatures and so forth, the redundancy may exist in certain milliseconds. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. The issue that we discussed earlier is we never had an 

experisnce at those lower temperatures because we never did it 

before. 

Mr. MULLOY. I would like to clarify what I said before the recess. 

Mr. ROE. If you would like to clarify that you meant that is OK, 

but I heard what you said. 

Mr. MULLOY. I wanted to make certain the record was clear. 

Mr. ROE. I want to be clear that the point of view from NASA’s 

point of view, that we are concerned-we are concerned with 14 

launches that have some problems to them. We are concerned with 

that. 

We don’t buy the point of view, do we measure other criticality 

points in degrees? My father taught me something about something 

in my life. It is or it isn’t, we can’t take an issue in our lexicon, you took it from a 1-R position and made it a No. 1 position, 

You didn’t qualify that, there is nothing in the record that qualifies it as half an 1-R or three-quarters of an 1-R in terms of temperature. It seems when we are concerned about 700 audit items 

being criticality one category, you say any one of those could be 

disastrous, and therefore, we put them in criticality number one. 

We didn’t say we put them there in number of degrees. We 

either did or we didn’t. 

Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Chairman, before we leave this, one of my primary concerns is that with all the signs and with all the indicators 

from launches that the O-rings deteriorated with the lowering of 

temperatures. There should have been tests run, but from all the 
408 

indications that I have received, the only data that was accumulated was from previous launches. 

If we took the attitude that we would use launches to determine 

the data base, then we had a built-in accident at some point or another. That process builds in an accident that we will only use-we 

have not done any testing, field testing or otherwise, but we simply 

use the data from the previous launches when it comes to cold 

weather. 

Then it simply is saying we are going to continue to launch until 

we have an accident, because we used previous launch data as far 

as the effect of cold weather on the O-rings. The tables clearly show that at 65 degrees and above, there were 

17 launches without any deterioration of the O-rings, and there 

was not a single launch below 65 that didn’t have O-ring problems, 

not a single one, and that is the only data base we have. 

We have no research data that was done without it being associated with a launch, and that means that we would continue to 

launch and flirt with cold weather problems until we had an accident and to me that is just terribly alarming, that we had a built 

accident somewhere along the line, it could have been before had 

we had cold weather, but certainly we were going to continue to 

launch using the last data of the cold weather launches to determine whether we had problems or not, especially when we had 

signs as long as 9 years before that we had problems with that 

joint. 

Mr. ROE. I appreciate the gentleman’s comment. Do you want to 

respond? 

Mr. MULLOY. I think the first paragraph in chapter 6 of the Presidential Commission report sums up what the distinguished gentleman has said succinctly, and I take no issue with that. 

I do have, I guess, some different data relative to the temperatures at which O-ring erosion has occurred. STS-2 was 70 degrees, and it was the worst erosion that we had on a primary O-ring. 

Mr. PACKARD. Let me refer you to page 146, and look at the 

charts, because you have made some references to the first chart, 

that you were confused and could draw no conclusions from the 

upper chart, figure number 6, because it showed a variety of erosions anywhere from 53 degrees up to 75 degrees. 

But the chart below clearly shows that there was no deterioration of 17 flights above 65 degrees, and all flights below 65 degrees had deterioration, not one single flight that showed no deterioration below 65. 

To me, that would be the safety officer’s job to monitor this kind 

of data that would obviously show that below 65, there very well 

may be problems. In every case, there was. 

Now, above 65, the data may be inconsistent, but far more on the 

consistency side that above 65 is safer than below 65, and it would 

be the safety officers determination and monitoring of these that 

would help give some direction to whether it is a go or no-go, certainly below 53 degrees. 

Mr. MULLOY. I think some of our confusion and possibly something that led to the decision that we made on the 27th was 

clouded by the fact that we had in the data shown, that we had 

had a full-scale flight motor fired with an O-ring temperature of 40 
409 

degrees, and the further thing that clouded the issue was that the 

worst erosion that we saw on the nozzle, the case joint and on the 

case joint occurred at temperatures above 70, so it kind of confused 

us as to what the real effects of temperature were. 

Mr. PACKARD. But your tests at 40 degrees did not parallel the 

conditions that these monitorings were done by actual flights. This 

was a static test that may not have the same application as one 

that would be in flight. 

Mr. RITTER. Would the gentleman yield on that point? 

Mr. PACKARD. I would be happy to yield. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Pennsylvania. 

Mr. RIITER. Thank you. 

In talking about temperature effects, you have been focusing on 

the erosion, but as you say, you have a lot of erosion at 72 degrees-maybe erosion was only part of the problem, and maybe not 

the main problem, because the key to an O-ring seal is compressibility, the fact that it seals and sits and you can lose material and 

still have seal. 

But if you look at the data on O-ring recovery versus time on 

page 65 of the Presidential Commission’s report, you will see that 

there is just no doubt that at low temperatures, these O-rings are 

pretty solid. 

I mean, they are losing their compressibility, and that to me is 

even more than the O-ring erosion data. I wish you could comment 

on that. There seems to be no doubt about that at all. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, there is no question that January 27, we 

were familiar with both erosion and blow-by, and there was I believe more in judging the acceptability of the risk and in the impressions that I took from Morton Thiokol, that stated that it was 

an acceptable risk, there was more emphasis on the margin, if you 

will, between the maximum erosion that could occur during the 

course of blow-by, and that there was such a margin against what 

could theoretically occur versus what could be sustained, that they 

still felt it was a safe situation. 

Mr. RITTER. In Mr. Kilminster’s testimony, he doesn’t even mention O-ring recovery, the solidification of the O-ring at falling temperatures, he just talks about the erosion, and yet, the data is there 

to show that the compressibility or the flexibility of the O-ring is 

lost, essentially lost at, it looks like about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. 

It becomes less than compressible, or it doesn’t recover. 

Mr. MULLOY. That is correct, sir, in a static situation. 

Mr. RITTER. And it would probably be worse-it would probably 

be far more dangerous in a dynamic situation where other things 

can happen and usually do. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. Of course, in fact, in testing that was done 

at low temperatures subsequent to the accident, it was shown that 

an O-ring will seal far below 50 degrees in a dynamic situation, depending on the initial gap the O-ring is compressed to. 

Mr. RITTER. It depends on the design at that point, and you were 

working with not necessarily the greatest of designs. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

New Mexico, Mr. Lujan. 
410 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have looked forward to 

the hearings today, because I am particularly interested in the 

whole management review thing rather than the engineering, all 

of the changes that can be made to the seals and the O-rings and 

all of that. 

It seems like every time something comes up, we run into Marshall, the way of doing business at Marshall. On the decision to 

launch and the discussions about whether you should, because of 

the temperature, and all of those things, there was a decision made 

and then we hear testimony that it was never passed on higher. Aldrich and Moore both said they didn’t know anything about it. 

We then learn that the erosion had happened, was noticed first on 

STS-2, which Admiral Truly was on, and he was very surprised 

during the Commission report to know that there was a problem 

because he hadn’t known until the economic meeting or didn’t 

know at the time. 

The end of last week, there was some kind of a flap about turning tapes over to the Commission that hadn’t been turned over, 

headquarters had to be contacted, and headquarters turned over 

those tapes. 

We then find out in checking why had they not been turned 

over? We were told even the participants didn’t know that they had been taped. And it just seems like nobody passes information 

on to anybody else, and that there is a big bottleneck there, and 

that has caused a lot of problems, and one of the things that NASA 

needs to address in order to make it a workable system-I don’t 

want to be casting any aspersions at Marshall, but it seems to me 

like every time something comes up, it is because it was something 

that either Marshall knew and didn’t pass on or didn’t know and 

should have been known-does Marshall operate different than 

other centers in that headquarters doesn’t seem to know what happens over there, it just dies there? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Lujan, if I may start the answer-to that and 

then I will ask Admiral Truly to address the issue of the videotape 

and Dr. Lucas to address the partial communications issue. 

As was testified, communications and management in NASA is a 

NASA-wide issue, and not limited to the Marshall Space Flight 

Center. The discipline for communication, and to make sure that 

information is moving in the appropriate channels and getting to 

the appropriate people is an agencywide concern, and has to be addressed from the highest levels of the agency. 

A more subtle part of that is recognition of important information whether it is passed through the system. Part of that is the 

responsibility of the person originating the information to make 

sure it is tagged appropriately. But a major part of that lies in the 

most senior management at NASA to make sure that the significance of information is recognized when it is received, and all of 

those issues are key matters that we must address in our return to 

successful space operations. It is a matter of greatest concern to the 

headquarters as to, first, why information wasn’t better recognized, 

and secondly, how to make sure that in the future, it is better recognized for its significance. 

With that, I would like to ask Admiral Truly to address the issue 

of the videotape, and then Dr. Lucas. 
411 

Admiral TRULY. Iam delighted you brought up the issue of the 

videotape, Mr. Lujan, that got some play on the media Friday evening. I was very frustrated by that, and personally involved, 

and would like to share what I know about that. I believe an incorrect perception was given in some of that, and I think I can set a 

little bit of that straight. As I understand the situation with those 

tapes some years ago, when General Abrahamson was Associate 

Administrator, there were teleconferences held throughout the 

system including Marshall and other places that combined video 

and audio to improve the teleconferencing of meetings. When your staff a couple of weeks ago was over at NASA and we 

were providing them with some prebriefing, someone, and I am not 

sure who, mentioned that they had heard that such a videotape 

was possibly available of some of the flight readiness reviews. 

Somebody from the Marshall Space Flight Center was at the meeting, I was not there, but Jack Lee related this to me this morning. And he immediately called back and began asking questions, and 

it turned out that the communications laboratory or the technicians at the Marshall Space Flight Center had recorded four flight readiness reviews, in an effort to improve the audio and video qual- ity because it was a sync problem, and also an audio quality problem in these video conferences. 

It was not a part of the procedure prior to the accident directed 

by level 1, level 2, or level 3. It is true that during the investigation 

that neither the task force nor the Commission knew of the existence of these videotapes, and I might add that I am very sorry that 

we didn’t, because earlier on in the investigation, it would have 

been very helpful. Because as the one you saw earlier, whether you 

put a face and a voice to a viewgraph, it makes a big difference as 

to the effect, and I think it would have been helpful to the Marshall Space Flight Center in that perception. 

Mr. LUJAN. You should not have been frustrated in listening to that, because my understanding was that it took going to you in 

order to get them, and the minute you asked for them, you got them. 

But the appearance seemed to be apparently at Marshall, there 

was some confusion that we didn’t know that the tapes existed or 

for whatever reason, they weren’t turned over to the Commission. 

Admiral TRULY. That is what frustrated me, because I took the 

trouble that afternoon to write a press announcement that went 

out with the videotapes. Apparently, it was not adequate to explain all the detail. 

At any rate, they were discovered. There was about 2Y2 minutes 

on one of them, which you saw, where Mr. Mulloy talked about the 

O-rings, which as I say, I wish we had known earlier. 

I called the Commission within 10 minutes or so of when I heard 

about it. The Marshall Space Flight Center, in coordination with 

us, called a satellite link and transmitted the tape to Washington; 

we made a copy of it and it was over to the Commission the next 

morning. So my frustration is in perception, and I can only say in my personal experience in the course of the investigation when I tasked 

Marshall, generally through Mr. Jack Lee, who was on the task 

force, and who is a Deputy Center Director. I never once had a 
412 

single delay beyond the mechanical delays of finding information 

to get to me so that I could send it directly to the Commission. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Lucas. 

Dr. LUCAS. Iam sorry if Marshall is perceived as not being communicative. This is not our intention or desire, and I don’t think it 

has been our effort. With regard to the tape just described, within 

minutes of its discovery, that was communicated to Admiral 

Truly’s office, and was made available because it was recognized how it would be perceived coming up late as it did. 

There would be no motivation for us to not release those tapes, 

because it did make the point that we had communicated our concerns about the O-rings throughout the system, and throughout the 

flight readiness reviews. 

I think Marshall is the center of attention because we are responsible for the main propulsion system of the shuttle, and the 

solid rocket motor is our responsibility. It is true that we have had 

concerns about the O-rings for a long time, but those concerns have 

not been retained, they have been disseminated in various ways, in 

our problem assessment system, they have been disseminated in 

our flight readiness reviews, as was testified. At least some of them 

have been recorded in our flight evaluation reports that are released in a few days following every flight. 

So, that has been pretty well disseminated, in my opinion. I 

think it is true that we at Marshall and we throughout the system 

did not fully comprehend the significance of what was being seen 

at that time. It seemed to us that a good rationale existed for continuing to fly. 

Never had anyone suggested to me, nor had I deduced based 

upon my own informatior_ that we had a situation that was unsafe. 

I am confident that had any of us concluded that we would have 

been screaming very loudly on that. 

Mr. LUJAN. I know that these time constraints are awful, because you don’t get to pursue a subject very much, but what you 

are telling me, I guess is, you didn’t think that the situation was 

that serious when Thiokol told you that you shouldn’t launch and 

then went back and had them reevaluate it, and then Marshall decided that-Thiokol decided to change their mind, and Mr. Kilminster sent you a wire. 

If that is the case, if you did not perceive it as a serious situation, then that explains why you didn’t tell Mr. Aldrich or Mr. 

Moore about it. They testified that they had absolutely no idea that 

that process had gone through, and that the final decision had 

been made to do it; is that correct, because you didn’t perceive it as 

a serious matter? 

Dr. LUCAS. I wasn’t in any of the discussions on that previous 

night. I was informed about the discussions, and I was informed 

that Thiokol had suggested or some members of Thiokol had expressed a concern about the effect of the cold temperature on the 

O-rings. 

But then, on the following morning, about 5 a.m. on the morning 

of the 28th, I was told that Thiokol had proposed to launch and 

was shown the flight readiness or flight commitment statement of 
413 

Mr. Kilminster, and was also informed that our own engineers, 

very competent people in whom I have great confidence, agreed with that assessment. Therefore, there was not an issue as far as I 

was concerned, and for that reason, I didn’t pursue the matter 

beyond that. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield? You are saying to the committee what seems to be that Thiokol made the recommendation, 

but Thiokol testified this morning, and their first approach was 

from their engineering stand point of view was a no-go, and that 

was when we went off the record and took the half-hour for Thiokol to review additional information that was given to them or pro- pounded to them from Mr. Mulloy and his associates, and they took 

that matter under judgment, and then they came back and they responded. So, are we saying that Thiokol made the recommendation and 

then NASA agreed, or did Thiokol say no-go until NASA said, why 

not, here is where our rationale comes in, and then they were responding to NASA’s concern. 

The reason I am thrusting this, we have to dispel the point of 

view, was the decision made because of intimidation? Was the decision made on the part of Thiokol because NASA was their biggest customer? That is out there. 

When we are done with this one thing, people are going to know, 

every rumor, we are going to get done with it. But the question is 

not clear. That is still not clear to us. 

And then we go to the point, if the gentleman would yield further just to get it into the record, at the beginning of Mr. Mulloy’s 

statement, you said that there were nine cases of O-ring erosion 

and blowby reviewed by levels above me, and you listed the nine 

cases. 

We would like to ask you to list the nine cases again, and then 

tell the committee at what level the O-ring problem was discussed 

and who was at that level. Do you see where I am coming from, Dr. 

Lucas? 

Dr. LUCAS. I do. May I respond by saying that what happened in 

the course of that 2-hour discussion is hearsay information as far 

as I was concerned? What I saw was the next morning after it was 

over, and was presented with the readiness statement. 

Now, when I saw the signature of Mr. Kilminster, who is a respected engineer and vice president of Thiokol, with whom we have 

been associated for a long time, and whom I have a lot of confidence in, when he says he is ready to fly and he bases that on technical, not management considerations, I am inclined to accept that. 

That is further amplified by the fact that to preclude Thiokol 

from doing what some may be accusing them of doing now, we 

placed an incentive on them to avoid this very thing. Thiokol has a 

substantial penalty riding upon any flight failure. Thiokol has a positive incentive to deliver their hardware to the 

launch site on time, which they had done. To assure we have quality of hardware we placed a $10 million penalty for any flight failure plus the loss of any positive incentive they had already gained. So it is inconceivable that a company would take that kind of risk 

and recommend a launch with which they didn’t agree. 

Mr. LEWIS. Would the gentleman yield? 

64-295 0 - 86 - 14 
414 

Mr. Kilminster this morning stated this is the first time that he 

had to provide this in writing prior to a launch. Doesn’t it seem 

unusual on this particular launch this particular problem had to be 

approved by Thiokol in writing and wouldn’t that cause your hackles to come up a bit? 

Dr. LUCAS. No, sir, because that is standard practice. 

Mr. LEWIS. He said this morning it was the first time he had to 

do this. 

Dr. LUCAS. No, sir, I think he said it a little differently. He said 

at this juncture. Thiokol always presents a readiness statement for 

launch. When we have our flight readiness reviews, then when we 

have our L minus 1 day review, Thiokol always presents a statement signed off with Mr. Mulloy in writing that it is ready to 

launch. 

This is the first time that a concern like this had arisen in this 

timeframe, and I believe that is what he referred to as being unusual. It is the first time they had ever done it, because as far as I 

know, this is the first time this ever happened. But it is not unusual. Mr. Kilminster usually signs a flight readiness statement. 

Mr. LEWIS. When does he usually do this? 

Dr. LUCAS. At the flight readiness review and then I believe that 

is repeated at the L minus 1-day review, which is 1 day before 

launch. 

Mr. LEWIS. And this one was done when? 

Dr. LUCAS. There had been an L minus 1-day launch, I believe, 3 

days before that which he had submitted his last statement and 

then we had oral checkups when the launch was stood down day by 

day. This one was done sometime in the evening before the launch 

the following day, some 12 or so hours before the launch, I presume. 

Mr. LEWIS. He had previously signed off a flight readiness report 

3 days earlier? 

Dr. LUCAS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LUJAN. I think he said 2 or 3 weeks ahead of launch date 

was the normal time that he did it, and this was the first time he 

had to do it on that date. 

Dr. LUCAS. Two or three weeks is the flight readiness review. L 

minus one is the launch minus 1 day. 

Mr. LUJAN. That should have raised something in hindsight-my 

God, we could all live a much better life than we do if we had hindsight. The other thing that has to do with this to raise the point 

that it was serious was that Mr. Locke, the chairman and chief executive of Morton Thiokol this morning said that they had concluded that they shouldn’t launch and then he said, our engineers 

could not prove that it was unsafe to fly at less than 53 degrees 

Fahrenheit-a change in the way that we have done business 

before. 

In the past, you had to prove that it is safe first, and now for this 

particular one, it was reversed, the attitude was reversed, prove to 

us that it was not safe. 

Dr. LUCAS. There certainly has been no change in policy to that 

effect. I would never condone such a policy as that. Since Mr. 

Locke said so, it must appear that way to him. That is not our 
415 

policy to prove it is not safe to launch. We prove we are safe to 

launch. 

Mr. LUJAN. Well, I hate to be taking up so much time, but did 

you give Mr. Mulloy any instructions-you say you didn’t know 

before that next-let me let that question go by and give others a 

chance. 

Mr. ROE. I would like to get Mr. Mulloy to answer the question, 

would you repeat the nine flights and tell the committee at what 

level the O-ring problem was discussed and who was at that level? 

What I am trying to get at is I read the New York Times article 

about your concern on-they reviewed some of the decision processes and so forth. 

You made that statement in part today, I am in part of the 

system, up in the chain, but I don’t make all the decisions basically 

is what you said. There were other levels involved. 

You mentioned again, you listed the whole nine, and tell the 

committee at what level the O-ring problem was discussed. We 

have been going on this for 7 years and then who was at that meeting? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. I can answer part of your question. 

Let me say I cannot answer everyone who was in the flight readiness review. I believe there is an action underway to try to ascertain that in headquarters, but I cannot testify as to who was at 

each one. I did not bring my record of this with me. I called back, 

and had a man call back, and asked which ones were discussed at 

levels 1 and 2. 

I am reading from what was provided to me. It looks like it fits 

within the erosion. STS-11, 41-C, 41-G, 51-E, Echo, 51-F, Foxtrot, 

51-1, 51-5, 61-A or Alpha, and 61 Bravo. 

Mr. ROE. These were a problem with the O-rings and they were 

discussed at level l? 

Mr. MULLOY. Level 1 and level 2. 

Mr. ROE. Therefore, it is inconceivable that level 1 which is top 

management would not have understood the issue? 

Mr. MULLOY. That is right, and I believe that has been acknowledged. 

Mr. ROE. The distinguished gentleman from Florida, we took 

away 1% minutes this morning as we concluded and I would give 

that 1 Y2 minutes back. 

Dr. GRAHAM. May I add a comment to that made by Mr. Mulloy? 

Mr. ROE. Yes, sir. 

Dr. GRAHAM. We are, in fact, reviewing the records to see who 

was at the various flight readiness reviews that occurred when the 

O-ring data was mentioned, and we have not yet been able to pull 

that together. However, we will take that for a record and provide 

you with what information we have on that. 

[The information follows:] 
416 

Material requested for the record on page 204, line 4764 by 

Chairman Roe during the June 17, 1986, hearing. 

There is no requirement to keep attendance at the Flight 

Readiness Reviews (FRR's); consequently, no official record of 

attendee's has been maintained. In some few instances, lists of 

potential attendees are available and are attached. These should 

be considered as "typical" of attendance at the more recent 

FRR's. However, it must be noted that just because an individuals name is on the list does not assure that that 

individual was in the room at any specific point in time. 

Typical JSC participation at an FRR would include the Center 

Directors, the NSTS Program Manager, the major organizational 

element directors, the lead flight director, the presenters of 

FRR material and other individuals deemed necessary to support 

the presentations. 
417 

STS 61-B FRR 

TiTEmmWashington: 

o Head Table: Beggs, W. Williams, More, RWJohn Christopher, Weeks, Lee 

T/Bastedo, WBenson, Winterhalter, Silveira, 

Harrington, Miller, Harkleroad 

'0 Others: Hamby, Ryan, Dr. Nicogossian 

WSSAT/Max Crisp at Ksc 

MoRELOS/Bob Sava (NASA IS941 

SATCQV/John Christopher here at HQ 

MDAC/Irv Webster Huntington Beach, CA 

Hughes/&rlie Carroll at Ec 

at Ksc 

- JSC: 

- MSFC: 

Griffin, Goetz, Aldrich, Kohrs 

Lucas, Lindstrom, Taylor, Dr. Lovingood, Ma-, bbley, Bridwell 

Bunn, Hardy, Dr. Littles, Kingsbury, Hemitz, Thomas, Lester 

Malloy, Zoller, Nichols, Horton, Thompson 

- KSC: D. Smith, T. Utsnan, B. Sieck 

J. Talone, S. Beddingfield, J. Conway 

MC-MIaXND 

Mr. Davishobert 'Smith, J. Ihtton 

RMX€lDYNE: 

Gerry .fobon, Paul Dennies, Dick Sdlmrtz, Al Hallden 

MIOKOL: Kilmirrster 

PATRICK AFB: Col. Smith, J. Nordbush, Col. Shults 

- GSFC: 

SPACE DMSION 

T. Janoski, R. Banning 

It. Col Larry Combes, Lt. Shipman 

SPACE 0M.LAM) 

General Sawyer, Col Amalone 
418 

washingtm: 

o Head Table: Graham, Moore, Weeks, Lee 

T/Wd, VSade, D/Cohm, Haningtm, 

Gunn, Winterhalter, Hiller, Harkleroad 

o Others: &dY, Dr. Nicogossian 

cum' 

xnAC/Irv Webster at Huntington Beach, C4 

RCA I)merican/Bill Palme/Joe Schmrtz at JSC 

- JSC: GrFffin, Goetz, Aldrich, Kohrs 

- MSFC: Lucas, Lindstrw, Taylor, Dr. Lovingd, Ham, tbbley, Bridwell 

Em, Hardy, Dr. Littles, Kingsbury, Henritz, Thomas, Lester 

Malloy, Zoller, Nichols, Horton, Thoupson 

KSC: D. Smith, T. Utmnan, B. Sieck - J. ?alone, S. Beddingfield, J. Carnay 

RIC-XMhTf 

Dr. Petrone, Peller, Glazer, Bejunk 

WC-MIQKXX) __ - - __ - - - 

Kr. Davis/Robert Smith, J. IXlttm 

RscKmYNE: 

MIODL: Kilminster 

PASRIM AFB: Col. Smith, J. Nordbush, Col. Shults 

- WC: 

SPACE DMSION 

Walt Williems, Geny Johnson, Paul Dermies, Dick sdluartz, Al Hallden 

T. Janoski, R. Banning 

It. Col Imrry COmbes, Lt. Shiv 

SPm c(M.L9ND 

General Saver, Col kuahne 
LOCAT I ON 

Headquarters 

JSC 

KSC 

MSFC 

RIC-Douney 

MMC-MIchoud 

Rocket dyne 

Th I okol 

USA!-SO 

-VAFB 

NO - 

211 

209 

210 

296 

265 

240 

206 

299 

233 

262 

280 

288 

41-B (STS-11) F

JANU

PRINCIPAL PA

Beggs. Mark. 

Baynes. Dank

Silveira. Co

GrlEfin. Goe

Draughon. Bo

Moorehead. C

Germany 

Smith. Page, 

Holllnshead. 

Jones, Hannem

Neilon, Will

(USBI) Donnel

Lucar, Lee, 

Taylor, Horto

Thompson, Ni

(USBI) Murphy

Minor. Boykin

Foll. Davis. 

Johnson, Denn

Kutyna. Llnds

Henderson, La

Kilnan 

- PAFB 825-7310 Sniegouski. A

-KSC Jones, Hannen

GSFC 572 McCeney. Lynn

MDAC Webster. Daro
NASA Advisors/Location 

Headquarters 

H. Hawkins 

S. Hinmel 

C. Donlan 

Payload Reps/Location 

Headquarters 

HESTAR 

H. Leavltt-HU 

41-B FRR Teleco

Rockuell 

H. Grier 

KSC - 

PALAPA 

S. Gunawan

A. Cammarato-HU H. Asturi-

1. Callahan-HU Solich-Ind

Silalahi-I

Akbar-Indo

HESTAR 

Van Cleve 

Hi1 burn 

Judson 

Hepsen 

SPAS 

Moritz 

Klaber 

Carroll 

Alblinger 

MDAC 

Payne 

Mclean 

Ho 1 1 ova y 

- 

HAC 
421 

HISSION 41-C 

DR. LUCAS 

HR. KINGSBURY nR. LINDSTROH 

MR. TAYLOR 

HA. HULLOY 

HA. HARDY 

HR. HORTON 

HR. LEE 

DR. LOVINGOOD 

MR. THOMSON 

HR. NICHOLS 

HR. HENRITZE 

HR. BUTLER 

MR. ZOLLER 

HR. YORK 

HR., BRIDWELL 

MISSION 51-1 

DR. LUCAS 

HR. LEE 

MR. KINGSBURY 

HR. TAYLOR 

HR. REINARTZ 

HR, MULLOY 

WR. BUNN 

MR. BRIDWELL 

HR. NICHOLS 

DR. LOVINGOOD 

HR. HENRITLE 

HR. LINDSTROM 

MR. C. SMITH 

HR. ZOLLER 

DR. LITTLES 

MR. HARDY 

FRR 

LEVEL I ATTENDEES (HSFC) A 

HISSION 41-0 

MR. LEE 

MR. KINGSBURY 

HR. THOMAS 

HR. HENRITZE 

HR. BRIDWELL 

HR. HULLOYC 

DR. LITTLES 

HR. HARDY 

DR. LOVINGOOD 

MR. THOHSON 

HR. NICHOLS 

HR. LINDSTROM 

MR. HORTON 

MR. BUTLER 

HR. ZOLLER 

MISSION 51-5 

DR. LUCAS 

HR. RlCHARDSON 

MR. KINGSBURY 

MR. HARDY 

HR, BUNN 

DR. LITTLES 

HR. HENRITZEHR. BRlDWELL 

MR, NICHOLS 

DR, LOVINGOOD 

HR. REINARTZ 

MR. TAYLOR 

MR. ADAUS 

HR. J. SMITH 

MR. CAMPBELL 

MR, C. SMITH 

MISSION 51-E 

DR. LUCAS 

HR. LEE 

MR. KINGSBURY 

HR. TAYLOR 

MR. BRIDWELL 

MR. MULLOY 

DR, LITTLES 

MR. HENRITZE 

WR. HARDY 

HR. BUNN 

DR. LOVINGOOD 

HR. THOHSON 

HR. LINDSTROH 

HR. NICHOLS 

MR. ZOLLER 

MISSION 61-A 

DR. LUCAS 

HR. RICHARDSON 

MR. KINGSBURY 

MR. TAYLOR 

HR. THOMAS 

HR. MULLOY 

HR, BUNNK 

HR. BRIDWELL 

HR. CHASSAY 

DR. LOVINGOOD 

MR. HARDY 

DRI LITTLES 

HR. REINARTZ 

MR. J. SMITH 

MR. NICHOLS 

HR. HENRITZE 

HR. C. SMITH 

MISSION 51-F 

DR. LUCAS 

HR. KINGSBURY 

MR. BUNN 

HR. TAYLOR 

MR. THOMAS 

HR. HULLOY 

MR. BRIDWELL 

HR. NICHOLS 

DR. LOVINGOOD 

HR. HARDY 

HR. HENRITZE 

HR. LINDSTROM 

HA. THOHSON 

HR. HORTON 

DR. LITTLES 

HR. LESTER 
422 

2201 HEADQUARTERS BUILDING 

/*'\ SEATING CAPAClPI: 69 '. 

51-F DELTA LRR/FRR SEATING 
423 

2201 HEADQUARTERS BUILDING 

SEATINO CAPACKC B 

51-F DELTA LRR/FRR SEATING 
424 

I would also like to mention that there is another system within 

NASA to provide information on flight anomaly which parallels that which was transmitted in the flight readiness review and I 

would like to ask either Dr. Lucas or Mr. Mulloy to just mention 

that. 

Mr. MULLOY. The problem assessment system is in place at the 

Marshall Space Flight Center as a tool to assure, it is a tool used 

by our quality and reliability assurance organization, that prob- lems that occur in flights and in ground test, in development, or 

qualification motor tests that would have a bearing on the flight or 

the upcoming flights, that that is documented and tracked.That 

problem assessment system shows in the case of the O-ring erosion, it shows essentially the same information, in many cases identical 

information to what is in the flight readiness reviews. It is the 

basis for continuing to fly given the observations that we’re seeing. That information is provided here to NASA headquarters to the 

Chief Engineer’s Office. So that is another route by which the information on the O-ring erosion is known to level one. 

Mr. ROE. So what you are basically saying is that Washington level knew of part of the problems; is that a fair comment? 

Dr. GRAHAM. There are two pieces to this, one, what was transmitted and what was understood. I believe what Mr. Mulloy and 

Dr. Lucas are addressing is what was transmitted. I don’t know 

that they are the most appropriate people to express what was understood. 

That was a headquarters issue and in some cases a Johnson 

Space Center issue. It is clear the issue was not perceived at the 

seriousness with which it actually affected the system. However, 

the information was transmitted to these agencies. Mr. ROE. Where I am coming from-in 1985, the question is 

asked by Chairman Rogers to Mr. Mulloy and he says, and they all 

knew about it at the time of 51-L. Mr. Mulloy responds, yes, sir, 

you will find on the flight readiness review record that-you will 

find in the flight readiness review record that it went all the way 

to the L-1 review. That is on page 85. 

Now, one of the findings or the observations, however, of the 

Commission was, it is disturbing to the Commission that contrary 

to the testimony of the solid rocket booster project manager, the 

seriousness of concern was not conveyed in flight readiness review 

to 51-L and the 51-L flight readiness review was silent. 

Dr. GRAHAM. My point on that was that the seriousness of the 

issue has two aspects. It is the concern of it in the person who 

transmits it and the perception of it in the person receiving it. It 

has to be done in both domains and I think it is in fact unfair to 

focus all the criticism on the Marshall Space Flight Center, in this 

issue. 

They could have transmitted the information in a higher profile 

way, but also as engineers, as managers at headquarters, there was 

certainly a responsibility to perceive the significance of this. So, as 

I said at the outset, I think the problem lies in more than one location. 

Mr. ROE. Look. My job is not to nail down all the problems on 

Marshall Space Flight Center. That would be a fallacy on my part 

and the same way with whether it is the Kennedy Space Center. 
425 

You make an extremely important point, it is people’s perceptions. 

If only I had known-that is what we are going through and we 

have to do it for a few days to get it on the deck. 

The fact remains that we can deal with 7 years of knowledge 

that people in NASA knew of the problem. Even Thiokol this 

morning testified that since January they had put 40 engineers 

and people together on a team in January 1985. You now, it is still 

spunky. 

We have to try to get rid of that perception and it seems to me 

that-I guess it was President Truman, God rest his soul, came 

back and said “the buck stops here.” I have to give an account to 

565,000 people in my district, to people who elected me, as does 

every other member here. 

If we misread a public issue, then we are misreading it and that 

doesn’t make it a crime, but the fact remains do we do something 

in this instance to improve our management? That is where we are 

coming from. 

Dr. GRAHAM. I couldn’t agree more and the buck does not stop at 

Marshall, but goes to headquarters as well in this situation. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Graham, you have pointed out the system is a good system, it 

is just that people didn’t communicate what they were told. 

Dr. Lucas, when Mr. Mulloy came to you at your hotel room on 

the night of the-when Mr. Mulloy came to you at the hotel and to 

your room and said that there were some engineering concerns, 

what was your response and what was generally your discussion 

with him at that time? 

Dr. LUCAS. When that information was conveyed to me, it was 

that some people from Thiokol had expressed a concern about the 

potential effect of the weather on the O-ring, and that they were 

going out to the Kennedy Space Center to engage in a telephone 

conversation, between a few people at Kennedy and a larger 

number of our engineering people at Huntsville and at Wasatch. 

I inquired as to who in Huntsville would be involved in the telephone conversation and was given the names and I concluded on 

that basis that the appropriate people were involved in discussing 

the question. Therefore, I said, fine, proceed with it and keep me 

informed as to how the matter is resolved. 

Mr. LEWIS. To your recollection, on any previous launches did 

you have any similar concerns like this with the solid rocket boosters? 

Dr. LUCAS. Idon’t recall an instance with the solid rocket booster, but it isn’t unusual to discuss concerns about the flight hardware up until an hour or two before launch. That goes on over the 

loop and in engineering discussions off line in many launches, and 

I doubt if there have been very many where that didn’t occur. I 

don’t recall this having occurred on the solid rocket booster, however. 

Mr. LEWIS. But you were aware that for 9 years, since 1977, 

there was a concern about the possibility of a seal failure or a probability of a seal failure and that there was a concern expressed by 

Thiokol this evening. 
426 

I guess what I am concerned about, the comment was made earlier today that we have what I would consider some of the best technical minds in the business that are concerned about something like this, and then they are overridden by managers rather than by engineers. 

Dr. LUCAS. If you are referring to the night before the 

launch-- 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, January 27. 

Dr. LUCAS. Let me go back to the 7 years or whatever the time 

has been. 

Mr. LEWIS. You were supposed to have a referee testify, that 

never came off on this particular field joint. 

Dr. LUCAS. It is true that there have been concerns expressed 

over the years about this joint and there have been modifications 

and improvements made in the joint over the years. I suspect if 

you would tabulate, you would find that the concerns expressed by the Marshall Space Flight Center are equal to or greater than the 

concerns expressed by anyone else. 

The engineers who have expressed the concerns have also diligently tried and thought they had in fact improved the situation to 

the point of making it much better and I am sure they did make it 

much better. 

It turns out that under these circumstances it wasn’t made good enough. I wasn’t aware of the overriding, if that is, in fact, the case 

of Thiokol people, by the managers. 

Mr. LEWIS. I think the record will reflect that from this morning’s testimony. 

Dr. LUCAS. Ihave heard that testimony, and the testimony of the 

engineers since that time, and seen correspondence copied in the 

Roger’s report that concerns me greatly, correspondence that I 

never knew existed, correspondence marked “company confidential,” or “private,” or something like that. That never came to my attention. Had it done so, I am sure the reaction would have been 

different. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

New Hampshire, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In listening to the testimony this morning from Morton Thiokol 

and then listening to you gentlemen, it seems to me that in our 

oversight responsibility as a committee of Congress what we should 

be looking at is the term “acceptable risks.” 

We all realize, including the seven people who died realized, that 

there is a great deal of risk involved with flying in space and certainly with the rocket, but it seems to me what is unacceptable to 

this member is safety by consensus of the majority and I think essentially that is what we have here. We had a statement from the 

Thiokol people this morning that their engineers had if not a 

formal poll, at least there was some opposition in the number of 

people who were there, 12 or so in the room. 

First it was indicated that they were opposed to this flight because they didn’t feel it was an acceptable risk based upon the information about the O-rings, the temperatures, et cetera. It seems 

to me Mr. Mulloy that when you questioned, their first response to 
427 

the recommendation, which was not to fly, you essentially, at 

least-1 am not trying to put words in your mouth-you got the 

answer you were looking for, which was it is an acceptable risk in 

your mind that the information based on the data that we had concerning the O-rings and concerning the temperatures, it was your opinion that that is all the information we had. We had not really done anything differently, we hadn’t tested and, therefore, what 

you were looking for was specifically that, that this is an acceptable risk, that I don’t see anything else other than that and I don’t 

really understand why Thiokol would say otherwise, so in a senseI don’t mean to imply that you did it deliberately but I think in a 

sense you did exert pressure on Thiokol on that particular point. Would you respond to me on that, please? Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. I think I would characterize what I was 

doing as what I do when a large group of engineers who analyzed 

some data come to me with those data, with a recommendation. I 

look at the data and test the validity of that recommendation. I 

tend to challenge the conclusions that are being drawn from a 

little bit of data. I tend to challenge what conclusion can one draw 

from three data points on resiliency of O-ring when one of those 

data points say the O-ring won’t seal at 75 degrees and we had tremendous experience that it did seal at 75 degrees. That was the nature of the discussion. I think the testimony of 

the Thiokol people who made the decision was that they did not 

feel any pressure as a result of that, and I heard that in the Presidential Commission hearings and I heard it again this morning from the Thiokol people, that they do not acknowledge that they felt pressured. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield, I believe they did comment just the opposite this morning, when Mr. Kilminster was 

talking and Mr. Boisjoly, they did feel, they just had a feeling there 

was pressure on them from NASA. 

Mr. SMITH. If you look in the testimony, your testimony, I am referring now to the Rogers commission, pages 95 and 96, it just 

seems to me the bottom of page 95 under Mr. Mulloy, “It has been 

suggested, implied or stated that we directed Thiokol to reconsider 

these data.” Now referring to the information that they provided 

you. “That is not true,” you say. “Thiokol asked for a caucus so 

they could consider the discussions.” 

Then you go over to page 96, bottom of page 96, excuse me, the 

top of page 96, on the right-hand column, when you say: 

At approximately 11 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, Thiokol and NASA teleconference resumed, the Thiokol management stating that they had reassessed the prob- lem, that the temperature effects were a concern but the data were admittedly in- conclusive. 

I think what you mean there about what is inconclusive is basically what had been going on for, now we find out, a number of 

years, in terms of comments about the temperature and the 0- 

rings and this data. The data was out there, we understand that, 

but what I am trying to home in on is: Isn’t it reasonable to 

assume that if you have a bunch of very technical people, a group of very technical people, like the engineers at Thiokol, who are basically at odds with each other, they are not unanimous, they have 

some strong feelings about this thing, yet nothing new safetywise 
428 

has come up, to my-is that an acceptable risk in your mind when 

that kind of testimony is out there? 

Is that an acceptable risk? Why wasn’t something done over the 

past 6 years, or was anything done, perhaps, is a better question, 

between you at NASA and Thiokol to correct it? What specifically 

was done? Were there meetings? There was, certainly, and I 

haven’t been here for 6 years. I will defer to my colleagues. I know 

of no testimony that has come before this committee regarding the 

safety or lack thereof of the O-rings, or temperature or any other 

testimony to that effect, and I have sat through a lot of hearings in 

2 years but I don’t know of any. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, I will refer again to the first paragraph of 

chapter 6 of the Commission report. I do believe that we, NASA, 

got into a group think situation relative to the seriousness of this 

problem. We saw it and assessed it as an acceptable risk. We saw it 

again. We looked back at how we accepted it before. When we saw 

something different we ran additional testing and analysis, and we 

convinced ourselves that it was an acceptable risk, and on January 27 that same thought process was in place, and we looked at the 

data and concluded that it was an acceptable risk. 

You asked why wasn’t more done. You know, in the 6 years previous. I have had that question posed to me many times in the last 

4 months, and I have asked it of myself many times since the 

tragic accident. My answer has been, in hindsight, obviously more 

should have been done. 

The turning, I think we started down a road as well summarized 

in that first paragraph, chapter 6, where we had a design that had 

a design deficiency. When we recognized that it had a design deficiency, we did not fix it. Then we continued to fly with it, and rationalized why it was safe, and eventually concluded and convinced 

ourselves that it was an acceptable risk. That was-when we started down that road, we started down the road to eventually having 

the inevitable accident. I believe that. 

Mr. SMITH. My line of questioning is not to put you on the spot. 

My line of questioning is to try to determine for this committee 

what acceptable risk is, how we as a committee can get information that would help us to evaluate that, and I think had you felt 

as some of the Thiokol engineers-I think we are dealing with a 

philosophical difference rather than a technical difference. Philosophically, there has been a lot of information, technical information, provided about the O-rings and everybody was aware of it. 

But I think had you had the same feeling, technically, that some 

of the Thiokol people had-not all but some-perhaps you would 

have accepted their first recommendation and not gone the other 

way. So I am not trying to pin blame here. That is not my job. 

What I am trying to do here, essentially, is to-for you to give 

some information to us as to how we might oversee what is acceptable risk, and how we might correct some of the, you know, management communication mistakes, if you will, that have taken 

place over the past, apparently now, 6 years on this particular 

issue. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. Well, perhaps I am not sure that I can give 

you the help that you are asking for. I will try and then perhaps 

some of my colleagues can give a better answer than I can in that 
429 

regard. But in the specific case of the O-ring, the rationale for acceptable risk was based on the analysis and test data that showed 

the tolerance to blow-by and erosion, and we convinced ourselves, 

based on that analysis and test data, that we could sustain the 

maximum theoretical erosion and still be in a safe situation. 

That was-now, obviously since the accident we have found out a 

lot more about that joint, things that we did not know before that, 

and you are asking how can we get enough foresight in dealing 

with these type things. It is very unlikely that all 800 Criticality 1 

items will be eliminated on the shuttle system. How can we get 

where we can forecast better, and judge better, what that acceptable risk is. I don’t know that that helps, but that is the best I can 

give you. 

Mr. SMITH. Just one quick comment, Mr. Chairman, for a final 

comment. If I could give a perception on this thing it would be that 

if I were a Thiokol executive in that particular situation, what has 

happened when the recommendation came forth, at least in their 

minds, was it is nothing new, in the sense that we have said before 

we have got problems with the O-rings. We have had, what was it, 

24 successful launches-correct me if I am wrong; I think it was 24. 

Therefore, what is the cause for alarm? It is easy to look back 

and say, yeah, there is a great cause for alarm now, but I guess 

what I am saying is apparently this was-this had become an acceptable risk, in our mind, and apparently you convinced Thiokol 

of the fact that there wasn’t anything new regarding these O-rings 

or the temperature or any of this other information that would 

cause you to cancel the flight. 

Is that a fair statement of what went on in the decisionmaking 

process? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, that is a fair statement, and I would only 

add that I reached that judgment not just on the 27th but in all 

those years before then, based on the input from these same individuals, both at Thiokol and at the Marshall Space Flight Center 

and in review above that. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, may I add one more comment either 

now or after you return? 

Mr. ROE. Do it now. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Fine. 

When you ask a very deep question involving any high-technology complex program, which is what is acceptable risk, and how do 

you define it, I don’t believe it has a very short answer. But let me 

give you at least a substantial part of that in short form. 

For something like the shuttle, a purely statistical test, that is 

sample a component, test it, sample it, test it, can never, within 

reason of time and cost, be done to the degree of reliability that 

you need for operating a system like the shuttle, which is one in 

which you want a very, very small probability of failure, driven as 

close to zero as possible. In fact, what has to be done instead is that 

components have to be designed so that they perform in very predictable ways. They then have to be tested under a range of environments, and it has to be established that those components perform in the manner appropriate to the design and in the manner 

predicted. 
430 

Finally, you have to look at the failure modes of the system, and 

see what the liabilities, consequences are, if the component doesn’t 

perform in the manner that has been designed and predicted for it, 

and take that into account in assessing the overall margin and reliability you have to put into that component. That is in fact the approach that is used on space transportation system, and that clearly broke down at least in the case of the field joints on the solid 

rocket boosters. 

Mr. ROE. The committee will stand recessed while we vote. We 

will return and start again with Mr. Monson from Utah. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

When we recessed to vote, our next colleague to be recognized is 

the distinguished gentleman from Utah, Mr. Monson. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

With regard to the acceptable risk factor that we were discussing before we broke, did temperature elements come into play on that, 

or was it strictly based on erosion and temperature and resiliency I 

guess, or was it strictly based on erosion? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Let me start with that one if I may, and then I will 

pass it to Dr. Lucas and Mr. Mulloy. There was a concern over the 

erosion which had been carried for several years in the observation 

of the flight hardware data, and we have discussed that at some 

length. 

It was known that there was an erosion and blowby on the 

joints. The potential influence of temperature on that I believe was 

less well understood, and was in fact part of the engineering discussion that took place on the evening before the launch. 

While the issue of the original view of the Thiokol engineers, 

namely that it was in fact not safe to launch, was questioned, let 

me state that as an engineering discipline issue, I think it was appropriate that the NASA personnel, Mr. Mulloy involved in this 

case, did ask for the justification of that view, to understand why 

that was being made, to review the data, and to establish what the 

basis in previous experience, analysis, in fact was, that caused that. 

Now there is no question that through this process errors in 

judgment and errors in evaluation of data were made. I am certainly not trying to say anything different than that, but raising the 

question why the recommendation was made in the first instance 

seems to me as an engineering manager an appropriate question to 

ask at that time. So that in fact not only Thiokol but NASA did 

understand the reason for the recommendation. 

With that, let me ask Dr. Lucas and Mr. Mulloy to respond more 

specifically. 

Dr. LUCAS. I think Mr. Mulloy should respond to the matter of 

the temperature being a consideration. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. The temperature data that was presented 

that night was the same data that existed back in July, and was 

discussed as I say on August 19, three test data points, one at 100 

degrees, one at 75 degrees, and one at 50 degrees, and what the discussion centered around was what does that mean in terms of the 

capability to make a seal in that joint. 

Mr. MONSON. My question really was in two parts, though. You 

said that you had derived some acceptable risk standards and tem- 
431 

perature entered into those decisions up to that point, forgetting 

everything on the night of January 27, prior to that, that temperature and resiliency of the O-ring entered into it? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, it had not, as an overwhelming concern. If 

you look at the total context around August 19, 1985, the total context of that briefing that was given here at NASA headquarters, 

you will see that all of the issues and the concerns that were being 

discussed about the ability of a joint seal were concentrated on the 

erosion, the margin that one had against erosion, and the conclusion being drawn that that was an acceptable situation. 

There is no data in that presentation which was a comprehensive 

presentation. Now that lack of any concern being expressed for 

temperature continued right up to the night of January 27. There 

were two seal task force meetings which included the Marshall 

Space Flight Center engineers, where the whole interchange occurred of what are we going to do about working this problem, and 

temperature was not an overwhelming or was not a concern that 

was discussed there at all. 

It was again toward primarily bending the putty, finding an alternate to putty, perhaps going to a larger O-ring and that type 

thing. 

Mr. MONSON. Was erosion anticipated in the design process of 

this joint? 

Mr. MULLOY. Iam certain it was not. That predates me from 

when I came onto the SRB Program, but I am certain that a certain amount of erosion was not considered in the design process to 

be an acceptable-- 

Mr. MONSON. But once it was discovered that erosion occurred, 

then a decision was made that you could tolerate a certain amount 

of erosion? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, and that was based on analysis and tests 

that was done by Morton Thiokol. 

Mr. MONSON. Now on the night of January 27, a recommendation was made not to launch based on some unknown factors, what 

the effects of temperature were primarily as I understand it. Had a 

recommendation against a launch by Morton Thiokol ever been 

made prior to this? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir. 

Mr. MONSON. And so without accurate data on what their concerns were at this time, why was it considered necessary to ask 

them for data that you probably knew they didn’t have because it 

really hadn’t entered into the fact, into the decisionmaking process 

up to that point? 

Mr. MULLOY. Well, sir, I don’t believe that anyone that I heard 

ask for data that we knew that they didn’t have. What was said 

was that the data that we do have certainly do not give you a correlation between temperature and the fact that the joint will or 

will not seal. We were all concerned with the risk that we were 

taking in continuing to fly at any temperature, and what the data 

said was that there is a risk at any temperature. 

As I stated, the worst, the nearest thing to a catastrophe we had 

before 51-L was 51-Bravo, where we completely eroded away a primary O-ring and eroded the secondary O-ring, and that was at 
432 

above 70 degrees, 75 degrees I believe, and that is the kind of discussion that occurred. 

How can we reach a correlation. We know we have a risk in this 

joint. We are all concerned about the risk in this joint, but how can 

we correlate the probability of failure of the joint to temperature, 

and that was the whole gist of that 2-hour conversation. 

Mr. MONSON. Idon’t like to.Monday morning quarterback and I 

apologize for doing it, but it is hard to understand the process that 

occurred that night, when it was a concern over a lack of data, and 

then knowing that that data didn’t exist because the tests had 

really only gone down to about 50 degrees as I understand it from 

the testimony that I am hearing, and yet it was understood from 

those tests that the lower the temperature got, the more the prob- lem developed, despite the fact that you had had problems at 

higher temperatures on other flights as well. 

It just seems that the evidence was leading that way, and I just 

would hope that we will remember this and make sure that if 

there is any doubt, we don’t try to base things on whether or not 

we can prove that it is unsafe but whether or not there is data to 

support the fact that it is safe, in the future. 

Mr. MULLOY. I certainly agree with that, sir, and that is what I 

thought we were doing on the night of the 27th. 

Mr. MONSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Ritter. 

Mr. RITTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think most of what I wanted to ask has already been asked, but 

I would like to add this comment, and then some questions. 

Neil Armstrong, when he was here kicking off these meetings, 

mentioned how in the early days they figured everything would go 

wrong that could go wrong, and they were very surprised when it 

didn’t, and these days the attitude was everything is supposed to go 

right, and everything should go right, and they are surprised when 

it doesn’t. 

And I think for me that sums up what happened to the whole 

system. I think the system was really a victim of its own success. Probably the greatest single enemy of the success of 51-L, of this shuttle Challenger mission, was the success of 24 previous flights. That 

the people in the system got in the mode of thinking that they 

could do no wrong, or that the systems were so good in their integrated combined state that little things like joints and O-rings and 

things like that simply weren’t that important, and the test, the 

report, the Rogers Commission report, is so loaded with the idea 

that you almost had to prove, and I go to Mr. Lund’s remarks to 

Chairman Rogers, he said “we couldn’t prove absolutely that the 

motor wouldn’t work” and Chairman Rogers said “In other words, 

you honestly believed that you had a duty to prove that it would 

not work” and Mr. Lund said, this is the vice president for engineering at Morton Thiokol, he said “Well, that is the kind of mode 

we got ourselves into that evening. It seems like we have always 

been in the opposite mode. I should have detected that, but I didn’t. 

But the roles kind of switched.” 
433 

I think that is a very, very telling comment. Now on a more specific note, I would like to call attention to the Thiokol “Letters and 

Memoranda Written After the 0-Ring Concern Escalates.” That is 

the title. I would like to know on page 249, whether anyone at 

NASA, Marshall or elsewhere, had any idea of this kind of memo 

which was circulating at Morton Thiokol. I just read from one 

paragraph. 

It is from Mr. Boisjoly to R.K. Lund, vice president for engineering. He says, “If the same scenario should occur in a field joint, 

and it could, then it is a jump ball as to the success or failure of 

the joint because the secondary O-ring cannot respond to the clevis 

opening rate and may not be capable of pressurization.” 

By the way, the secondary O-ring cannot correspond to the previous, may not be capable of pressurization, I am not sure that is an 

erosion problem at all. We are really spending a lot of time on erosion when flexibility and compressibility is maybe the real factor. 

Anyway, “the result” he states, “would be a catastrophe of the 

highest order, loss of human life.” 

Had anyone any wind at all that this was the kind of concern 

that was in and about Morton Thiokol, and obviously this kind of 

concern is what underlies Morton Thiokol’s reticence the night 

before the launch to go ahead. Was anyone aware of this? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Ritter, I think I will ask the gentleman from 

Marshall to see if they had any specific knowledge of this. At headquarters I certainly did not, and I notice that the letter has company private, written on both the heading and the end of the letter. 

That type of communication is not normally circulated outside the 

company, although it is not impossible that it might be. 

Dr. Lucas. 

Mr. RIITER. I mean there are such things as leaks, which we are 

kind of familiar with around here. You know, this is the kind of 

thing that is leakable, because it is kind of a life and death matter. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Let me ask the representatives from Marshall if 

they were aware of this letter. 

Dr. LUCAS. I can say unequivocably that I was not aware of such 

a document as this, nor the information contained in it, and I 

would like to ask my other colleagues from Marshall if any of them 

were aware of it. 

Mr. MULLOY. Sir, I was not aware of that information that is in 

this memorandum, and certainly not aware of the specific memorandum itself. There were monthly meetings face to face, and there 

were week to week telecons that occurred between the people who 

worked this problem or the solid rocket motor program for me, and 

none of those concerns that are in this memo were conveyed to me 

in any manner. 

Dr. GRAHAM. I think another issue that might be raised here is 

why this was in fact a company private as opposed to a piece of 

information that would be transmitted, and I don’t know the 

answer to that. 

Mr. RITTER. Yes, I am a little bit concerned about that, too, in 

that there are certain things that are proprietary, there are certain 

things that you hold close to the vest, but when you deal with life 

and death issues, and you are dealing with a customer who is prob- 
434 

ably your biggest customer, you would think that this kind of, the 

strength of this argument, would be transferred. 

I am just disturbed that it isn’t. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to proceed if I may. 

Mr. WALGREN. Would the gentleman yield for one follow-on 

thought. 

Mr. RITTER. Yes, I will. 

Mr. WALGREN. That is as I understand it after the memo that 

the gentleman from Pennsylvania just read, there was a presentation made to level 1 of NASA about the O-ring problem, and obviously they communicated substantially their reservations in that 

presentation, and the question I would have is not so much what 

happened in the launch of this Challenger, but as I understand it, 

after Morton Thiokol made that original presentation to level 1 

NASA, the Commission found that, and I quote from page 148, 

“The O-ring erosion history presented to level 1 at NASA Headquarters in August 1985 was sufficiently detailed to require corrective action by or to the next flight.” 

And so the question is not so much why this flight was launched, 

but why did not NASA at the highest of levels, and this is beyond 

Marshall and beyond anybody knowing one thing and not knowing 

another thing, the information was adequate at the highest levels 

of NASA to suspend the flight in August and September 1985, and 

it wasn’t done, and what is NASA’s response to that? 

Dr. GRAHAM. I will ask Dr. Lucas to address one specific on that, 

but I think the more general answer to the question goes back to 

Mr. Ritter’s observation at the start of his questioning, and that is 

that in fact there appeared to be what I will call a culture change 

in NASA over a period of several years. During which the successes of the program led to an environment where the determined 

challenge of each issue was somewhat lessened. While I was not 

there at the time, I can certainly tell you from experience in other 

areas that as an activity becomes more successful from an engineering and a management point of view, it certainly becomes 

more difficult to challenge it, and to raise questions. 

I think this has a great implication for the future of NASA, because NASA looks forward to many successes in the future. At the 

same time it must be able to operate in a very intensely concerned 

and intensely skeptical mode while it is going through those successes. 

Mr. RITTER. Right. If the gentleman would yield back, I would appreciate the quality of the gentleman’s line of questioning, but I 

have been waiting here all day long and we are going to be going 

to vote. I have another part of my question that I would like to 

complete. There is another memo here titled “Activity Report,” 

and that is all, and it is again by Mr. Boisjoly and it doesn’t say 

just company, private, but let me quote. 

It says, I might add, that even NASA perceives that the team is 

being blocked in its engineering efforts to accomplish its tasks. 

NASA is sending an engineering representative to stay with us 

starting October 14. So it is right in that period of time that my 

colleague from Pennsylvania talked about. We feel that this is the 

direct result of their feeling that we, MTI-I am not sure what 
435 

that means-are not responding quickly enough on the seal problem. 

And so there seems to be some fairly extensive-I don’t know 

how extensive, but there seems to be some conflict between the 

progress of the Morton Thiokol team and NASA’s expectations, at 

least according to Mr. Boisjoly, and yet when Morton Thiokol 

comes back and says we are not ready, from our perspective we 

prefer not to launch, it is NASA which overrides or to some extent 

calls the shots on Morton Thiokol. 

Dr. GRAHAM. That was obviously a long and hard engineering 

discussion. I believe NASA stated during that in fact NASA would 

not proceed with the launch or at least the Marshall Space Flight Center personnel would not recommend proceeding with the 

launch if in fact Morton Thiokol recommended against it. That is 

not intended to excuse NASA for any responsibility in the situation. NASA clearly bears a major responsibility, but nevertheless it 

was not NASA’s intention nor did NASA override Thiokol. They 

may have inadvertently biased the Thiokol answer. 

Mr. RITTER. Mr. Hardy’s comment that he was appalled by Thiokol’s original recommendation, and Mr. Reinartz’ comment we 

won’t be able to launch until April-were you present when Mr. 

Hardy mentioned that he was appalled at the initial recommendation of Thiokol? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. RITTER. Were you appalled? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, I was surprised at the conclusion drawn 

from the data, and a 2-hour discussion prior to that I think tended 

to establish that that conclusion could not be drawn from the data 

presented. Mr. RITTER. What is the meaning of the word “appalled’’ in this 

case? Does it mean that he doesn’t agree with - it or he doesn’t like 

it? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, I can’t speak for what was in Mr. Hardy’s mind when he used that term. 

Mr. RIITER. Mr. Hardy is not here today? 

Mr. MULLOY. He is not here today, but I believe that he had the 

same feeling that I did, that you just can’t reach that conclusion 

from these data. 

Mr. RITTER. The interesting thing was the four people, the four 

management people who eventually made the decision out of the 

group of 12 which was in the caucus-and I don’t have the list of 

their names with me at the moment; it is in this pile here. But as I 

understand it, not one of them was intimately related to the work 

on the seals. 

In other words, the vice president for engineering was not-I 

guess he was the one who had reservations and the other three 

were not related to the seal problem. Were you aware that that is 

how that decision was made, or did you have any idea of the decision process that Thiokol went through to change their mind? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, I was not aware at all of that process. As 

has been testified, we were on mute and it was some 30 minutes 

and they came back with a rationale for a recommendation for 

launch. However, after becoming aware through testimony as to 

who was involved with that, Mr. Kilminster is intimately familiar 
436 

with the problems on the seal, he dealt with that in our flight readiness reviews on a number of occasions. 

Mr. RITTER. But it has been pointed out by people at Thiokol that 

the people wanting to develop the solution to the seal were simply 

not getting cooperation. That kind of bothers me too. Was it 

Morton Thiokol that was not cooperating to put together the kind 

of team solution approach? Was NASA involved in that? We had 

some pretty frustrated engineers testifying this morning that they 

were trying to push this. Here is a memo saying that NASA is 

aware of this and NASA knows that the team is being blocked in 

its engineering efforts to accomplish its task and yet-and yet-- 

Mr. MULLOY. Let me explain. As I have said, I was not aware of 

any of those memos or those weekly activity reports or the fact 

that the reason the work wasn’t getting done was because these engineers were frustrated by their own management policies. I was 

not aware of that. However, we were trying to get an alternate configuration that would improve the margin that we could test on 

our qualification motor No. 5 originally scheduled to be fired in November. It is a qualification motor for the first Vandenberg launch, 

a filament-wound case motor, but it has the same joint configuration, the nozzle to case and in the field joints. So around October, I 

got concerned that the results weren’t coming in to allow us to 

reach a conclusion as to what the configuration that we could put 

on that QM-5-- 

Mr. RITTER. Were you expecting those results? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, we were. 

Mr. RITTER. And yet those results were not forthcoming? 

Mr. MULLOY. They were not forthcoming. As a result of that, I 

scheduled a meeting-I can’t recall the exact date-in the OctoberNovember timeframe and told Thiokol I wanted them to come into 

Marshall and tell us how they were coming on arriving at a recommended configuration for the equipment for the QM-5 firing. 

That meeting did occur, and it became evident that there had 

not been a whole lot of work done, and again in that meeting the 

frustrations of the engineers were not being conveyed. It was just 

simply that the work wasn’t getting done. That briefing was given 

to Mr. Kingsbury and myself and we then provided some emphasis 

to Thiokol that it was very important that that work get done so 

we c.ould select a configuration for QM-5. 

Mr. RITTER. One last point. 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. The chair recognizes the 

distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One of the conclusions of the Rogers Commission reads: “The 

Commission concluded that the Thiokol management reversed its 

position and recommended the launch of 51-L at the urging of 

Marshall.” 

Dr. Graham, do you agree with that Rogers Commission contention? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Walker, my information on that is derivative, 

basically information I have been told by others who were participating in that, so I am going to ask-- 
437 

Mr. WALKER. Iwant an answer from each of the people at the 

table as to whether or not they agree with that finding of the 

Rogers Commission. 

Dr. GRAHAM. I have no independent information to either confirm or deny that particular statement, so I would only be giving information based on secondary sources that I have. I have not yet found those to be of sufficient specificity that I can give a complete- ly conclusive answer. There was certainly a very active discussion. 

Much of it, in my view, during the telecon the evening before, was 

proper engineering and technical probing of the reason the recommendation was put forward. 

However, it is possible that that went beyond probing and into a 

situation that Thiokol interpreted as being an attempt to encourcge or otherwise steer them to a specific conclusion. I believe that 

is the view Thiokol stated, and I understand that is their view of 

the situation. 

Mr. WALKER. Iam not worried about what Thiokol is stating. 

The Rogers Commission conclusions, in all the various phases, is 

going to be the guidance of where we go from here, and I think 

that this is a fairly important conclusion given where we are after 

testimony today, and I am trying to find out whether NASA management, to begin with, agrees with that conclusion of the Rogers Commission, and that is that the position was reversed at the 

urging of Marshall. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Once again, I certainly accept the conclusions and 

the recommendations of the Rogers Commission. 

Mr. WALKER. So you do agree with that? 

Dr. GRAHAM. I understand that is their conclusion and accept that as their view of the situation. 

Mr. WALKER. What is NASA’s view of the situation? 

Dr. GRAHAM. NASA certainly-- 

Mr. WALKER. What is NASA’s view of the situation? 

Dr. GRAHAM. I am not adding information to the process because 

I don’t have independent information. I am accepting what is being 

told to NASA by the Rogers Commission. 

Mr. WALKER. So you accept the Rogers Commission conclusion 

that the Thiokol management reversed its position at the urging of 

Marshall? 

Dr. GRAHAM. I accept the conclusion that Thiokol reversed their 

position, particularly as they determined it to be, at the urging of 

NASA. I believe that is what was stated there. 

Mr. WALKER. It is the conclusion of the Rogers Commission that 

it took place that way. I am asking whether or not, based upon everything you know, whether NASA has also arrived at that conclusion. 

Dr. GRAHAM. I have not independently arrived at that conclusion, but I accept that conclusion of the Rogers Commission. 

Mr. WALKER. Admiral Truly? Admiral TRULY. That is the way I was going to answer it. I 

accept the conclusion of the Rogers Commission. The commission 

took all the testimony in closed and open public testimony, came to 

that conclusion and I accept it. And since it resulted in the most 

important part of the Rogers Commission report, which was the 

findings and recommendations, which is what we are using, to 
438 

move out on to correct the problems, I see no reason for myself to 

go further into it than to accept their findings. 

Mr. WALKER. Dr. Lucas. 

Dr. LUCAS. Based upon my own knowledge, I have no knowledge that NASA did influence Thiokol. I was not in the meeting. I have 

talked to all of my people who were, and they do not believe that 

they influenced Thiokol or insisted that Thiokol change their posi- tion on the matter. 

Mr. WALKER. So you disagree with the Rogers Commission? 

Dr. LUCAS. No, sir. I don’t have all the information from the 

Rogers Commission and would not be in a position to disagree with 

them. 

Mr. WALKER. If you don’t have it, who does? This is directed at 

Marshall. 

Dr. LUCAS. I believe there are still a few volumes that have not 

yet been released. 

Mr. WALKER. So you are saying that you do accept that conclusion by the Rogers-- 

Dr. LUCAS. Iaccept the conclusion. 

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Mulloy. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, I think that is a conclusion that the Rogers 

Commission drew from all of the testimony. I have not seen all of 

the testimony. As Dr. Lucas said, there are four volumes yet to be 

released and I don’t know the total basis by which they reached 

their judgment. I was not aware that I was trying on the night of 

the 27th to influence Thiokol to reverse their position. However, Thiokol has testified in testimony, that I have seen some individuals felt, that is what they perceived, and I think that is the basis 

of the Commission’s judgment and I have no argument with the 

Commission’s judgment. 

Mr. WALKER. So we agree across the table that the commission is 

right, that Thiokol management reversed its position and recommended the launch of 51-L at the urging of Marshall? We are 

agreed now across the table that that is in fact what took place? Dr. GRAHAM. I believe our statement, Mr. Walker, was that we 

accept that and accept the results derived from that to move forward. 

Mr. WALKER. If we are accepting that, if we are accepting that 

statement, then I want to know how it is that it happens, who at 

Marshall did that urging? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Well, in the first instance, that was a report, as I 

understand it, by the commission and of a response of the Thiokol 

Corp. We can certainly describe who was involved in it. 

Mr. WALKER. Excuse me, but the Thiokol Co. is out of this at this 

point. We are dealing with a recommendation and a finding of the 

Rogers Commission. We have taken testimony from you and Thiokol. They have arrived at a conclusion, and we have a conclusion in 

place that that happened. Now we want to find out why it hap- pened, how it happened, who did it, is where I am now going. That 

is my next question. If we are agreed that that took place, then the real question on 

my mind is who made the decision that allowed-for example, we 

had Mr. McDonald before us today who said that at least three different people, employees of Marshall he felt put pressure on him. 
439 

Why was that? Who made the decision that those employees should 

put that kind of pressure on Mr. McDonald? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Walker, we are certainly not disputing either 

the findings or the recommendations that come from that. However, as has been stated, there are more volumes that we haven’t 

seen, and in addition, this is a perception of the people at Thiokol 

as then determined by the Rogers Commission. I anticipate that 

Thiokol and the Rogers Commission would be better prepared to 

address the specifics of that issue than we would. 

Mr. WALKER. Mr. McDonald said something today, earlier, in 

which he said that he told someone at NASA that if you go ahead 

with this decision, he wouldn’t want to face a board of inquiry about it if something had happened to the shuttle. 

Who did he say that to? 

Mr. MULLOY. Sir, he said that to Mr. Reinartz and myself after 

the decision was passed down from Thiokol. He made it in the context that if he was the launch director, because of the situation 

with the retrieval ships, that he would not launch this vehicle. Although he agreed that there was some question about the recommendations for it not to fly below 53 degrees, and then he went on 

to say, “If I was the launch director in making this decision,” I 

don’t believe that is what he said. 

Let me restate. He said, “I would not want to appear before a 

board of inquiry,” and he explained why, that Y had flown this vehicle outside of the propellant mean bulk temperature specification 

limits.” 

Mr. WALKER. Now, he said that to people whom he also testified 

were making statements to him indicating that they wanted this 

vehicle to fly. For example, at least somebody said to him, “My God, do you want me to wait until April?” 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WALKER. What does that mean? 

Mr. MULLOY. I think I said that, and what it meant was that we 

had flown vehicles successfully and that blow-by was independent 

of temperature, as indicated by the data, and that there was no 

correlation with cold temperature. 

Mr. WALKER. But the point is that there is a pattern here. Were 

you feeling pressure from anyone to get that launch underway? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, and I do not-again, I did not know that I 

was applying pressure to anyone else. Mr. McDonald has testified 

that he felt pressured. 

Mr. WALKER. He felt pressure not only from you, but Mr. Reinartz and Mr. Hardy, he said. In other words, everyone that was 

there from Marshall was evidently putting pressure on him toward 

a particular decision, and that was to launch. 

Now, doesn’t that strike you as odd? That he wasn’t feeling pressure from one person? He was feeling pressure from all three 

people. Now, can you understand that maybe he thought a decision 

had been made even higher up than each of you? This wasn’t isolated according to his testimony earlier today. 

Now, why was that? What was it that was driving each of the 

three of you from Marshall to say to Mr. McDonald that you felt 

that we had to get on and begin flying. What was driving you? 
440 

Mr. MULLOY. Well, sir, I was not aware that I was driven. What I 

was doing as I have testified before was looking at the data that 

was being presented. What Mr. Hardy was doing was looking at 

the data that was being presented. What Mr. Reinartz was doing 

was looking at the data that was being presented. What Morton 

Thiokol engineering management was doing was looking at those 

data. What the engineers at Marshall, if I may finish, sir, what the 

engineers at Marshall were doing was looking at those data and 

trying to correlate the data with the recommendations that was 

being made. 

I don’t think anyone at the Marshall Space Flight Center was determined to launch that vehicle in an unsafe condition. 

Mr. WALKER. But, you see, sure it is hindsight on our part, but 

when we go back and look at data that you were looking at, it 

raises questions. Every flight that had been flows below 65 degrees 

had had erosion. We had the test, and you say that you discounted 

it because at 75 degrees, you had flown and you had not had a 

problem, but the fact is that at 75 degrees, it ultimately did seal, 

but you had 100 percent assurance that at 50 degrees, it didn’t seal 

at all, so that at least that part of the test was valid. 

You had a group of conclusions, all of which led to a question of 

temperature sensitivity, all of which were ignored, in other words, 

to go ahead and fly, and yet you had testimony earlier today from 

Morton Thiokol that when they went into that meeting, the engi- neering meeting, the offline meeting, that no one at that meeting started with the premise that you ought to fly, that they ultimately 

went back and got convinced that they ought to fly, but there were 

at least four people even at the end that didn’t think they should 

go, and nobody began the meeting arguing that they should fly. 

Now, somewhere along the line, there was a building pressure to do something here that no one was enthusiastic about, at least in 

the initial instance, and I am trying to determine how that took 

place. 

Mr. MULLOY. Sir, I can give you my perception of that. I don’t 

agree that it was a building pressure. I think that there were insights gained during the course of that 2-hour discussion about the 

data between the engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center 

and the engineers at Thiokol, and the engineering managers who 

were listening to that discussion. 

I believe there was additional insight gained relative to conclusions that one could draw from those data. That is my perception 

of what happened. 

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, the second bells have rung, thank 

you. 

Mr. ROE. Are you finished? 

Mr. WALKER. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. We will again, I regret, have to go back and vote. We 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

When we recessed to vote, we were about to call upon our colleague, Mr. Walgren from Pennsylvania. 

Mr. WALGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This whole process of 

trying to sense responsibility is pretty difficult, and we on the one 

will recess for 10 minutes. Mr. Walgren, you are up next. 
441 

hand don’t want to be blaming somebody unfairly. On the other 

hand, it is very important that NASA as an organization change 

whatever it was that caused this, and I was glad to hear Dr. 

Graham emphasize the point of skepticism and building in somehow a much different mindset than might be there. 

On the other hand, it sure is difficult to sense the real pressure 

of responsibility. Perhaps it is there, but it is hard for me to sense 

it, listening to the testimony at these several hearings. 

Culture is in a sense something that can’t be penetrated. If you 

can blame something on a culture, there is really no way to go 

behind that, and I would urge you as NASA representatives not to 

stop at that point. 

We had a world war that somebody blamed on culture, and there 

was no responsibility. I think somehow that you have to go deeper 

than that. I wish I could encourage you to do it. 

I wanted to ask two avenues that to me seemed to sort of stop in 

the record. One is Thiokol came to NASA and made a complete 

presentation, as I understand it, of their apprehension that the 0- 

rings were going to fail, in late August 1985, and the only pickup 

on that in the report that I see is one memorandum from Mr. 

Kingsbury saying that he is most anxious to be briefed on the 0- 

ring problem, because it does not seem to appear to carry the priority which I attach to this situation. 

And then, that is the end of the formal record that I know of. 

The truth of it is that the Commission found that just on that presentation to NASA at the highest levels in August 1985, that was 

enough to stop all flights. 

Now, is there some reason other than culture that that didn’t 

stop the flights, and if not, can I urge NASA to pursue whatever 

the followup on that O-ring presentation of Thiokol’s was, because 

in the lack of stopping the flights, that is what caused the accident, 

not the temperature on January 27, not the private memo from 

Thiokol, but the lack of NASA’s responsibility, according to the 

Commission, that on that information alone, no further flights 

should have occurred. 

Is there a quick answer to why the Commission’s finding that the 

flight should have stopped in August 1985, and that everyone had 

enough information to stop it, why did not that happen? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Walgren, let me ask Dr. Lucas to address that, 

but before he does, let me just say one quick thing on the culture 

issue. I come from the private sector. I have been at NASA now 

about a half a year. I think culture in a corporate sense and in an 

agency sense is a very specific quantity which permeates the organization, deals with the approach to subjects, deals with whether 

probing questions are asked, whether issues are challenged, whether people from the top to bottom are put face to face in dealing 

with issues in the organization. 

I think that is something that is under management control from 

the top of the agency down, and something that is not an ephemeral quantity but something that has to be addressed and controlled, 

and directed by the top management of the organization. 

To me it is a very real quantity. 
442 

Mr. WALGREN. And I would like to ask if Dr. Lucas could give 

that submission to the record because I don't have enough time 

and I tend to preface things too much. 

[The information follows:] 

Material requested for the record on pages 230, line 5403 and 

250, line 5862, by Mr. Walgren during the June 17, 1986, hearing. 

NASA agreed with the conclusion of the Morton Thiokol briefing of 

August 19, 1985, which concluded that "Analysis of existing data 

indicates it is safe to continue flying the existing design as long as all joints are leak checked with a 200 psig stabilization 

pressure, are free of contamination in the seal areas and meet 

O-ring squeeze requirements .' 

Mr. WALGREN. The second avenue that I wanted to direct your attention to, and in this I am trying to be constructive in thinking myself about what would I think about if I were in those circumstances, there were recommendations that there be a near-term fix, 

as I understand it, made by Thiokol, that shims be placed on every flight since August, on the flight after the one that was scheduled 

to go August 22, 1985, the Thiokol people recommend shimming in 

every flight thereafter. 

In the NASA memos it is picked up. I cannot bring it right back, 

but there was a recognition that that would be a good thing to do, 

a near-term fix. 

As I understand it, this rocket was not stacked until November 

1985. I don't understand why a recommendation for a fix as simple 

as my own understanding of shimming would be, would not be incorporated in a flight where the rocket is not put together until 

November 1985, when near-term fixes to a critical problem had 

been recommended with the intensity that recommendations were 

made in this O-ring situation. 

Is there an answer to why this rocket was not subject to that 

near-term fix? 

Mr. MULLOY. Sir, was that recominendation made in the August 

19 briefing? I am not familiar with the recommendation in that 

timeframe to do additional shimming on the joints. 

Mr. WALGREN. Well, what I am basing this on is there was an 

internal Thiokol memorandum which recommended a near-term 

fix involving the shims, and then I thought I remembered that 

being picked up in some of the discussions of NASA people, and I 

gather that would have been before November 1985, when I understand this rocket was put together. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. Of course the joints are shimmed now. 

That was a recommendation that goes back in the pre-1980 timeframe for shims and some of the documentation that was provided the Commission. 

Mr. WALGREN. I am looking at the August 22 Thiokol memorandum. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WALGREN. Where they recommend a maximum shim for a 

near-term solution be incorporated for flights following STS-27, 

which is currently at that point scheduled for August 24, and then 
443 

I am convinced that somebody in NASA at least was very aware of 

the ability to do an improvement by increasing the shipping because of the effect that has apparently of increasing the pressure and helping you with the erosion problem. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. That was discussed in terms of custom 

shimming, but this recommendation that you refer to here did not 

come to NASA. I did not receive any recommendation during that 

timeframe to do custom shimming, and I don't recall that from the 

August 19 briefing at NASA Headquarters as being one of the 

near-term recommended fixes. That was a memo from Arnie 

Thompson to-- 

Mr. WALGREN. I would hope just in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, 

that those in charge of this review within NASA be really looking 

at why there was not better pickup on the August Thiokol report 

on O-ring seals that would-goes right by any of the questions of 

who knew what when. Apparently everything necessary was 

known. There was no pickup. And second, why there was not 

pickup on this recommendation of the near-term fix, which would 

also if acted on reasonably promptly change the circumstances of 

the flight in January, and it would seem from a management 

standpoint you would be able to see how your organization was operating, and what improvements might be made. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. GRAHAM. We will take that for the record, Mr. Walgren, with 

your permission. 

[The information follows:] 

Material requested for the record on page 253, line 5934, by 

Mr. Walgren during the June 17, 1986, hearing. 

Changes to flight hardware designs are not made on the basis of 

recommendations contained in internal company memos, even where 

NASA might have a copy of such a memo. Changes require a formal 

proposal by the contractor and a comprehensive evaluation of the 

proposed change by NASA. 

In our knowledge, no one at MSFC was aware of the Thompson memo. 

However, ideas contained in that memo were considered for 

incorporation on a qualification motor (QM-5) which is part of 

the Filament Wound Case (FWC) program. The larger O-ring was 

incorporated, the additional shims were not. In hindsight, it is 

fortunate that additional shims were not incorporated since 

testing after the accident has shown that the conclusions stated 

in Mr. Thompson's memo that increasing squeeze is good have been 

proven to be just the opposite, i.e., too much squeeze is bad. 
444 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. 

Volkmer. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Mulloy, in your early testimony you reviewed 

going over the level 1 flight readiness reviews that preceded flight 

51-L. I don’t have the copies of all those, the appendix hasn’t been 

printed yet. 

I look forward to it because what I do find within the Commission report is, however, that words like “the condition is acceptable”, that this is acceptable. Those were the words used in almost 

all of those flight readiness reviews? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir; risk acceptable or condition is acceptable. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Right. 

Mr. MULLOY. Based on our previous experience. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And if that is presented to me if I am in higher 

headquarters, somebody presents that to me, again we are looking 

at what you are saying and what I am hearing, and what I hear is, 

well, it is something that you just don’t worry about, it is acceptable, and that concerns me, because it also concerns me, Mr. 

Mulloy-and Mr. Heard is not here-but if at the time on the teleconference when Thiokol made their first presentation with their 

criteria for not going ahead with the launch, and you and your 

staff and your people there had said OK, we are going to scrub it, 

we will go and look at it tomorrow, do you think Thiokol would 

have turned around and said “No, we are going to go ahead and go 

and have a little conference of our own, a caucus of our own, to 

change their mind.” 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir; I do not believe they would have done that. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I don’t either, and that is what disturbs me, because, gentlemen, in answer to your questions by the gentleman 

from Pennsylvania, you all said that you really didn’t know yourself, know whether Marshall turned Thiokol around. It is obvious 

to me that the attitude and what proceeded with Thiokol, and what 

occurred during that teleconference, maybe it wasn’t said directly 

but there is no question in my mind that it is there. 

I think that Marshall has to accept that responsibility. If you 

gentlemen aren’t going to accept that responsibility, that gives me 

great concern, great concern for the future for what is going to 

occur. 

Dr. GRAHAM. In fact NASA does accept the responsibility, and 

accepts the Commission recommendations in that regard. I believe 

the distinction that was being made was that, as was testified here 

this morning, or this afternoon rather. As I understand the statement of the NASA engineers involved in that, it was not their intention to transmit the signal to Thiokol that they were being intimidated or otherwise asked to make a decision that was contrary 

to their engineering judgment. Rather they were being asked to explain the basis for the judgment. 

Nevertheless, it is clear the signal was received the other way. 

That is a very serious problem, and something we have to take 

every effort to guard against occurring in the future, while at the 

same time still being able to understand why recommendations are 

made. 
445 

Mr. VOLKMER. And to be honest with you, Mr. Mulloy, do you 

now feel that temperature has an impact on the operation and the 

sealing effect of O-rings, lower temperature? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir; I agree with the Commission’s conclusions 

in that regard relative to the failure investigation. They list a 

number of causes for the failure of that joint, and temperature is 

listed as a contributing factor and I believe that is correct. 

Mr. VOLKMER. What brought you to that conclusion? 

Mr. MULLOY. I think the failure analysis done that showed there 

was a lot about that joint that we didn’t understand going into 

51-L. We didn’t understand the effect of overcompression on O-rings. What we worried about prior to 51-L was being assured that we 

did have compression on O-rings. What we found as a result of the 

failure investigation, that overcompression was also a contributing 

cause to the accident, in combination with temperature and other 

factors. 

So, I think we know a lot more about that joint today than we 

did before 51-L. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Why didn’t we know it beforehand? 

Mr. MULLOY. I guess it is difficult for me to answer this way, but 

I was not smart enough to know it beforehand. The people, Morton Thiokol and the engineers that we have, had been looking at this 

problem over the last 7 to 8 years. They were looking at the observations and making judgments and making recommendations to 

continue flying, based on those data, were not smart enough to recommend the additional testing, and the people who reviewed that 

at levels above me were not smart enough to say that we need to 

do more than what we are doing. 

It is tough for me to say that, but I don’t know any other way in 

hindsight. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And the fact that you accepted the data for low 

temperatures for the DM-4 O-ring at 40 degrees, and the QM-3 at 

45 degrees as a model for an SRB for launch purposes-does that 

today give you any qualm? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir; it does not. I think that these are flight 

motors that are in a horizontal position. When the motor is put in 

the horizontal position it sags about 8 inches, which puts some 

varying gaps, and so forth, in those joints. When you pressurize the 

motor for the actual firing, you get the real simulation of the dy- namics of what is actually happening in the joint versus a test 

where you just have two steel platens and you are measuring the 

resiliency of an O-ring. I think a full-scale flight motor test at 40 degrees is a more sig- nificant data point than a scale test of resiliency of an O-ring. 

Mr. VOLKMER. But there had been no leak check on those? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir; they were leak-checked. All static firing 

motors were checked, and that DM-4 is a flight motor fired with 

an ambient temperature of 36 degrees, and an O-ring temperature 

of 40 degrees. QM-3 was at an ambient temperature of 40 degrees with an 0- 

ring temperature of 45 degrees. There was another set of data that 

correlated to low temperature that was presented by Thiokol that 

night. That was the full-scale testing on joint segment field joints that were done with an O-ring that was 5 mills undersized, and a 

64-295 0 - 86 - 15 
446 

durometer of 90, the hardness was 90 as opposed to 75, which correlates to the flight O-ring, which has a room temperature durometer 

of 75. But, that correlates to a 30-degree condition on the motor, so 

there was significant test data that would indicate that at 30 and 

40 degrees, the motor would function. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Why would the Commission-maybe we will have 

to find out something from them. On page 129 of the report, it 

shows in relation to the demonstration motors and the qualifica- tion motors, that pressure and nozzle, it is not applicable. 

Mr. MULLOY. STS-4 was lost at sea, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I am not saying STS-4, I am saying all the DM’s 

and all the QM’s. My copy shows that pressure is not applicable, nozzle not applicable-- 

Mr. MULLOY. I suspect that that judgment was reached because 

the practice at Morton Thiokol during that time when the joints were assembled. They went in and looked at the configuration of 

putty, and tamped more putty into the joint at that time, and I 

think their judgment was that that invalidated any significance of 

those test data. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Inother words, if there is a leak check made then 

they went in and filled the putty holes? 

Mr. MULLOY. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. You don’t do that on a flight motor? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, we do not. 

Mr. VOLKMER. That is what I am-you know, if I could have a 

little bit, I am very concerned about the, I would say attitude towards this because as one who has tried to be objective in it all the 

way, I find it-and maybe it is hindsight and not foresight again, but the engineers for Thiokol, not management, but the engineers that raised the question to begin with, I don’t believe ever changed their mind about what happened or what was going to happen or 

the possibility of that happening, and I just think that they raised 

some very valid points that evening that should have been followed. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Lucas, you have had a long and distinguished career and you 

have thousands of people that have been working for you and your predecessors who have rendered invaluable service and will continue to render invaluable service, and despite the circumstances, the 

tragic circumstances that bring us together here over the very serious mistakes that have been made, I do not want to lose sight of 

the fact of the commendable service that has been rendered from 

the Marshall Space Flight Center over the years, including the 

Apollo and the Shuttle Program. 

Now, what I would like to talk to you about is, particularly Jack 

Lee of the Marshall Space Flight Center, was tasked to do the investigation on what went wrong and he told us about a week-and-ahalf ago down at the Kennedy Space Center, and it was repeated last week in hearings, that indeed analysis was to have been done 

down to 31 degrees, that that was a part of the design spec, and we 
447 

have-we have checked the documents, we have them here, you have copies, you know what it is, and as far as I can read English, 

indeed that is what the design specs were. Natural environment 

down to 31 degrees, and for induced environment down to on the 

strut 21 degrees, and on the skin at the joint 25 or 26 degrees. 

Now, when Jack talked to us at the Kennedy Space Center and 

then again here last week, he said that they had no evidence that 

the analysis had in fact been done despite the fact that the certifications or the verification completion notice had been signed before 

STS-1 and also again before STS-5. This morning when representa- tives of Morton Thiokol were here, I questioned them as to this, 

and they stated that they don’t read this being a contractual requirement or in case that word would imply something else, that 

they don’t feel that the design specifications required that kind of 

analysis. What I would like to glean from you and/or any of your representatives, including Mr. Lee, Mr. Mulloy, anyone, at your pleas- ure, is if you could share for us what your interpretation of the 

design specs were. 

Dr. LUCAS. Mr. Nelson, I certainly will and then I will ask Mr. 

Mulloy to amplify that somewhat. My understanding of the specifi- cation requirements are exactly as you have presented them and 

we interpreted when they were certified as having been met by Thiokol, that there was no ambiguity there, that it was 31 degrees, 21 degrees and 25 or 26 degrees respectively. That is a program document. It is imposed upon the contractor for the delivery of that 

element and it was so certified as having met that. 

Mr. Mulloy, you want to talk about the details? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes. I agree with you, sir, in reading that. It is incredible, I think, that there could be any misinterpretation of it. 

The shuttle program level specification JSC-07700, volume 10, ap pendix 1010 does contain the natural environment requirements. It 

shows that requirement clearly for vertical flight for a temperature 

range of 31 degrees Fahrenheit to 99 degrees Fahrenheit. It also 

shows the induced environment that says each element of the shuttle vehicle shall be capable of withstanding induced environments 

imposed during transportation, ground operations, handling and 

flight operations as specified in appendix 1011. 

Then we have taken that and interpreted that into the end item 

specification to which the solid rocket motor is procured. That spec- ification is CPW1-33, and that interpretation says under natural 

environment in that specification, that SRM shall withstand the 

natural environment defined in JSC-07700, volume 10, appendix 1010, which is the 31 degrees for vertical flight. The induced environment, it says the SRM shall withstand the 

induced environment thermal or environmental conditions defined 

in the following document: SD-784-SH-0144. This is the thermal 

interfaces design data book. This document is required by appendix 1011 of JSC-07700, volume 10. 

If one looks at the specification in SD-74-SH-0144, it shows a 

temperature range for the skin of the SRB for prelaunch condition 

of 25 degrees to 120 degrees. It further defines what it means by prelaunch condition. It states that the prelaunch-let me read it 

from the document, if I have it. 
448 

Prelaunch, it states: 

The prelaunch post-fill surface temperature histories are presented herein for the 

hot and cold day environment specified in the space shuttle flight and ground 

system specification JSC-0700 volume 10, appendix 1010. 

The key words there are “post fill.” That means that the external tank has been fueled. That is not a storage condition, that is 

clearly a prelaunch condition, and this environment alludes to that 

prelaunch condition. 

It, further, has data included in that document which is the diurnal cycle or the day-to-day temperature swing that goes with the 

coldest day, so one can then do the analysis that arrives at that 

temperature. You are correct also in stating that Thiokol certified 

that the motor was qualified to that document which requires that, 

and you are also correct in saying that the Government, NASA, 

and all the reviews that were done by NASA, accepted that certification. There were independent reviews done also of that wherein 

that certification was also accepted when in fact there is no basis 

for that certification. 

Mr. NELSON. Is the certification to which you refer the verification completion notice? 

Mr. MULLOY. That is one, sir. It is also the certificate of qualification where both Thiokol asserts that the qualification requirements 

have been met and the Government, NASA in this case, also attests that the qualification requirements have been met. So there is 

a verification completion notice and then there is a certificate of 

qualification. 

Mr. ROE. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. NELSON. I have a key question. 

Mr. ROE. You always have a key question, but he is saying there 

is no basis for certification. Is that what you said? 

Mr. MULLOY. I believe I did say that, and that is in error, sir, 

because the basis for certification is the military specification for 

the O-ring which says that the O-ring is capable of operating from 

minus 30 to 500 degrees. That same military specification goes an 

to say, however, you must do a specific analysis of the particular application of that O-ring in the environment that it is to be used 

in for certification. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, what do you want to do? We have a 

vote. 

Mr. ROE. Why don’t we vote and return. We have to finish this 

line of questioning and so we will return in 10 minutes, if they ever 

decide to finish it. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. The distinguished gentleman from Florida will please proceed. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Where we were was we were talking about the question of what 

was the design specification, and the witnesses had just testified 

that they thought that the design specification indeed called for 

the design specification to work for the entire SRM down to 31 degrees and induced temperature in the range of 21 for the strut and 

about 25 or 26 for the skin near the joint. 
449 

Now, the next question is, since you spoke, Mr. Mulloy, about the 

verification completion and the other documentation that you talked about, qualification, do you have any evidence that indeed 

the analysis that you make reference to was required by this 

design specification? Do you have any evidence that in fact that 

analysis was in fact completed by the contractor? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, I do not. Where it showed that the analysis is required, was entered, is that the basis for certification in the 

military specification for the O-ring from minus 30 to 500 degrees. Mr. NELSON. Now what you are telling me is that the basis that 

the Government signs off on this verification completion is solely 

on the basis of a military specification for the O-ring? Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, because that is the basis that was present- ed by Morton Thiokol as the basis for certification of that requirement. 

Mr. NELSON. But that in reality doesn’t have anything to do with 

the design specification. 

Mr. MULLOY. I agree, sir. 

Mr. NELSON. So in essence, in the case of STS-1 and STS-5, 

where the signoff b the Government occurred, that the-that 

things were verifie B -we were verifying-we the Government, 

NASA was verifying on the basis of an incorrect piece of information as to compliance with the design specification. Do you read it 

that way? Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, I do. I believe that is not a valid basis for 

certification of that requirement, and I believe the Government 

review of that failed to recognize that. 

Mr. NELSON. On December 8, 1982, when you had signed off the 

one before STS-5, do you have any recollection as to what was the 

information upon which you gave that approval? Mr. MULLOY. Yes, I do. I believe that was the certification review 

to look at the difference in the lightweight case. That was a light- weight certification to update that, and everything other than the 

changes in the factor of safety due to the lightweight case and 

some other things, which I cannot recall, with similarity to the 

steel case. So my presumption at that time was that the steel case 

had been certified for that environment prior to STS-1, and there 

was nothing that caused me to question that when we did the recertification for the lightweight case. 

Mr. NELSON. But specifically it had a volume 10 verification requirement, completed one of those, was with regard to the induced 

temperature? Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, that is correct, and my basis for that was 

by similarity to the steel case and as it turns out, I was referencing 

a nonexistent data base, 

Mr. NELSON. Well, who in the Government would have considered the design specification to have been certified by considering what you said was the evidence supplied by the contractor, which 

was the military specification on the O-ring? Who would have considered that? 

Mr. MULLOY. Sir, that would have been done through the critical 

design, first the preliminary design review process, then the critical design review process. What typically is done there is there is a 

traceability back to the level 2 requirements, and you will find in 
450 

that review where this requirement is specifically-there is a big matrix that says requirement certification method, and basis of 

certification. 

You will find that we assemble teams of engineers who look at a 

particular area. One of them would be thermal, one of them would 

be structures, one of them would be propellant liners, insulation, et 

cetera. That team would have looked at this particular requirement, and made a certification that they were complete, based on 

the certification of the contractor, and then there is a critical 

design review board that is typically chaired by the project manager, with other senior members, who take a review of what we call 

RID’S, which is review item discrepancies. If the teams have identified areas where the testing and analysis 

does not meet the requirements, or where there are design deficien- cies in those. So it is a large number of people, and it is a large 

process that culminates in the critical design review. 

Now, in the case of the SRB, I am aware that prior to my time, 

there was then an independent group that was brought in to look 

at all the verifications of the solid rocket booster, who relooked at 

that total thing. So there is a very large number of people who 

have looked at that and accepted that certification, undoubtedly without penetrating it pretty thoroughly. 

Mr. NELSON. Dr. Lucas, let me see if I can summarize this, and 

you tell me if this is an accurate summary. That now, as you understand the situation, design vehicle on the SRB’s, with regard to 

this temperature requirement, the lower temperature, be it the environment or the induced environment, was not met, and that part of the Government’s approval of the specification in the verification completion procedure, of which I have copies of two, STS-1 

and STS-5, was an oversight on the part of the Government that in 

fact the requirement had been met by virtue of being supplied with 

information that the military specifications of the O-ring were sufficient to meet that requirement. 

Dr. LUCAS. Yes, sir, Mr. Nelson; I believe that is essentially correct. I think it should be said that it had not been demonstrated 

that the specifications had been met, and the Government missed 

that, and I don’t know why other than we didn’t penetrate enough. Mr. NELSON. OK, so we have tragically in hindsight, as we explore this, mistakes by the contractor, of which of course the contractor still, according to their testimony this morning does not, 

they still don’t acknowledge that this is what the contract said or 

what the design specifications said. 

I will take that up, Mr. Chairman, with them directly, again, and 

I intend that to be my line of questioning in the morning, so if 

Morton would be prepared for that. 

And then second, the mistake in the review process by the Government as to what in fact was required. Now, we know that is 

what has happened in the past. Now tell us, Dr. Lucas, what is 

happening in the future? 

What are you doing at Marshall to make sure that mistakes like 

this never happen again, and how is your redesign process proceeding? 

Dr. LUCAS. Well, clearly, this is a lesson learned, that we must 

not allow to happen again, and I cannot understand how it hap- 
451 

pened. It is not characteristic of what we have done in the past, 

and we can’t allow it to happen again in the future. 

Sometimes I fear that maybe design engineers become too familiar with the hardware, and they make assumptions that probably 

shouldn’t be made. We have discussed at Marshall, on occasion, the 

possibility of doing our reviews not with engineers but maybe with 

accountants or auditors, people that are not in a position to make 

any judgment whatever, but simply read down and say yes, you 

know, this is what it calls for, and this is what we have got and 

how do you know that that is what you have got? 

I don’t know whether that is a practical thing or not. We haven’t 

pursued that far enough, but that is the kind of discussions that 

are going on presently at the Marshall Space Flight Center, and I 

am confident in the team at NASA, to make doubly sure that this 

never happens again. 

Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Nelson, if I could add just a word on that. We 

are conducting the design review for the solid rocket booster, and 

in fact, the redesign effort there, with the Marshall team. But in 

addition to that, augmented by a group of people from both inside 

and primarily outside Marshall working directly with the Marshall 

team. In addition, we have a distinguished group of engineers and 

scientists that have been provided to NASA, reporting to the Administrator, from the National Research Council and the National 

Academy of Engineering, and I believe the National Academy of 

Sciences as well. So we have put in a larger hierarchical structure 

to oversee this particular redesign issue. 

But I think your question is a deeper one, and has to do with 

how we conduct activities on such an unforgiving system as a space 

transportation system necessarily is. That is a problem that we are 

going to give a great deal of attention over the next year to make 

sure that this type of a problem has no more chance of creeping 

into the system anywhere else than we can humanly prevent. 

And Admiral Truly is working on that now in a very determined 

way. Dr. Fletcher and I are working on that. We recognize that as 

one of our highest priority issues. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylva- nia, Mr. Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be brief. 

I just want to tie up one loose end from some previous question- ing that I did. 

Dr. Lucas, there has been reference before to a meeting that was 

held in our hotel room at the Holiday Inn about an hour and a half 

before the crucial teleconference that we have all been talking 

about took place. 

When Mr. Mulloy and Mr. Reinartz consulted with you at that 

point, did they tell you about Thiokol’s concerns, and did they in 

particular mention that Thiokol’s engineers were recommending 

against launch? 

Dr. LUCAS. No, sir. They did express concern. They came to my 

room and told me that some Thiokol engineers had expressed a 

concern about the effect of weather on the O-rings, and that they 

were proceeding to the Kennedy Space Center to conduct a teleconference with Thiokol, and with our people back at Marshall. 
452 

I don’t believe, and, of course, Mr. Mulloy can testify to this himself, I believe Mr. Mulloy had not been in the earlier conversation 

with Thiokol, although Mr. Reinartz was there. I think he was 

learning, along with me, that there was a concern, and I think that 

is the answer to your question. Mr. WALKER. OK. Now was there any discussion at all that took 

place in your room about getting Thiokol to change their mind 

about recommending a launch the next morning? 

Dr. LUCAS. No, sir, not at all. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know 

that Thiokol had a position at that time. The proposition was placed to me that some Thiokol engineers had expressed a concern. 

They had tried to get information on a teleconference that was a 

very poor connection. Many people were at their homes, didn’t 

have a good connection. 

I did not know at that time that Thiokol had a position, if they in fact did. 

Mr. WALKER. There is nothing out of that conversation that Mr. 

Mulloy and Mr. Reinartz have interpreted as being an instruction 

to try to get Thiokol to change their minds about this concern they 

had about launch? 

Dr. LUCAS. Not at all. We have never, I have never, and I am not 

aware of any other official in Government having attempted to 

override a contractor’s objection to a launch. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. 

For the record, in the discussion that Mr. Mulloy was giving 

before, in the answer to Mr. Nelson from Florida, speaking of that 

certification process, and you, Dr. Lucas, had expressed your concern with that, the question that comes to my mind, as I understand it, there is somewhere between 780 to 800 items in the criticality list, No. 1. Is there any observation from NASA at this point of any of those items having fallen into the same time of ersatz certification, as was referred to before, that we are aware of at this 

point? Dr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, as you know, shortly after the ChalZen er accident, we initiated a program which has since been specifica k ly recommended by the Presidential Commission, to go back 

and look at all of the criticality 1 and 1-R items. I would like to 

ask Dr. Lucas to address those from the area that Marshall is involved in, but then ask Admiral Truly to address it on a larger 

scale, since he has the direct line management oversight of all of 

the space transportation system. Dr. LUCAS. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The Marshall Space Flight 

Center has already begun working with our contractors to completely exhaustively review all of our failure modes and effects 

analysis, our critical items list analysis. This review will be completed with the contractors, will be submitted to a senior board at 

Marshall for review, and then, in turn, submitted to a senior, more 

senior program review, so we are going from scratch, as if it had 

not been done before, redoing it, and any criticality items will have 

to be verified, any criticality 1 or 1-R, or whatever, has to be verified as if it hadn’t been done before. 

We haven’t found any problems yet. It hasn’t gotten too far, but 

I am not aware of any problems found to date. 
453 

Admiral TRULY. Iwould only make two comments, Mr. Chairman. One is this total program review will take probably through the rest of this year. We do have almost a 3-month head start in it. 

We have been going about that long. The other comment that I would specifically makeis that this 

review includes not only the design of critical parts or sections, but 

the specific question of certification. We are going back to ground 

zero on each item, and reassessing the logic behind the basis for 

the certification of the entire list, not only for the solid rocket 

motor but throughout the system. Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Missouri, Mr. Volkmer. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Mulloy, as I understand it, back in July of 

1985, and perhaps prior to that time, in one instance, launch constraint was imposed because of the O-ring, is that correct? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, that was after 51 Bravo, when we had extensive damage on the primary seal and some erosion on the secondary seal on the nozzle to case joints. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And on what authority or basis did you impose 

that launch constraint? 

Mr. MULLOY. OK, sir. That is part of our problem assessment 

system that I had described earlier. That system and how it operates, the operating plan for that, is a Marshall document, SE012082TH, dated March 1981. In that procedure, it tells how the 

problem assessment system is to operate, and it assigns specific responsibilities to the various elements that operate within that. 

The contractor is obligated to report all problems into that problem assessment system, so the contractor made this report on the 

51 Bravo nozzle inspection. At the time the contractor makes that input for the procedure, 

he enters in the computer form whether or not that is considered 

to be a launch constraint. When Thiokol submitted this, they submitted it as a “none”, under launch constraint it was “none”. 

Given the seriousness of that problem then, the next step of the 

procedure that is specified in that document is followed in describing what the responsibilities of the element project manager is. In 

my case I have two subelement project managers, one for the SRM 

and one for the rest of the solid rocket booster to whom I have delegated this responsibility. But it specifically states that the level 3 

project manager makes the final determination of whether or not a 

problem is launch constraint, and he makes a determination of 

changes thereto. 

So when we saw that, we considered that that was something that we weren’t going to fly again until we understood it. When it 

went through the review there at the Marshall system, a launch 

constraint for the next flight was assigned. After then Thiokol prepared-they did some additional testing to expand the rationale and the basis for why they felt we could continue to fly. Given that observation, and the previous analysis and 

test had been based on just hot gas impingement to the primary 0- 

ring, and how bad that could be theoretically. Because the limiting time that that flow can continue in the time it takes for the pressure to fill the volume between the putty and the primary O-ring, 

they expanded that analysis, assuming that the primary O-ring 
454 

wasn’t there, and included the volume between the primary and 

the secondary O-ring. That analysis and then some additional testing correlated very well with what they had seen on 51 Bravo, so 

they came in with a recommendation that it was OK to continue to 

fly, based on this analysis, and this testing, and the rationale was 

followed, and Mr. McDonald, I think, spoke to this this morning. 

One was that they felt the reason that the primary O-ring had 

never sealed was that the leak check pressure on that particular 

nozzle was inadequate to assure a leak check of the primary 0- 

ring, because it was only at 100 lb/in2. Tests had determined that 

it takes at least 150 lb/in2 if you have a bad primary O-ring, to be 

sure that the putty isn’t masking that primary O-ring leak. So they 

had essentially two pieces of that rationale. 

One was the next vehicle to fly had been leak checked at 200 

pounds per square inch. It had passed that leak check. There was 

no danger of the putty having masked a bad O-ring. Therefore, the 

primary O-ring would seal. 

However, they further stated then if we are wrong, this analysis 

and test shows that the maximum erosion that will occur on the 

secondary O-ring is acceptable, because it is far below the maximum erosion that could be tolerated on that O-ring. 

On the basis of that recommendation then, from Morton Thiokol, 

I then judged that that was a reasonable analysis. I accepted their 

recommendation. I then reviewed that in the flight readiness 

review with my boss, the shuttle project office manager at Marshall, at that time was Mr. Lindstrom, subsequently Mr. Reinartz. 

That was again written in, reviewed at the center board, and that 

is one of the ones that went all the way up to level 1, because it 

was a new incident, and on the basis of the acceptance of that I 

lifted the launch constraint, and then I lifted it for that flight. 

We wanted to continue to observe it, so we didn’t close it. Because it was an unexplained problem, there was no corrective 

action taken. The only thing was that we had a 200 lb/in2 leak 

check instead of 100, and the procedure allows you to close those 

problems and lift launch constraints on the basis of either corrective action such as a design change or an explanation, as was done 

in this case, that is not expected to occur on the next flight, and 

that was done for every flight including up to 51-L. 

We kept that problem open, because the concern was that the 

original problem was not solved. We were still seeing O-ring erosion, so I had no intention of closing that problem. 

By the way, this is not at all unusual. During that period, you 

know, that launch constraint was being lifted under this same procedure, launch constraints were being lifted on other elements of 

the shuttle system. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Could you give me a list of those other elements of 

the shuttle system, not now but in writing? 

Mr. MULLOY. For the record, yes, sir. 

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469 

Mr. VOLKMER. For the record, I would like to have those. May I 

continue, Mr. Chairman, just for a few minutes? 

Mr. ROE. Yes. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Even though then you continued to see erosion of 

the O-ring, you continued to waive the launch constraint? 

Mr. MULLOY. That is correct, sir, on the basis of the rationale or 

the explanation as to why that was an acceptable risk that was 

presented to me by Morton Thiokol, reviewed and approved by my 

management. Mr. VOLKMER. Isthere any reason when this first came up that 

you put it in the problem assessment system rather than the problem reporting and corrective action system? Mr. MULLOY. Actually, sir, it is the same thing. I think the prob- lem reporting and corrective action system is the level 2 system that is required by JSC volume 5 in the 07700 series, and as a 

matter of fact this problem report also went to JSC, into the 

PRACA system. Mr. VOLKMER. Was JSC informed of the problem? 

Mr. MULLOY. Through the flight readiness review, and through 

the submission of this problem to the problem tracking system at 

JSC. I do not know what distribution was made at JSC when it 

goes down there. The report also goes to the chief engineer’s office 

at headquarters. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Itis my understanding that we had some testimony earlier from Mr. Aldrich that he wasn’t knowledgeable that 

there was a launch constraint. 

Mr. MULLOY. That is entirely possible, sir. I don’t know what distribution was made, and I have testified, that it wasn’t briefed in 

the level 2 and the level 1. When I went-- 

Mr. VOLKMER. That is right. 

Mr. MULLOY [continuing]. That we have a problem, the concern is 

flight safety, the rationale for continuing to fly is this. That was 

not briefed in the context of this is a launch constraint in the prob- lem assessment system, and it is entirely possible that if that 

report, whatever distribution is made of that report at Houston, 

that he might not have seen that. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Graham, do you recognized this as part of the 

problems of communication that needs to be corrected? 

Dr. GRAHAM. Absolutely, Mr. Volkmer. This is a very serious 

problem in communication. On the one hand the system is in place which is quite extensive, and based on a great deal of history on 

the subject, and on the other hand we now have a very strong indication. I believe without talking to the recipients, nevertheless a 

clear instance of the information not showing up in the right form 

or the right person at the right time, and we have to make sure 

that does not happen again. Given the fact that things can go wrong, we have to make sure 

that there is enough backup in the system, enough capacity, to 

keep this type of problem from growing to a disruptive dimension. 

I believe Admiral Truly has a comment he wanted to make as 

well. 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, I did. I wanted to specifically say that this 

specific point of the system at the Marshall Space Flight Center, the computer system at the Marshall Space Flight Center, into 
470 

which problems are entered and dispositioned and the system at 

the Johnson Space Center, where the same sort of actions are 

taken, it is not at all clear to me that the two systems are compatible, and I talked to Mr. Aldrich about that this morning, and assured myself that this, this specific point of the way, not through people but through a system that is required to track all the actions that go into it and out of it, is addressed in our program management review, before we get back to flight. Mr. VOLKMER. Itis possible, as I understand the whole system then, that the launch director would not even know, necessarily, of 

these launch constraints; is that correct? 

Admiral TRULY. As I understand it, and again for the future, I 

don’t see a problem, because we are going to go back to square zero 

and look at both systems. But as I understand it, at the time of 

514, if the so-called launch constraint was dispositioned as Mr. 

Mulloy mentioned, unless someone read the paper that was distributed to level 2 in Houston, or to the chief engineer’s office in Houston, it would not have shown up automatically in a single tracking 

system. We are going to assure in the future that it does. Is that a 

fair assessment? 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, the report also goes to KSC also. Again, I 

don’t know what distribution is made at KSC of the report. 

Mr. VOLKMER. At the time of the flight on January 28, the O-ring 

problem was categorized at a criticality 1; is that correct? 

Mr. MULLOY. That is correct. It was categorized as criticality 1 by 

the waiver processed in late 1982 and approved here in March 

1983. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Then I have documents before me that have been 

issued since then, that shows it as criticality lR, one dated March 

7,1986, and one February 26, 1986. 

Mr. MULLOY. What is the document, sir? 

Mr. VOLKMER. Problem assessment system reports, Marshall Space Flight Center. Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir, that is an error in the system. It gets into 

a deeper thing. I don’t know whether we have time to go into it 

here, but let me go back and say that the contractor fills out the 

data that you see on that problem assessment. He makes the initial 

recommendation whether it is or is not a launch constraint. He 

enters the criticality. 

As a matter of fact, in the critical items list that Morton Thiokol 

maintains themselves internally. They are still carrying the joint 

as criticality lR, even though there was a change made back in 

1982 that changed it to a criticality 1. So what you see on that 

report-and anybody reading that report, if they looked at all the 

data and they looked at criticality, they would think that the criticality of that joint is officially 1R. 

Mr. ROE. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. MULLOY. That has been corrected and it now shows it is criticality I. 

Mr. ROE. Are you saying that Thiokol’s records have now been 

corrected? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, the past report has been corrected. We are 

in process of going back through a complete review of the criticality items list. 
47 1 

Mr. ROE. I know, but you know what is exasperating after setting 

here for 14 hours today, and I have been in the executive branch, if 

I were in charge of this thing and I knew that there is 800 items on 

a criticality list, any one of which could sink the shuttle, and I 

knew that, I would tell them flat out that you have got a mistake, 

get it off there. Do you understand where I am trying to come 

from. How long does it take for NASA to react? Is that Thiokol’s 

problem, or responsibility, or is it NASA’s problem, that one issue 

alone. 

We have already gone through in the last 10 minutes well, that 

was a mistake and we are not going to let that happen again, and 

the certification we certified to and here we sit, and I don’t mean 

to be, I really don’t mean to be crass or unkind or unfair, but it 

sure as hell is exasperating, when we have a whole agency with 

27,000 people, and doesn’t somebody come back and say this is criticality I? How can you carry the one record and they carry it on 

something else? Is that a stupid question? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, that is a valid observation and it pains me 

very much to tell you what I am telling you, but I am telling it like 

it is. 

Mr. ROE. I appreciate that, and your candor. I have a lot of respect for you but here we are saying-we came back and in summation we said who was responsible, did we test, did we test and 

know the temperature was going to create a problem. In fact you said that and so did Mr. Boisjoly, no we did not. We are coming 

back now and saying of the criticality list where the O-rings were 

involved, they were on your list as criticality No. 1 but Thiokol, 

who is redesigning them as a team together has 41 people reviewing the issue, are still carrying it on their list as criticality 1R. 

How could that happen? The gentleman from Missouri. 

Mr. VOLKMER. One question is that it appears to me that as you 

progressed through the various shuttle flights and as 51-L came up 

for review and reviewing the approval by Thiokol, it appears to me 

that you were acquiescing and they were acquiescing that there 

was almost 100 percent chance that the primary O-ring was going to fail but that the secondary ring would not fail. 

Is that a correct assessment? 

Mr. MULLOY. No, sir, I don’t think I or Thiokol ever considered 

that there was 100 percent chance that the primary O-ring would 

fail. We were showing a large substantial margin against what 

would cause the primary to fail versus what we were observing. 

Mr. VOLKMER. You are asserting that there was very little 

chance then for that primary to fail? 

Mr. MULLOY. Our assessment every time was we did not expect 

the primary O-ring to completely fail, that was even after 51-Bravo 

where we did observe a primary O-ring had completely failed. 

The primary basis for Thiokol’s recommendation and my acceptance of that as an acceptable risk was that there was a low probability of the primary ring failing but the tests indicated that if we 

were wrong, we expected the secondary ring to hold. In retrospect I 

believe that was a step too far. 

Mr. VOLKMER. The findings of the Commission also, you have 

been asked several of these, Mr. Mulloy, it says on page 148 that 

prior to the accident neither NASA nor Thiokol fully understood 
472 

the mechanism by which the joint sealing action took place. Do you 

agree or disagree with that? 

Mr. MULLOY. I totally agree, sir. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair is going to advise the gentleman from Missouri he has 1 more minute. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I am just looking for-Admiral Truly, I would appreciate it if you would furnish me a copy of the list of persons and 

their affiliation that are presently working on the redesign of the 

joint for the SRB. 

Admiral TRULY. Yes, sir, I would be pleased to do that. 

[The information follows:] 
473 

Material requested for the record on page 292, line 6789, by 

Mr. Volkmer during the June 17, 1986, hearing at which Dr. Lucas 

testified. 

The enclosed represents the full-time employees for the Design 

Team as of June 20, 1986. There are others that are devoting 

partial time to the redesign effort. 

J. Thomas 

J. Blair 

R, Jackson 

J, Welzyn 

D. Brown 

K. Coates 

R. McIntosh 

J. Peoples 

J. Thomas, Jr. 

K. Henson 

C. Nevins 

W. Cobb 

P. Munafo 

R. Bell 

F. Douglas, I11 

M. Gerry 

8. Elkins 

J. Johnson 

R. Rodriguez 

J. Naldonado 

J. Funkhouser 

L. Powers 

R. Cloyd 

D. Curnmings 

C. Reid 

w. white 

T. Bechtel 

D. Davis 

E. Cross 

F, Cunningham 

F. Dolan 

D. Moore 

D, Drinan 

L. Thompson 

Fa Jankowski 

We Ray 

R. Clinton 

R. Higgins 

J. Patterson 

J. Turner 

8. Goldberg 

L. Hediger 

S. Caruso 

M. Semmel 

R. Nichols 

W. Riehl 

W. Coldberg 

F. Ledbetter 

D. Hill 

L. Jeter 

C. Bianca 

V. Richard, Jr. 

R. Fisher 

D. Bacchus 

F. Bugg 

0. Moon 

A. Kirkendall 

S. Cash 

T. Kclley S, Lowery 

C. Lyles J. Moore 

R. Porter 

T. Stinson 

C. Swanson 

C. Martin 

L. Craig 

F. Bachtel 

D. Davis 

R. McKemie 

W. Trevhitt 

J. MOSS 

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Davis 

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Ransburg, Jr. 

Williams 

Tidmore 

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Henson 

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bakley 

Adam 

Black 

Simmons 

McClunry 

Kirkindall 

Burton 

Donald, I11 

Robinson 

Blankenship 

Hall 

Hamilton 

Howard 

Knowles 

Lune 

Smith 

Thompson 

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Wells 

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Carmack . Hughey 
474 

6. Leng 

H. Gibson 

M. Brown 

8, Schneider 

A. Baluiek 

M. Card 

R. Wingate 

N. Knight 

W. Green 

D. Smith 

C. Lach 

W. Elber 

W. Elber 

C. Poe 

N. Cardner 

s. Y0und 

J. Woolsey 

C. Look 

J. Wright K. Mitchell 

N. Kimmel 

R. Landel 

t. Tepe 
475 

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Brooks 

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T. Whelchel 

S. Walker 

W. Hill 

H. Wesch 

S. Hatharu 

8. Beck 

J. Micle 

R. Hohler 

S. Sherrick 

B. Simmons 

F. Laney 

H. Busbin 

C. Crossfield 

H. Eddleman 

#. Kittredge 

C. Conwill 

M. Henderson 

C. Johnson 

H. Dcdman 

J. Scarpa 

C. Zyla 

C. Reynolds 

R. Collie 

L. Clark 

N. Hurphy 

T. Lin 

P. Potter 

D. Mayficld 

P. Clem 

S. Fischer 

R. Baldwin 

J. Atkison 

P. 

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Barnes 

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Martin 

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Garber 

K. McCarley 

T. Henke 

A. French 

J. Jimmerson 

M. Huddleston 

J. Laux 

J, Greenwell 

W. Warren 

B. Willls 

J. Fowler 

R. Curtis 

J. Daniels 

J. Miller 

8. Ralph 

C. Wallace 

D. Crider 

C. Surnson 

R. Brownc 
476 

of North 

L. Kceton 

W. Mahaffby 

P. Delay 

A. Singhal 

F. Owen8 

H. Whitesides 

R. Bender 

W. Crain 

D. Castleman 

M. Long 

J. Verbal 

J. Rinehart 

S. Harris 

T, Mack 

G. Crose 

8. Holman 

M. Gough 

L. Harrigan 

K. McCeffcrty 

C. Hopkins 
L. Sisson 

R. Warren 

R. lighfoot 

N. Maurer, Jr. 

8. Kilgore 

F. Swlsher 

M, Stewarf. 

G. Rlsrr; Jr. 

A. Johnson 

P. Pinoli 

J. Jentclr 

R. lufriu 

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D. Davis 

C. Klrch 

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J. Stephenson 

J. Geiger 

R. Shavers 

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R. Avery 

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8. Atklnson 

J. Perdue 

W. Bin-Sayad 

M. Sajjadl 

L. Fraziar 

A. Treece 

M. Tucker 

A. Peevy 

R. Scates 

8. Cannon 

B. Bolton 

J. Morgan 

M. Kennamar 

J. Cockburn 

J. Foreman 

D. Spirea 

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64-295 0 - 86 - 16 
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8. Kuchek 

L. Bailey 

J. Sucher 

H. Money 

W. HcCreary 

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N. Rosseau 

I. Adam 

K. Crosson 

B. McDougal 

J. Austin 

B. Brinton 

R. Hyer 

J. DeCarlo 

T. Gregory 

T. Crockford 

D. Smith 

D. Ketner 

M. Richards 

N. Eddy 

G. Gorman 

R. Perry 

D. Dommarch, Jr. 

M. Malone 

L. Lyon 

R. McKinatry 

R. Rose 

S. May 

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K. Sperry 

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C. Putnam 

S. Graves 

B. Thompson 

M. Sandor 

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478 

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J. Curry 

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C. Johnson 

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J. Jampton 

R. Paxton 

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D. Bright 

M. Ward 

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R. Wilks 

R. Lange 

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479 

H. Conwell 

T. Barfus 

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S. Olson 

D. Thompson 

P. Kelley H. Backman 

J. Lavery 

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M. Raule 

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R. Bell 

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R. Hancey 

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J. Stotts 

N. Johnson 

I. Woodruff 

S. Larsen 

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R. Rnderfion 

8. Madsen 

K. Leiohrnan 

J. Garr 

B. Rose 

D. Taylor 

S. Gardner 

A. Olsen 

K, Wakley 

C. Hansen 

D. Alger 

T. Daniels 

D. Nelson 

J. Shinklc 

M. Bennett 

J. Blazer 

T. Baddley 

R. Rhodes 

K. Phippen 

J. Hurd 

L. Lloyd 

J. Pettingill 

K. Fowkes 

S. Nielson 

R. Profalzer 

H, COX 

F. Beaah 

W. Gerhart 

L. Wylle 

M. Evans 

J. Hagen 

M. Bradford 

K. DixOn 

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R. Haneen 

K. Rose 

D. Holt 

C. Kawaguchi 

J. Horenp 

T. Davis 

E. Perard 

C. Lersen 

T. Evdfib 

P. Eskelsen 

S. Snitker 

C. Ridenour 

L. Jeppeaen 

E. Robinson 

G. Ulloa 

G. Roberts 

V. Nielsen 

J. Peterson 

A. Randall 

M. Nelson 

R. Eggli 

R. Jonea 

L. Goodsell 

D. Bell 

D. Francis 

A. Skujins 

R. Anderson 

T. Ambry 

C. Barley 

T, HOtt 

T. 

J. 

W. 

R. 

J. 

D. 

E. 

F. 

A. 

J. 

A. 

B. 

B. 

L. 

R. 

R. 

R. 

G. 

L. 

K. 

A. 

A. 

8. 

R. 

R. 

8. 

G, 

D. 

K. 

C. 

D. 

Heyder 

Warner 

Nelson 

Grobe 

Read 

God f rey 

Bilbao 

Wilson 

Brady 

HuffRker 

DeHerrera 

Okada 

Christensen 

Scott 

Baird 

Norman 

Borgstrom 

Nowak 

Westley 

Peterson 

Sorenson 

Bennett 

Meyers 

Hanson 

Whiting 

Butler 

Hale 

Wagner 

Barroclaugh 

Biere 

DeVowe 

B. ,Wbite 

T. Hamilton 

H. Udy 

R. Eames 

C. Harris 

C. Leavitt 

C. Olson 

A. Butler 

R. Lapine 

G. Yatar 

A. Stuck1 

K. McGlll 

A. Garner 

M. Turnbull 

T. Lewis 

B. Tams 

J. Christensen 

J. Fredrickson 

R. Bowman 

G. Pett 

J. Newrnyer 

M. Bell 

Y. Gibbs 

K. Dye 

C. Jones 

G. Kimber 

M. Jcppscn 

D. Ueese 

B. Dawes 

E. Batt 

8. Cooley 

8. Stokes 

R, Glick 

T. Bolner 

J. callingwoad 

H. Yell 

D. Noody 
481 

Mr. VOLKMER. I did find it-if I could have that 1 minute now. 

Mr. ROE. You are as good as I am at stretching out that 1 

Mr. VOLKMER. That is all right. 

Mr. ROE. Are you sure? 

Mr. VOLKMER. Yes; in the approval from Mr. Joe Kilminster, Mr. 

Mulloy, it says if the primary does not seat the secondary seal will 

seat and the provisions above that as I read it, give me the probability that the primary ring is not going to seat. That is on page 97 

of the report. 

Mr. MULLOY. Yes, sir. 

The engineering assessment is that cold O-rings will have increased effective durometer, they will be harder to seat, et cetera. 

Demonstrated seals threshold three times greater. Those are assertions that the primary O-ring is expected to seat is the way I read 

that. 

I Mr. VOLKMER. You read it a little different than I do. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROE. I want to thank you, Dr. Graham, Admiral Truly, Dr. 

Lucas and Mr. Mulloy for your candor and patience, and I think 

you have added a great deal to our deliberations today. 

Thank you for being with us. We don’t see you being called back 

tomorrow. We will call you if necessary. 

Tomorrow at 9:30 we will call back the witnesses from the Thiokol Corp. to conclude their testimony at 9:30 tomorrow morning. 

Therefore, the committee stands adjourned and we will meet at 

9:30 tomorrow morning. 

[Whereupon, at 7:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 18, 1986.1 

minute, but go ahead. 

INVESTIGATION OF THE CHALLENGER 

ACCIDENT 

(Volume 1) 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 1986 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOMGY, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:30 a.m., in 

room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Roe 

(acting chairman of the committee) presiding. Mr. ROE. The committee will come to order. 

We want to welcome everyone this morning. Today we resume the Science Committee’s hearings investigating the shuttle Challenger accident. 

Yesterday we heard from Morton Thiokol and Space Flight 

Center personnel. These two units are key to the O-ring problem pointed out by the Rogers Commission Report. 

But this morning’s session we have called back for further ques- tioning and review several of the Morton Thiokol witnesses that 

appeared yesterday morning. They include Mr. Edwin Garrison, 

president of the Aerospace Group; Joseph Kilminster; Carver Kennedy; Allan McDonald; Roger Boisjoly; and Arnold Thompson. I 

think I covered everybody. Our purpose in further interrogating more carefully each group of witnesses is not only to understand the detailed scenario that led 

up to the moment when the Challenger accident occurred, but 

more importantly, to see these details comprehensively as they formed a pattern that led up to the judgment to launch. 

It will be from this larger perspective we as a committee will 

need to make its recommendations for changes in NASA’s functions and operation that will ensure our space program and our 

Nation against any future accidents or failure. 

We certainly want to thank all of our witnesses for staying over 

and returning this morning. 

Does the distinguished ranking member have any statement to 

make before we-- 

Mr. LUJAN. Ido not. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Lujan from New Mexico. 

Let me for the benefit of the members who are here and others 

who may be interested, if any member has any statement they 

want to submit for the record, without objection, I would ask unanimous consent for that approval. And then the third thing is that 

we plan on concluding hopefully by noontime as far as our wit- 

(483) 
484 

nesses are concerned, which is our goal, and then the committee 

will stand adjourned at that point. 

We plan on reconvening a week from Wednesday, and in reconvening a week from Wednesday, our witnesses that day at 9:30 on 

Wednesday next morning will be a broad cross section of the astronaut corps going back to the beginning of the program so that we 

can have a substantive sampling and take advantage of their 

thoughts and ideas, and get advantage of their input and any recommendations they may choose to make to the committee at that 

point, plus other questions members will have to ask. That is what 

our plan is. 

And then there is a whole series of additional hearings that will 

be held in more detail, particularly as we get into the issues of 

management, which the members are all concerned about, and improvements in the management program, and then, most importantly, from there we will go to the both short- and long-range 

policy recommendations the committee will be making through the 

legislative process. And that is where we are coming from. 

Now, the chairman has two really short questions to ask beforeoh, I beg your pardon. We asked all of the witnesses if you would 

please rise to be sworn and raise your right hand, all those who 

will be participating today, and then repeat after me, I, giving your 

name, do solemnly swear to tell the truth-- 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. ROE. We thank you, gentlemen. 

STATEMENTS OF U. EDWIN GARRISON, PRESIDENT, AEROSPACE 

GROUP, MORTON THIOKOL CO.; JOSEPH C. KILMINSTER, VICE 

PRESIDENT; CARVER G. KENNEDY, VICE PRESIDENT, SPACE 

BOOSTER PROGRAM; ALLAN J. McDONALD, DIRECTOR, SRM 

VERIFICATION TASK FORCE; ROGER M. BOISJOLY, STAFF ENGINEER, AND ARNOLD R. THOMPSON, SUPERVISOR, STRUCTURES DESIGN 

Mr. ROE. The first question that I would like to ask, and I am 

going to be brief, mercifully brief this morning, was the-in our interrogation yesterday afternoon, in reviewing a number of the 

items that we were focusing on in the criticality list, Mr. Mulloy 

made the observation: As far as the O-ring situation was concerned, we were under the impression it had been put back as criticality No. 1. He made the observation, as I recall it, that NASA 

has listed it as criticality 1 item, but Thiokol is still carrying it as a 

l-R item. 

Is that correct or incorrect? In other words, we said to them at 

the time we couldn’t possibly understand, with all of the dialog and 

all of the Commission hearings and this committee’s hearings and 

the Senate hearings, that it is such an obvious point to view that, 

why wouldn’t NASA be telling Thiokol, we don’t know why you 

could be carrying it l-R when we declared it to be. That is an important point. 

Could someone elucidate? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes; at the time of the launch, we were still carrying it as a 1-R-- 
485 

Mr. ROE. At the time of the launch. He made the point, you are 

carrying it that way now, is that correct? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I don’t believe we are. The paperwork may not 

have changed, but we definitely considered it a 1 right now because 

we are going to fix it anyway. I think it is somewhat academic. 

Mr. ROE. I am trying to get someone to say we are either 1-R or 

we are not. Is it the policy position now, as of this moment, for 

Thiokol to carry the whole O-ring situation as a critical item l? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Since we are in the redesign effort, the criteria 

for that is it must be a 1-R. We will not accept a design that won’t 

have a 1-R. 

Mr. ROE. You are still missing my point. That is, your ultimate 

goal is a 1-R. Unless I am not asking the question properly-- 

Mr. MCDONALD. If we were to fly the vehicle we have right now, 

it would be a 1. 

Mr. ROE. That is the point I am making. So you consider the vehicle as it is now a criticality item 1, is that correct? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes, I do. 

Mr. ROE. That is the way Thiokol is listing it? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I don’t know if we are listing it that way. 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Garrison, you are president of that company. Would you please list it that way this afternoon, right now? 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. We are getting into minutia points we shouldn’t be getting into, but that is the way it ought to be listed, and your goal is 

to go to the criticality 1-R when you are prepared with the new 

design, is that not correct? 

Mr. GARRISON. That is correct. 

Mr. ROE. Let me ask a second question and then I will defer to 

the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico. 

Mr. Kilminster, in the communication you signed after the 

caucus meeting and the determination was made to go and to-actually go and fly, is really what it amounted to, there seems to be a 

little bit of a debate and I just haven’t had time this morning to 

look that up in the Presidential documents that were submitted 

and whether it is concluded on that document. There seems to be 

some debate that there was in the orange copy submitted of that 

memoranda you signed, that was submitted to the Commission, but 

purportedly on the bottom there is another warning, which the 

warning reads, and I quote: “Information on this page was pre- pared to support an oral presentation and cannot be considered 

complete without the oral discussion.” 

Do you recall that? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Specifically, I don’t recall that, Mr. Chairman. 

However, I think that was used on a piece of standard form paper and that very likely may have been there. 

Mr. ROE. Well, it is there. I am going to develop this further. 

What I am trying to get at, while other members are testifying, I 

am going to look this up as far as the copies of our official documents are concerned from the Commission as to whether or not 

that warning was there. Because it would appear to me that when 

you submitted this data or signed this data for NASA, that it 

wasn’t just what was written here, that it warns that the information on this page was prepared, and I am quoting, “to support an 
486 

oral presentation and cannot be considered complete without the 

oral discussion.” 

Do you follow me? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. That leads to the point of view, who in NASA was privy 

to the oral part of the discussion? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Those people at NASA that were involved in 

the oral discussion were those that were on the telephone conference that evening, which included Mr. Mulloy, Mr. Reinartz, at 

KSC, and a large contingent at Marshall Space Flight Center 

which included Mr. Hardy and others. 

Mr. ROE. What I want to ultimately develop is this document 

which you signed which everybody agreed was somewhat out-ofthe-ordinary situation, was not only the writings alone that were 

involved but also the oral discussions that took place with members 

of NASA who knew of the issue involved or the issues involved. 

Is that a fair commentary? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is the intent. 

Mr. ROE. We will develop that further. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished chairman from New 

Mexico, Mr. Lujan. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have two questions but I want to move on quickly so everybody 

has an opportunity to answer the question. 

When I asked staff-and probably, Mr. Kilminster, this could be 

directed to you-when I asked staff about the whole issue of criticality 1 and criticality l-R and all those things originally I said, let 

me take a look at a list of what is there. I was really surprised, 

there was 748 criticality 1 items, 1,600 criticality l-R items, and 

they are all kind of treated equally. 

Just for the SRB alone, this book, that looks like a ream and a 

half of paper to me, so it must be maybe 750 pieces of paper there, 

in addition to the main engine 1 and external tank 1, so let me just refer to this one because this is what Morton Thiokol is concerned 

with. 

Is there some way-it seems to me like if you throw 748 items at 

me that are really critical, then I am just going to really kind of 

ignore them because there is so much information there. Either 

that, or I would start with the first page and look at that and 

maybe that is not a very important item. 

In looking over them, for example, I saw where one of the criticality 1 items, and I marked it over here, is if the external tank, it 

says, erroneous external tank ring safety system and armed device 

1 and 2 caused by electronic circuit failures in the left SRB-what 

I thought that meant, if they failed to separate, then the external 

tank could fall and hit somebody on the head on Earth. That is not 

nearly as important, it would seem to me, as something that would 

make the shuttle blow up. 

Is there some way that an assessment could be made of the possibilities of an accident, first of all, of an accident happening, and 

secondly, the severity of that happening? 

One of the items that I do a lot of work with in the Congress is 

in the nuclear industry, and they have those scales of probability, 
487 

the rasmussen, and probabilities and all that sort of thing, but that 

doesn’t seem to exist in the criticality 1 and 1-R items. 

As one of the improvements that we are looking for, is that possible in this program, in this area? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I believe that the criticality assessment program that NASA has is very thorough. The criticality 1 versus 1-R, 

for instance, means that in our case, in the solid rocket motor, the 

basic structure, the steel case itself, is criticality 1. That means 

that if something were to happen to that unit, there is no backup. Mr. LUJAN. No; I understand that, and because of limitation of 

time, they’ll ring the bell on me. What I am getting at is couldn’t 

we take those 748 items of criticality 1 and say this one is more 

important and so, therefore, we ought to pay more attention to this 

one? This is the second most important or dangerous one, rather 

than saying, all criticality items are not equal is what, I assume 

that is whatMr. KILMINSTER. There is another system called the failure mode 

and effects analysis system that identifies for each element what 

the criticality is and what could be expected if that element were 

to fail. And some of those 700 that you are talking about, for instance, could mean if one failed in the failure mode and effects 

analysis, then there is no backup. However, the extent that that 

might affect the vehicle is different, as you suggest. 

Mr. LUJAN. Yes; because in that example of the external tank 

falling and hitting somebody on the head, that is a very remote possibility, and if it did happen, you would kill one person instead 

of a whole crew. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would like to make a comment on that. I 

haven’t read that one, but I don’t think that is what they meant by that. Criticality 1 is potentially catastrophic for the shuttle and 

crew, and what can happen, if you don’t separate one of those 

SRBs when it is supposed to separate, you can lose control of the 

vehicle, you sure can t make orbit. Too, you are losing the potential of losing the whole works. 

Mr. LUJAN. It seems to me like all items are looked at evenly, and somehow we may be able to devise a system where some are 

more important than others, and those could be identified as this is 

the first one you look at, and all the way down the line. Anyway, we’ll look further into that, 

Mr. ROE. Right on target. I thank the distinguished gentleman. I now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Scheuer. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Garrison, esterday both Mr. Locke and Dr. Lucas stated 

tract for loss of emission due to failure of the solid rocket motor, 

there was a strong incentive on the part of Thiokol to fix problems 

like the O-ring. What would the financial impact to Thiokol be of 

stopping the shuttle program, let’s say, for a year to reengineer 

some of the systems, to conduct further testing and development? 

Mr. GARRISON. Well, we would have an impact. I don’t think it 

would be catastrophic to the company, sir. I would have to go back 

and get some data and make some estimates of what the produc- tion cost versus the research, added research and development cost 

would be. It would be an impact if that is your question. 

that because of t yh e $10 million reduction fee in the Thiokol con- 
488 

Mr. SCHEUER. Yes; I would appreciate if you would do that, and I 

would ask unanimous consent the record be held open for 1 week 

or 10 days, or whatever it will take you to get that. 

[The information follows:] 
489 

Hearing on Investigation of the Challenger Accident 

June 18, 1986 

House of Representatives 

Committee on Science and Technology 

Washington, D.C. 

Pages 13 and 14: 

MR. SCHEUER 

"Mr. Garrison, yesterday both Mr. Locke and Dr. Lucas stated that 

because of the $10 million reduction fee in the Thiokol contract for 

loss of emission due to failure of the solid rocket motor, there was a 

strong incentive on the part of Thiokol to fix problems like the O-ring. 

What would the financial impact to Thiokol be of stopping the shuttle 

program, let's say, for a year to re-engineer some of the systems, to 

conduct further testing and development? 

MR. GARRISON 

Well, we would have an impact, I don't think it would be 

catastrophic to the company, sir. I would have to go back and get some data and make some estimates of what the production cost versus the 

research, added research and development cost would be. It would be an 

impact if that is your question. 

MR. SCHEUER 

Yes, I would appreciate if you would do that, and I would ask 

unanimous consent the record be held open for a week or ten days, or 

whatever it will take you to get that.'' 

INSERT 

Mr. Garrison. Any response I could give to this question would be 

speculative. Short of actually stopping the program it is impossible to 

take into consideration all the unknown factors, things such as length 

of stoppage, engineering manhours required, technical problems 

encountered, etc... Without access to this data base we would be unable 

to provide an accurate response. 
490 

Mr. SCHEUER. On August 22, 1985, A.R. Thompson, one of your 

Thiokol engineers, wrote a memo indicating immediate short-term 

changes should be made in the joint design to reduce flight risk. 

This memo was ignored. How much money and how much time 

and how much in the way of the flight delay penalties would have 

been involved had you taken the time to do the research and testing that Thompson recommended at that time? 

Mr. GARRISON. I am sorry, I really don’t understand your ques- tion, Congressman. 

Mr. SCHEUER. AR. Thompson recommended in August, right 

after that August 19 briefing, you remember that August 19 briefing we heard so much about a couple days ago? Mr. GARRISON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Immediately after that briefing, when it was recommended that systematic new efforts be undertaken, your A.R. 

Thompson recommended that changes should be made in the joint 

design to reduce the risk. As a result of that, that immediate shortterm efforts should be made to make changes in that design. It was 

as a result of the briefing just a couple of days before. OK? 

What I am asking you is, in your calculus that led to ignoring, 

brushing aside his recommendations, what did you compute mentally, what did you crank into the computer as the cost of doing 

that, both in the out-of-pocket costs of the research, the cost in 

terms of penalty delays, and the general cost of time lost? How did 

they size all of those costs, direct and indirect costs, of delay penalties, research, how did you add all of them up, and how did you do 

your calculus that led you to reject, in effect, the August 19 briefing, the results of that briefing from your own Thiokol engineers 

and the recommendations a couple of days later, the specific recommendations of A.R. Thompson recommending immediate shortterm changes in joint design? 

Mr. GARRISON. If I remember, first off, I would like to say that 

the knowledge of Mr. Thompson’s concern didn’t get up to the kind 

of people who make a decision of that type, and I don’t think we 

can do that. I really don’t know how to make an estimate, sir-- 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would like to make a comment on that, if I 

could. 

Mr. SCHEUER. You must have made an estimate. If you could 

have had additional research without cost, without delay, by the 

snap of the fingers, you would have said, “Sure, let’s have this research,” it would have been there, but it wasn’t without loss of 

time, it wasn’t without investment of money, it wasn’t without 

paying a time penalty. 

So all of those things must have gone into your calculus of 

saying, “NO, we are not going to do the research, in effect, we are 

going to ignore the briefing of August 19.” I want to know the 

thought processes by which you came to the decision not to do the 

research. 

Mr. Chairman. Mr. A.R. Thompson is in the room. I wonder if we 

could ask him tocome to the tabje. 

you sworn in, Mr. Thompson? 

Mr. ROE. Why don’t you join us up here, Mr. Thompson. Were 

Mr. THOMPSON. Yes. 
491 

- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Maybe I will ask Mr. Thompson. Mr. Thompson, 

who did you make your recommendation to? Who in the chain of 

command at Thiokol, perhaps at Marshall, perhaps at NASAWashington, knew of your concerns, knew of your recommendations, and what to your knowledge was done about them, and what 

decisionmaking process took place by which your recommendations 

were turned down? 

Mr. THOMPSON. I wrote the memo to a Mr. Scott Stein that was 

involved in the O-ring team, and several copies of it to several 

people in the organization. Mr. Stein was involved in project engi- neering, as well as a member of the O-ring team. 

The purpose of the memo is that I was not content with the pro- cedure and how things were going, of course, so I thought we 

needed to do somethin more. I became less and less comfortable 

with flying due to the sg RM-22, where we had the 53-degree motor. 

So I felt we needed to do something to help the resiliency and help reduce some of the blow-by. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Who did your memo go to, who in the chain of 

command going up to you were aware of your memo? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Let’s see, I believe the head of the O-ring team 

was Mr. Ketner, and Mr. Boisjoly, and those are some of the ones I 

remember. Mr. Russell (my supervisor), Mr. Jack Kapp, Mr. Ebling, 

Mr. McIntosh, Dr. Salita, and Mr. Ketner. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Do you have any reason to understand why your recommendation was turned down, not acted upon? 

Mr. THOMPSON. No, sir, I don’t. But as had been indicated, it did 

need some research to show that those were the correct things to 

do, and the two things, of course, were to increase the shim thickness to take some of the rattle out of the joint, and to increase the 

O-ring diameter. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Would the research and development of your fixes 

have delayed the delivery of the SRM’s to NASA? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Itwould have required time to make new shims. 

It probably would have delayed it 1 month or 2, at least for the 

hardware and some of the research work would have been necessary to document it, which would have taken additional time. 

Mr. SCHEUER. How much of those delays of 1 month or 2 have 

penalized Thiokol? 

Mr. THOMPSON. I am not sure how to answer that, sir. 

Mr. ROE. One more answer from Mr. McDonald and the gentle- man’s time has expired. 

Mr. MCDONALD. There were things done. In fact, the recommendation Mr. Thompson made was implemented as soon as we could 

implement it. The larger O-rings were put into the QM-5 test, 

which was the test we had going into the test bay that very time to 

find out if those were going to work and improve the situation that 

Mr. Thompson thought they would. 

We acted on that immediately. And since the accident, we are 

going back and revisiting that, because-and this is a good example 

of sometimes a short-term solution becomes a long-term problem, is 

that we found that the increased O-ring squeeze that we got by putting that larger O-ring may not be the direction we want to go. 

Some of our tests said that is part of the problem. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I thank the chairman. 
492 

Mr. ROE. The chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Wisconsin, Mr. Sensenbrenner. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. I would like to follow up on the 

line of questioning I tried to develop yesterday before my time expired on what the decisionmaking process was within Thiokol. I 

think one of the things we are concerned about as a committee is 

to make sure that the management processes are such that something like this never falls through the cracks again. 

Now, as I understand it, based upon yesterday’s testimony and 

the Rogers Commission report is that Mr. McDonald was at the 

Cape recommending against a launch, Mr. Boisjoly was in Utah 

recommending against a launch. There was a teleconference on 

whether to launch between the NASA officials at the Cape and the 

Morton Thiokol officials in Utah, and then there was a caucus of 

the Morton Thiokol officials, and a recommendation to launch was 

made. 

Who made that recommendation to launch with the caucus? Did 

you, Mr. Kilminster? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. I was one of four that made that recommendation. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Who are the other three? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The vice president of engineering, Mr. Bob 

Lund; my immediate supervisor, Mr. Cal Wiggins; vice president and general manager of the Space Division, and his supervisor, 

senior vice president, Mr. Jerry Mason. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Did all of you agree on that recommendation to launch? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. You agreed on that recommendation to 

launch contrary to the recommendation of your engineers, Mr. 

McDonald, who was at the Cape, and Mr. Boisjoly, who was at Wasatch-- 

Mr. KILMINSTER. It was not known to us at that point Mr. 

McDonald was opposed to the launch. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The NASA officials did not communicate 

Mr. McDonald’s opposition to launch to you? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I think that they mentioned that that was discussed after the telecon. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Didyou ask the NASA officials at the Cape if they had talked to Mr. McDonald, and if so, what Mr. McDonald’s opinions were? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, I did not ask that. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Why not? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I believe that at the end of the summary that 

we gave, after we came out of the caucus, Mr. Stan Reinartz, who 

was at KSC, along with Mr. Mulloy and Mr. McDonald, asked if 

anyone had any further comments or considerations to make relative to that recommendation, and none were forthcoming. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Yesterday Mr. Mulloy testified that Mr. 

McDonald did not argue against launch during the telecon and 

that he sat and listened to the Thiokol people and Wasatch present 

its arguments. Mr. Kilminster, you had no conversations with Mr. 

McDonald, who was your representative at the Cape, during the 

telecon? 
493 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir, not specifically, just on the telecon as 

he was one of the people listening to what was being presented. Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. McDonald, was your role in the telecon 

to be seen and not heard or something else? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No; as I had indicated, I had requested the telecon because I felt it was an engineering decision that had to be 

made-I requested engineering-analyzed the situation, came back 

and recommended a temperature we were comfortable to launch 

with. That was done by the engineers. The recommendation was done by the vice president of engineer- ing. I had no reason to enter that telecon because I agreed with everything that was said. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. McDonald, did you have an opportunity to support Mr. Boisjoly during the telecon? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes, I did. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Did you? Mr. MCDONALD. Yes, I did. I made one comment on the telecon 

relative to the interpretation of the static test data as to whether it 

showed that the O-rings would operate properly at colder temperatures since the static tests were at cooler temperatures than what 

we had flown at. The comment I made was I don’t feel we can use 

that data because in those tests we recognized that we were put- ting blow holes through the putty during assembly and leak check 

operation, as such-it is much more difficult to assemble in a horizontal position than it is in a vertical. It is harder to keep the 

putty in the right place. We knew that. 

We went in and filled all those holes of putty before we static 

tested. We didn’t do that with the flight motors at the Cape. So I 

made a comment, “I don’t think it is appropriate to use that data.” 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, now that we have all of this testimony on the table, I am trying to find out how all of a sudden, the 

four of you, Mr. Kilminster pulled the rabbit out of the hat and 

recommended the launch, when the evidence pointed in exactly the 

opposite direction. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I don’t believe all the evidence pointed in exactly the opposite direction. I believe there was inconclusiveness with 

some of the evidence, and we pointed out that in our rationale, 

that the-some of the launches that have occurred, lower than 75 

degrees, had not exhibited blow-by, whereas we had two, one at 75 

degrees, one at 53 degrees that had exhibited blow-by. So there was 

no correlation there. 

In addition, as I mentioned yesterday, we looked at the margin of 

safety that we had relative to O-ring erosion. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. One final question. Once a decision like 

this was made by what I will refer to as the gang of four in Wasatch, was that decision reviewed by anybody further up in the 

Morton Thiokol chain of command, either Mr. Garrison or someone 

else? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Not to my knowledge. That would have been 

left up to my superiors to carry that forward. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to 

make the observation, Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying “The buck stops here” in the Oval Office in the White House. Obviously, no one at Morton Thiokol had a sign that said “The buck 
494 

stops here,” and it seems to me that when we are dealing with leg- islation to try to prevent this tragedy from happening again, we 

are going to have to be insistent that there be a well-defined chain 

of command, and I think that the testimony that has come from 

Morton Thiokol, as well as from NASA, is that there was no welldefined chain of command where the buck stopped, either at 

Morton Thiokol or within NASA. And I think that an accumulation of those factors resulted in the tragedy. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

What we are trying to do is establish what in fact happened, 

what is the truth. A dispute has arisen between you all, Morton 

Thiokol, and the test of the NASA witnesses from the Marshall 

Space Flight Center as to their statement to us that analysis was 

required under the contract. Under the design specifications for the 

solid rocket motor, analysis, in fact, was required of what the 

motor would operate like in conditions in an environment down to 

31 degrees, and an induced environment on the skin at the joint 

down to 25 degrees and on the strut down to 21 degrees. 

I have reviewed all of these documents, they are clear to me 

that, in fact, that is what it says, and in your testimony yesterday 

you disputed that in fact you had such an understanding from the 

documents. So I questioned at length the people from Marshall yesterday afternoon. 

Now, obviously the report of the Presidential Commission points 

up that all of this tragic mistake in large part has been a communication problem, and human beings make mistakes, and there are 

communications problems every day. But the fact is our concern is 

that there still is a communication problem about what the design 

specifications, in fact, require. 

I want to continue now trying to understand what your understanding of these design specs are. Because this item, 31 degrees in 

a flight condition, as stated in here, and down to 21 degrees, which 

is a design spec for the strut, is the very linchpin. Had that testing 

and analysis been done, according to the design specs, it is very 

likely that everyone would have been alerted in the system with 

the red flags waving and the launch never would have occurred. 

So as the senior officer here, Mr. Garrison, let me go back to the 

question. What is your interpretation of these design spec requirements? 

Mr. GARRISON. Congressman Nelson, as I testified yesterday on 

your questions, I went back and reviewed the fact that we had 

taken the specifications and other contractual documentations that 

we had received after award of the contract, we interpreted those 

and put them in a plan for a development verification and qualification program, and that plan was approved by NASA, and we proceeded with that, successfully conducted the program. Prior to the 

first launch, there was a very detailed review of the motor design 

and if we had met the specifications requirements. I think that 

there is documentation through the system that says that NASA 

had the same interpretation as we do-did on this item, that we 
495 

were to operate between 40 and 90 degrees and storage temperature was 32 to 100. 

Mr. NELSON. All right. I beg to differ with you, not by my conclusions, but by the testimony that has been here-- 

Mr. GARRISON. Could we refer to a document I think that indicates that NASA did have an interpretation similar to ours? 

Mr. NELSON. Please. And, Mr. Chairman, would you enter it into 

the record as a part of the hearing? 

Mr. ROE. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 
496 

Design Evolution 

of the Space Shuttle 

Solid Rocket Motors 

Al McDonald 

2 I st AIAAISAEIAS M EIASE E Joint 

Propulsion Conference 

8-1 I July 1985 

MORTON THIOKOL. INC 

Wasatch Division 

PO Box 524, Brigham City, Utah 84302 (801) 863-3511 

AIAA-85-1265 
497 

DESIGN EVOLUTION OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE 

SOLID ROCKET MOTORS 

Allan J. McDonald 

Director, Space Shuttle SRM Project 

Morton Thiokol, Inc. 

Wasatch Division 

Brigham City, Utah 

AESTRACT 

The design requirements established for the 

development of the Space Shuttle solid rocket motors 

(SRMs) were very demanding and included three very 

new and unique features: 

First solid propulsion system to be used for 

manned space flight. 

Largest solid rocket motor to be flown. 

Fist solid propulsion system designed to be 

recovered and reused. 

It was these "new" features that dictated that 

"old" established technology and manufacturing 

approaches be used in the development of this unique 

solid racket motor. High reliability was paramount. 

This paper discusses the evolution of the Space 

Shuttle SRMs from the original design flown on STS-1 

to the new generation SRM currently under development. This new generation SRM incorporates a 

graphite epoxy filament wound case (FWC). 

INTRODUCTION 

Technology selected for the initial design of 

the Space Shuttle SRM evolved from the successful 

Minuteman and Poseidon C-3 booster programs. The 

Stage I Minuteman booster had been operational for 

eleven years, and the Poseidon C-3 for five years at 

the time the new SRM development program started 

in June 1974. The original development program 

included seven static tests: four development 

motors and three qualification motors. 

This first generation solid rocket motor known 

as the "Standard SRM" boosted the Columbia into 

orbit on STS-1 on 12 April 1981 (Fig. 1) and flew on the first five Shuttle flights. The need for more 

payload resulted in reducing the steel case weight 

by 4,000 lbm which increased payload capability by 

700 lbm for STS-6 and STS-7. 

Further improvement in performance was obtained 

in the flight of STS-8 on 30 August 1983; this 

flight included the new high performance motor 

(HPM). The HPM provided 3,000 lbm more payload; 

performance was increased with a change in the 

nozzle and inhibitor pattern on the propellant 

grain. This improvement in the basic SRM was 

qualified with two static tests of the HPM prior to 

the first flight. A new generation SRM is currently 

under development to provide an additional 4,600 Ibm 

payload to polar orbit from the new Air Force Space 

Capyrlghl 0 AIM* IuUIale of AmwmW and 

AllmmmW, I%.. IW. All rights d. 

Figure 1. First Launch of the Space Shuttle 

Columbia on STS-1 (12 April 1981) 

Shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg Air Force Base 

(VAFB) in California. This new SRM incorporates 

filament wound case (FWC) segments made from a 

graphite epoxy composite. This new generation 

FWC-SRM is indeed a pioneering effort. The 146 in. 

diameter by 26 ft long graphite cylinders are the 

largest graphite structures ever fabricated and will 

be the first graphite rocket motor cases to be flown 

by the USA on any solid rocket propulsion system. 

The development of the FWC-SRM includes three static 

tests (two development and one qualification motor). 

The first FWC-SRM static test (DM-6) was successfully conducted at the Wasatch Division of Morton 

Thiokal at Brigham City, Utah on 25 October 1984 

(Fig, 2). The second development motor test (OM-7) 

was successfully conducted on 9 May 1985 with a 

final oualification test (OM-5) scheduled for 

September 1985. 

in early 1986. 

First flight'is siheduled from VAFB 

.. 

. .. .. . . ,: . .. .! ,. 

... . . . ., 

Figure 2. First FWC-SRM Static Test at 

Morton Thiokol/Wasatch Division 
498 

DESIGN EVOLUTION "- , - 

SPACE SHUTTLE 

SOLID ROCKET MOTOR 

IHIO" mmIuucI YDrnl 

Conservative structural and thermal design 

factors of safety were initially imposed on the SRM 

impact and recovery environments (Table I) These 

high safety factors are consistent with manned 

flight operations Recovery, refurbishment, and 

reuse of many SRM components resulted in unique 

design requirements to withstand water impact, salt 

water corrosion, numerous refurbishment cycles, and 

multiple operational uses The use of established rp 

materials and proven design concepts and manufactunng approaches minimized technical risk while 

providing schedule assurance at minimum cost 

(Ref 1) The analytical design ablation factor of 

2 0 was later reduced to 15 based upon a data base 

established from full-scale SRM test firings 

to withstand the transportation, flight, water wm U(I"IUUw7 CA1I1 

* INHIBITOR REMOVED mou CtHTEil SlDHlNIS OIIIAND*IDUOT(I..OI 

IHI"9lnUf ,PACE YODOICITION 

TABLE I 

SRM SAFETY FACTORS AND 

ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS Figure 3 SRM Casting Segments 

STRUCTURAL SAFETY FACTORS 

PRIOR TO SEPARATION 

9 AFTER SEPARATION 

THERMAL SAFETY FACTORS 

- ABLATION 

CHAR 

ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS 

STORAGE TEMPERATURE 

OPERATING TEMPERATURE 

- MAX CASE TEMPERATURE WEENTRY] 

- MAX ACCELERATION LOADING 

- TRANSPORTATION 

- FLIGHT 

* WATER IMPACT 

1.4 

1.26 

2.0 

1.25 

32' TO 95OF 

40° TO 90°F 

5OOoF 

+2.6g 

39 

-20ga 

Propellant/Liner/Insulation 

Eighty-six percent solids polybutadiene acrylic 

acid acrylonitrile terpolymer (PBAN) propellant was 

selected for the SRM based upon extensive experience 

with this same basic propellant in the Minuteman and 

Poseidon C-3 booster programs which produced over 

200 million pounds of this propellant. The Shuttle 

SRM formulation (TP-H1148) is nearly identical to 

the propellant used in the Poseidon C-3 first stage 

motor; propellant formulation and properties are 

shown in Table 11. Over 70 million pounds of the 

Shuttle SRM propellant (TP-H1148) have been processed to date. 

Each SRM consists of four casting segments 

(Ref, 2), i.e., a forward segment, two Center segments and an aft segment (Fig. 3). The forward 

segment contains an 11-point star grain configuration in the headend which transitions into a tapered 

cylindrical perforate (CP) grain design (Fig. 4). 

The remaining three segments contain simple tapered 

CP grain designs; the two center segments are 

TABLE II 

TP-Hl148 PROPELLANT FORMULATION PROPELLANT MECHANICAL PROPERTIES 

MATERIAL WEIGHT I%) UNIAXIAL PROPERTIES 74OF 

MAXIMUM STRESS IPS11 113.0 ] 14.0 STAIN AT MAXIMUM STRESS 1%) 38.9 

HE POLYMER 

ECA NPE II 

IRON OXIDE TYPE II 0.3 MODULUS OF ELASTICITY IPSll 518 

AP IGROUND - ZOp 

APIUNGROUNDI 1 69.7 

- 

ALUMINUM INONSPHERICAL1 125~1 16.0 STRAIN AT CRACKING 1%1 48.4 

PROPELUNT CHARACTERISTICS 

BURN RATE AT 1.000 pla Irbllln.lsec1 

BURN RATE EXPONENT In1 DENSITY ILBM IN.31 

0.436 

0.35 

0.084 

?&Ek%RE COEFFICIENT OF PRESSURE lIlkll%l°FI 0 11 

CHARACTERISTIC EXHAUST VELOCITY IC'KFT~SECI 5.082 ADIABATIC FLAME TEMPERATURE l°Fl 8.092 
499 

CENTER SEGMENTS - 65DR ,I,,. '- 318.50!3L0.93 j 

5 2.6 5 5 R 

42.21 50.251 50.751 

10.159 I AFT SEGMENT DETAIL A SEE DETAIL A 

34.5R1-372.291A 

0.93 

Figure 4. HPM Grain Configuration 

/-- IF 3,000,000 

1 .ooo.ooo 

500,000 

1 

20 40 60 80 100 120 

TIME ISECJ 

Figure 5. Thrust-Time Comparison, Standard SRM "5 HPM 

identical and interchangeable. This grain design 

results in a volumetric loading density of 80.5% 

with a propellant web fraction of 57.6%. Maximum 

induced grain strain is 21.9% at the fin to CP 

transition in the bore. Inhibiting is used on both 

exposed propellant surfaces at each segment joint to 

achieve the desired thrust profile shown in Fig. 5. 

An asbestodsilica filled nitrile butadiene 

rubber (NBR) insulation was selected for the primary 

case insulation, Stress relief flaps on the end of 

each segment, and full web propellant inhibitors on 

the forward faces of the propellant grains. This 

same insulation was used in the Minuteman and 

Poseidon C-3 boosters. A layer of carbon fiber 

filled ethylene propylene diamene monomer rubber 

(EPDM) is used for added erosion resistance in the 

aft dome and under stress relief flaps of the aft 

segment and bcth center segments. Carbon fiber 

filled EPDM was developed under thP Trident I C-4 

program. The insulation design for the HPM is shown 

in Fig. 6. The Shuttle SRM also uses thP Poseidon 

C-3 asbestos-filled Carhoxyl terminated polybutadiene 

(CTPB) liner; a modification of this liner is used 

as an inhibitor on ell aft propellant faces. The 

high performanc? motor (HPM) removed most of the 

castable CTPB inhibitor on the aft propellant face 

of both center seuments as shown in Fio. 7 to 

provide an increase- in the initial burnTng'surtace 

to provide higher thrust dunng the iritial portion 

of the Durn (Ref. 3). 
500 

S9.1 DIA 

0.654 

1.08 

[ 0.r . 0.” 0.15, 

58.9 

DIA 

0.13 2.05 0.09 -0.469 

0.499 

0’27(44’8 FORWARD SEGMENT 

Figure 6. HPM Insulation Design 

HPM 

Figure 7. Center Segment Propellant Inhibitor Patterns 

Ignition System 

The SUM ignition system is mounted internally 

in the forward casting segment. The ignition system 

shown in Fig. 8 consists of the following elements: 

Safety and Arming (S&A) Device - A reusable actuating and monitoring (A&M) assembly and an expendable booster-barrier assembly containing a mixture 

of boron potassium nitrate pellets and granules. 

The S&A device is an electro-mechanical system 

designed to preclude inadvertent ignition and insure 

positive ignition when required through the use of 

redundant NASA standard initiators (NSIs). 

Ignition Initiator - A small, multinorzled steel 

cased rocket motor containing 1.4 lb of fast burning 

propellant in a 30-point star configuration. The 

igniter initiator is ignited by a pyrotechnic charge 

in the booster-barrier assembly. 

!gniter - An insulated reusable D6AC steel case 

containing 137 lbni of fast burning PBAN propellant 

in a 40-point star wain confisuration. A molded 

silica phenolic throat insert cintrols the pressure 

in the igniter and directs the igniter plume to the 

main SUM propP1:ant grain. The pyrogen ignition 

system used in the SRM is a scaled bersion of the 

Minuteman ignition system. The ignition system has 

not changed since its original development. 

Nozzle 

The SRM nozzle shown in Fig. 9 is an omniaxis 

movable nozzle. The nozzle consists of aluminum and 

steel components irsulated with carbon cloth 
SRM CHAMBER PRESSURE ,,-IGNITER ADAPTER 

TRANSDUCER (311 

SLA ATTACH 8OLTS (10) 

WASHER 

PACKING WITH RETAINE 

IN PROPELLANT GRAIN 

PACKING WITH 

RETAINER (36) 

INNER GASKET 

Figure 8 SRM Igniter 

THROAT INLET HOUSING 0 STEEL COMPONENTS 

AFT END RING 

FORWARD EXIT CONE HOUSING 

AFT EXIT CONE SHELL 

CARBON CLOTH PHENOLIC 

GLASS CLOTH PHENOLIC 

h EARING ASSY 

ACTUATOR BRACKETS - ,, L~~~ 

53.86 in. THROAT DIA 

167.2 in. OVERALL LENGTH IlNCLUDlNG EXIT CONE1 

152.60 in. EXIT CONE DIA 

COMPLIANCE RING J’ 

Figure 9. SRM Bolt-On Nozzle 

phenolic ablation material supported on glass cloth 

phenolic throughout the nozzle. Approximately 20 

percent of the nozzle is submerged inside the aft 

motor case. The exit cone contains two sections to 

facilitate shipping and handling. The exit cone 

extension is assembled to the nozzle after assembly 

of the aft skirt to the solid rocket booster (SRB). 

The exit cone extension contains a linear shaped 

charge (LSC) which severs the exit cone after SRB 

separation to minimize structural loads on the SRB 

during ware? impact. The nozzle contains a flexible 

bearing capable of 8 deg deflection for thrust 

vector control (TVC). The flexible bearing consists 

of ten layers of DbAC steel shims sandwiched between 

eleven natural rubber pads. The SRH nozzle with the 

flexible bearing is a scaled version of the Poseidon 

C-3 booster nozzle. The SRM nozzle contains a 

unique snubber device to reduce nozzle damage during 

water impact, The snubber device, positioned on the 

exit cone steel structure. permits vectoring but 

bottoms out on the bearing aft end ring at water 

impact to prevent forward motion of the nozzle. The 

high performance motor (HPM) uses the same basic 

nozzle but reduced the throat diameter by 0.57 in. 

and extended the length of the nozzle by 10.46 in. 

to increase the inltial expansion ratio from 7.16 to 

7.72. 

Case 

Case sections are roll formed from DbAC steel 

forgings. the same material that was used in Stage I Minuteman motoPs. The 146 in. diameter motor case 

consists of eleven weld-free sections; the ends of 

each segment are machined to form tang and clevis 

joints as s,hown in Fig. 10. Each joint is fastened 

with 177 steel pins. The pins are held in place 

with spring clips and a steel retention band around 

the joint circupference. Each insulation joint 

ahead of the 0-ri,ng seals is filled with an asbestos 

filled 2in.c chrmite putty during assembly for 

thermal protection of the O-ring seals. Each joint 

is sealed against pressure leaks with two fluorocarbon elastomer O-rings installed in machined 
FIELD JOINTS 

n I I , 

502 

Forward Y Joint ET Attach Stiffener Ring Aft Y 

I 

Figure 10 

grooves in the clevis. A leak check port is located 

between the O-rings to check the redundant seals 

during assembly operations. Each case is designed 

for 20 uses; therefore, in addition to normal 

strength criteria, fracture mechanics and environmental effects were carefully considered in the 

design along with nondestructive testing. Case 

acceptance criteria include minimum fracture toughness as well as normal tensile properties 

(Table 111). 

TABLE 111 

D6AC PROPERTIES 

ULTIMATE STRENGTH 195.000 psi 

YIELD STRENGTH 180.000 psi 

FRACTURE TOUGHNESS 90,000 psi Vin. 

The SIX cylindrical segments, attach segment, 

and two stiffener segments are roll formed from ring 

rolled forgings. The ribs on the attach segment for 

attachment of the SRB to the external tank (ET) 

attach ring and on the stiffener segments for 

attaching stiffener rings required to resist water 

impact loads are integrally farmed during case roll 

forming and machining operations. Nominal case wall 

thickness is approximately 0.5 iiich. The forward 

case segments have remained unchaiiged but the center 

and aft segment sections were reduced in thickness 

and weight for the HPM. 

The new filament wound case (FWC)wi;;ntains 

graphite epoxy cylindrical sections D6AC 

steel end rings on each romposite cylinder. The 

FWC uses the HPM 06AC steel end domes and ET attach 

section. The resulting case weight is reduced by 

approximately 28,000 lbrn. The steel attach rings 

arP attached to the QraDhite eDoxv with a douhle 

staggered row of StPel-pins (132' p<ns per row) held 

in place with Kevlar retention bands. The metal 

to composite joirt contains redundant and 

verifiable 0-ririg seals. The field joint between 

each casting segment is similar to the HPM as shown 

in Fig. 11. Stiffness of the graphite case was of 

primary concern. Results from the first two static 

tests indicate the case behaved as exoected: averaae 

case sag for the horizontal static teit was'6.12 ji. 

compared to 3.37 in. for the HPM. As noted in Table 

:V, the DM-6 and OM-7 case growth data was well 

\ 

SUM Case 

HPM ET ATTACH I06ACI 

HPM FORWARD DOME IDBACI 

GRAPHITE CYLINDERS 

HPM AFT DOME 

lO6ACI 

CLEVIS ADAPTER TANG ADAPTER 

RINGS RINGS 

PIN RETAINER COMPOSITE 

1177 PINS1 D6AC PINISEAL 

GRAPHITE COMPOSITE Ffik CLEVIS GROUP 

SHELL \ RING, RIN,G lj32 PINSIROW1 

-COMPOSITE ASSEMBLY 

SEAL SEAL 

Figure 11 FWC-SUM Case Segments 

TABLE IV 

SRM STIFFNESS CHARACTERISTIC 

REQUIREMENT FWC IDM-6lDM-71 OVERALL AXIAL GROWTH ~ 

AT MEOP 1ln.l 0.60 0.3710.46' 

RADIAL GROWTH AT FORWARD 

SEGMENT AT MEOP 1in.I 0.66 0.6010.56* 

BENDING STIFFNESS IElt. Ib1in.l 10.6 x 106 10.4 x 106 

'SCALED TO MEOP FROM MEASURED DATA AT 935 psi 

below the design requiremergs. Overall bending 

stiffness (E.t) of 1C.4 x 10 lblin. was about 70: lpss than $r?dicted and lower than the nominal 
requirement of 10.6 x 10’ lb/in. (66% of steel case) 

due to joint bearing compliance. The FWC contains 

22 helical layers of graphite filament for stiffness 

and 19 to 22 alternating hoop plies (depending on 

segment location due to pressure drop down the 

grain) for pressure vessel performance (Fig. 12). 

Nonstructural graphite cloth broadgoods are used on 

the internal surface for mandrel removal and for 

abrading prior to insulating. Additional layers of 

graphite broadgoods are used in the joint ends to 

increase joint strength and improve joint shear 

capability. A hoop wound glass overwrap is used on 

the joint ends to provide a machining surface for 

end ring attachment. The aft segment contains three 

postcure wound graphite composite stiffener rings to 

prevent collapse of the aft segment during water 

impact. 

The FWC-SRM also uses a new svstems tunnel 

fabricated from a molded polyurethane ioam core with 

an aluminum cover. The systems tunnel or raceway is 

bonded to the FUC and contains all electrical cables 

and a linear shape charge (LSC) for motor destruct. 

The new foam core systems tunnel is 200 lbm lighter 

JOINT MEMBRANE 

CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION -A6 

12 RlES 80 DEG HOOP I9.22 80 DEE HOOP RlES AS4 GPAWITE 

AN0 55A EPOXY *C*lY 

than the current all aluminum systems tunnel and has a much lower aerodynamic profile than the current 

design as shown in Fig. 13. The new systems tunnel 

requires less closeout of external insulation after 

cable installation and will be used on future HPM’s 

as well as FWC-SRMs. 

M@JR PERFORMANCE 

than the current all aluminum systems tunnel and has a much lower aerodynamic profile than the current 

design as shown in Fig. 13. The new systems tunnel 

requires less closeout of external insulation after 

cable installation and will be used on future HPM’s 

as well as FWC-SRMs. 

M@JR PERFORMANCE 

The HPM configuration is shown in Fig. 3. The HPM is 146 in. in diameter, 126 ft lono, contains 1,110,136 lbm of solid propellant and weighs a 

total of 1,255,750 Ibm. Mass DroDerties of the HPM 

are presented in Table V. The nominal action-time 

is 123 sec and the HPM delivers an average thrust of 2.59 x lo6 lbf; maximum vacuum thrust is approximately 3.31 x 10‘ lbf. The motor delivers a vacuum specific impulse of 267.3 sec with an initial nozzle 

expansion ratio of 7.72. Nominal burn rate is 

0.368 in./sec at 60°F at a motor operating pressure 

of 625 psia. Maximum expected operating pressure 

(MEOP) is 1,016 psia. The ballistic perfoimance of the HPM and FWC-SRM are basically the same; the 

TABLE V 

HPM MA88 PROPERTIES 

3 

INSULAnON CASE 

LINER 

INHlrnR IGNITER INERTS 

NOZ. FWOSECI 

N02. RUG 

SVSTEMS TUNNEL 

INSTRUMENTAIION 

EXTERNAL INSUL 

PROPELLANT . Mo 

rnomuw. bn 

sunmw iim 

FORWARD 

25.226 3901

343 

261 483 

5 

131 5 301.639 57 

ls) 

333,lBB 

SEGMENT121 CEMER 

21.367 

2.w 

321 5- 

12s 

44 

272.754 

297.515 

- 

17.180 

I44 50 

107 4 

262.989 

311.975 

- 

TOTAL 

97.53s 

SnJ 

1.896 

17.160 483

50 

633 

2 

1.110.13S 255 

1.24%101 

rnw 3 

AFT EXlT CONE 5.8113 

Em CONE smwnoN SYSTEM 280 

STIFFENER RINGS 843 

ATTACH PR0VISH)WS ImTALI 537 

GLASS 80 DIG HOOP GRAPHITE CLOTH GLASS ROVlNO MISCELLANEOUS 34 

55A EPOXY sunmrAL ismi 7,668 

RESIN TOTAL SRM llbml 1266.7,O 

OMRWRAP AND Gumm SUBSTRATE 

MASS fRACTlON 0 881 

BURNOUT WEIGHT 1-1 138.295 MEFIRE CENTER OF GPAVITI IIN FROM 

IGNITER BOSS1 684 J 

BURNOUT CENTER OF GRAVITY IIN. FROM 

IGNITER BOSS1 823 I 

. . 22 HELICAL LAYERS 3.3 5 

DEG DIG ITEMS SHlPPED SEPARATELY 

48 LAYERS UNlURECnONll 

8RoAWOOOS 

22 HELICAL UVERS 33 5 

3 CUT OOUBLT HEUCPII LAVERS ASS GRARIITE 

3501 EPOXY 

RESIN 

CLOTH SUBSTPATE 

Figure 12. Typical Composite Segment Construction 

OLD TUNNEL 

CAILEHOLO. 

DOWN STRAS 

LSCASSEMBLY 1 \ 

SYSTEM TUNNEL 

ICOVER REMOVIln 

, 2 RUBBER MOUNTlNG 

PADS SRM CASE 

WSIGN DIIFERENCES 

NEWTUNNEL ~ OLD TUNNEL 

. COVERTHICKNESS 0.090 IN 0 250 IN 

€AD34 10 50 IN * ADHESIVE im CASEI €A919 

4 60 IN 

* WEIGHT 1.099l.n 1.29s LS 

* lNTERlOR SUPPORT URETHANE FOAM METAL BRACXETS 

WOTH IWiCOSi TPSl 16 75 IN * HEIGHT IWiCORK WSI 2.621N 

NEW TUNNEL 

Figure 13. Systems Tunnels 
504 

.. . ~ 

Figure 14. FWC-SRM Design Configuration 

FWC-SRM has aooroximatelv 3.000 lbm ' less orme1 lant 

(0.27 oercentl ?esultini from a sliohtl'v smaller "I 

inside 'diameter and an ];crease in insulation in the 

area of the metal adapter to composite joint. The 

baseline FWC-SRM design configuration is shown in 

Fig. 14. A comparison of the pressure-time traces 

of the DM-6 and OM-7 FWC-SRMs with the HPM is shown 

in Fig. 15 

NDRMILlllD TO lARGli BURN 14\11 = 0 368 !" /*flD TEMP = 60'1 PiND PITS = 615 0.l. 

Figure 15. Pressure YS Time 

Thrust differential between the two SRMs during 

operation must be minimized to reduce vehicle 

control requirements. The thrust differential 

between the two motors is primarily due to variations in propellant burning rate. The reproducibility of the thrust-time ti'ace and the predictability 

of the propellant burn rate have combined to provide 

considerably lower thrust imbalance levels than 

required by the specification. Differences between 

target and actual burn rates have been less than 2 

percent compared to a specification requirement of 3 

percent. 

Thrust traces during ignition for 26 static and 

flight tests (both standard and HPM) are shown in 

Fig. 16. The range in ignition interval times (from 

ignition command to 1,640,000 lbf sea level thrust) 

is less than 0.05 sec compared to the requirement of 

0.170 sec (from 0.170 to 0.340 sec). The reproducibility of the thrust-time trace during steady state 

and tailoff is shown in Fig. 17. The envelope of 

thrust imbalance levels from 11 matched pairs of 

SRMs flown on the Shuttle is well below the specification limits as shown in Fig. 18; the SRMs are cast 

in matched pairs to minimize thrust differential. 

I lo 

25 

P 20 

; 15 

9 

> 

5 1.0 

d 

0.5 

0 '0.0 0.1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0.6 0.6 

TIME 11.~1 

Figure 16. Composite of 26 SRM Thrust-Time 

Traces During Ignition 

.I 

3.2 

= 28 

P 2.4 

5 20 ; 1.6 

z 1.2 

I 

08 

0.4 

00 10 (0 60 80 1w 120 1.0 

TIME 1-1 

Figure 17. Thrust-Time Trace 

Reproducibility Experience 

I 

'! 

M 1-1 

Figure 18. Maximum Thrust Imbalance 

Envelope for First 11 STS Flights 
505 

All SUM5 have operated within specifications 

and all Shuttle flights have been successfui to 

date. All SRM hardware has performed as expected 

with the exception of one of the nozzles on the 

flight of STS-8. This nozzle exhibited severe 

erosion in the nose inlet section of the nozzle that 

substantially reduced the safety factor of the 

nozzle in this area. The anomaly observed on STS-8 

was traced to a need for tighter quality requirements on the carbon cloth phenolic material used in 

this section of the nozzle. This problem was corrected by restricting the material used in this 

portion of the nozzle and tightening the process 

controls for manufacturing these parts. 

RECOVERY, REFURBISHMENT, ANU PEUSE 

The solid rocket motors (SRMs) are the first 

and cnly reusable solid rocket motor? ever flown. 

The expended motors are parachuted back to earth 

(Fig. 19), retrieved in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 130 miles from the launch site, towed back to 

Port Canaveral, returned to the Wasatch Division of 

Morton Thiokol in Utah on railcars, refurbished, 

reloaded, and returned to the Kennedy Space Center 

(KSC) for another launch. The steel caFe components 

of %he SRMs will be used 20 times. The rubberjstrel 

shim flexible bearing in the nozzle, which provides 

steering capability for the vehicle, will be used 

far 10 flights before the rubber is removed; new 

rubber will thm be vulcanized to the refurbirhed 

metal to form a new “recycled” flexible 

bearing which will be good for another 10 flights. 

The steel and aluminum struct~~es in the nozzle will 

be used for 20 flights. The safe and arm (%A) 

device and the igniter are also refurbished and recycled for a total of 20 flights. Altogether, there 

are 84 metal parts, two S&As, six operational 

pressure transducers (OPTS). and oveP 5,000 pins and 

bolts that ape recovered and reused on every SRM 

flight set (Ref. 4). 

Figure 19. Typical SR8 Reentry Profile 

Some attrition of hardware has occurred when 

water impact loads have been more severe than expected. However, 95 percent of the hardware that 

has been recovered has been acceptable for reuse. 

Some SRM hardware has already flown five times and 

nearly all of the hardware from the development and 

qualification program has also been used in flight 

motors. 

Eighteen Space Shuttles have been boosted 

into space from Kennedy Space Center using 36 Solid 

propellant rocket motors. The two SRM boosters 

which supply about 04 percent of the launch thrust: 

Figure 20. SRB Separation 

Figure 21. SRB with Three Main Parachutes 

are separated (Fig. 20) from the Space Shuttle 

Orbiter approximately 2 min after launch at an 

altitude of 30 miles. The motors are parachuted to the sea (Fig. 21), retrieved and towed 130 miles 

back to Port Canaveral (Fig. 22). After partial 

disassembly, the motors are returned to Morton Thiokol in Utah on railcars (Fig. 23) where refurbishment and reloading takes place. Being the only reusable solid rocket motors ever flown, their 
506 

Figure 22 SRBs Being Towed Back to Port 

Figure 23. SRM Segment on Rail Car 

recovery provides the opportunity to evaluate the 

design performance and, safety factors built into 

each motor, through insulation and hardware inspection during refurbishment. 

Impact velocity of the SUM booster is around 55 

miles per hour even with the three large parachutes 

attached. Initial forces ape exerted on the 

remaining nozzle exit Cone and transmitted into the 

aft case dome. Booster aft skirts which house nozzle 

actuators also receive high impact loads. The most 

dama5ing loading on the case wall comes from the 

water forced radially inward as the impact cavity 

collapses on the partially submerged case as shown 

in Fig. 24; nearly 3/4 of the motor is submerged 

below the water. 

I 

4 

Figure 24. Water Impact 

The floating motor is tipped from a spar mode 

(Fig 25) to the towing log mode by displacing 

internal Water with compressed air introduced 

through the nozzle opening. Hookup and towing 

(Fig. 26) times are a function of the sea state and 

have varied from 1 to 4 days. Hardware damage 

appears to be inversely proportional to the sea 

state to some extent. 

The total SRM hardware mission cycle (Fig. 27) 

has two basic loops which include refurbishment. 

Case and igniter hardware start with new and used 

storage and proceed thmugh proof testing, assembly, 

insulation, propellant cast and cure, inspection and 

final assembly finishing. Motor delivery to KSC, 

stacking, launch and recovery is followed by evaluation. refurbishment, inspection and preservation. 

Nozzle hardware flow is similar with flexible 

bearing fabrication and proof testing, nozzle structure proof testing, nozzle assembly, inspection 

and final motor assembly. Following the recovery, 

nozzle components undergo a performance evaluation, 

disassembly, refurbishment, inspection and pi-esepvation. 

,.- - -- 7 

9, -we, 

Figure 25. SRB in Spar Mode 
507 

Figure 26. SRB in Log Mode for Towing 

CONCLUSIONS 

As a result of successful SRM refurbishment, 

the goal of low cost Space Shuttle missions is 

enhanced, Hardware reuse goals of at least 19 can 

be confidently projected due to the building base of 

available data. SRM hardware continues to build up mileage by continued travel on water, rail, road and 

through space. 

The new generation FWC-SRM has a requirement 

for recovery and reuse of all metal parts. The 

current FWC-SRM development program will also 

evaluate the potential reuse of the graphite composite cylinder sections. Graphite cylinders from the 

first two static tests (DM-6 and DM-7) and a short 

length structural test article (STA-2) are currently 

being evaluated to establish potential reuse capability. Data obtained to date indicate that the 

graphite cylinders may be reusable. Recovery of the 

first flight set of FWC hardware to be flown from 

VAFB early next year will be used to establish 

reflight capability of the graphite cylinders. 

The Space Shuttle SRMs evolved from the most 

mature solid rocket technology in the industry to 

the latest advancement in the state-of-the-art for 

solid rocket motor cases, The SRMs have maintained 

a record of 100 percent reliability in all SRM 

static tests and flights of the Space Shuttle to 

date, Future flights will continue to use the HPM 

for most launches with the FWC-SRM to provide 

additional payload capability where needed. it is 

expected that the SRMs will continue their flawless 

performance in both HPM and FWC-SRM configurations 

in the future (Ref. 5). 

STORAQE - NEW 

PRESERVE 

PROOF TEST \JEW 

FABRICATE 

STORAGE HARDWARE 

Figure 27. SRM Hardware Mission Cycle 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

References 

John Thirkill, "Solid Racket Motor for the 

Space Shuttle Booster," presented at the 1975 

AIAA Propulsion Conference, 29 Sep - 1 Oct 

1975. 

E. G. Dorsey, Jr., "The Space Shuttle Solid 

Rocket Motor," presented at the the 33rd Congress of the International Astronautical 

Federation, 27 Sep - 20 Oct 1982, Paris, 

France. 

L. 6. Bailey, G. E. Nichols, and C. A, Saderholm, "Space,, Sbuttle Rocket Motor PPrformance 

Improvment, presented at the 1083 JANNAF 

Propulsion Meeting, February 1983 

Howard H. ,,Mclntosh, Paul A. Ross, Allan J. McDonald. Refurbishment of the Soace Shuttle 

5RMs - the First Reusable Solid RoiketMotors," 

presented at the 1984 SAE Aerospace Congress 

and Exposition, 15-18 Oct 1984. 

Allan J. McDonald, "Evolution of the Space 

Shuttle Solid focket Motors - Something Old and 

Something New, presented at the Twenty-Seventh 

Israel Annual Conference on Aviation and Astronautics, 27-28 Feb 1985, Tel Aviv. Israel. 
508 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would like to review the documentation, any element of the shuttle goes through a preliminary design review, it 

goes through a critical design review, it goes through a design certification review which NASA is the principal participator, as well 

as the element subcontractor, and they also bring in outside people 

to make sure that that element is qualified to the specifications it 

is supposed to be. 

One of those final ones, prior to the first launch, occurred in 

April 1980, is this document called “Space Shuttle Verification Certification Propulsion Committee.’’ It was headed up by General 

Morgan and also the chief engineer at NASA headquarters at that 

time, Walt Williams, and their findings, their findings were, as in 

comparing everything that was done, ready for qualification. And 

the things they had concern was-one of their concerns was that 

we had no test at the temperature extremes of 40 to 90 degrees 

Fahrenheit. 

Mr. NELSON. May I have a copy of that document right now? 

Mr. MCDONALD. You certainly can. 

Mr. GARRISON. Read the other part. Mr. MCDONALD. Let me read to you first, and I will give this to 

you, and this was their findings. It says, “The SRM verification 

program does not include any full-scale firings nor any instrument- ’ ed storage tests at environmental extremes. Extremes include 

short-term horizontal storage conditions at Utah or in shipment, 

long-term storage at 32 degrees Fahrenheit to 100 degrees Fahrenheit or firing at 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 90 degrees Fahrenheit.” 

Mr. NELSON. Was that specifically a document that modified the 

design requirements, as stated in the initial space shuttle flight and ground systems specification? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, it was a document that was written based on 

the data that was available to determine whether we met the specifications as they interpreted them also. 

Mr. NELSON. It was written by whom? 

Mr. MCDONALD. It was written by General Morgan and by Mr. 

Walt Williams, the chief engineer at NASA headquarters. 

Mr. ROE. The document will become part of the record. 

Let me clarify a point for the record at this point before I call on 

the distinguished gentleman from California, to get this into the 

record at this point. 

In the observations of the Thiokol leadership and in view of that 

document that you have just read, is it perceived at all you would 

just go ahead blindly? Everything you did in the design approach had to be approved by NASA, is that correct or not correct? 

Mr. GARRISON. Well, everything certainly had to be approved, 

yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. The question has arisen on the design specification requirements, and, in effect, what is being said, did Thiokol’or did 

Thiokol not meet its design specifications? 

Mr. GARRISON. In our opinion, and with our interpretations, we 

met the requirements. 

Mr. ROE. All right. I am simply saying for the record, it would 

seem to me, you are not just picking up a bowl of soup and presenting it-there are thousands of parts and thousands of engineering 

decisions to be made. And I assume there was some process that 
509 

was followed with NASA as you progressed along, because NASA 

was the ultimate one to determine whether you were meeting your 

contract requirements or not. And if you weren’t, they should have 

stopped you. Is that the proper understanding? 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes, sir, that is correct. 

Mr. ROE. That is all I want to say. The gentleman from California. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In your telecon, was temperature that night ever discussed? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. You are talking of the telecon of January 27? 

Mr. PACKARD. January 27. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, it was. 

Mr. PACKARD. What was the nature of that discussion? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Earlier in the day, when we were told the overnight temperatures could be low, we were told initially they could 

be as low as 18 degrees overnight temperatures. Later on, that was 

modified, and I believe the last calculation we made, even while 

the telecon was initially going on, was based on 23 degrees overnight low temperatures. We took those low temperature conditions 

as a function of time as when they would occur or when they were 

predicted to occur over that nighttime period, and then we predict- ed from that what the temperatures of the O-rings could get down 

to. It was on that basis we predicted that the temperatures of the 

O-rings would be around 29 degrees, and that was discussed during the course of the telephone conversation. 

Also discussed, and I believe it is included in the charts that 

were used for that discussion, were temperatures of other motors 

that had been tested at various temperatures. 

Mr. PACKARD. That was considered to be the ambient air temper- ature? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir, that was the calculated temperature of 

the O-ring given some ambient temperature condition, and that 

ambient temperature condition over time. 

Mr. PACKARD. And it was at that time your engineers, with that 

information, felt that it was inadvisable to fly? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD. And what circumstances and what data changed that decision? - 

Mr. KILMINSTER. We also had some information, as I had mentioned yesterday, where some resiliency tests were ‘done, and those 

resiliency tests were laboratory tests that were conducted at 50 degrees, 75 degrees, and 100 degrees. 

In addition, we had sub-scale tests that were conducted using the 

same pressurize rate that we would predict for the motor on these 

sub-scale vessels with full-scale full diameter O-rings, but at a 

smaller diameter, circumference diameter, and in the same gap or 

grove geometry that we would use in the full scale. 

Those tests were conducted, 2 at 75 degrees and 2 at 30 degrees. This was done with an argon gas so we could sniff with a very sensitive instrument to see if there was any blow-by past the O-ring 

when we conducted that pressurization test. Those indicated that 

there was not any blowby. 

Mr. PACKARD. And that was the extent of any tests that were 

below 40 degrees or even 53 degrees, is that correct? 

64-295 0 - 86 - 17 
510 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir. There was also some static tests temperatures, and I believe that night our calculation showed they 

were, one of them was at 47 degrees, again calculated O-ring temperatures, and another one at 48 degrees calculated O-ring temperatures. 

Mr. PACKARD. Of course, there is a lot of difference between 47 

degrees and 29 degrees. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes. 

Mr. PACKARD. Were there ever any-or did you use previous 

flight experience as it relates to temperature to determine the effectiveness of the O-ring joint? Were those figures calculated and 

tabulated on an ongoing basis, previous flights? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I believe we understood that night, and I can’t 

remember if they were shown on the charts or not, that there were 

a number of flights between 75 degrees and 53 degrees, which exhibited no blowby. 

Mr. PACKARD. But nothing below 53? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Nothing below 53 for flight motors. 

Mr. PACKARD. You have some of your new design people or the 

redesign people here today, is that correct? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PACKARD. I would be interested in knowing what kind of 

progress and what direction the redesign is going at the present 

time. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I defer that question to Mr. McDonald. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I am head of the redesign task force, and we are 

in the process of looking at various concepts. We have been establishing criteria for those concepts, and those concepts are to make 

sure that we have full redundancy in any sealing concept for the 

full duration of the flight. We are going to eliminate, as best we 

can, any kind of rotation one could ever get out of a joint like that, 

and we are looking at different seal concepts, as well as different 

types of devices to protect those seals, and it is not because we 

don’t have a lot of concepts, we have more than we can deal with 

right now. We have got to narrow those down, but we are doing 

that very carefully. 

Mr. PACKARD. We are looking primarily again at the existing 0- 

ring type of redesign? 

Mr. MCDONALD. We are looking at some O-ring design and some 

that do not have any O-rings. We are looking at different types of 

sealing concepts, as well as O-ring concepts. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. For clarification of the record, Mr. Garrison, would you 

advise the committee, we are speaking of the redesign team-is 

that the word we are using? What do you call it, your redesign 

team? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. Is that a Thiokol redesign team? 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes, sir. That is an organizational element title 

and the program management organization of our Space Division. 

Mr. ROE. When did the team begin, for the record? 

Mr. GARRISON. The team-- 

Mr. ROE. August? 
511 

Mr. GARRISON. At the time Mr. Dorsey came on board and reorMr. ROE. When, August? Just recently? 

Mr. GARRISON. March. 

Mr. ROE. In March of this year? 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. Has this all been discussed, NASA knows what you are 

Mr. GARRISON. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROE. Are there NASA people on the team? 

Mr. GARRISON. This is an internal organization, sir. It has been 

coordinated with NASA, they are fully aware of what we are doing. They are fully aware of the people we have assigned. We are not 

trying to say that this is the total design task force for the system. This is Thiokol’s organization that is spending full time in supporting this activity. Mr. ROE. Where did the idea of a team come from, from Thiokol 

or from NASA or a joint meeting between Thiokol, NASA, or 

what? 

Mr. GARRISON. This is an internal Thiokol organizational title, 

sir. And it was to give our program management people, specifically Mr. McDonald, the assets to manage that program. Mr. ROE. I understand the technical difference, I understand 

what you are talking about. What I am trying to get is where is the 

origin from? Is it sanctioned by NASA, is it now an accepted fact 

that there is a Thiokol redesign team that is approved by NASA? 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes; I believe so. 

Mr. ROE. Have you got a contractual agreement to that 

effect-- 

Mr. GARRISON. Well, we have-- 

Mr. ROE [continuing]. In your ongoing contract for redesign? 

Mr. GARRISON. We have technical direction from NASA, yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. So it is a sanctioned operation by NASA who is agreeMr. GARRISON. Absolutely. Completely covered by our contract. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I would like to go back to my line of questioning yesterday. Mr. Roe asked you yesterday morning who was in 

charge of that critical meeting in which the fretful decision to 

launch was made. I didn’t appreciate your answer. I didn’t know, I 

understood your answer. You were in charge of that meeting, were 

you not, sir? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. The senior man that was at that meeting was 

Mr. Mason, the senior vice president of Wasatch operations. 

Mr. ANDREWS. He was the person who oversaw the discussion in 

the meeting and drew the conclusions together, and not yourself? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is correct. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Yesterday I read to you a statement that was 

made by Mr. Locke, his written statement, in which he said: 

“NASA questioned Morton Thiokol’s decision. Our engineers could 

not prove that it was unsafe to fly at less than 53 degrees Fahrenheit.” 

Mr. McDonald has testified, and this statement testifies, that 

what had happened was that NASA changed the burden of proof 

ganized the division. 

doing? 

ing Thiokol is doing the study into redesign? 
512 

on Thiokol and suddenly rather than trying to prove it was safe to 

launch, you were put under the burden of showing that it was 

unsafe to launch. 

You disagreed with that statement yesterday. Is that correct, sir? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes; basically, I did not see any significant difference in the way that we were asked to review the technical data 

and draw conclusions from technical data that we are asked almost 

on a weekly basis when we have other technical discussions with 

Marshall Space Flight Center. When we present data one way or 

the other, they, rightfully so, scrutinize that data, penetrate that 

data and ask us on what basis we are making our judgments. And I 

saw that operation as being a typical type thing that we had done 

in the past. 

Mr. ANDREWS. And that troubles me greatly. Because that leads 

me to think that this kind of decisionmaking may happen again in 

the future. I assume that we don’t want to write such strict contracts between NASA and their contractors that would restrict 

common sense and inhibit judgment. But what do we do when the 

judgment is flawed and the common sense is put aside, as happened in the case of that meeting? 

And my question to Thiokol and to you is: Do we need, as a 

matter of policy, to have tighter burdens of proof written into the 

contracts with the contractors, where you know full well what your 

responsibilities are when you make that decision to recommend a 

launch or not to launch? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I would believe that type of thing would be relatively difficult to write in as a matter of mechanics type operation. 

I have no further comment, I guess. 

Mr. ANDREWS. How do we avoid the failure of common sense and 

good judgment that occurred in your instance? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I don’t believe there was a failure of common 

sense in this instance. I believe that we had different people looking at the same data and drawing somewhat different conclusions. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Let’s go into that in a little more detail. I would 

like, if we could, there is a critical memo that was the final decision to launch that was sent to NASA, and if we could project that 

on the wall for a second, it might be a little bit easier to talk about. 

And I would like to ask Mr. McDonald if he would, if we can see 

this, to go down this memo and first, Mr. McDonald, tell us what is 

critical about this memo, what is this memo? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That was the final memo that came of the fax as 

a result of the caucus at Wasatch, and it basically delineates the 

points that were made when Mr. Kilminster came back on the line 

recommending to proceed on with the launch, even though we had 

some concerns. 

Mr. ANDREWS. So when Mr. Kilminster tells this committee that 

his common sense was sound that day and his judgment was appropriate, this memo reflects that common sense and judgment. This 

is the basis for Thiokol’s decision that is reflected in this written 

document. 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is the way I understand it, yes. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Would you please go down the memo, and let’s 

talk about the specifics of this extremely important document for 
513 

this committee, and give us your thoughts first why each of these 

is significant, what they mean to us. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, the first bullet says “Calculation shows 

SRM 25 O-rings will be 20 degrees colder than SRM 15 O-rings.” 

Now the SRM 15 was from the previous flight 1 year before that on 

STSdlC. And that is bad, because they are recognized to be much 

colder, which everyone recognized was going in the wrong direction. 

Mr. ANDREWS. If this is one of the things, when you saw this 

memo you were shocked, were you not, to see this in writing? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes; I was. I was a bit surprised because there 

were so many things on here. In fact, more things that were bad 

than there were good. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, my time is up. I have heard the 

bell. 

Mr. ROE. That is all right. I think it is a critical issue, and the 

members will indulge us, in addition to that, the point I raised this 

morning, if the gentleman from Texas will yield, I will give addi- tional time, that is a duplication of the memorandums that appeared in the Commission report on page 97. That is how it is 

printed in the report. 

However, in the original document, there is a section on the 

bottom that I mentioned this morning, as I understand it from information we received, that has a codicil under where it says; 

“Morton Thiokol, Inc., Wasatch Division,” there is another part of 

the writing that has a warning, and it reads as follows, and I quote, 

warning reads: “Information on this page was prepared to support 

an oral presentation and cannot be considered complete without 

the oral discussion”. 

One more time, for the record, information on this page was prepared to support an oral presentation and cannot be considered 

without the oral discussion, and that is what I was attempting to 

develop early this morning, and relate that to this memorandum. 

There is an oral discussion related here. That is what the warning of the codicil says according to the official record. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Let me explain why that is there. This is a form. 

The form is a piece of paper that we use to put oral presentations 

together for the customer. 

Mr. ROE. I understand. 

Mr. MCDONALD. We make bullets on there and when we give an 

oral presentation, there is obviously a lot more said than what is 

exactly on that piece of paper. It was just typed on that piece of 

paper. It has no more significance than that. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield, it may be typed on there. 

I am beginning to wonder why anything is typed. It seems to meweren’t there oral discussions that related to the issue? 

We just got done saying you spent a half hour caucusing or an 

hour caucusing. What I am trying to get at, and I think the key to 

this issue, is whether or not Thiokol unilaterally made this decision, or was it made in concert and discussion with NASA officials. 

That is No. 1. 

The second point of the question is, if that is so, at what level 

was that decision made, or those series of decisions made, and 

quote, one, did, No. 1, people in NASA top management know of 
514 

the decision. And equally as important, did No. 1 people in Thiokol 

know of the decision. Do you see where I am coming from? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I will defer the latter part of that question to 

Mr. Garrison, but this piece of paper is like a logo; it’s a letterhead 

piece of paper where that information relative to the oral presenta- tion is part of the paper. It was not typed on there after the information was. It was already on the piece of paper. 

Mr. ROE. But the gentleman seems to be thinking I am having difficulty in understanding that. I am not. I understand exactly. What I am trying to develop all through the testimony we had 

people say: “Oh, we left that out,” or “That didn’t matter,” or 

“This was a mistake.” We have heard that for days now. You know 

someplace along the line you signed a document, Mr. Kilminster 

signed a document. Does the oral relationship and discussion have 

anything to do with it? That is the question he is asking. How did 

you arrive at the decision? 

Mr. GARRISON. I don’t believe that that statement on the bottom 

of the paper insinuates in any way that the document doesn’t 

mean what it says. That was a decision that our management 

people made and transmitted to NASA as a result of the lengthy telephone conversations they had all afternoon. 

Mr. ROE. There is a difference of interpretation, and I think you 

or Mr. Kilminster have said it. It depends upon, you know, the 

eyes-truth is in the eye of the beholder. I think I thought I heard 

what you said. The biggest mistake we can make in life in the art 

of communications is if the other person understood what we said. 

In your own group of people here, Mr. Kilminster said that he did 

not feel that was a change of policy, I did not feel that was pressure, and so forth. 

But Mr. McDonald and Mr. Boisjoly testified to the point of view 

they do feel it was pressure. They didn’t agree with Mr. Kilminster. It is either correct or is not correct; isn’t that what you testified to? So therefore we have a difference of opinion in the Thiokol 

chain of command, if I may make that point. Is that reasonable? 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROE. Now, NASA comes back, and says: Look, we didn’t 

think we were pressuring at all. We just were following the process. This is what we always do. 

Now, there is something not coming together there. Do you understand where we are trying to come from? 

Mr. GARRISON. I think that what you stated is true, that some 

people-- Mr. ROE. Was Thiokol under pressure by NASA to make a decision regardless of the problems involved to launch? Or did Thiokol 

unilaterally make that decision? That is what is before us on this 

memorandum right now. 

Mr. GARRISON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to summarize what I 

think the position is, and when I saw what I think it is, because we 

do have a difference of opinion between our people on how they felt 

during that telephone conversation on pressure. We also have obviously a difference of opinion between two groups on technical judgment, and that is a fact. 

I don’t know how to get around that. The four people that made 

the decision felt that they had adequate, adequate technical justifi- 
515 

cation to make the decision. We had other people that felt just as 

strongly that they did not. Those are the facts. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. We will now recess for 10 minutes to go and vote and return, and we will take up with Mr. Andrews when we return. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

When we recessed to go and vote, we were having some questions 

being asked by the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Andrews. The chair 

recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. McDonald, tell us, if you would, please, the significance in 

your mind of this memo that is reflected on the wall that is found 

on page 97 of the Presidential commission report. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I guess the significance in my mind was 

that Mr. Kilminster tried to incorporate all of the information that 

he knew, that he was aware of at that time, relative to the issue of 

cold temperatures on the capability of the O-ring seals, both positive and negative, and he summarized all that there. 

Mr. ANDREWS. All right. When Mr. Kilminster stated earlier that 

he used good common sense and good judgment, that is what is reflected in this memo, is it not? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, you will have to ask Mr. Kilminster that. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I believe he stated that that is his judgment. Now, 

if you would, please go down these very, very important conclusions that Thiokol drew, and tell the committee what is significant 

about each one. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, as I had indicated, the first one shows it is 

much colder, which is a bad thing. Everybody knew that that was 

our concern. Everybody was concerned about what effect that 

might have, because it was going to be colder, outside of our experience base. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Were you surprised to see that in this memo? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Oh, absolutely not. That was a known factor for 

everybody. That was the reason we had the whole meeting in the 

first place, because it was outside of our experience base; our 

lowest experience base prior to this was on STS-51C, which was 

our set of SRM-15 motors that is referenced here, and this is a 

much colder condition. That was what drove the whole meeting. 

Mr. ANDREWS. And weren’t you surprised to see that the conclusion to launch was made in spite of this notation? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I was surprised to see the conclusion the 

launch was made in that. I wasn’t surprised to see it on this particular piece of paper, because Mr. Kilminster was trying to put 

down all the information that they knew, both good and bad. 

Mr. ANDREWS. The second one is the temperature data section. 

Tell us what is significant about that. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, the temperature data is not conclusive on 

predicting primary O-ring blowby. Now, generally when we have 

information that is not conclusive, it has to be interpreted as negative; if you don’t understand it or it can’t support a position, then 

that is bad. 
516 

Mr. ANDREWS. And so good common sense or good judgment 

would be to recommend not to launch, when you have inconclusive 

information on something as critical as this temperature measure? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, that is right. It is a negative thing, and 

then we go to the engineering assessment, and recognizing that by 

getting colder those O-rings are going to be harder, there durometer increases, which is not good. We mention that those harder 0- 

rings are going to take longer to seat, and that was kind of the 

issue that Roger Boisjoly had made earlier with the concern with 

the timing function, the time it takes for this whole sealing operation to occur while you may be getting some erosion on the 0- 

ring. 

And the sub to that is that more gas may pass primary O-ring 

before the primary seal seats, relative to the worse condition we 

had seen a year earlier, and that is a very negative statement that 

says that it is liable to be worse than what we had seen, even 

though a year earlier it certainly didn’t fail. 

Mr. ANDREWS. And in spite of that information that is reflected 

in the memo, Mr. Kilminster’s common sense told him that it was 

OK to launch that morning? Mr. MCDONALD. Well, he was weighing this information relative 

to the rest of the information on this chart also to make that decision. In all fairness, you must go through the whole thing. At that 

point you will notice there are some comments that are made on 

the positive side of why they feel it will still work. The one about 

demonstrated seating threshold is three times greater than the 

thirty-eight one-thousandths erosion that was experienced on that 

previous coldest launch 1 year earlier is a positive statement that 

we can obviously tolerate much more erosion without losing the 

seal than we had seen prior to that. 

The next statement says that the primary seal does not seat. The 

secondary seal will seat. 

Now, that is a matter of judgment in my opinion, because the 

point that Mr. Boisjoly was making is that, yes, if you conclude 

that all of this whole phenomena occurs in the first 170 milliseconds before the metal parts have a chance to deflect and rotate, 

that is a fairly good chance that indeed will happen. 

But if the cold temperature affects the O-rings themselves, and 

the grease and the capability extruded in the gap that Mr. Boisjoly, 

the point he made, and he made beyond that time regime, and 

then because the resiliency of the secondary O-ring is the same as 

the primary, they both have the same problem, it may not come 

out fast enough to catch up with the metal parts and it won’t seal. 

Mr. RITTER. Will the gentleman from Texas yield on that? 

Mr. ANDREWS. I will be glad to yield. 

Mr. RITTER. It states here if the primary seal does not seat, the 

secondary seal will seat, and you say that is certainly a matter of 

judgment and I would agree. Now, the primary O-ring seal has a 

critical 1 rating. That means it does not have a redundancy built 

into it, which means that in fact you should seriously doubt, given the criticality 1-R rating, you would seriously doubt, from the 

rating system, that the backup seal would work, wouldn’t you? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, let me comment on that. I think-and I 

heard most of Mr. Boisjoly’s testimony yesterday, and I think he 
517 

did an excellent job in explaining how we looked at that situation. 

The criticality 1-R was changed to a 1 when people recognized that 

if we took some of the hardware that our engineering drawings allowed us to build, and took the worst tolerances with the clevis 

opened as much as it possibly could, and the tang being as thin as 

it possibly could, and the O-ring being as thin as it possibly could be, that we were in a condition where if you believed the information that Marshall had obtained off of a structural test article on 

how much that opening between the tang and the clevis sealing surface happened during pressurization, you could end up with a 

condition where you had no squeeze on that secondary O-ring. 

Now, when that was recognized, there were two things that were 

brought to bear at Thiokol. One was that we decided that we are 

not going to allow any hardware to ever go in the field that had all 

of those worse tolerances stack up. We were going to measure each 

of them individually and only mate hardware that was not in that 

kind of a condition, and we had to present at every flight readiness review what those measurements are and what O-ring squeeze that 

we had maintained, so there was none of it in the field. 

Mr. RITTER. If you will yield back to me for a moment, doesn’t 

the criticality of 1 characterization imply a single point failure, 

and that is it, and that is the nature of criticality 1, and that you 

are trying to justify why you guys went ahead and did this, but you violated in a sense your own performance rating system? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, it does imply that is what a critical 1 is, if 

the hardware is in that kind of a condition, and the reason it was 

changed is because the engineering paper allowed you to have 

hardware in that condition, and in order to make sure that it never 

happens, you have to treat it as a criticality 1. Now, in this particular instance, and subsequent to that change in criticality 1-R to 1, 

we watched all that hardware. 

The second thing was the reason Thiokol never changed their pa- perwork from a l-R to a l-and we did not-was that, one, we 

didn’t agree with the conclusion that the clevis opened that much 

in the first place. We ran our own tests, and said that it didn’t 

open near as much as what the Marshall data indicated, and we 

ran ours in a vertical condition rather than a horizontal that they 

ran theirs in. The horizontal was the worst condition but the motor 

doesn’t fly that way. 

More recently, as a result of the referee tests, they were started 

because of this disagreement between ourselves and Marshall confirmed that we were right, that it didn’t open that much, and as a 

result if you forgot about resiliency in the cold temperature, which 

up until recently we weren’t aware of that problem, but when the 

criticality 1R was changed to one or temperature wasn’t an issue, 

our hardware and our analysis and the data that we received recently said it was indeed redundant, and it stayed that way. 

Now it is just because of this temperature problem and the resiliency of the O-ring that we found out in this past year has now 

made it so it is only a criticality 1. 

Mr. ANDREWS. But the point is-if I could regain my time for one 

more question-the truth is, Mr. McDonald, you and Mr. Boisjoly, in looking at this memo that reflected that discussion, know full 

well that the things are listed on here, any one of those could be 
518 

ample reason to decide not to launch, as an abundance of precau- tion. That is correct, Mr. Boisjoly, isn’t that right? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes, I agree to that. 

Mr. ANDREWS. And in spite of that, we have Mr. Kilminster sitting there today testifying before this committee that he used good 

common sense, good judgment, and in spite of this memo and the 

stark conclusions that were drawn from the memo, and the facts 

that we know happened, he still says that Thiokol at that meeting, those engineers and the management people, used good common 

sense, and I am frankly just appalled by that, and as we as a committee try to go about designing better public policy, we need some 

harder answers than that, Mr. Kilminster. We have got to avoid 

the kind of bad discretion and the bad judgment that Thiokol used 

in that very, very critical meeting. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Based on today’s state of knowledge, that certainly is the case. What I was trying to relate to you was the state 

of knowledge that we had that evening, and this information was 

reviewed with the vice president of engineering as well as the 

other two managers there, and that was our consensus, not just 

mine alone. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. Put the lights 

on, please. 

I think for an even balance of the issue, in view of the fact that 

we have been going round and round and round and round, and 

properly so, to get to the bottom of the issue, we can’t lose sight of 

a very important fundamental fact. Even if what was said today is 

correct-and I have no reason to doubt it-there is a difference of 

opinion between Mr. McDonald, Mr. Boisjoly and Mr Kilminster, 

there is no problem with that, But the final buck stopped at NASA, 

either that or Thiokol was running the system. That is something 

that we can’t lose sight of in our evenhanded deliberations. 

The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Torricelli, is recognized. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Ritter, as a man of science, addressed this question from his 

own background. Let me briefly, Mr. Kilminster, do it, address this 

question from my own background as a lawyer. You find yourself 

in an interesting position, as one who invariably in the future 

could be involved in a civil litigation or worse. 

As I understand your testimony this morning, before this committee, and I assume in the legal process that may follow, you are 

going to suggest to a court, as you suggest to this committee, that 

you were engaged in a conversation and a decision to launch a $4 

billion vehicle with seven lives aboard, and although one of your engineers was on the site and on the phone, never really questioned his contrary judgment. You did so without real working knowledge of the conditions at the site, and having never tested 

adequately the equipment that you had sold to NASA, as I understand the circumstances that were then prevalent at the site. 

I am not so much, Mr. Kilminster, asking you for a response as I 

am that I have seen the makings of negligence cases before, but 

rarely one that was so strong. You are going to find yourself in a 

unique position, if you and your corporation are going to claim that 

negligence has not been committed in this case. 
519 

I invite your response, though it is certainly not required. 

Mr. Garrison, is the policy of your company to sell equipment to 

the U.S. Government, certify it having met standards that have 

been set forth in the bidding process, having never adequately tested them to the limits of those specifications? And could that not 

be said to be the case with any other equipment that you have sold 

the U.S. Government, or shall we assume that this is a unique exception, and that everything else that you have sold to the government has in fact been tested to the limits of its specifications? 

Mr. GARRISON. I believe, Mr. Congressman, that I explained earlier that I do not believe we did that. I think that-I will repeat 

again, we interpreted the specifications. We submitted our plans, which were agreed to, and approved, and I feel that we complied with the contract. 

I think you have to understand-and there may be some misconception in this room-that we take a contract and go away and do 

our thing and deliver a product, and that is not true, because everything we do is under scrutiny and approval of NASA. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. I think Mr Roe has made that point, and I think 

it was a contribution to our discussions today, because for whatever 

failures took place in the corporation, the fact is that they were 

done under the nose of NASA and in fact with their approval. It is, 

however, difficult for a lay person listening to this discussion today 

to come to the same conclusion-having now read the specifica- tions, and heard of your testing process-come to the conclusion 

that in fact the item was tested to the limits of its specifications- difficult to accept. 

Mr. GARRISON. We believe we did that. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Let me suggest to you then, you today, sitting 

there, would suggest that NASA flew these motors at 31 degrees? Mr. GARRISON. Absolutely not. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. But you tested them to 31 degrees? 

Mr. GARRISON. I think the record shows what the qualification 

program was. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Again, I don’t come to this as a scientist. I come 

to this as a layman. Mr. GARRISON. Our specification says the operating limit of the 

rocket motor is 40 degrees to 90 degrees, sir. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. And that is, you felt, the limit of your obliga- tions to NASA, that it be operational at 40 degrees? 

Mr. GARRISON. No, I was just commenting on what specification requirements are. I thought you were referring to that. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. I see; but your view is that the limits of your re- sponsibility to NASA, that it be operational at 40 degrees? 

Mr. GARRISON. I believe that was the requirement of our contract. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Yes, would you fly this shuttle today at 40 degrees? 

Mr. GARRISON. I would not fly at all until we have gone through 

a redesign of the joint. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. But yet you are telling me that you adequately, 

as required under the contract, tested at 40 degrees. You have done 

no tests since. You had those tests, but you now conclude that that 

was not the proper conclusion? 
520 

Mr. GARRISON. My statement was that I feel very strongly that 

Mr. TORRICELLI. I think the point is sufficiently made. 

Mr. Chairman, may I have a moment-- 

Mr. ROE. Proceed. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Immediately after the accident, there was an op- portunity to speak with Secretary Weinberger, and there was a 

natural concern if this was a problem of the solid rocket motors on 

the boosters, there being some similarity to the technology with 

military rockets, was the United States unprepared to defend itself 

in freezing temperatures. 

He assured me of the fact that they had tested their equipment 

to minus 60 below. They had no problems with the joints, no prob- lems with their solid rocket motors. I didn’t find any of your reac- tions to that, how it is that other manufacturers with similar technology seem to have encountered none of these difficulties, and are 

operating with complete assurance of their technology. What are 

the profound differences that that same technology was not able to 

be incorporated in the shuttle from the outset? 

Mr. GARRISON. I believe, basically, we all use the same technology. I can’t address your question, because I am not familiar with 

all the requirements in the performance. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I think I can address that, since I was the chairman of the solid rocket technical committee for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. First of all, Mr. Weinberger 

doesn’t have anything in his arsenal that he launches that has 

joints in it. The only other system there is the Titan, and it is a 

space launch system. It is not a tactical weapon, so it is very unique. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. So in military systems there are no joints? 

Mr. MCDONALD. There is no field joint in any military system. There are joints, but not field joints. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Because they separate at the joint? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, no. We have joints in every rocket motor we 

build. We have to attach things like igniters and nozzles. There are 

different types of joints and they do not deflect like this one because they are not as big and they are not as long. This was unique to this type of an application, because you have a tremendous 

structure here. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. McDonald. That is helpful. 

Mr. Garrison, finally, in the redesign team, at the moment that 

is looking at the joints and solid rocket motors, are there represent- atives of other companies? In other words, is the best and the 

brightest of America being involved in this redesign process, or 

have you returned this challenge to the same team that brought us 

the original designs? 

Mr. GARRISON. It is my understanding that NASA is incorporating the inputs of everyone that they feel qualified to do so, and so 

are we. We have gone out and we do have a number of consultants 

assisting us in the various areas. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. So we can be assured that everyone who has 

ever been involved in this technology in America, no matter who 

they work for or who they represent, the best of their knowledge 

will be made available for a quick and adequate solution? 

we met all the contractual requirements. 
521 

Mr. GARRISON. I can’t guarantee you that everyone will be. We 

are going to the experts that we feel familiar and comfortable with 

in all areas and getting other opinions, and I believe that NASA is 

also doing the same thing. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you Thank you, MF. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 

Mr. Ritter. 

Mr. RITTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I can’t help but agree with my colleague from Texas, Mr. Andrews. When I look at the chart form the memo, the followup to 

the telephone conference on page 97, I can’t help but think that 

most of the very hard and fast comments that are made there actually opt against launch. I mean, if you add them up, they opt, you know, the bad versus the good, the bad are much more predominant. They weigh heavier individually than the good. I mean, if you just look at that, it is hard to hit that bottom line, 

which says, “MTI recommends launch.” Does anybody want to 

comment on that? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I think Mr. Kilminster has to comment on that, 

but I think in all fairness to him, one has to look at all of the factors on there, that he obviously thought the ones on the bottom, 

which in numbers weren’t the most, were more important than the 

ones on top, and that happens many times. You go down and buy a 

suit-- 

Mr. RITTER. If you will yield back for a second, the ones on top 

are much harder and firmer. The ones on the bottom are like wishful thinking, almost. They are at best conjecture. They are at best 

seeking to push the issue of what-- 

They are trying to prove something. The ones on top, it is cold, 

there is no doubt about it. There is no doubt about what happens to 

the O-rings under those conditions. 

You know there is no doubt about the more gas may pass the 0- 

ring, but the other ones, the bottom ones, we already discussed a 

little bit about Criticality 1 and the fact that that characterization 

implies no redundancy. I mean the other ones are reaching, and I 

guess I have trouble, I just have trouble assuming that up to a 

launch decision. 

Mr. GARRISON. Let me comment. Mr. Ritter, I don’ think there is 

any doubt that our top technical people, our top management/tech- nical people, because they are technical people also, made an error 

in judgment. That error was also, or the technical position that 

they had was agreed to by our customer, and that is not an excuse. 

That is a statement which I am really trying to portray that they weren’t the only ones that misinterpreted the data and drew wrong 

conclusions. 

We have other people, both here and maybe at NASA, that did 

not agree with those decisions, so I don’t think we are trying to 

defend, I don’t think Mr. Kilminster is trying to defend the position today that the decision was a correct one. 

Mr. RIWER. Obviously the position was not a correct one. The 

world knows that all too well. But I mean, from the teleconference, 

from the written summary of the teleconference, you almost have 

to conclude not to launch. Anyway, I would like to get on to another perhaps more fruitful line of questioning. 
522 

Mr. McDonald, we have heard a great deal about your opposition 

to the launch. Did you actively argue against the launch during the 

time of the telephone conference? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, I didn’t. That two-hour telephone conference, as I mentioned, was a conference that was being conducted by 

our engineering people on the teleconference, which made the ultimate recommendation not to launch below 53 degrees Fahrenheit. I 

totally agreed with that. I had no reason to enter that conversation. 

Mr. RITTER. But then the off-line telephone conference, did you actively campaign against a launch at that time? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes, I did. I had a long conversation during that 

off-line, with Mr. Mulloy and Mr. Reinartz, concerning a couple factors. One was I told them I don’t know why we just don’t delay 

this thing until tomorrow afternoon, because based on what I had 

heard from the weather report, that they were projecting temperatures something like 48 to 50 degrees in the afternoon. I knew 

when I came down to the Cape for that launch that the initial 

launch time was in the late afternoon, it was like 3:45 in the afternoon, and they told me that they had looked at that, but there was 

some problem with one of the abort landing sites. I believe it was 

Dakar. It was either weather or visibility in the late afternoon, and 

so they couldn’t do that. 

I also had a long conversation with them about the interpreta- tion of the qualification of the motor between 40 to 90 degrees, 

which they, Mr. Reinartz had raised earlier that our 53-degree recommendation didn’t seem to be compatible with that, and I told 

him he is right, it isn’t. 

I wasn’t in the original development qualification program. I had 

been involved, however, in the design certification review as the 

chairman of our team for the filament wound case solid rocket 

motor that we were getting prepared to certify for flight out of 

Vandenberg Air Force Base, and in that process I went back and 

looked at some of the documentation that was prepared for certifying for the first flight of the steel case, and even though it was my impression that it was to be qualified from 40 to 90, I don’t recall 

seeing anything that we had done, where we had static tested 0- 

ring seals in the condition they should be at those temperatures. Therefore, you know, I would even be concerned with that, and 

that was the kind of conversation I was having with them at the 

time. 

Mr. RITTER. But didn’t you during the course of this caucus mention to Mr. Kilminster that he consider a point that the secondary 

O-ring is in the proper position to seal, if blow by of the primary 0- 

ring occurred, and doesn’t that act in support of what they were 

saying? Were you wearing two hats at that time? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No. They interpreted it that way and it was a 

point that I had made at the end of the teleconference when the 

decision was made to caucus to reconsider, and at that point I mentioned-in fact, Mr. Hardy had made the comment earlier-that if 

we are going to make a recommendation that is anything other 

than 53 degrees, I think an important consideration is to look at 

the secondary seal as well, because the cold temperature is bad for 

both seals. 
523 

Mr. RITTER. You are essential1 saying, according to Mr. Hardy’s 

there was pretty good redundancy, that in a sense you supported the idea that the secondary O-ring would seal; is that correct? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, I didn’t support the idea. I supported the 

comment that I made that is an important consideration that we 

look at. If we are going to recommend some other temperature 

other than 53 degrees, I said that at the time, I still feel that is 

true, because it was very clear that the recommendation that we 

had made of 53 degrees was totally on our experience base from flights, and if we are going to go outside that experience base, we 

need to understand, to run some calculations as to how the seating 

is going to be affected at lower temperatures. 

We must consider both seals, because if we conclude that the 

cold temperatures are not going to affect anything in the first 170 

milliseconds, so that we don’t get out of that regime that Mr. Boisjoly was talking about, it is probably all right to go colder. But if it 

does affect that timing and that first 170 milliseconds and goes 

beyond that, that is when the secondary seal, we can’t count on it. 

We can count on the first 170 milliseconds. 

Mr. RITTER. When Mr. Kilminster announced the decision to 

launch, I guess Mr. Reinartz asked, “Are there any further comments? Did you have any further comments, Mr. Boisjoly? Did you have any further comments, I mean, did anyone at that point seek 

to turn the situation around. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Both Arnie Thompson and I might add that we 

were the only ones in the room that continued to vigorously oppose 

the launch during the caucus. We reiterated and reviewed all the 

data that we had presented, and continued to try to convince the 

four management people not to change the decision. Once that decision had been made by them on the basis of our input, I would 

say it was over, so people keep alluding to the fact that, you know, 

why didn’t we say something after the managers had come on the 

loop and made that decision on that launch. 

I firmly believe, as I so stated in testimony previously, that once 

we as engineers fight our hearts out to present the information 

that we believe supports a particular position is given, then we are 

out of it. We cannot then act as management in the company to get 

in-- 

Mr. RITTER. Iaccept that. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. With management. So that is why the comments 

were made. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman’s time-- 

Mr. RITTER. If the gentleman would allow me just an additional 2 

minutes. 

Mr. McDonald, with your high-level position, though, you are in 

the management loop, and not just in a technical sense. When Mr. 

Reinartz said, “Are there any further comments?” how come you 

didn’t jump up and down and say no? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I had made some notes of what Joe had 

explained over the network as to what our rationale was to launch, 

and had jotted those down because this 5-minute caucus that was 

going to be a 5-minute caucus turned into a half hour. I had no 

reason to believe that that half-hour wasn’t done in running some 

testimony on page 99 during t iI e Presidential Commission, that 
524 

calculations to determine whether we could indeed launch at a 

colder temperature outside our experience, and it wasn’t until it 

got to the bottom line where there wasn’t a particular temperature 

recommended, you just had to proceed to launch, it kind of took me 

by surprise. 

I also, as I had testified, I was convinced that it was the pressure 

from NASA that caused the whole caucus in the first place. I knew 

that, and I knew that Mr. Mulloy had challenged our recommendations, and indeed, he challenges everything but it has always been 

on the other side when we try to say it is OK to do something he 

says, “I don’t think you can convince me.” 

Now all of a sudden we had this list of three reasons why we said 

it ought to go ahead and launch, with a lot of things on there that 

were reasons not to. He didn’t challenge those like he should have, 

I thought, so I knew at that point in time that if I was going to 

have any impact on this thing, I was going to have to deal with Mr. 

Mulloy and Mr. Reinartz, because I felt that my management, if I 

talked to them, would say, Well, have you talked to Mr. Mulloy 

and Mr. Reinartz about that? 

And that telephone conversation, at the end it was very short. 

Joe went through, read those. He was told to put that in writing and sign it, and I had commented to Mr. Mulloy at that time, because I thought I would have to sign it, as I was the man at the 

Cape, that I wouldn’t sign it, it would have to come from the plant. 

That was done. Mr. Reinartz says, “Any more comments?” And 

they accepted it all, and that was the end of that conversation. 

It was after that that I, you know, I just couldn’t live with that 

and told him I didn’t see the rationale that was presented that convinced me that it was all right to proceed, and I don’t understand 

how NASA can accept that recommendation. 

Mr. RITTER. So you did protest to Reinartz? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Oh, I did, very, very vigorously, but they were 

not on the network. That was after everybody went off of the network. I protested for some time to both Mr. Reinartz and Mr. 

Mulloy . Mr. RITTER. One last question for Mr. Boisjoly. Your memo of 

July 31, where you talk about inattention to the subject at hand, 

you say in this company private memo, “The result would be a catastrophe of the highest order, loss of human life.” You close the 

memo-this is to V.P. Engineering, Mr. Lund. You then say, “It is 

my honest and very real fear that if we do not take immediate 

action to dedicate a team to solve the problem with the field joint 

having the No. 1 priority, that we stand in jeopardy of losing a flight along with all the launch-pad facilities.” 

What kind of response did you get? That is a pretty hairy document. It is a pretty emotional document. What kind of response did 

you get? You would think that it would elicit quite a substantial 

response, because of its strength of message. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. I didn’t get any personal response, but there was a 

memo written by Mr. Lund to Mr. Larry Sayer, director of engineering at that time, engineering design, on August 20, and basically it was an answer to that memo that set up a test team to go 

forward and solve this problem. But as far as any immediate interplay or verbal interplay, there was none with me. 
525 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman from Pennsylvania has expired. The chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from California, Mr. Mineta. 

Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I would like to ask about this document that was cast on 

the screen. Is that essentially what was on-that is the telegram of 

January 27? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir. Previously we had discussed I think 

something on the order of 11 or 12 pages of data, and then after we 

went off line on the caucus, then this, the one that was on the 

screen, is what was transmitted. 

Mr. MINETA. And that was requested of you by NASA to affirm 

concurrence with going ahead with the launch on January 28? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is correct. 

Mr. MINETA. Had you ever been requested by NASA to submit in 

writing any kind of a document like that in the past? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. As a matter of the normal flight readiness 

review process, we typically do sign a document that says that the 

unit, those units are ready to be used on the subsequent flight. 

That is typically done in the readiness review process approximately 2 to 3 weeks before a launch, and was done in this case, and 

then that same document is used up through L minus 1, launch 

day minus one review, and if anything comes up in that interim 

time, then that has to be worked in real time to resolve any issues. 

Mr. MINETA. And if there are any issues that come up after this 

L minus 1, is there anything again to reconfirm what you had previously sent in the form of message or a telegram? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. This was a unique situation relative to something coming up after the L minus 1, and we had no previous experience in that regard. 

Mr. MINETA. And the fact that they had requested that of you, 

did you consider that to be atypical? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Well, the whole routine of having a discussion 

this late before launch was unusual. However, I was not greatly 

surprised when I was asked to submit a signature on this page. 

Mr. MINETA. Let me ask about how long do you think it will take 

to redesign and get ready for tests and to qualify that joint in the 

O-ring area? 

Mr. GARRISON. At the present time we are conducting a series of 

analysis studies and tests to identify a joint that we feel will be 

safe and serve the purpose and go forward with. Until we have an 

opportunity to select those specific design parameters, and until we 

have an opportunity to understand fully the Presidential Commission’s recommendations in this area, I don’t believe that we can 

make an accurate projection of that at this time. 

Mr. MINETA. And you feel you have the inhouse expertise and 

the capabilities to go ahead and redesign that area? 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MINETA. If you feel you are prepared and qualified now, then 

why could you not have completed this redesign over the past 

years, since this isn’t something that just cropped up; this is something that was, I guess I might say, so obvious that the O-rings 

were faulty and that erosion was occurring persistently, why do 
526 

you feel you are able to do it now, and couldn’t do it before the 

accident? 

Mr. GARRISON. I believe that at this point in time we have some 

more data than we had prior to the accident. 

In our failure analysis, as an example, we have done a great 

amount of testing to understand the joint. That data is available. 

I think, initially, all of the technical experts that were involved 

in the design of the case and the motor felt that the joint was adequate. Mr. MINETA. You have-you had noticed everybody has been on 

notice on this thing for quite a while, and I am not-what is it 

about the current data that you have now that gives you the assurances that you can go ahead and redesign or that you are even 

more aware or that you are aware of the problems as compared to, let’s say, 1984, just using that as a figure? 

Mr. GARRISON. I would like to have Mr. McDonald answer that, 

who has that support for us. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Mr. Garrison is right, we not only have much 

more data, but I listened to discussion yesterday from people from 

Marshall Space Flight Center, and Mr. Mulloy explaining why we 

felt that it was safe to fly prior to 51-L, and I have to agree with 

his assessments. 

Prior to that time we had seen this erosion on the O-rings. That 

was evident. And when I came on the program in March of 1984, 

one of the things I initiated and was done by Thiokol was to get a 

better understanding of how this happens and to model that mathematically. 

Dr. Mark Salita did an excellent job in modeling the erosion, and 

he developed that model based on a series of subscale tests that he 

conducted and then analyzed all the data from the flight motors 

and was able to predict the kind of erosion we were observing within plus or minus 12 percent. 

We then took an O-ring and shaved it and kept shaving it and 

removing material until it would fail at three times the pressure we would ever operate at for a margin, and we found that we could 

shave up to about 155/1000 out of the 280/1000 O-ring before it 

would fail. 

Mr. MINETA. That was roughly when you did that? 

Mr. MCDONALD. We did that in about mid-1984. 

And then, subsequent to that, we took some hot firing tests 

where we focused a jet of gas on it to eat up the O-ring while the 

motor is igniting, much more like we see in the full-scale shuttle 

motor, except it was smaller scale. 

The O-ring size is exactly the same. And we found out that we 

could erode the 125/1000 of that O-ring and we also maintain a 

good adequate seal. 

In fact, we sealed it up to 150/1000 of it removed in one case, but 

between 145/1000 and 160/1000 sometimes it didn’t. 

So, it was in that same range that it would not seal that we 

found in our cold test at three times the pressure. So, on that data 

we had calculated, it was much like the insulation we have in the 

rocket motor. 

It is a criticality one. The insulation of the whole rocket motor is 

exposed to the fire inside the motor for the full 120 seconds. And if 
527 

we are wrong in how that material behaves, it will burn through 

the case and it causes a catastrophic failure. 

We calculate how much margin of safety or what the safety 

factor is on that insulator and that insulator in most cases has a 

factor of safety of two. 

We calculated how much safety factor we had on the O-ring, and 

it was over two, because the duration at which the O-ring gets this 

erosion is during the first 600 milliseconds when the motor is pressurizing. So, we felt that we had as good margin on erosion of the O-ring 

as we had on the insulator at that time. 

Now, some people say, yes, but look, you are talking about milliseconds here, and if you are off, it is a big deal, and it is. 

But you must consider the complexity of the shuttle system. 

When we ignite the two solid rocket boosters, if one of those boosters doesn’t thoroughly ignite exactly the way the other one does 

within a couple hundred milliseconds, it will turn the whole vehicle over. You have a catastrophic event. So, you are dealing with those kinds of engineering judgments 

and analyses. And it was our conclusion that it was safe to fly, 

even though we had that kind of erosion, as long as we kept it 

within what we had been able to predict, what we had shown took 

to fail it, that we had a good margin and we understood it. 

That was our experience base. 

Mr. MINETA. We had a blowby on STC, was it 51-C? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. And I would like it addressed. 

Mr. MINETA. That was when? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That was in January of 1985. So, up until that 

time we had never seen this phenomena of blowby. 

Mr. MINETA. What did you do then? 

Mr. MCDONALD. What we did at that time was to try to analyze 

that situation to understand why we saw that, what was different 

about 51-C over the previous flights before that when we didn’t see 

it. 

And we went to the flight readiness review for the next flight, 

which we were required to every time explain any anomaly, what 

we understood about it, and why it is safe to fly the next flight. The conclusion we drew at that time is the only thing that we 

could conclude caused that blowby, was that that particular flight 

was preceded by the three coldest days in Florida history, and it 

was cold. 

Now, we didn’t expect to see the three coldest days in Florida 

history every time we went and flew, so the conclusion was on the 

very next flight it certainly won’t be the coldest 3 days in Florida 

history again, and therefore, the next flight should be acceptable 

because it shouldn’t see this type of behavior. 

Mr. MINETA. So, that was when you first, then, became aware 

that the temperature played a role in erosion? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. That is the first time and that is 

when Mr. Boisjoly and Mr. Thompson and people started running 

some tests to confirm whether our suspicions was that the cold 

temperature may have affected that sealing capability in the 0- 

ring. 
528 

Mr. MINETA. Had you gone back to any flight readiness review 

prior to the one just immediate to the one that was being launched 

in taking a look at those anomalies? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Oh, yes; we continuously did that. 

Mr. MINETA. As I understand it, the procedure was to just look at 

the immediate preceding one and not look at a series of flight readiness reviews in order to see, what I would call, a trend line? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No; we continuously kept track of all of those, 

but our immediate concern was, are we seeing things that we have 

never seen before, and are they outside of what we have seen 

before, because if they are, they are clearly different and we must 

explain why they are different. 

Mr. MINETA. Finally, then, did you ever get to the point of 

saying, yes, we have to change it, in terms of that 53-degree criteria? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, yes, we got to the point in July, as a result 

of the problem we had with the nozzle seal, the conclusion we need 

to make some changes in those joints. 

Mr. MINETA. And that was when-- 

Mr. MCDONALD. That was in July 1985. 

Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Walgren. 

Mr. WALGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Going back to the questions about design specifications and how 

the system was asked for at 31 degrees and then accepted at 40 degrees, my impression of the document that you gentlemen prepared, asserting the acceptability of 40 degrees, that document was 

written as you presented the motor, as I understand it. Is that 

right? 

You were substantially through the process of designing the 

motor and this was the acceptance at that point. Is that correct? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Correct. 

Mr. WALGREN. My question, then, is where did that 40 degree 

number come from? It appears that NASA agreed to the 40 degree 

number or a group of people agreed to the 40 degree number, but it 

is, at that point, coming out of thin air. 

Is there any tracking of that number? Where did it originate? ~~~ ~~ Mr. MCDONALD. The 40 dePree v number? 

Mr. WALGREN. Yes. 

Mr. MCDONALD. The number came from the specifications that 

we were supplied for the solid rocket motor to operate over a propellant mean bulk temperature of 40 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. 

It was in our specifications. 

Mr. WALGREN. That was the original specification, is that correct? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Itis the same one we have now. 

Mr. WALGREN. Is that the same specification as the 31 degrees? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No; the specification as to 31 is a JSC, Johnson 

Space Center specification, that is referenced in our specification, I 

think volume 07700, referenced some vehicle specifications that are 

part of ours. 
529 

And you go to that document and it comes up with a 31 to 99. It 

says that the elements of the shuttle must withstand 31 to 99 degrees. It doesn’t say they have to operate under those temperatures; it 

has to withstand it. 

And we have a lot of environments that we have to withstand, 

and we have certain environments we have to operate under. 

We have to withstand coming across a blizzard in Wyoming, also, 

where it is even colder, but we don’t operate under those conditions. 

We have to withstand storage over a wider temperature range 

we operate over. We have to withstand sitting on the launch pad for some undetermined period of time under some environments, 

and we have to withstand any influence from other parts of the 

system and that is where I think the confusion came in, probably, earlier on how people interpreted that on what the motor actually operated under and what it had to withstand. 

And those documents, in my opinion, make it very clear. It says 

“withstand,” and that was probably where the misinterpretation 

came from. 

Mr. WALGREN. And there is no design specification saying it 

shall operate at 31 degrees? Mr. MCDONALD. I couldn’t find one. 

Mr. WALGREN. And the temperature at launch was what, again, 

was-- 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, I believe the ambient temperature was 36 

or something at the time 51-L was launched. 

Mr. WALGREN. So, we were launching below the design specifica- tion at that point. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Well, in my opinion, from what we had quali- fied, or everybody thought we had qualified, the motor for, we 

were. 

That was my argument with Mr. Mulloy and Mr. Reinartz after 

the teleconferences, why I didn’t understand why they could accept the recommendation, because it was my interpretation that the 

recommendation was outside of what everybody thought the motor 

was qualified to. 

Mr. WALGREN. And they did not assert that it was qualified to 

operate at that range. They simply fell back on arguments that, 

look, the seal didn’t seal at 75 degrees or there are circumstances, 

doesn’t seal at 75 degrees, so why should we worry about it. 

Is that essentially it? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Mr. Mulloy showed how essentially ambiguous 

that specification was, because yes, he understands there is 40 to 90 

degrees, but that the propellant mean bulk temperature-and that 

is what it refers to, which, in his mind, says it can be exposed to 

much colder temperature than that-as long as the propellant 

mean bulk temperature is within those limits. 

And I told him at the time I thought that was asanine, because 

the propellant in that motor is so large and such a massive insulator that I could expose it to 100 degrees below zero for several 

hours and only change the propellant mean bulk temperature by a 

few degrees, and I know the spec didn’t really mean us to do that. 

That was a comment I made to him that night. 
530 

Mr. WALGREN. So, there never was a specific operating temperature that you received. 

You received a withstanding temperature of 31 degrees and you 

received a propellant mean bulk temperature of 40 degrees. 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct, and that is why I said yesterday 

it is a lousy spec. It didn’t get any better overnight. It is still a 

lousy spec, because it doesn’t specifically say that. 

Mr. WALGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. 

Volkmer. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you. 

Mr. Boisjoly, what happened between the flight readiness review 

on the 51-1 and the January 27 telecon before, in other words, the 

first one, that persuaded you that the Launch Commit Criteria 

should be changed to 53 degrees, in the past it had been 31 degrees? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. The teleconference of the 27th, is that what you 

are referring to? 

Mr. VOLKMER. Yes; what persuaded you at that time to say you shouldn’t launch between 53 degrees temperature? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Because the previous year 1985 January, that was 

the predicted O-ring temperature in that environment. We had 

blowby but we had characterized that the erosion part of that 

blowby was less than we had experienced before, and we would 

have been operating within our experience base. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Itwas based on that and all the flights inbetween 

had been above 53 degrees? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That is correct, yes. It was not uncharacteristic at 

all to operate within one’s experience base. 

Mr. VOLKMER. But in all of the memorandums, et cetera, that 

had occurred before-inbetween the time, January 1985 and January 1986, you don’t specifically say that, you basically say low temperatures-we need to look at this joint problem and do something 

about it. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That is right, and I so testified or submitted written testimony to the Commission to the effect that we had just experienced the three coldest days in Florida history the year before. 

And that would be analogous to a 100-year storm from a rainstorm 

or something like that. It was nobody’s expectation we would ever 

experience any cold weather to that degree before we had a chance 

to fix it again, so that basically is why it wasn’t pursued any further than that from my personal standpoint. Mr. VOLKMER. In other words, you saw no need at that time then 

to try to change the criteria in March, April, May, June on 

through? Mr. BOISJOLY. That is correct. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Because of that, you didn’t expect to experience it 

again anyway? Mr. BOISJOLY. That is correct. 

Mr. VOLKMER. OK. 

Now, yesterday we had the testimony, and the Commission 

report bears reference to it too, that the Reinartz, when you finished up the second telecon, the one that Morton Thiokol had given approval and you were back in Utah, did you hear Reinartz say or 
53 1 

anyone else have any further comments or anybody disagree with 

the recommendation? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes. 

Mr. VOLKMER. And you said nothing. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. That is correct. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Can you tell me why? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. Yes; we had-Arnie and I, Arnie Thompson and I 

had fought vigorously against the launch and were two of the 

prime movers in preparing the charts that gave the information, 

technical information against launch. The first decision was made 

not to launch below our experience base and we were quite pleased 

with that. When we went off the line and caucused-one of the 

first statements that was made is that we have to make a management decision by management people. And we continued very 

strongly to oppose that. And we argued as vigorously as we could 

argue, and when you look up into people’s eyes you know you have 

gone about as far as you can go. 

And so both Mr. Thompson and I just plain frankly backed off. 

You had to be there and you had to see the looks and feel the experience that it didn’t really make any difference what further you 

were going to say, you were just not going to be heard. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Did you get that same impression from the Marshall people that were in the telecon, Mulloy and Reinartz and 

them? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. I was unable to look into their eyes-- 

Mr. VOLKMER. For the tone of their voice. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. The tone of their voice as I so stated, I felt that 

there was pressure, and I felt that the tone of the meeting had 

changed. And I think I stated that before; that we were always put 

in a position and quite frankly in many respects nitpicked to prove 

that every little thing that we had was in proper order and had the 

proper engineering rationale and data to back it up in order to fly. And in this instance we were being challenged in the opposite direction. So that is why I didn’t speak up, it was a management decision at that point in time, and I had nothing more to say. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you very much. 

And as far as you know, Mr. Kilminster, did anyone at Wasatch 

inform anyone other than the Marshall people in the telecon, 

either level I or 11, of any of these concerns? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir, I had no advisability of that from Wasatch. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Did you at any time have any contact with either 

Houston or headquarters? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. As far as this night was concerned? 

Mr. VOLKMER. Yes. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. All right. The last question I would like to ask you 

is, well maybe it won’t be the last one if I have time, but it is very 

important to me. We have seen a considerable number of tests 

since the accident on the 28th, and these tests have brought about 

some eye opening to some people. We heard testimony of that yesterday. My question to the people at Marshall was, and the same 

question I think applies to you, since you developed this motor, is 
532 

why weren’t those tests done before the accident rather than only afterwards? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I think as we have discussed we had an ongoing 

activity, a fairly concerted activity starting with August 1985 to address these matters. However, as we conducted the program and as 

these anomalies would become known to us, specific analytical 

techniques and specific tests were conducted in order to insure that 

we would have a safe flight condition. 

And that started relatively early in the program where we tight- ened up tolerances on the nozzle, excuse me, on the field joint. We 

increased O-ring sizes, we initiated the use of shims in order to 

compensate for the rotation that was going on there. 

Later on, when we did detect the erosion condition, we conducted 

analytical calculations to identify what limiting parameters there 

were there and what is the maximum extent of erosion we would 

expect to see, and found that it was well within the data that we 

had generated by tests that the O-ring could withstand and still 

seal. 

As we were marching along, we were meeting these things head 

on on an individual basis in order to insure ourselves that it was 

safe to proceed. At the same time, having O-ring erosion was not a 

desirable circumstance, and we had activity going on in order to 

pursue that and try to eliminate it altogether. 

And as we discussed yesterday, the putty is the prime actor there 

of keeping the hot gases away from the O-rings, so much of our initial work had to do with lay up, cleaning of the joint in order to 

insure that we had the proper putty configuration in there. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I don’t believe you answered my question; were 

you going to conduct the tests if we hadn’t had the experience with 

51-L and we have had a fight with the-would you have done the 

same tests we had done since the flight? Let me put it that way. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I guess I can’t answer that specifically. We had 

identified a long lead procurement of steel bullets in order to accommodate a joint redesign. We had identified some tests that 

would be conducted to further evaluate the blowby. But as far as 

some of the dynamic testing that was conducted subsequent to the 

accident, I don’t know if that would have been done or not. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Idaho, 

Mr. Stallings. 

Mr. STALLINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before I raise several questions this morning, I would like to express my appreciation to Morton Thiokol officials for their coopera- tion during the Presidential Commission investigation. Morton 

Thiokol as well as the other witnesses who have appeared before 

this committee I believe deserve acknowledgment for their efforts. 

The Rogers Report was critical of the decisionmaking process 

and the lack of safety concern. While I recognize many serious mistakes have been made, I think it is important the record show 

what the history has been of Thiokol’s past performance. Mr. Garrison, your company has been the sole source of the solid 

rocket booster for the space shuttle for some time. How long have 

you been working on that contract? 

Mr. GARRISON. I believe we received that contract in 1974. 
533 

Mr. STALLINGS. How would you characterize your performance on 

that contract? 

Mr. GARRISON. I think the methods that we measure by has been 

very good. We have been in an underrun position from a cost 

standpoint, including the development contract and production; since we have been in production, we reduced the price of our delivered units by a significant amount, as much as 20 percent, I believe, based on the first unit and the last one delivered. 

And of course we had planned to make some additional capital investments that would drive that cost down even more. I believe 

we met all of our schedule requirements, and in our opinion we 

have met all of the specification requirements, so we are proud of 

our performance on this contract up until that time. 

Mr. STALLINGS. Have there been any incentive awards on the 

contract? 

Mr. GARRISON. Yes; we have done very well on the incentive 

awards. We have gotten very high ratings in the award system, 

yes. Mr. STALLINGS. Do you feel that your company will make some 

modifications, will change some policy as a result of this incident 

and these events? 

Mr. GARRISON. Well, we are in the process of completely looking 

at our systems, our people, our organization from top to bottom, 

and this has called for a complete reassessment. We are in the 

process of doing that and we will do it. It is my intent that thisan event like this with the confusion, confusion may be a bad word, 

I would say the judgment of various people will be criticalized at a 

higher management level and dealt with there. 

Mr. STALLINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chairman recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida, Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I think it is important here to again underscoreMr. Chairman, I think it is important to underscore the point that 

you brought out earlier, which is that there has been a communication problem. That the communication problem has been on both 

ends of the line of the communication; that it includes NASA as 

well as we look back into the flight-look back into the facts, as 

well as the contractor. 

And so I want to explore again in-to the degree of misunderstanding that occurred to find out how this decisionmaking process 

was flawed such that the motor had never been tested to the extremes of temperature that it should have been. 

Now, earlier in the testimony, I notice NASA testified to this 

yesterday, it was stated, and I would like your response to it Mr. 

Garrison, it was stated that they signed off on the verification certification before STS-1 and STS-5. Because they had been told by Thiokol that sure, the ambient temperature and the induced temperature on the solid rocket motor had been met because the military specification of the O-ring was that it would go down to minus 

30 degrees and up to plus 500 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Did in fact that communication go from Thiokol to NASA? Mr. 

Garrison. 
534 

Mr. GARRISON. I am not familiar, obviously. I was not in the details. I will ask Mr. McDonald or Mr. Kilminster, whoever may 

have that knowledge. 

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Kilminster. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. My understanding of the analytical work that 

was done, and, by the way, I think we need to be sure to clarify 

that that qualification can be accomplished not only by testing but 

also by analysis, also by similarity, that type of thing. 

Mr. NELSON. That is correct, the design spec, by the way, required both for ambient temperature and for induced temperature 

to be by analysis. That is what is contained within these documents. 

All right. Go ahead, please. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. As I mentioned yesterday, in researching this, I 

think you will find that the fracture critical items, which includes 

the steel in the case, the steel parts of the ignition system and 

some of the steel parts of the nozzle, were qualified by analysis on 

a fracture mechanics basis at 20 degrees. 

Mr. NELSON. All right. That is prefatory. Now let’s get to my 

question. 

Do you want me to repeat the question? 

Mr: KILMINSTER. Please. 

Mr. NELSON. Did Thiokol relay to NASA that these temperature analyses had in fact been met because you were using an O-ring 

which had already been certified to the military specifications 

which was down to minus 30, and up to plus 500 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I can’t comment specifically that there is a 

piece of paper in the system that says that. 

Mr. NELSON. Well, that is what NASA said yesterday. Is there 

anybody in your organization that can answer that question? 

Mr. GARRISON. Not here. 

Mr. NELSON. Well, let me ask you this: Is, in fact, that O-ringdoes it have a military spec from minus 30 to minus 500. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Yes, it does. It is a procurement spec. 

Mr. NELSON. So it is conceivable that what NASA said yesterday 

is accurate, that someone said, well, we have completed the certification because that is what the military spec says. 

Mr. KILMINSTER. That is conceivable. 

Mr. NELSON. Okay. 

Well, now, as we examine this, we realize that that wasn’t correct, because this contract required more. Now let me get to that, 

because you all dispute the reading of this design specification. 

This morning you gave this document dated April 1960, and of 

which you are citing, as, Mr. McDonald, you apparently all along 

have thought, that the temperature specs were 40 to 90. It is fairly 

clear to me from reading these documents that we are talking 

about two different things. We are talking about 40 to 90 degrees is 

the propellant bulk mean temperature, which is the temperature of 

that solid rocket propellant, which changes very slowly over the 

course of time. 

As a matter of fact, some of your testimony to the Commission 

said you could have minus 100 degrees outside, and the propellant 
535 

temperature is only going to change a few degrees over a long period of time. That is one indication. That is one criteria. 

It seems to me that these design specs also clearly state that 

there is another requirement regarding temperature, and that is 

from the ambient air temperature otherwise defined as natural environment under this document volume 10, and also another definition of induced environment, and they go on through the various 

appendices to determine and to define what each of those are in 

terms of degrees. 

You still maintain that that is a part of the design specs that you 

all did not understand? 

Mr. Garrison. 

Mr. GARRISON. First off I would like to say that we didn’t dispute 

your reading of the document. 

Mr. NELSON. No, I understand. I am trying to get inside your 

head. 

Mr. GARRISON. We have an interpretation problem, and I would 

like to reiterate again that this interpretation was basically made 

12 years ago. It has followed, and I believe everyone has been in agreement with our interpretation that has been involved in the program, so 

there was no reason for us to think until this time that it was incorrect, so I believe that we are talking about an interpretation, and I frankly don’t know how we resolve that at this point. Our interpretation, as I stated to you, based on the people that I 

talked to and our people were involved, as we stated, and I can’t 

change that. It might be wrong. It was made 12 years ago, and I 

said we have been operating and everyone has been concurring that that was the correct interpretation. 

Mr. NELSON. You know what we are trying to do here, as the 

modus operandi as set by the Chairman is trying to get the truth, 

and I understand you are trying to give the truth, and that is what 

we are trying to find out. 

The fact is NASA came up and said they messed up, and you are 

saying you didn’t mess up. You are saying you might have messed 

up, and we are just trying to find out what was the degree of your thinking. 

I have already said prefatory to my comments, you know, you 

are not entirely at fault. I mean, there is a lot of blame to go around here. 

Mr. GARRISON. Congressman Nelson, I think you will have to 

admit that it would be unusual for us to go say sometime after we 

had made our interpretation that we believe you are wrong in your interpretation. They wrote the spec. 

I think Mr. McDonald has expressed his opinion that he thinks 

the spec is confusing, and open to misinterpretation, and that may 

be our problem, but we honestly thought we were meeting the 

intent of the specs, and we thought that for 12 years. 

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I have one more question. I could not help but reminisce, as we have heard this whole conversation, and we have heard these temperatures, 40 to 90, and we 

have heard many times the reference to 53 degrees, and Mr. 

McDonald’s concern about not launching below 53 degrees, because 

in fact that was the coldest temperature of any previous launch, 
536 

and he knew that there had been severe O-ring degradation on 

that launch, so my question is, which I couldn’t help but reminisce, 

STS-GlC, that finally launched on January the 12th, we were 

scrubbed four times, and during several of those scrubs, the temperatures were less than 53 degrees, and so my question is, did any of these same concerns with the temperature come up in discussions during the final checks before those attempted launches? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I am not aware that they had, Congressman. I 

don’t know. I wasn’t at that launch, but I don’t recall that that 

came up. Someone would have to relay what the temperatures were expected during the time period before and after, because if you will 

recall, the 53 degrees on the previous coldest one, when it actually launched it was actually 60 some degrees, I believe, the ambient 

temperature, and that 53 degrees is an O-ring temperature that is 

calculated from that, and you have to know what the temperature history is to arrive at what the O-ring is. 

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I will just conclude with that. I 

thank you. The temperature was on or about in the low 40 degrees on December the 19th, during the first scrub of STS-81C, in the low ~O’S, 

the ambient air temperature. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, 

Mr. Packard. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to pursue that a little bit further. I 

think, Mr. McDonald, you expressed that for this launch we experienced the 3 coldest days in, what, the history of Florida, at that 

time? 

Mr. MCDONALD. That was what was reported to us on the January 1985 launch, that is correct. 

Mr. PACKARD. What was the temperature on this flight 51-L that 

was scrubbed three times-- 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. 

Mr. PACKARD. What was the temperature on the 22d when it was 

first scrubbed? 

Mr. MCDONALD. The 22d? I don’t know what it was then. I was 

down at the scrub the day before. 

Mr. PACKARD. What was it the day before on the 27? 

Mr. MCDONALD. During the launch window from 0938 to 1238 it 

ranged between 48 and 57 degrees. 

Mr. PACKARD. So, it was below the 53 at least part of that launch 

window. 

Mr. MCDONALD. That is correct. 

Mr. PACKARD. Was temperature discussed then? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, it was not. 

Mr. PACKARD. On any of the 3 scrubbed days? 

Mr. MCDONALD. Nowhere was it, no. 

Mr. PACKARD. And the temperature dropped in one 24-hour 

period from 48 as a low down to below 29, possibly even down to 16. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Down to 22. They were predicting 18, and that 

was what caused the great alarm. You know, that doesn’t happen 

very often in Florida. 
537 

Mr. PACKARD. Why, in your judgment, wasn’t weather-when it 

had gone down on the windows before or on the scrub days before 

on 61-C, was it, and also in the previous scrubbed days of this 

launch where it was below the 53 level, where there was not data 

to justify flying, and where there was a policy that we wouldn’t fly 

below those certain thresholds-why wasn’t the weather discussed 

on those scrub days? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I don’t-I can’t answer that. I think that is an 

excellent point, and again, it is part of that communication problem. 

I think that is an excellent point. I don’t recall that anyone 

brought up the weather, what predicted temperatures were, because it was too much like we normally fly with, and I think that 

is an excellent point. 

Mr. PACKARD. The erosion problems of the O-ring was known for 

several years before, and there was some data on that, and you 

were monitoring that. 

The O-ring resiliency was not-there was no data or research 

done on that until June 1985, is that correct? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I believe that was the time period, wasn’t it, 

Roger? 

About February or March, he said, we started that. 

Mr. PACKARD. You started. June 3d is referred to in the President’s Commission as having some results from your research as 

far as the resiliency under cold weather of the O-rings. 

In your testimony, Mr. Kilminster, I believe you said that, “As 

launch was scheduled,”-this is the night before, on the night of 

the 27--“As launch was scheduled for early the next day, our engineers immediately commenced evaluating the available data.” 

This is in reference to the cold weather and how it would affect 

the O-rings. You had had some data before. Why did you wait until 

the night before you began to even consider the whole question of 

O-ring resiliency and O-ring problem under cold weather conditions? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. This was in response to a specific request that 

came from NASA earlier in the day, after they scrubbed on the 

27th, around noon eastern time, I believe, and the prediction that 

they had at that time that there was going to be a significant drop 

in overnight temperatures. 

Mr. PACKARD. And what did your review-immediate evaluation 

of the data-what did it show? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. Well, there was a couple of areas of concern. 

No. 1 was, would we be concerned about this propellant mean 

bulk temperature condition? So, analysis and quick evaluation was 

done there and said, no, that under the circumstances that we 

would not have any problem with propellant mean bulk temperature. 

There was some assessment made of if it gets that low, if there is 

some gradient, some temperature gradient going from the case wall 

into the insulation and propellant, would that be a concern. 

That was looked at and judged by engineering not to be a concern, and so the only one that was identified as being of concern 

was the joint issue. 
538 

Mr. PACKARD. Were you relying wholly on NASA’s evaluation 

and judgment as to whether to overlook the cold weather and the 

O-ring? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. No, sir. That was our engineering people who 

were conducting that assessment on all three of those items. 

Mr. PACKARD. One last question, one that I dealt with with the 

people yesterday afternoon. 

On page 146 of the Commission’s report, it shows where there 

was, or that you were monitoring, the flights that-well, all flights 

were monitored in terms of O-ring degradation, and it showed no 

successful flights below 65-degree weather, no successful flights 

that had no O-ring damage done, 17 flights above the 65-degree 

level with no O-ring damage, but all flights had damage that was 

below that level. 

Were you using this information on an ongoing basis to evaluate 

the effects of O-ring and cold weather? 

Mr. KILMINSTER. I believe the task force, in conducting their activities, were looking for any correlation, correlations having to do 

with +he shape of the segments as they were put together. 

And I can’t say specifically, but I think they were looking at temperature based on what we had learned on the earlier January 

issue. 

But perhaps Mr. Boisjoly could answer that in more detail. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. We had asked for that data as part of the team 

members and were in the process of gathering that data, and we 

had not yet received it. 

Mr. PACKARD. So, Thiokol did not have access or did not use at 

least the information from previous flights in respect to the joint. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. We did with respect to the joint on erosion, but 

with respect to specific launch temperatures on specific vehicles, 

we didn’t have that specific data at that time. 

Mr. PACKARD. It is easy, perhaps, after the fact, but do you believe that there was a general malaise on the question of temperature and its effect upon the O-ring joint up until the accident? 

Do you think that this was a general disregard or a feeling that 

it was not as critical of an area, the temperature effect on the 0- 

rings? 

Mr. BOISJOLY. No. 

Mr. PACKARD. Notas critical. 

Mr. BOISJOLY. No, not at all, because I think my memos indicate 

just the opposite to that. I was extremely concerned about that. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would like to comment on that information, because one of the gauges that we had used from the start-I think 

Mr, Mulloy testified to that yesterday, and he also challenged us to 

why we could continue flying-was the first time we ever observed 

erosion on a field joint O-ring was in the second flight STS-2, at 70 

degrees Fahrenheit, and it was the worst and still was the worst 

erosion we had ever seen on launch. 

So, you have got to take that data in some context. 

Mr. PACKARD. I understand that. 

However, erosion, I think, is not necessarily resiliency. I am not 

persuaded that it was the erosion problem that created the leak 

here as much as it was failure of the O-ring to seal, which could 
539 

have been erosion, but was probably more likely a lack of resiliency to seal off the gap. 

Mr. MCDONALD. I don’t disagree with that. I am just saying they 

thought thermal stress, as observations on O-rings, as a function of 

temperature. You have to put that in perspective. 

Mr. PACKARD. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from California. 

We are just about at a conclusion here this morning. There are a 

series of questions that the committee has prepared that we will be 

submitting to you in writing that we would like you to respond to, 

and some of them have really to do with-they are specific. 

Some are technical in nature. I am thinking about the joint rotation aggravated by switching to lightweight steel. I know that is something that is being worked on, the cases, and 

those sorts of things, but I think it would be invaluable to get that 

on the record in writing, and if you would be kind enough to respond to that we would appreciate it, to round out the record. 

The gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just one clarification, if you could help us here, Mr. McDonald. 

On page 142 of the report, discussing the closure issue, it states: 

“On December 6, 1985, Thiokol’s Brian Russell wrote A1 McDonald 

requesting closure of the solid rocket motor O-ring erosion critical 

problems. He gave 17 reasons for the closure, including test results, 

future test plans, and the work to date of Thiokol’s task force. Four 

days later, December 10, 1985, McDonald wrote a memo to NASA’s 

Mr. Ware, asking for closure of the O-ring problem.” 

Can you share with us why you did that? 

Mr. MCDONALD. I would be glad to do that, sir. 

The reason that Mr. Russell had originally addressed the memo 

to me on that subject was that he had received a telephone call 

from his counterpart at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Mr. Jim 

Thomas, who had apparently come out of a meeting or been given 

some direction by the director of science and engineering at the 

Marshall Space Flight Center, Mr. Jim Kingsbury, that he was 

very upset in the problem assessment system and this problem 

review board of this continuing long list of anomalies that were reported, and the list keeps getting longer and things weren’t taken 

off, and some of them were getting relatively old, some of them 

back literally, years, and that list certainly had far too many problems that were over 6 months old, and we need to get that list 

down, and we must close some of those actions out. 

In fact, he informed me that Mr. Wear, who is the one I usually 

communicated with, the manager of the solid rocket motor project, 

would probably be sending me a memo to that effect here shortly, 

which it did come, and that we need to get those off of those lists, 

and he put together a memo on what his position was as to why we 

ought to be able to remove the O-ring problems from that list, because we were tracking them on another system, in fact, weekly, 

not monthly anymore. 

We had a task force that had a meeting, a teleconference, every 

week with the people at Marshall discussing what we were doing, 

trying to solve the issues. 
540 

And if you read the memo that I wrote, it says that we are going 

to continue that, and it is not an indication we solve the problem. 

In fact, just the opposite. It is going to be some time before we 

can solve that problem, so if somebody wants to get this list down, 

they might as well take them off, because we are doing it in, I 

think, a more productive manner that is more visible, and therefore, let’s take them off, and that is what I did it for. 

Mr. NELSON. Did you raise the issue of the temperature questions 

at that point in your memo? 

Mr. MCDONALD. No, I did not, sir. 

Mr. NELSON. This was just your memo in response to their 17 

reasons stating that they wanted to close out any further discussion of the O-ring problem. 

Mr. MCDONALD. Right. There wasn’t anything, I don’t believe, on 

temperature there, no. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The committee will stand adjourned. We are going to reconvene 

in 1 week Wednesday. 

I want to thank the representatives from Thiokol for their up 

front, straightforward answers in response to the committee’s questions. 

As I mentioned, we will have some in depth other technical questions which we think will be helpful to the committee and we will 

submit those to you in writing. 

We want to thank you very much. 

The committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned subject 

to the call of the Chair.] 
INVESTIGATION OF THE CHALLENGER 

ACCIDENT 

(Volume 1) 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 1986 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in room 2318, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Roe (acting chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Mr. ROE. The committee will come to order. 

This morning we commence our third week in the series of hearings that the Science and Technology Committee is holding to investigate the space shuttle Challenger accident. Equally as important to where we will go from here in the overall national space 

program. 

In following the overall plan for our inquiry, we heard first from 

Chairman Rogers of the Presidential Commission on the Space 

Shuttle Accident. The Commission, under the guidance of its distinguished Chairman, had conducted a detailed investigation of the 

shuttle’s hardware and technology failures, and also a thorough 

analysis of the management decisions associated with the launch. 

Chairman Rogers presented the excellent report that grew out of 

the Commission’s work. 

Our second group of witnesses was headed by Dr. James Fletcher 

and was comprised of various other NASA officials involved in the 

general governance of the agency, as well as those specifically in 

charge of the Space Transportation System. Third, we heard personnel from Morton Thiokol Co., the designer/manufacturer of the solid rocket booster’s motor joint. The Rogers’ Commission identified the faulty operation of this joint as 

the prime cause for the shuttle’s failure on January 28. 

On the same day, we heard from personnel at NASA’s Marshall 

Space Flight Center. Since the Marshall Center has safety oversight responsibility for the SRB program, the committee considered 

it important to juxtapose the appearance of the Morton Thiokol 

and the Marshall Center witnesses. 

Today we will be hearing from NASA’s astronauts. These are individuals who are, or have been, the most direct participants in 

America’s manned space flight programs. Their intense training 

encompasses knowledge of a vehicle’s hardware and its specific function, knowledge of and experience with the special characteris- 

(541) 

64-295 0 - 86 - 18 
542 

tics of the space environment through simulation, and most importantly, inflight intimacy with space travel. 

They are an extremely unique group of individuals who have 

been selected for excellence in judgment and expertise. We call on 

them today to provide us not only with their perspective of a mission’s planning and execution, but also with their view of both the 

weaknesses and strengths in NASA’s current program and operation. 

This morning we will hear from Maj. Donald Slayton, Gen. 

James McDivitt, Capt. John Young, Col. Henry Hartsfield, and 

Comdr. Robert Gibson. 

In this afternoon’s session, Gen. Thomas Stafford will join us in a 

continuation of the proceedings. 

Our ultimate goal in examining the causes of the shuttle accident is to strengthen the Nation’s space program so that we can 

safely and steadfastly continue our pursuit of the dual objectives of 

space exploration and space development. 

Gentlemen, I welcome you. I know that you can help us in our 

task. 

We will begin after the remarks of Mr. Lujan, the distinguished 

Representative from New Mexico, and the Science Committee’s 

ranking Republican member. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I, too, would like to extend a warm welcome to today’s panel of 

witnesses. There are few people in the world better qualified to 

talk about space fljght than the astronauts who appear before us 

today for this hearing. 

Mr. Chairman, it has been almost 6 months since the tragic Challenger accident. During that time in attempting to find the 

causes and the cures we have had a lot of criticism. So much so we 

tend to forget we have a great space program. 

I happen to believe it is the best in the world. To illustrate my point, I might bore the committee with a little story that evolved 

sometime ago. 

My granddaughter was talking about flying saucers. I told her 

that in southern New Mexico there had been sightings of space 

ships. We read about those all the time. I had been told they were 

expecting another sighting on a particular day. So I went down 

into the area hoping that I could see one. 

It didn’t come, so I stayed another day hoping to catch sight of 

one. One did finally come and I saw it. I saw it land. I might tell 

you, Mr. Chairman, this is a true story. 

She asked me if I saw any creatures, and I said yes. She asked 

me if they were little green men, and I said no. 

I then explained to her that the creatures were just like her and 

me. Their names were Jack Lousma and Gordon Fullerton, as a 

matter of fact. 

The point of the story is I did see a spaceship land and it came 

from the United States, the only nation in the world to possess a 

machine that will carry us into space and return just like a regular 

airplane does. 

Mr. Chairman, it is a dangerous operation. I have been told 2,700 

things, criticality 1, and 1R can go wrong. I marvel every time I see 
543 

a shuttle land, usually within feet and within seconds of NASA’s 

predictions when it left Kennedy several days before. 

Our job is not to find fault for fault’s sake only, but to learn from 

this experience, this Challenger experience so we can take corrective action. I am particularly grateful that members of the astronaut corps have agreed to share their wisdom of the years in the 

space program with us. 

There are few whose knowledge of the program is deeper and 

command of issues broader than members of this astronaut corps. I 

look forward to hearing a frank assessment of the strengths and 

weaknesses of our space program today and when we are through 

here, I hope we can get on with the business of rebuilding our 

space program. 

We really can’t afford to wait much longer for major policy decisions to be made. The longer we wait, the harder and surely the 

more expensive it gets. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the distinguished gentleman. 

We have two housekeeping matters to take up first. 

Without objection, television broadcast, radio broadcast, still photography of the coverage will be permitted this week on the hearings held on the Roger’s report, and there is no objection, and so 

forth. 

The second matter is I move the proposed membership of the Science Policy Task Force that has been placed before the members be 

approved for 6 months commencing July 1, 1986. 

Someone second that motion? 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania second that motion. 

All in favor, signify by saying aye. 

Contrary? 

So carried. 

I want to thank you for taking your time to be with us as a distinguished panel and just for the members, just to reiterate, and 

for yourselves, we are on a tripart program here really. Some 

people had said and recently there were some news reports that 

were issued, an editorial or two, if the Rogers Commission did their 

work as they did, and did a good job, why should it be necessary 

that the Congress, namely the Science and Technology Committee 

of the House and our counterpart in the Senate, why should we be 

in effect holding additional hearings? 

I kind of was surprised at that in a way because I didn’t consider 

the issue to be concluded on the basis of the Rogers Commission 

report, nor has this committee, by the way, or the Congress. I think 

that is No. 1. 

No. 2, the Rogers Commission made it very clear that the initial 

responsibility as given to them by the President in his directive 

was based upon the point of view of what happened technologically 

in effect, why was there an accident, what happened. Of course, we 

have been pursuing that and I am sure there will be questions and 

dialog relating to that tragic issue today from your point of view. 

But second, in that tripart program, we want to look into the 

management structure as to really what has happened to NASA 

and not NASA bashing. That is not our purpose here at all. 
544 

We want to be able to take quantum steps forward to improve the situation so we can go back into space as quickly as possible, 

but safety is, of course, you know, No. 1. 

So the second issue that we are devoting our issue to which you begin to bridge that gap now, as I see it-Manny and I talked 

about that earlier-is to start to look to what you see the role that 

the astronaut corps should play in the overall program. 

There are some vast differences in those who participated in earlier manned flights as to what we see the institution beginning to 

develop into. 

Then, of course, our third function, when we finish these phases 

of our hearings, will be to get into the long and short range policy issues, what does America and what does the Congress do and what 

do the people do, what do you do as far as the short range space 

program is concerned, getting back out there and what our goals 

will be in a major point of view for the long range issues. So that is 

where we are coming from. That is what these issues are about. 

Now, having said that, I want to formally welcome you to our 

committee, and I guess Maj. Deke Slayton has been designated for 

us to call upon to make the first initial observations. 

Does anyone have a formal statement? That is where I am 

coming from. Suppose we recognize now Major Slayton. 

STATEMENTS OF MAJ. DONALD “DEKE” K. SLAYTON, USAF (RET.); 

BRIG. GEN. JAMES A. McDIVITT, USAF (RET.); CAPT. JOHN W. 

YOUNG, USN (RET.); COL. HENRY W. HARTSFIELD, JR., USAF 

(RET.); AND COMDR. ROBERT L. GIBSON, USN; LT. GEN. THOMAS 

STAFFORD 

Major SLAYTON. Thank you for the opportunity to visit with you. 

I do not have a prepared statement. I didn’t get notification in time 

to do that. I gathered from your letter, however, that one of your primary interests was in how the astronaut corps interfaces with 

the rest of the management team. 

I guess being one of the more mature guys here at the table, I 

can probably relate back to how we started and where we ended up in the shuttle program initially. 

I can’t speak to what has happened since then. You have people 

here who are more talented than me that can speak to that. But at 

the time we came into the Mercury Program, there were seven of 

us flight crew, and one of the first things we did was to break up 

into technical areas of expertise. Each guy took a major technical 

area of the program to follow and to make technical inputs into. 

We all reported directly at that time to the Center Director, Bob 

Gilruth, and of course, we were a very small, tight organization at 

that time. 

The precedence for that had been set by guys like Scotty Crossfield in the back of the room, who worked on the X-15, and probably put in at least 10,000 hours of engineering design for every 

hour he flew. 

That is typical in this business, and we probably did about the 

same thing in the Mercury Program. We had a very strong voice 

directly into the engineering system. There were some things we 

didn’t like when we came onboard. 
545 

The design was fairly well set, and we were able to influence the 

change in those and make them happen. Management listened to 

us. We had a lot of changes we proposed that were not adopted to 

because somebody in the management chain has to make a management judgment in many cases. 

Seven guys propose a problem to them, and they get seven different answers, and somebody has to decide which one we are going to implement. At the time the Mercury Program was about over, we 

had already committed to a lunar landing, and it became obvious 

we were going to have to get organized and expand the astronaut 

corps, and I had the misfortune at that time of having been 

grounded due to a medical problem, so I was elected to take over 

the management of the astronaut corps, a job I didn’t particularly care about, but it was the next best thing. So, then, we had submerged the rest of the corps down one level below the Director, because they now reported through me to the Center Director. 

A few months later than that we brought another group of astronauts onboard, including John Young and Jim McDivitt to my right, and then at the same time, it became obvious that the organization was going to have to expand very, very rapidly and get 

much bigger, and we reorganized into a flight crew operations directorate. 

So, my function was then elevated to not only encompass the astronaut corps, but the aircraft operations and everything related to 

flightcrew training, the simulators, procedures and crew equipment. 

I ran two jobs at that time. I was Chief of the Astronauts, and 

also the Director of Flight Crews, but I was still reporting to the 

Center Director. Shortly after that, A1 Shepard had the misfortune 

of getting grounded, which was good fortune for me, because I put him in charge of the Astronaut Office at that time. From then on 

through the early part of the Apollo Program, that is the way we 

operated. So, inputs from the flight crews generally went to Alan; 

from him, they came to me, and then they went on in to the 

system. 

We had a system in those days which still exists, I believe, where 

the program managers ran a configuration control system. Originally they were design reviews. Flightcrews participated intimately in all those. Once the design was fixed, then you had the configuration control system. I always represented the crews on that particu- lar system. Any inputs coming in came up through channels, and I 

am sure there are some changes that people recommend on occasion that didn’t get in that they thought should have, but, as usual, 

when you get 50 smart guys, they have got a lot of different ways of doing things, and you have to nail down one, and say this is the 

way we are going to go. There is another factor at work, and that is that there are a lot 

of people in the engineering elements, the subsystems, who would 

have a pet idea they weren’t able to float up through their element 

of the organization, and it was always nice to be able to go and tag 

an astronaut somewhere and get him to agree with them, and then 

they could come in and say, hey, this is what the astronaut corps 

wants to do, which would give them some extra leverage. We had 

to be very careful of that. We could only have one astronaut posi- 
546 

tion come in relative to a particular change. But this was a continuing dialog and an ongoing thing, and I think it worked very 

well, and these guys can tell you whether it worked as well as I 

thought it did. They may not agree with me. But I think certainly the astronaut corps in general, and in total, had a voice in all elements of the design, the development and the operation. When we got down to the flight readiness review aspects, again, I 

was a member of that board. I had the option at any point of 

saying hey, I don’t think, this flight is ready to go, and we don’t 

want to go. It was my job to deliver the crew to the pad for the 

flight, and I surely would never have taken one down there if I 

thought it was unreasonably safe, recognizing that none of them 

are ever safe. That cannot be guaranteed, but it is a qualitative thing. If I might dwell on that for one second, back in the Mercury 

program, when we flew Atlas we had an 80-percent probability of 

success, and that was considered acceptable because it was the best 

we knew how to do. 

You wouldn’t send a shuttle crew down with an 80-percent probability of succeeding. So that kind of summarizes it. I think I can 

take one more step while I have the floor, and that is when I got a 

chance to fly in the Apollo-Soyuz I did, and came back into a different management role, and that was program management, and I 

no longer had direct responsibilities for the flightcrews. I had responsibility for the program. But again, the crew always had a direct input to whatever we did, and under no conditions 

would I have ever committed a flight either to approach a landing 

test or the orbital flight I was responsible for, without having the 

crew’s concurrence in it. The crew commanders always had a 

strong voice in whatever we did, and I don’t think again, they can 

speak for themselves. But when a guy was assigned to a flight he 

essentially became commander of his own ship, and he was responsible for keeping that crew tied together and doing the things necessary, and we were all there to help him do that job. What has 

changed since 1982 I can’t speak to. I will stop here. Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. I thank you, Major. 

How about General McDivitt? Your observations, please. 

General MCDIVITT. I am glad I have an opportunity to follow 

Deke, because I sort of would like to continue on with the same 

train of thought that he had. During the time that I was an astronaut, I participated in the program as described by him. 

I always felt that I had a route to the top, a very direct route, didn’t have anybody that would stop it as long as I had a decent 

idea. The point that Deke makes about trying to pull together the 

ideas of 7, 16, 20, 30, 50, or 100 astronauts, it is a difficult thing to 

do. When you have a generic issue that deals with the entire program, to be able to speak with force and have respect for the posi- tion that you take, you have to speak with a single voice. 

We always did that, at least I thought we did. As Deke mentioned, some of our ideas didn’t get through the filters and sometimes they did, but at least we stood together and we had a unified 

astronaut position that went forward. 

When I got to be a crew commander, those things which were 

flight-specific for that flight, I felt were my responsibility. We 

talked them over if they were generic, but if they were flight-spe- 
547 

cific, I could deal with the program manager or through Deke, and 

I had a way to the program. 

Later on, after I stopped flying as an astronaut, I became the 

program manager for the Apollo Spacecraft Program. Looking at it 

from the other side, I felt that if I needed a position from the crew 

for a specific flight, I could always go to the crew commander and 

we could discuss that issue. 

If I needed a generic program-related issue, I could go to Deke, 

and we could work out what the astronauts’ position was as a 

whole, and it swung a lot more weight than 50 different voices 

coming to me. 

I chaired that Configuration Control Board that Deke talked 

about for 3 years, and on it I had representatives of the Flight Op- erations Directorate, the ground crew; I had the flightcrew; had the 

program managers that reported to me for the command and service module, for the lunar module; I had an associate program manager for safety; I had my systems division chief; and I had a secretary that looked after it; and we had the contractors represented 

on the Board, too, one for the command and service module, one 

for the lunar module. 

At those meetings, we had the official astronaut input. Sometimes I would agree with it, and sometimes I wouldn’t, depending 

on how it affected the programmatic issues which I had to deal 

with. As Deke said, he was forced into pulling together the various 

viewpoints of the astronauts and coming up with a single position for the Astronaut Office. I was forced into pulling together a single 

position for the program considering what was said by the astronauts, what was said by Flight Operations Directors and other 

people, and in pulling together that Flight Program position. I must say, though, while I found in favor of the astronauts 

sometimes and against them other times, we never had an issue 

with respect to anything that dealt with safety of flght. Deke knew that-I am sure he knew-that if we had a safety of 

flight issue, we would get it resolved very quickly. We never flew 

with open issues on the spacecraft, and we had a method through that Configuration Control Board of dealing with all the issues that 

came up in the program. So, I found there was a role for the astronauts in the Astronaut 

Office in bringing their ideas up, into, and through a formal management structure to the program manager. I found that being on 

the program side of it, I had to have that single point of contact 

where I knew what the astronaut position, was. 

As Deke mentioned, there were a lot of guys who had pet ideas 

that tried to get the endorsement of an astronaut, so it could be the 

astronaut position. But unless it came out of the Astronaut Office 

and through Deke, it wasn’t the astronaut position. So we had a very rigid, formal process that we went through, 

and there weren’t any loose ends about who was really represent- ing this position. I knew who it was. 

Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you, General. 

How about Captain Young? Captain YOUNG. It is a great honor for us to be here today to 

talk about this. We have a little different situation now. We have 
548 

about 88 active astronauts, and they are scattered throughout the 

agency right now across all lines. 

In management, there is Dick Truly, up here in Washington in 

the Office of Space Flight. Serving with him right now is Captain 

Crippen, trying to decide how to organize the management structure of the Space Shuttle Program. 

We have in Houston, Charlie Boland who is the Deputy Technical Assistant to the Director of the Johnson Space Center. In the 

program office working for Arnie Aldrich’s level 2 board, we have 

Brian O’Connor, Technical Assistant for Operations, and we have 

about seven or eight others directly involved in the management 

scheme. 

But we do get together just the same as everybody did in the old 

days and discuss things over Monday morning meetings, and decide 

what our positions are going to be with respect to various projects 

and then we go through our chain of command, through the Director of Flight Operations, through the Director of the Space Operations Directorate, to the Director of the Johnson Space Center, 

and come up with issues. 

I think there is probably one difference of what we used to do in 

the old days and what we did prior to the 51-L accident. That is 

because people started, I believe, and some of the agency believe 

the space shuttle was operational in the sense that you really 

didn’t have to think as much about issues involving safety as we 

really should have thought about it. 

Some of this was self-generated on our part. We are taking steps 

to correct that right now. We have crews participating at the Kennedy Space Center and our technical panels reviewing paperwork 

and preparedness. We have crews participating in the design of the 

solid rocket booster redesign at the Marshall Space Flight Center. 

Commander Gibson is leading that group and he has Mark Brown 

working for him, Mr. Mark Brown, and also Dave Leestma working 

with the main engine people over at Marshall. 

So we have people all over the agency that are working now 

helping us to correct the 51-L accident. We agree with the conclusions of the Commission in their entirety because, as you know, 

and the recommendations, all data that analysis was made from 

was provided for by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, so it is kind of easy for us to agree with those recommendations. 

And we support them wholeheartedly. The Astronaut Office 

right now is participating in the best way that we can to return 

this agency and the space shuttle to safe operating conditions. We 

think that what we are doing is the best that we can do in every 

way for this country to make the shuttle get back to safe operating 

status as soon as possible. 

Thank you. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you, Captain. 

How about Colonel Hartsfield? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I can only echo what John 

has said. In respect to how we handle issues in the office, I have 

always said if you ask 12 astronauts, you will get 13 opinions on a 

subject. 
549 

But we do raise a lot of issues that we certainly don’t agree on. 

But we have after our Monday morning taking up-and we do 

taking up every Monday morning, which was the custom when I 

arrived at the office, and the way Mr. Slayton ran the office when I 

came there. We discuss the problems that have arisen over the last 

week and everything that is going on, so we all have a common 

starting ground at least from that week, but from time to time we 

raise issues that are not agreed upon. 

So we have little specialties we call issue meetings and we get 

everybody together and discuss the issues and hear all sides of it 

and come out of there with a consensus opinion that becomes the 

position for the astronaut office. We have done that as long as I 

have been there and that is the position that we try to take forward then to the control boards and the other elements of the organization that handle these issues. 

Now, again, I would agree with John, I fully support the Commission’s report. I think what they have recommended is the right 

thing to do. We have people spread out, as John said, working on 

different aspects of this retrospection period we are going through, 

looking at all facets of the program, the maintenance, the critical 

items list, and our flight rules and one message that I think we are 

trying to carry to all these people is the idea of safety. Safety has 

to be the key and what we are trying to do is build an attitude. 

Safety is an attitude and it is an attitude that we are trying to engender throughout the Agency. 

I am reminded of a story that Ken Mattingly used to tell when 

he was getting ready to fly on Apollo 16. He went out to the pad 

and was climbing around the Saturn 5 out there and went into an 

inner area and there was a workman back there with a wrench, 

and Ken spoke to him and asked him how he was doing. He said, 

doing fine. And he told Ken, “I don’t know how this complex machine works and I don’t know too much about your job, except I 

admire you, but I will tell you one thing, it is not going to fail because of me.” Now, that is the attitude I think that we have to get 

through this Agency. 

Mr. ROE. Commander Gibson. 

Commander GIBSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me add my sentiments to Captain Young’s. We certainly do 

concur with the Commission findings and we support the recommendations and we are going to do everything that we can to implement all of those and come back from that accident. 

I can probably speak about the working relationship within 

NASA from the new guy’s standpoint perhaps, being from one of 

the later astronaut groups in 1978. We found during all of the testing and the support that we did leading up to the first flights of 

the shuttle, that the working troops within NASA, the working 

level people, were very ready and willing to take our recommendations to improve the testing and to facilitate getting the thing in 

the air. 

As General McDivitt said, later on as a crew commander I was 

able to find that the system was very responsive to any inputs that 

came from the crew commander as such and I guess maybe in the 

past we have had-perhaps our problems have come from where 
550 

we didn’t have total agreement, maybe, between the crew viewpoint and some of the viewpoints within NASA. 

The tires and brakes are probably a good example and my fellow 

crewmember, Congressman Nelson, I am sure, will remember us 

discussing the brakes at great length. I think that the primary disagreement there came from, in our area, where we felt the brakes 

were a safety item and that other people thought that the brakes 

were more of a reuseability issue. So we didn’t always have total 

agreement on where our safety problems were, where our reusability problems were, but for the most part, I think we are working 

within the NASA organization and we are well received and, as I 

say, we are working to come back. 

[The prepared statement of Commander Gibson follows:] 
551 

Statement of 

Robert L. Gibson 

Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr. 

John W. Young 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

before the 

Committee on Science and Technology 

United States House of Representatives 

Mr. Charirman and Distinguished Members of the Committee: 

responding to thc Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger 

Accident with respect to those recommendations which directly concern astronauts. 

technically complex subject. 

without reservation and intend to do our best to insure that these 

recommendations get implemented. Commission reached its conclusions was provided by NASA; therefore, it is 

easy to agree with the recommendations. 

sincerely believe, are aimed at helping NASA do a better and safer job in the 

future. 

working across the Agency. 

Washington assisting Admiral Truly. 

Special Assistant to the Director of the Johnson Space Center, and Bryan 

O'Connor is Assistant Manager for Operations in Arnie Aldrich's Level I1 

Program Office. 

and Technical Assistant for the Flight Crew Operations Directorate at the 

Johnson Space Center. We have three astronauts working with the Marshall 

Space Flight Center folks on the solid rocket booster redesign and the other 

vital performance systems - the Space Shuttle main engines. 

leads our team, and he has Mark Brown working with him; Dave Leestma is 

working with the Marshall Space Flight Center main engine people. 

tell you about solid rocket booster redesign progress. 

At the Kennedy Space Center, the Cape Crusader astronauts, led by 

astronaut Bo Bobko, are participating on the eight technical teams which are 

reviewing paperwork and preparedness. 

the Astronaut Office Space Shuttle Safety Officer. 

astronauts working for him on the Orbiter and its payloads. 

participating in Space Shuttle safety reviews on a near daily basis and can tell you what is happening in the world of Space Shuttle safety. 

It is an honor to be here to tell you how the Astronaut Office is 

First, we believe the Commission did an outstanding job with a 

We support a1 1 the Commission recommendations 

As you know, the data on which the 

All these recommendations, we 

With respect to the use of astronauts in management, we have astronauts 

As you know, Captain Robert Crippen is now in 

In Houston, we have Charlie Bolden as 

Astronauts Dan Brandenstein and Jim Wetherbee are the Deputy 

Hoot Gibson here 

Hoot can 

With respect to other Commission recommendations, Henry Hartsfield is 

He has several other 

He is 
552 

We concur with the Commission recommendations on landing safety, launch 

abort and crew escape, flight rate and maintenance safeguards, because NASA's success will be judged by our success in those arenas. 

With respect to safety and improved communications. we fully support the 

Commission's recommendations. 

system that consciously eliminates the avoidable risks. As we have seen, some risks are self-induced when we try to attain very high flight rates, 

simultaneously reduce operating costs, and try- to fly unsafe payloads. As 

51-L showed us, after 24 flights, the Space Shuttle, as wonderful as it is, 

is still an inherently hazardous research and developmental vehicle. Since we now have three Orbiters, it is logical for all of us to be realistic about 

what we can do safely and operate these national resource vehicles 

conservatively. 

independent of the sometimes safety opposing other NASA functional and 

Program responsibilities, will be essential. This safety organization will 

help us find safety problems and correct them early to prevent another Space 

Shuttle accident. In the nuts and bolts of this matter, because of the type 

of work that we do every day, every branch, every division and every 

directorate throughout the Agency should have safety educated and oriented 

individuals with the ability to report directly through safety people to the 

Administrator of NASA. It is also clear from what we have seen recently that 

safety people have the need to be able to talk directly to each other because 

many safety problems are common. be very helpful in preventing another Space Shuttle accident. 

recommendations of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle 

Challenger Accident. Everything and anything that we can do to carry out the 

recommendations, we are doing. We believe when the Presidential Commissions' 

recommendations are implemented, that we will be doing the very best that we 

can for the country to return the Space Shuttle to safe operating status. 

It is essential for NASA to have a management 

As the Commission recommends, therefore, we think a safety agency, 

It is clear that open communications will 

In summary, the Astronaut Office is very supportive of the 
553 

Mr. ROE. Fine. We thank you for your initial presentation. What we are going to do, as part of our job now, we will have to 

recess for 10 minutes while we go and vote and then we will continue from there. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

Before the recess, we had the opportunity to have an overview 

from our distinguished witnesses of their observations of the space 

program in part, and also their basic feelings and some of the ideas 

they expressed as far as the overall relationship between the astronaut corps and into the Agency. There are a couple of questions I would like to ask at this point, 

and perhaps make an observation. We have deliberately-I want to 

thank you, by the way, for joining with us-we deliverately selected particular people to participate in these hearings, because what 

we are trying to, amongst other things, what we are trying to 

achieve is what role does the corps literally play, and what your 

own perception is of that role as far as the decisionmaking process 

is concerned within the whole space program? 

I have observed the program when Major Slayton testified, as a 

pioneer in the field, and getting to Commander Gibson and Commander Young, who are currently active, there seems to be a feeling you portrayed to me-maybe it is only dialog-I don’t think 

so-that you felt there was a relationship, an immediate relationship so that if something concerns you, you could express that right 

to the leadership immediately, and it was translated immediately. 

Then the question we have to ask when we get to Commander 

Gibson and Captain Young particularly at that point, is do you feel 

that dynamic exists? Somebody made the point of view that safety 

was really a state of mind. I think you made that point, General. 

So, I think that is important. Let’s ask the first question of your 

observations. Do you feel the same dynamics between the corps, who are literally the commanders, and people who fly and are responsible-and I think you made that point, Major, if you didn’t 

think you should fly, you didn’t fly, and that decision was made by 

the commanders of the flight, not by somebody else in the NASA 

system or industry or whatever. 

That is the issue we would like to kind of mature a little bit. Do 

you feel, first of all, Major Slayton, your observations, do you feel 

from what you see that that prevails, and then let’s switch over to 

Commander Gibson or Captain Young. 

Major SLAYTON. Well, I think John and Hoot can probably address that a little better than I can. The only observation I would 

make, not being in the system anymore and trying to determine 

what is changed originally, is I think maybe the corps has submerged another level or two down in the hierarchy from what it 

used to be. 

My observation is any time you start putting layering between 

groups, you start building new problems, you build communications 

problems, and you just don’t have the direct access. 

So where we used to be able to talk directly to the Center Director about things and even to the NASA Administrator, if they are 

going to stay within channels-and being good, disciplined Government guys, I am sure they most of the time do-they have to go 
554 

through about three or four different people to get to that same 

level. 

And that would be my opinion of what may be different. I think 

anything you can do to clear out the channels and get direct communication running not only between the astronaut corps but 

every place else in the system, because I observed from this report that that is not a problem unique to the astronaut corps. That was 

another problem in some of the other centers, and to me that is 

one that has got to get fixed throughout the agency. 

Mr. ROE. Commander Gibson. 

Commander GIBSON. Iwould amplify what Mr. Slayton said. We 

are definitely moved down to a level a bit below where we used to 

be. Our comments and concerns can still, of course, be made known 

to Captain Young, and he carries them forward, but again, he is 

reporting through another chain that we weren’t reporting through 

before, and it seems like each time perhaps that we report through 

a different level, it gets filtered just a little bit. So, I would agree 

with what Mr. Slayton said. 

Mr. ROE. Let me hear from Captain Young. Captain YOUNG. There was talk prior to the 51-L accident, since 

the space shuttle has become operational, that everybody was talking about that we were going to do away with things like flight readiness reviews, we were going to do away with the crew report- ing of their mission. 

In fact, we had done away with it, several crews did not report up the chain of command, to report what they did on their missions. 

Mr. ROE. Two things, Captain. Pull that microphone closer, and 

when you say they did not report, who told them? How did that 

happen? Was it just a change of direction? That is important. Captain YOUNG. Everyone at NASA, and it was across, nationwide, started the business, operational much like an airliner, which 

it certainly is not, which we certainly have always held the opinion that it is not an airliner, and can never be an airliner, an agency which had people started thinking of it as an airliner, which, as 

the 51-L accident points out, and some of the things in the Commission report, it is not an airliner. You start treating it like an 

airliner and start treating your astronauts like airline pilots down 

in the airline system, that is how we did things before the accident, 

in quite a few areas, and therefore, operational or safety issues 

from the crews were not a matter of concern to management, and I 

can certainly understand that, except that the 51-L accident points 

out that was probably not the way we ought to do, and we are 

going to take steps, and we are taking steps to ensure that that attitude gets corrected agencywide. 

We do have to worry more about the safety of the machinery, and the safety of operational decisionmaking. There is a place in 

the structure that people speak of these days called risk management. 

I think our position, since we have three orbiters left, we need to 

take the position throughout the Agency that we are going to operate in a safe and conservative manner every time we fly the space 

shuttle. In other words, we won’t take chances similar to some that 

we took in 1985 with the weather, for example, or we won’t take 
555 

chances with the lighting situations, and we won’t overstress our 

ability to do things with our machine that has placards on it, for 

example, a crosswinds placard. We wouldn’t want to exceed any of 

those because simulations show us that that wouldn’t be a very 

good idea. We are going to change the direction of the Agency, and 

we are going to have to do the right thing. 

Mr. ROE. General. 

General MCDIVITT. Let me put on my program manager’s hat, 

and take off my astronaut hat. I would feel uneasy as a program 

manager if I didn’t have direct access to the views of the astronauts. I feel from an organizational, functional standpoint, that 

there is a requirement to know and have ready for flight, the crew, 

the ground system, and the launch equipment, the equipment that 

flies, both the launcher and the spacecraft. 

I noticed recently when I was reading parts of the Commission’s 

report, that the Astronaut Office now reports into something called 

Operations, or something like that, it does indeed remove it from 

the position that it had been before. 

If I were the program manager, I would look at that function as 

two different functions, the ground system where the flight controllers are, and the flying system where the astronauts are. It would 

be getting filtered before it got to me as a program manager, and I 

wouldn’t like that, not from an astronaut standpoint, but from a 

program management standpoint. You don’t have access to the 

data in a timely fashion, and get the relatively unfiltered perception of how these problems are seen by those two distinctly different organizations, and I would rather have that come to me and let 

me make the decision on it, instead of having somebody in front of 

me, filtering and then bringing to me the filtered version of it. So 

as a program manager, I wouldn’t like to see the organization the 

way it is structured today. I also note that in looking at the Johnson Space Center organization, that from an organizational standpoint, a block diagram standpoint, the engineering development directorate is at the same 

level as this Operations Director, whatever it is called, and down 

below that are these other two things. I don’t see it that way. I see 

engineering, ground control and flight operations up in space, all 

at the same level, and they are not like that. So just from an orga- nizational chart, it doesn’t look very well and won’t do a good job, and from a program management standpoint, I would feel I wasn’t 

getting all the information I needed. 

Mr. ROE. Colonel Hartsfield. 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. Since I have been at Johnson Space Center, 

we have had two major reorganizations, and in each of those, the 

astronaut office was pushed to a deeper level. We still manage to 

get our inputs in, but as Mr. Gibson said, it was filtered. We were 

not speaking organizationally, with the same voice that we had had 

in the early seventies. As far as how the commander got treated in 

this thing, I would like to give my viewpoint on that. 

I have flown three times, the last two times as a commander, 

and I will have to say, leading up to the flight, the responsibility to 

pull that flight together, and work a lot of the problems did belong 

to me as the commander, and my viewpoints, I think, were listened 

to, and the preparations of the flight. 
556 

In fact, I remember an incident before the launch of 41-D, that 

we had a problem with the spacecraft that was brought to me the 

night before we were supposed to launch, and I was told that there 

was, they discovered just that day or very recently a possible single 

failure point that could cause some problems with separation of the 

SRB, and it would require software patch to get around it, and I 

was asked, you know, low probability, we had flown 11 previous 

flights that way, but how did I feel about it? 

Did we want to launch with that problem or not, and after discussing it a little bit, I said, I think we ought to fix it, it is a oneday slip, we ought not to take the chance. We delayed a day and 

fixed the software up then. 

In my mind, that is the way the system should work. There were 

other inputs to that decision, and upper management had to make 

that decision, so I am not sure we could put it in the vein that the 

crew said, don’t go and we didn’t. In this particular case, it seemed 

like the crew opinion of this problem was honored, and that is, I 

think, that I would like to see that in these types of situations that 

the viewpoint of the crew certainly carry a lot of weight with the 

management. 

Mr. ROE. Well, I think we have come 360 degrees on that area, 

and that leads to the question: Here we have Major Slayton making the point of view in his earlier experience as a pioneer in 

this field, that his concern as a crew commander, as a member of 

the crew was listened to, and I believe, and I don’t want to misrepresent, I think I heard you say that if you decided as the commander that they would not fly, they would not fly. 

Is that a correct interpretation of what you said? I think so. Here 

we have a scenario where we have been flying, somebody else made 

the point that the rationale has to be portrayed that astronauts 

and commanders of shuttle flights are not operating as airline 

pilots by any stretch of the imagination. OK. 

And I think you made that point very eloquently. Now, we come 

back with this scenario where we have a number of flights flying, 

and we have a situation that arises and I am not going into depth 

as to technology, where a decision has to be made, and there is a 

meeting that is held, and, supposed to be for a half-hour, lasted for 

an hour, where a decision was made to fly or not to fly, and I don’t 

recall in any part of that testimony, maybe my colleagues would 

know one way or the other, I don’t recall, in the testimony that 

you were consulted, where the corps was involved, now, Major 

Slayton says he had at his level at that point in the evolution of 

the programming, he had the right to say yay or nay, and here we 

have a group of people, fire corps people, the people from Marshall 

got together and they made the decision to fly or not to fly. 

Was the astronaut office, was the astronaut corps consulted on 

that decision? Or has the management program become so institutionalized that we were considered to be airline pilots and therefore, we would be involved and have the right to make the decision 

yay or nay, we shall or shall not fly. 

That is a legitimate question, we ought to try to answer. 

Captain YOUNG. I don’t want to take away from airline pilots, because they have a hard job as it is. 

Mr. ROE. Nor do I, because I use them all the time. 
557 

Captain YOUNG. But in this particular instance, with respect to 

the cold temperatures on the solid rocket motor seals, there were 

no astronauts involved in that conversation, nor any people from 

mission operations or the astronaut office, to my knowledge, involved in that conversation. 

There are times when you get in close to launch, that the system 

that says whether you are going to fly or not to fly, can be represented by astronauts. We don’t have it done that way right now. 

There could be astronauts going to every meeting involved in those 

kinds of decisions. 

Mr. ROE. And why not? 

Captain YOUNG. If you are operational, getting down close to 

launch, the things that the astronaut should be worried about are 

those things that he or she can do something about, for example, it 

was done on 51-L. 

Dick Scobey had a problem knowing that the hatch was closed on 

51-L and stopped the launch to fix the hatch on one of the scrubs 

before the 51-L flight launched, and so he was directly involved in 

that, and that is the kind of operational thing that the crew commander has to be worried about when you get ready to fly. There were no astronauts represented on the solid rocket motor 

seal problem, and in fact, I am not sure of the way that the system 

got that kind of information, that if they had been represented in 

that manner, that it would have made any difference to the program. 

We have heard in flight reviews, and I have sat in there myself, 

serious concerns which we didn’t know were serious concerns, that 

people talk about, things like the solid rocket motor nozzle, which 

also has seal problems. The consequences of those seal problems 

not working would be just as serious as the 51-L accident, and 

when people present these things in a manner that they don’t 

appear serious to you, everybody in the room says, let’s go fly. 

Mr. ROE. What I want to develop for the record, and not to lead 

your answer, the question is, here is a situation, you all spoke of 

safety in your initial presentations, which is the premier issue we 

are concerned about. 

You brought up factors, 80 percent safe, and we talk about 800 

criticality items involved, any one of which could create a catastrophe. 

It seems to me to be a little extraordinary, and maybe I am 

wrong, because here it has been known for 6 or 7 years that there 

has been a problem with the O-rings in that particular area, and it 

seems to me, did the current astronaut corps, were they advised, 

were they aware of the seriousness of-I think there was 12 or 14 

flights where they had problems which they were able to ascertain 

afterward, with the O-ring seals, so forth, did the corps know that 

at all? 

Captain YOUNG. No, sir, when we looked at the solid rocket 

motor for the first mission, STS-1, Bob Crippen and I went up to 

Thiokol, and we were briefed that there was no such thing, we 

weren’t briefed that anybody knew anything about joint rotation. 

They explained to us you didn’t even need the seals, because when 

the case expanded, it would seal against the metal to metal, you 

would have a metal to metal seal, and you could take the seals out 
558 

and didn’t need either one of them, and there was some people 

complaining about having to put two seals in. 

When we first heard about this, we said that we would look at 

the solid rocket motor qualification firing, and if they didn’t have 

any trouble, we figured we were home free, where the solid rocket 

motor had a close reliability. It made a lot of sense. We had two 

seals in these factory joints, and the astronaut office had no knowledge of solid rocket motor seal programs from then on, nor even 

considered them, and neither did anybody in the mission operations at the Johnson Space Center or any other directorate at the 

Johnson Space Center, had any idea of the O-ring seal problems, to 

my knowledge. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Would the chairman yield? 

The Rogers Commission recommended that either the flag commander or a representative of the flight commander sit in on the 

flight readiness review which takes place 2 weeks before launch, 

and I assume all of you have endorsed in general the recommendations of the Rogers Commission? 

Captain YOUNG. Yes, sir, and we sit in on the flight readiness reviews. 

Mr. SCHEUER. You had two emergency meetings within like 14 

hours of launch, one the night before with the Thiokol people, the 

problem of the subfreezing temperatures, and the problem of the 

seal. 

Then, within an hour of scheduled flight time, before that, you 

had another meeting with the Rockwell people on the problem of 

the ice, and these were two almost emergency types of meetings, 

where the safety engineers had the most urgent concerns about the 

safety of the flight. 

Don’t you think we might extend the recommendations of the 

Rogers Commission, not only to include the flight commander in on 

the more or less routine flight readiness review, which took place 2 

weeks before flight, but also include them in on any emergency 

meetings that might have taken place within 12 or 24 hours within 

the flight, and in the case of the second meeting with Rockwell 

within an hour of the flight? 

Captain YOUNG. We could certainly put people in those kinds of 

meetings. I am not sure they have the technical expertise to really 

be able to say go or not go. We had a problem of our own on the 

flight, you know. The egress path we found out later was covered 

with ice, and from a crew standpoint, I don’t think you would have 

wanted to launch where you can’t, you know, where your path to 

the slot was covered with ice, you would not launch from that 

standpoint. 

We could have made that input, but for crews to say whether a 

solid rocket motor seal is safe to fly or not safe to fly or whether 

the engine turbine blade is safe or not, you got to have engineering 

expertise to do that, and our people are trained to fly spaceships 

and they are trained very well, and they can work thousands of 

procedures with things they can do something about. But as far as 

technical expertise, to say go or no go on a technical issue of performance, you could have a gut feeling that it wouldn’t be a good 

thing to do, you sure could have that and express those feelings at 

a meeting, but-- 
559 

Mr. ROE. What I am trying to develop, we have a broad base 

from the beginning of the program now to the ongoing dynamics of 

the program. One of the issues we are talking about is what happened in management. 

You folks as astronauts are going to fly this experimental craft. It is not an airplane, as you said yourself, and there are seven lives 

that are involved, and some of those people have got to at least 

have the feeling, I would assume, when they get into that spacecraft, that it is going to fly to the best of their knowledge. 

Let me finish. What Major Slayton says is there was a dynamic 

that existed in the initial part of the program, and people were 

saying, should we fly or shouldn’t we fly? The question is, should 

the astronaut corps be more into the upfront decisionmaking end 

of the situation? 

Should you have the right to abort a flight? You are constantly, according to the chart in the Commission report, you are getting 

further and further pushed away from the decisionmaking, they 

are treating you like pilots. I don’t say that unkindly. All I am trying to get at is if you knew 

there was a problem with those O-rings, seven years, half of the 

flights that were flown that had a problem, would you have allowed that to fly that day? Could you have done anything, as opposed to could you have said 

no way, we are not going to fly? Could you have done it? 

Captain YOUNG. The rest of the agency, if they had been aware 

of this problem, we wouldn’t have flown. We would have fixed it. If 

other people responsible in the management structure had the feeling this was a serious problem, we wouldn’t have gone. We have to 

believe that, because there, on the orbiter, there are 1,500 criticality 1 items on the orbiter alone, on STS-1, those items are still 

there, and if the management system can’t make sure those things 

are ready to fly, we can never fly again. If you have an astronaut 

saying every step of the way, don’t fly because of this, that or this, 

where they have no expertise, it would be troublesome. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Mexico. 

Mr. LUJAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, all of you, to the committee. Captain Young, one of the 

things that is interesting that you said was that we now have 

people from the astronaut corps in different areas, Gibson looking 

at the engines, and Bob Crippen up here, and so on. 

That is during the time when we are down that nobody is flying. Do you think, as one of the changes we ought to make, is to have 

astronauts in all of the different areas looking into them, and if so, 

what problems does that create with active astronauts when we are 

flying? 

I guess maybe basically, you think that we ought to keep that up, 

having astronauts all over the place to look at things? Captain YOUNG. While you are not flying, it is easy to do. It 

keeps people involved in interesting areas. Before we stopped 

flying, we had 11 or 12 flight crews, and were going to name three 

or four flight crews, a total of probably 70 people, 70 different 

people would be assigned to flight crews with an astronaut corps of, 

say, 90, and in that case, it is very difficult to assign everybody to 

an area unless you want people to work two jobs, and we have 
560 

some very good people in the astronaut office and many can work 

two jobs, but it is difficult when you are on a flight crew to work 

more than a flight crew job. 

Mr. LUJAN. What we are saying is an effort ought to be made to 

have somebody from the astronaut corps involved in the different 

phases of it. 

Captain YOUNG. Well, they are. We have the Deputy of Flightcrew Operations as an astronaut, and he goes to the flight readiness reviews and participates in the program requirements change control boards, but it is not to the level of detail that this group is 

agency-wide right now, and once you get back to flying, you prob- ably wouldn’t want to cover that, you are in more of a design process right now than in a flight process, and once you get back to 

operating a space shuttle, you wouldn’t want people scattered all 

over the place. 

Mr. LUJAN. What about graduating some guys into those desk 

positions, couldn’t you do some of that, maybe? Captain YOUNG. We could do that. Yes, sir, it is very hard to 

keep people around when they are not flying. Mr. LUJAN. Yes, I can imagine. Let me follow up on your nowfamous memo. Did you feel kind of looked down upon or antago- nism, or anything, after that memo? How was it received, do you think? 

Captain YOUNG. Well, Congressman, that was an internal memo, 

not scheduled for release. I was really trying to get people to think, 

which is the purpose of all the memos that I have ever written, but 

it was a result of going to meetings and findings that this attitude 

toward safety, since the accident, it looked like to me that a lot of 

people had watched this thing on the television and had not appreciated the effect it was going to have on the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration. And the way we do business, and we 

had not changed our attitude about the way we operate in one 

little bit, so I wrote that memo, and it is like anything else, when 

you do that, I got a lot of letters from people all over the country that thought it was “atta boy,” and a lot of letters from people who 

offered to take my job, because they wanted to fly the shuttle. And 

they told me what I could do with that memo. 

Mr. LUJAN. What I was thinking of more than the general public’s reaction, the encouragement or disencouragement that someone in the astronaut corps may have from NASA itself for bringing 

up problems like that? 

Did you feel like NASA was saying to you, you ought to keep 

your mouth shut if you feel that way, or thanks a lot for bringing 

out these points? Captain YOUNG. No, NASA doesn’t care. I don’t think you write 

memos until you have exhausted all your other avenues, and I ran 

out of rope pretty fast many times, so that is what the problem is. 

A month after the accident when people aren’t turning things 

around, as serious as a matter as that was, something should have 

been done, and part of it was because the whole agency didn’t have 

anybody, they were all busy investigating the accident, trying to 

get things squared away. Mr. LUJAN. You had voiced these concerns before? 

Captain YOUNG. Oh, yes, sir. 
56 1 

Mr. LUJAN. Same concerns. One final thing, you indicated that 

astronauts do attend the flight readiness review meetings that are 

held, along with those teleconferences that are being taped, and all 

of that. 

Is the astronaut office plugged into that or not? 

Captain YOUNG. On the L minus 1 briefing, the teleconference, 

we listen to it. The program manager always comes over to sit with 

the astronauts after the L minus 1 briefing for a couple of hours, 

and any inputs that anybody hears on the L minus 1, they discuss 

with the program manager. 

Mr. LUJAN. Do you feel more comfortable-well, Kathy Sullivan 

said she wouldn’t fly again for a long time. That is part of the 

press reports. Do you feel the same way? 

Captain YOUNG. If we fix these design problems, I would fly again. I am scheduled to fly on space telescope. 

Mr. LUJAN. You are talking about just the solid rocket booster 

seal? 

Captain YOUNG. I think there are several other issues. The program manager mentioned the last time he was here, maybe a 

couple hundred that they are looking at, some of which are rather 

serious, design issues that we have an opportunity to take from a 

criticality 1 status and put in some other status, I would feel more 

comfortable about flying. 

Mr. LUJAN. How many? 

Captain YOUNG. Idon’t have them. Dick Truly can get the exact 

number. 

Mr. LUJAN. I know there are 700 and some. But of the ones that 

have to be resolved, the joint, the brakes, the landing, those are the 

things that you are talking about? 

Captain YOUNG. Yes, sir, and maybe a couple more besides. 

Mr. LUJAN. One final question. I am concerned, and one of the 

things that you touched on, having guys all over the system looking at things like that, do you think we ought to perhaps start a 

new class type of astronaut with this kind of technical expertise that whose premier responsibility it is to, for example, if Commander Gibson wants to continue flying, and somebody to be over 

there looking at the engines, that either he doesn’t fly as much, 

every once in a while as a prize, let him go up or something like that, but their primary responsibility is not flying, and more looking at the astronaut corps concerns, do you think that might be advantageous? Captain YOUNG. Well, I think having astronauts to do that kind 

of work, and fly on occasion is a very expensive way to do astronauts. You can get real good engineers to do the same thing, a 

heck of a lot cheaper, and make just as good inputs. NASA has a gracious plenty of those kinds of people around who 

are really responsible. In the main, you like to keep astronauts 

around to fly spaceships because that is their talent, and that is 

what they want to do, and it is very difficult to keep an active 

person like Hoot Gibson to be on the solid rocket motor booster, 

isn’t that true, Hoot? 

Mr. LUJAN. I can understand that, the reason he is in the astronaut corps is so he can fly. 

Captain YOUNG. Yes, sir. 
562 

Mr. LUJAN. One short question. 

You say people do attend the FRR’s, and are involved in the teleconference, all of that sort of thing. Do you happen to know if the 

teleconference for 51-L was taped or not? 

Captain YOUNG. No, sir, I would have no way to know that. 

Mr. LUJAN. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes our distinguished chairman, Mr. 

Fuqua from Florida. 

The CHAIRMAN. I apologize for not being able to be here. I am 

shuttling between two meetings, but in follow-up to the questions 

that have been asked, I would like to ask Jim McDivitt and Deke 

Slayton, you have been there, and you are not directly involved, 

how would you implement better communication between the astronaut office and the launch procedures and so forth, that has 

been recommended by the Rogers Commission, and as John Young pointed out, if I interpret what he says right is not good utilization 

of all the astronauts to have them run around and review all the 

safety procedures. 

How would you two propose that that problem be addressed? I 

think very strongly myself that there should be closer involvement 

by the astronaut office in the review. I had questions on the last 

reorganization at Houston about that very problem, but how would 

you two propose that it be done? 

Major SLAYTON. I would propose that they didn’t operate too bad 

the way we started, have a flight crew operations director reporting directly to the center director, and the chief of that office was a 

senior astronaut, and that worked very well. We had an understanding within our organization down the line. An appropriate 

point, though, that John brought up, no matter how you do this, if 

you don’t have the communication in the rest of the system relating to it, you can’t make any better decisions than anybody else 

can. 

The CHAIRMAN. In the most recent case, you would not have had 

that information? 

Major SLAYTON. Exactly. It appears to be so. Equally important, 

try to get a little better communication between the astronaut 

corps and their management, you have to go back and look at the 

rest of NASA and the other centers, because it appears to me that 

is where the big problem lies in this particular incident, that the 

communication did not exist at the working level up through the 

chain of command, level 2 and level 1, because if those gentlemen 

had known on 28 July, or January, what they know today, they 

wouldn’t have made the decision they made. 

None of us would have, so there was a big lack of communication. 

The CHAIRMAN. Jim. 

General MCDIVITT. I think I would recommend that the flight 

crew operations directorate be moved up to report to the center director as well as the flight operations director. I think both of those 

organizations are very key to flying, and having them go through 

another layer of management before they get to the Center Director creates a filter which is not necessary or desirable for either 

one of them. I think it also gets them on the same level as the engi- 
563 

neering organizations within the manned spacecraft center, and 

gives them better access to the program. The CHAIRMAN. How about interfacing with the Associate Administrator for Space Transportation, in this case today it would be 

Admiral Truly? 

General MCDIVITT. It has to be done within the rigid framework 

NASA has. You have to be careful about going out of the chains 

and their normal institutional route is through the center director. 

The programmatic group is through its program manager in 

Houston, the level two thing in Houston, and up to commander, or 

Admiral Truly. 

There should be a caution about putting too much responsibility 

on astronauts, when they don’t have the time to do it. Like the 

flight crew commander is very busy prior to flight and does not 

have time to spend a lot of his time involved in reviewing engineer- ing decisions that have already been made by very professional people, and his concern is how am I going to remember all those 

things that I have to do to launch abort and all the other things, so 

I would caution you about burdening him. 

There is a need for adequate representation of the astronaut 

office in those meetings. I don’t know whether that exists today. 

From what John said, it sounds like it does. I would be cautious 

about overloading him with things which he can’t handle. The 

other thing is, you’ve got to be careful that you don’t put the astronauts in situations where they have less information available to 

them than the people who are already making the decisions. Quite 

frankly, when I was a crew commander, I had to rely on the people within flight crew operations directorate to represent me and the 

program office people to make the decisions that were far beyond the technical capabilities of my crew or the people in flight crew 

operations. If it was a very detailed problem with respect to some small 

rocket engine, we needed rocket engineers, not generalists. I would 

be careful about getting people in positions where they are not adequately briefed or did not have the technical expertise. 

It would appear to the rest of the organization that the responsi- bility now falls on the astronauts to make these decisions, and they look to them to make the decisions, where they should be making 

the decisions themselves. So I would advocate a ver rigid structure, make sure there is an X on everybody’s head w c o makes the 

decisions. If you don’t have any communications or adequate communications, and people don’t appreciate the seriousness of the 

problems through the organization, nobody can make a good decision. 

Major SLAYTON. One philosophical point that needs to be brought 

out here that has not been so far and that is that the crew commanders and astronauts in general view things a little bit different 

than everybody else does to begin with, and you have to recognize 

that and be a little bit cautious. 

In general, a crew commander if given a choice is willing to take 

more risk than is management. That has been the case in the past, 

and he is more likely to give you a “go,” and you need somebody at 

a higher level that is willing to, on his behalf, willing to take the 

bull by the horns and have the guts to say “no go” on behalf of the 
564 

crew. We did have that before. That is a caution I would note here, 

because a crew commander, and we can understand it very easily, does not want to be put in the position of being the only guy that 

says, “hey, I don’t want to go.” The CHAIRMAN. Did you have a comment, Hank? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. Yes, sir. I wanted to say that I feel that it is 

just like in our own Government, the buck stops at the White 

House or the Congress perhaps, but somewhere, but certainly above the level of the rest of us. I think that the decision to go or 

no go” rightfully belongs with the upper management, and not, 

my personal opinion, not with the crew. The crew input should be 

felt very strong. I make an analogy. For example, in flight safety in 

the military, if you have a bad accident happen, material failure or 

something on the airplane, it is not the safety officer that grounds 

the airplane, it is the commander that does that, and he gets his 

advice from the safety side of the house, so I feel what we need to 

do is emphasize attention to operations and flight safety and that is 

what the astronauts can provide, is this overview of what flight officer is really ail about and how to fly it, and then let the upper 

management take that viewpoint into account. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that was a followup question I wanted to 

ask John Young. 

John, you have written several memos, and in the course of your responsibility as chief of the Astronaut Office. Where do those 

memos go, and are they read, acted on? 

Captain YOUNG. Pretty much all over the place. They go to our 

technical assistant in the Program Office, to my boss in Flight Operations Directorate, and places and each issue gets dealt with. I 

am not complaining about them not being dealt with. 

The CHAIRMAN. No. The question I am asking is, does it get to 

the proper people, up to the Center Director, does it get-what level of management do they get to? 

Captain YOUNG. I am pretty sure it does, because I sent one to 

the Technical Assistant to the Center Director so I am pretty sure 

he gets to see them if they think they are worthwhile looking at. 

The CHAIRMAN. Who makes that decision, whether they are 

worthwhile looking at? 

Captain YOUNG. That is a question-- The CHAIRMAN. If you write them, you think it is important. 

Captain YOUNG. What we think is important to get the issues on 

paper so that people can look at them and think about them, that 

is important. There may be another way to do it. I just think, you 

can call them on the telephone and tell them the same thing, but 

folks tend to forget, being very busy and worrying about a million 

details. 

The CHAIRMAN. But I guess what I am asking is, is it getting to 

the proper officials in the chain of command that can take appropriate action? 

Captain YOUNG. Ihave seen some pretty pithy replies, so I imagine they are; yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Whether or not they agree with you or not is not 

necessarily the point. The point is, the fact that it was called to 

their attention, then they ought to make a judgment decision about 

it. 

I( 
565 

Captain YOUNG. Yes, sir. Many of these things, as I say on the 

memos that got written following the accident that were released, 

that were internal, every one of those things either has a design number or is being talked about in mission rule reviews or being considered in the critical items list discussions or has a place in the 

program that is being looked at, and we are in all of those. 

The CHAIRMAN. I was talking about ones you had written before, 

in the process of the operations. If they had gone to the proper places, and received the proper 

considerations, not that everybody agrees or disagrees, but the fact 

that at least it was called to their attention? 

Captain YOUNG. Congressman, before the accident I think the attitude of the agency was totally different in terms of being able to 

support the flight rate, in terms of being able to fly the payloads 

regularly, in terms of being able to turn things around, and I think 

part of the problem was we were starting to exceed all our resources. 

We didn’t have the ability to do all the things that we wanted to 

do and were trying to do. We wrote several items on those things 

such as spare parts, flight rates and people working too hard at the 

Cape, and things like that, and nobody was listening much because 

you know that NASA is a “can do” outfit. It can do anything it 

puts its mind to, and we were trying to do all those things, and I 

think people were thinking about them, but they didn’t know any 

way to solve all those problems simultaneously. Now, we have a 

chance to solve them and I think that is what we are going to do 

and we are going to have to do it because you just can’t fly machines without the spare parts and if you are working people 12 on 

and 12 off for months at a time, that is not a very safe way to operate and if your simulators don’t hold up, you know, if you can’t 

train more than 10 or 12 crews a year, it is hard to fly more than 

10 or 12 flights a year, so we have to worry about those kinds of 

problems. 

The Astronaut Office is a very strange group, because it does operate across all levels of, both management, and particularly down 

in the working levels. We have people out in the field running tests 

with hands-on technicians that do the job at the Cape and people in simulations at the Ames Research Center, and people working in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory checking out flight software, two shifts a day, 5, 7 days a week and people working in 

mission operations on flight rules all the time so we hear things from the working level people and maybe that is one of the reasons 

why we are always so-we are trying to get the word from those 

working people through the chain, maybe by passing a few steps or 

two so we can help the program. That is the purpose of that kind of information transfer, but I 

think that the whole agency needs an internal communications 

system that does not count on the astronaut relaying the words because we had nobody on solid rocket motors, for example, and the 

people we got on engines, when somebody tells you something 

about a space shuttle main engine, they have got to be a whole lot 

smarter than the average pilot or astronaut before you can make a 

sensible answer out of those things. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Scheuer. 
566 

YsMr. SCHEUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to follow up on this concept that I hear developing, that 

the answer lies to the problem that this awful accident, lies in 

better communications in the agency and not really in the involvement of the astronauts because they don’t have the time or the 

technical expertise to handle the information. 

First, let me say that from the information we got and the information that is in the Rogers’ report, this information, the problems of the O-ring, the seal, the putty, was well known to all levels of 

NASA, and in that August briefing-well, let me quote from the 

NASA-from the Rogers report on page 148. Item 5. “The O-ring erosion history presented to level 1 at NASA headquarters in 

August 1985 was sufficiently detailed to require corrective action 

prior to the next flight.” They recommended elsewhere in the report a sustained level, an 

accelerated level of research and development into that problem. 

Now at that meeting, you had Michael Weeks, Deputy Associate 

Administrator the Deputy, and Jesse Moore, Associate Administrator for Space Flight, he participated in that meeting, and testified 

at the end of that meeting he briefed Jesse Moore, so there was information about that problem at all levels. 

The problem was not just NASA headquarters not having the 

basic information. Let me rehearse those two emergency meetings, the night before the launch and the morning of the launch. The 

night before the launch with Morton Thiokol and the morning of 

the launch, minutes before the launch with Rockwell. 

The safety engineers testified to us, before us, Mr. McDonald and 

Mr. Boisjoly-very terrific, impressive guys-they begged and 

pleaded with management, with NASA to defer this flight. They expressed to us what was clear outrage at the flip that had taken 

place in the burden of proof, whereas before, if they raised a signif- icant question about safety, the flight was aborted. Now, they were 

told by Thiokol that they had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt 

that the flight was unsafe. They were bursting with frustration, 

and there was a lot of rage there and up here. I was a Greek and 

classics major in college, and by no means an expert in aeronautical engineering, but I was frustrated beyond belief and my colleagues were, too. 

Don’t you think that if a representative of the astronauts had sat 

in on these two emergency meetings, the night before launch, and 

an hour before launch, and had heard the deep, almost desperate 

concerns of those safety engineers, and it was not a technical 

matter, a flip in the burden of proof that was there since the seal 

in the O-ring, the sub-freezing temperature, the ice the morning of 

the launch were life-threatening conditions, it seems to me that 

you gentlemen had a thousand times the expertise that we have 

and you would have needed to perceive that something was rotten 

in Denmark, and that this launch should not go ahead. 

I am at a loss to understand how you can say that you didn’t 

have the time or the expertise to sit in on these two meetings, and 

that it wouldn’t have made a difference. Of course, they were not 

invited; but my chairman says, of course, you were not invited, but 

we are talking about making the institutional changes in the 

system whereby you would have a representative at the 2-week 
567 

meeting before that, the routine flight review meeting, and at any 

subsequent emergency meetings affecting safety. 

These were clearly emergency meetings the night before, the 

hour before, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why you 

wouldn’t urgently want to have the flight crew represented at 

emergency meetings of that kind. 

It was not a problem of information going all the way up the line 

at NASA to headquarters uin Washington, the record is perfectly 

clear on that. 

Captain YOUNG. Well, that is certainly an interesting aspect to 

look at the thing for, Congressman. I think we could have astronauts at those kinds of meetings if they promise not to sleep nights and work all day, you can do such a thing. Those kinds of meetings 

go on at NASA before launch every hour of the day and night. We 

can put an astronaut in there, but what I believe is if the program 

manager had been in and heard those issues, that we would probably not have flown either. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Excuse me, Captain Young, with due respect, and I 

have the utmost respect and admiration for all five of you. As a 

matter of fact, when the Members went to the last rollcall vote, we 

didn’t talk about anything else other than what magnificent, superior Americans the five of you are, and we were busting out with 

pride about you, it is perfectly clear on this point that top management did have all this information, and these are hard questions, 

and there is no point in our trying to dodge the issue. 

These were very flawed decisions by people who had all the necessary information and they simply made the wrong decisions. We 

are trying to look at how we can change the institutional structure 

of the decisionmaking to obviate the risk of that again. 

It happened pitifully, tragically, and we don’t want it to happen 

again. We want the Space Program to go ahead and to be first in 

space. 

We don’t want any tragedy of this kind to happen again, and 

wasting tragic lives, delaying the program for years. 

Captain YOUNG. If an engine man comes up and says that engine is ready to fly and the turbine blades are a little cracked but we 

have run tests and we can show with a cracked turbine blades the 

engine pumps are not going to come apart and we have got to fly. Would an astronaut say no, you are not going to fly until you 

change the turbines, for example? 

Mr. SCHEUER. If there is a significant opinion from safety engineers that this is not a safe vehicle to fly in, you certainly would 

have found that out. The safety engineers would have been unanimous in telling you, this flight was not safe at this time with the 

subfreezing temperature, with the ice on the launch, and with the 

problems of the O-ring, this was not a safe vehicle. 

They were ultimately frustrated because they couldn’t prove it 

beyond a reasonable doubt. They were enraged that they had to 

meet that new test suddenly thrust upon them by the Marshall 

leadership, by their own corporate headquarters that had been 

under pressure from Marshall headquarters, but don’t you think if 

you had heard those safety engineers it would have concentrated 

your mind on the questions about the safety of that flight? 
568 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. I think it is very clear what the Commission 

has pointed out, that we have a flawed communication process 

there. 

Mr. SCHEUER. No; I beg to differ with you. The Commission makes it perfectly clear that NASA level 1 

headquarters in August 1985 was sufficiently detailed. The history 

presented to the NASA level 1 headquarters in August 1985 was 

sufficiently detailed to require corrective action prior to the next 

flight. The communications flaw, if there was one, was perhaps not involving the astronauts in vital decisions affecting their safety when 

if they had been there and heard from the safety engineers who 

were desperately concerned, they may well have made the decision 

not to fly, but you can’t get around the fact that top-the top Washington headquarters of NASA, and Marshall, the Marshall/ 

NASA officials had been briefed in detail about these problems in 

August? Colonel HARTSFIELD. If you allow me, sir, the level 2 program 

manager, Mr. Aldrich, had no knowledge of these discussions going 

on and neither did anybody at JSC that was working with the 

problem. 

Now, it is clear from the Commission’s report that they are recommending things we certainly support 100 percent. We need to 

reorganize our management structure to not allow this to happen again and we need the safety. As I read the report, there were neither any NASA safety SR&QA people at these meetings and I 

think that is bad. 

We have got to set in a type of system in which we have people 

that are directly concerned with operational and flight safety, and 

that these people are present at any time there are these kinds of 

discussions going on where there is a potential safety factor, but 

they have to also be attuned to the problem as it develops down in 

the bowels of the organization and that is what was missing. 

Mr. SCHEUER. A safety ombudsman who would be tracking the 

progress of the flight all the way along the line, an independent 

inspector, general type of person. Yes, that was a recommendation. 

While we are at it, are there any important questions which you 

felt that the Rogers’ report did not address itself to sufficiently or 

adequately? Are there any other questions beyond the scope of the 

Rogers’ Commission perhaps that you think our country ought to 

address and that this committee ought to address as part of its continuing oversight function over space flights? 

Is there anything you think we ought to focus on and zero in on 

that has not been addressed before by the Roger’s Commission? 

General MCDIVITT. Ihave not completely read the Roger’s Commission report, but I think we have established a great history in 

space flight and done a lot of things. 

I think that we are at a plateau right now that I have seen 

happen a couple of other times during the course of my experience 

at NASA, when we had the fire in 1967, and when the service 

module blew up on Apollo 13 on the way to the Moon. 

In both of those cases we figured out what was wrong, fixed it 

and got on with the program. I don’t know whether that is in the 

Rogers’ report or not, I hope it is, but I would certainly recommend 
569 

we get on with it. We’ve got a lot of things left to do out there and 

for this country to be without a Space Program, both manned and 

unmanned, is ridiculous and we’ve to fix what we have got and get going. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I couldn’t agree with you more, in fact, this panel 

across party lines is unanimous, that we want to get ahead and be 

first in space again. We have a much more complicated problem than technology. This failure did not come from a failure of technology. It came from a flaw in the decisionmaking process, flawed 

judgment, flawed communications, flawed decisionmaking, and 

that is a lot tougher to address and we are determined to get to the 

bottom of it and if there is any question that was not addressed by the Rogers Commission that you think we ought to be looking at, 

please let us know sometime in the course of this morning’s hearing. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes-- 

Mr. SCHEUER. Can we hear from Major Slayton? Major SLAYTON. As I understood what the Rogers Commission 

said, they addressed this particular problem and things that are related to it, and I think it needs to be made clear that there may be 

a whole lot of other things sitting out there that the Rogers’ Commission did not look at and that needs to be looked at. If you are 

asking what needs to be done outside the Rogers Commission, a 

whole lot of things need to be done. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Maybe you could submit a memo. 

Major SLAYTON. 800 items on the critical list that need to all get 

reviewed and I suspect they are. 

Mr. ROE. From a congressional point of view, we understand that 

thoroughly. 

Again, I mentioned, the purpose of these hearings is not just to 

review exactly what happened with the O-rings from a technological point of view, but we are looking at the whole structure, because before the people or Congress can provide the funding, we 

got to know where we are going in a safe manner. 

You as professionals in this field, if you have any further thoughts you want to express, you think things ought to be looked 

at that has not been addressed, it would be helpful if we knew that, 

on the whole process. The Chair recognizes Mr. Volkmer. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you for being here, to the whole panel. John, I was very interested in your comment that prior to 51-L, 

that you had in one of your memos pointed out the problems with 

the training and the flights, the parts problem, time schedules to 

meet the flights? 

Captain YOUNG. Yes, sir. We are dealing directly, on terms of 

spare parts, we are doing a high turnover, and I talked to some 

Rockwell people in a confidential memorandum of one of theirs 

that said there was no way they could meet more than 12 flights a 

year with the spare parts that we had without doing excessive cannibalization. 

What that meant to me was that we were being unrealistic about 

that, I saw the parts people at Kennedy Space Center, and they 

said come back in 6 months, which they were taking a lot of steps 

to turn that around. They have a system that can pick spare parts 
570 

out of the box. Yet the next time we couldn’t find an unloader 

valve, there were three in the plant somewhere, but we took it off 

the vehicle to fix it. Spare parts was a problem. Crew training was 

a problem. 

For 1986, we saw that we are going to need 220 hours a week in 

the month of October to train flightcrews. I was very interested in 

that because that is when our space telescope mission was going to 

fly. The people who were supporting the program said they would 

only be able to furnish 160 hours a week, and at that time we were 

not coming even close to doing that and it was difficult for me to 

see how we were going to get from A to B, particularly since we 

just switched contracts there in Houston, changed contracts from 

22 contractors to one, and many of the people who were associated 

with old contracts, many of the key operational people, people who 

were interested in getting the job done didn’t come across when we 

changed that contract, so that was a very serious problem, as far as 

we were concerned, to get the flight-crews trained. 

You never want to sacrifice on-crew training, and we never have 

in any program I have been associated with because those people 

have a lot to do in space flight, and of course, I am sure the first 

time we ever had a crew-caused operational incident, the first 

person they will sack is the Chief of the Astronaut Office, but who 

cares about that? 

That is not the purpose of crew training. It is to do the job right, 

in space, a job that needs to be done for the good of the country. 

Mr. VOLKMER. What reaction did you get as a result of those 

memos? 

Captain YOUNG. They said it was too bad we couldn’t get the 

time, but we are going to fly the missions anyhow, and we just had 

to cannibalize because that was the only way to get the spare parts 

to support the vehicles, so it is a can do attitude, and we are going right down the road with the ability to do everything and we are 

not able to recognize what I call sort of grey limitations. 

If the limitations are not black and white, the system keeps right 

on trucking. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Attitudinal, wouldn’t you say? 

Captain YOUNG. Yes, sir, and somewhat an ability to recognize limitations, especially limitations. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Assume we would within another 2 years have a 

third simulator. Where does that put us as far as crew training, number of flights a year? 

Captain YOUNG. It depends on what kind of mission you are 

training for. If they are all about the same, you would probably 

support 12 to 15 flights a year in terms of crew training, that is 

what I think. 

I could tell you 20 flights a year, but they are making assumptions about how rapidly you can turn people around, assumptions 

that we are unable to make at this time because we found that you can’t fly people right as often as we thought we were going to be 

able to do. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Is that an assumption also based on vis-a-vis generic flights? 

Captain YOUNG. Yes, sir, pretty much. 

Mr. VOLKMER. No payload changes? 
57 1 

Captain YOUNG. Not many payload changes close to launch. 

Mr. VOLKMER. All right. The other thing that concerned me, and 

I thought I heard you right, and I wanted to check it with you to 

see, earlier in your conversation, I believe it was with the chairman, you mentioned that there were some proposals that were to 

take place that you had been informed of prior to 51-L, and doing away with the FRR’s, and what else? Is that correct? 

Captain YOUNG, That is all hearsay, a proposal to do away with 

the flight readiness reviews because we are getting so operational. When you get operational you start flying this thing in a hurry. 

One flight a month, if you are going to have flight readiness re- views you will have a staff of thousands of people preparing for 

flight readiness reviews. Thousands of hours of engineering work 

go into preparing for a flight readiness review. 

Mr. VOLKMER. Does that give you any concern, if they were done 

away with? 

Captain YOUNG. It would, except if you are operational, and 

doing your job right, the program manager is on top of all these 

issues so in theory you wouldn’t need a flight readiness review, if 

he knows everything that is going to happen, and he is on top of 

this engine problem or that RCS problem, the flight readiness 

review in an operational system, ideally you wouldn’t need to do 

one. You can see where they are coming from with that idea. 

Mr. VOLKMER. But that means also that the astronaut crews are 

just going to have to-if that goes-are going to rely completely on 

other people as to the safety of the vehicle? 

Captain YOUNG. Absolutely. And astronaut crews do rely on 

other people. 

Mr. VOLKMER. I agree, but you would have to do it completely. 

Captain YOUNG. You would rely on the system functioning the 

way it is supposed to work. And we have done that traditionally from day one. Nobody can rely even when they are flying that 

Atlas that the Atlas was put together right. They just couldn’t do 

it. You have to rely on a lot of good people doing good work. The 

Space Shuttle Program work is incredibly laborious attention to 

detail in every face to every phase of the operation. That made the 

Mercury work, it is the only thing that made Apollo work and it is 

the only thing that will make the Space Shuttle Program work. We 

want to get back to that or it is not worth the effort, because we 

won’t be successful at it. 

Mr. VOLKMER. That is the way I want to get too. You have to 

stick to detail. 

Captain YOUNG. Yes sir. 

Mr. VOLKMER. It is also what I consider again attitudinal, because as I review the Commission’s report on the FRR’s on the 0- 

rings and on the seal problem, that I find in there an attitude that 

constantly that you as astronauts, and management even at one 

level, didn’t think it was much of a risk because it kept coming 

back whether it was acceptable. That is when it was presented that 

this was an acceptable thing. Is that correct? 

Captain YOUNG. Yes sir. It was presented as acceptable in the 

51-E flight readiness review that Captain Crippen attended. The 

way it was discussed, it wasn’t discussed in a serious manner. It 

was not discussed as a serious problem, yes sir. It is hard when you 
572 

have communications if people are not going to make the issue serious, you know darn well the crew is going to fly. Because that is 

what the crews always want to do. They want to be ready to fly. 

You shouldn’t have to ask the crew commander within a week of 

launch if he should be going or not going because if that guy is not 

going we need to get somebody who is. 

Mr. VOLKMER. One last question I want to ask you about and 

that goes back to some of the Commission’s recommendations also 

that it should go-I guess the way I see it anyway-anybody that is 

going to be flying in the shuttle and that is the question of weather 

at Kennedy, and the changability and being able to land there at 

Kennedy. Can we ever come down to where by the time that you 

are NDR that you know it is going to be safe to land at Kennedy, 

there is not going to be a squall down there or winds aren’t going 

to be crosswinds, a timeframe? 

With the pleasant weather information that we have-let me ask 

you this. Do you as an individual, as an astronaut, do you feel comfortable with those conditions? 

Captain YOUNG. Well, having to participate as a weather pilot 

down at the cape for many years and knowing the limitations of 

the space shuttle in terms of tile damage-and getting struck by 

lightening and it is a somewhat serious limitations-in crosswind 

capability and knowing the variability of short term weather predictions and not just at the cape, but if you go look at the southern 

United States right now, in the summertime, the ability to predict 

when a thunderstorm is going to build up and be raining in the 

morning or in the afternoon-you can take statistical weather and 

it shows you that in June, July, and August timeframe, at the Kennedy Space Center, you would probably have a 35-percent probability of not being able to launch in the afternoon over a 30-year timeframe, for example. But every now and then it is going to be the 

same way in the morning. 

So you would be better off launching in the morning at the cape. 

But the ability to predict when a thunderstorm is going to form up 

is a very tough proposition. The ability to predict when a crosswind 

is going to exceed certain limits that you really placard it to as the 

short term is a tough proposition. 

People say we are going to be able to do short term weather predictions, but it is tough. We have had flights in the shuttle trainer 

airplane where we have taken-I took Mr. Walt Williams out to 

give him a flight and there was a little old bitty thunderstorm 13 

miles off the end of the runway at Kennedy. I said well, we will 

just go around and do a lot of flying here and show you how this 

thing works and 30 minutes later there were thunderstorms all 

over the place, and we couldn’t land at either end of the runway. 

That is an unusual situation but it just shows the dynamic variability of the situation. The weather people said it was not going to be 

a serious matter. 

So you think twice about wanting to land your space shuttle and 

take a chance, because you deorbit, you give a go, no go for de-orbit 

at about an hour and a half prior to touchdown and once you deorbit you are committed to that runway. So I think it would be troublesome with our limitations on both the tiles and crosswind limits 

and our current brake problems, which we are trying to fix, to 
573 

always say that you could land at the cape because I think weather 

predicting is a tough problem. It is not impossible, but it is just 

tough. 

Mr. ROE. The time of the gentleman has expired. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, we are fortunate we have representatives from 

the Mercury and Gemini days here, from Apollo, we have in addition an STS-1 commander and we have the commander of the last 

successful mission of the space shuttle. 

I want to direct my first question to Commander Gibson. When 

we were scrubbed on December 19, if I recall, the weather was 

somewhere around 41 degrees on that particular day. Do you have 

any recollection, either at the time or since, that there was any 

consideration going on among management or any of the contractors, about the question of the desirability of launching on December 19, in 41 degree weather? 

Commander GIBSON. No sir, I don’t recall any discussion at all 

along those lines regarding the temperature. I don’t honestly remember exactly what the temperature was because at that point it 

really wasn’t looked upon as an issue. So the answer would be no, I 

didn’t hear it discussed at all. 

Mr. NELSON. Captain Young, you were shaking your head. 

Captain YOUNG. No sir. I hadn’t heard a thing about it. I didn’t 

know it was that cold that day either. That is really-- 

Mr. NELSON. Do you have any idea why, then, the temperature 

became an issue on the 51-L flight? It was obviously colder. It was 

38 degrees at supposed launch time that particular time, although it had been a lot colder the night before. Do you have any idea, any 

information that you can share with us as to why, in the hours 

before the launch, temperature had become such a major concern 

there and not on the previous flights? 

Commander GIBSON. Captain Young might be a little bit better 

able to shed some light on the 51-L, but I think in our case, it 

wasn’t really discussed because we weren’t approaching freezing. I 

think probably the freezing point and a lot of systems we have on 

the launch pad and the support facilities there on the pad were 

perhaps the big issue that tripped us to say what are the issues we 

ought to look at for a freezing temperature launch? Like I say, 

maybe Captain Young could amplify on the 51-L. 

Mr. NELSON. You might want to check this out and see what you 

think. When 61-C finally launched on January 12 the temperature 

was somewhere up in the low fifties, if I recall. And they found in 

fact, there had been erosion on the O-rings. If I recall, it was something like four one-thousandths of an inch. That might have then 

triggered people to start saying January, why is it that it just 

eroded on this flight in January and previous to January 1985? 

And then they started thinking, was there a correlation between 

January, the temperature, and that might have led to the conversations before 51-L among the engineers. You all don’t have any 

specific knowledge of any of that? 

Commander GIBSON. No sir. 

64-295 0 - 86 - 19 
574 

Just to add, apparently that day that they said we did have erosion, and as you mentioned, Mr. Congressman, we did have erosion 

in one of our aft joints and I believe we did have some erosion in 

both of our nozzle joints. We had that four one-thousandths of an 

inch erosion and that was known prior to 51-L but that did not 

trigger any conversation to relate 51-C to that, which is the flight 

the previous January. 

Mr. NELSON. In the Presidential Commission report there is a 

chart on page 169 entitled “Simulation Training,” of which it goes 

through for all of the several previous flights to 51-L. The day 

before launch date that the shuttle simulator training began, in 

comparison to what was considered to be the norm, of which the 

simulator training would begin, which would be 77 days prior to 

launch. I notice that your flight had the least amount of days. You 

started on minus 50 as compared to the previous flight, 51-B, 

indeed H-77, 51-A, looks like about 63. 51-5 was about 85 days 

prior to launch in which they got into the simulator. 

Can you share with us what was your feeling at the time and 

now that you reflect back upon the adequacies of the preparation 

for your crew, since you only had 50 days before launch to get into 

that simulator? 

Commander GIBSON. Well, Mr. Congressman, as you know, that 

is a problem that we are continually fighting and it is key to the 

release data of the specific flight training load that we are going to 

get. 

We had a rather fortunate situation with 61-C in that the type 

of things that we were doing, the satellite deployments and I 

should probably also add that even at the 50 days prior to launch 

we hadn’t really finalized our payload yet-which is another whole 

separate problem. But the particular payloads that we were carrying and the particular satellites that we were carrying, allowed us 

to utilize other people’s training loads and so we weren’t in as bad 

a situation as this graph would depict, just beginning 50 days prior. 

We were able to accomplish a lot of our training just because we 

were plain lucky in this particular case, using other people’s training loads. 

Mr. NELSON. Have you seen a crunch in the crew training in 

those simulators? 

Commander GIBSON. Yes sir, very definitely. And I think there is 

another chart in the Rogers Commission report that depicts that 

and it, of course, at the time the crew training load in the final 2 

or 3 weeks prior to launch-and I am sure you remember it very 

well-but the crew time expands up to around 60 and 70 hours per 

week, because a lot of the things that we are trying to finalize and 

baseline early, just don’t happen. They don’t happen until the final 

2 to 3 weeks leading up to launch. As a result, a lot of briefings 

and a lot of training get pushed into those final 2 to 3 weeks. 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. In fact, I might add, if I may, sir-- 

Mr. NELSON. Please. 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. At about the time of 51-L I had just put on 

the training hat for the office and was looking at how these training loads were going to be delivered. We were already seeing problems-either not reflected truly in that chart that shows when 
575 

they get the loads-for a couple of flights downstream, like 61-H, 

which at that time was supposed to come in in June. 

We have in our training catalog a certain number of hours that 

are set aside to be done with the final flight load and flight specific 

software, and we had seen a point where if we did all that training 

after delivery of the load, based on projected data, the crew would 

have to train in one case 31 hours a week in the simulator, in another case 33 for the other flight. This was ridiculous. No crew can 

do that. 

So for the first time, the training folks were wrestling with the 

idea, with this problem, that maybe for the first time we were 

going to have to say we can’t launch because we don’t have the 

crew training. 

Mr. NELSON. John, did you want to add anything about that? 

Captain YOUNG. It would certainly have been a new first because 

we never slipped crew training except for one time, to my knowledge, and that was a struggle. 

Mr. NELSON. Jim. 

One of the problems that takes place at a flight readiness review 

in L minus one debriefing is to find out if everything is ready to go. As a program manager we always had to have a report on whether 

the crew was ready to go, too. It was a vital part of the mission and 

they had to come up on line just as the spacecraft and all the other 

systems had to do. 

Earlier, Deke mentioned that the astronaut office had to sometimes rein in the crews because they were more eager to go than 

maybe they should have been. I think it does put a burden on the 

head of the flight crew operations director to stand there and say is 

the crew really trained or not? As far as I know, it had never been 

a factor in any of the launches but I guess maybe it did at one 

time. So it is important that there is a spokesman for the crew. He 

is up there on top in a management position. He has access to all 

the other people and he can speak for them. 

Mr. NELSON. Deke. 

Major SLAYTON. Well, we had some similar problems earlier in 

the Gemini Program and we did slip Gemini 5 weeks for crew 

training. We were told by people in headquarters you can’t do that 

but we did it anyway because we weren’t going to go until we were 

ready. We also discussed in Apollo 11 we had the option of going on 

schedule or slipping a month, and we were very marginal on crew 

training then and we were on the verge of slipping that 1 month, 

but we got to the final couple days and decided to press on. I think 

those are the only cases I know of where we have gotten that tight 

on crew training. 

Mr. NELSON. In your opinion, has there been a modus operandi 

within NASA that has excluded former astronauts or active astronauts from the management structure? Let’s don’t talk about it 

right now, because that was addressed in the Rogers Commission 

report and obviously Dick Truly is in now as very much a part of 

high management. Has there been some modus operandi within NASA that has excluded or has been a bias against putting astronauts into the management structure? 

Jim. 
576 

General MCDIVITT. Mr. Congressman, as you know, I was the 

Apollo Spacecraft Program manager for 3 years and I didn’t find 

any bias. I must say, though, during the time I was an astronaut, I 

spent a lot of time doing things in the program office that didn’t 

have anything to do with astronauting, like doing contract reviews 

and spending a lot of time with little bits and pieces of the program that really didn’t have anything to do with flying a space- craft. 

But I was welcome and had all the authority I needed, and all 

the support I needed when I got into that role and I am really 

pleased to see Dick Truly in that position or a management posi- tion now. I found that my astronaut background was a tremendous 

help to me, especially in the type of program that Apollo was 

where we were limited on the number of minutes or hours we had 

to make a decision when the spacecraft was flying. 

As you know, when you are in route between here and the Moon 

and the Moon back to here, you can’t stop, and when you start on 

down at the Moon, you can’t stop either. The only time you have a 

chance to stop and rest is around the Earth and around the Moon. 

So we were pressed into making a lot of decisions a lot quicker 

than we would like to make them and I found that the experience I 

had was a lot of help to me. But I didn’t find any basic philosophi- cal problem with me being in that position. 

Mr. NELSON. Deke, did you ever see that bias in the agency? Major SLAYTON.o, sir. I did not. I was in the management in 

the crew side up through the Skylab Program in Apollo and then 

subsequent to that I went into the program management. I managed the approach and landing test on the Shuttle and then was 

the orbital flight test manager on the first two flights. So I had no problem at all. My role was a little bit different than 

Jim’s. He was responsible for all the hardware and my boss was 

the hardware manager and I was the operations manager, so it was 

a little bit different role. But we certainly had no problem at all 

with any level of management supporting us and communicating with them. 

Mr. NELSON. Let me ask you, Hoot, on your flight, you started 

using the nose wheel steering which would indicate that there 

would be less stress on the brakes because you are not using the 

brakes to steer. And you did not give a great deal of pressure on 

the brakes and yet I understand that there was significant damage 

to the brakes on your flight. Commander GIBSON. Yes, sir. That is true. We had nearly a 

repeat from data that the engineers were telling us. We nearly had 

a repeat of the 51-K incident which was the landing in April of 

1985 in Cape Canaveral that blew a tire. 

Of course, this particular case, Mr. Congressman, is a perplexing 

one because they liked the deceleration profile. As you mentioned, 

we did not use an excessive amount of brake pressure. 

We used essentially the exact braking profile that they were 

looking for and yet we sustained some stator damage in those 

brakes. We also had the nose gear steering available to us that I 

did utilize a little bit during the landing roll out that 51-D did not 

have. And in his case, this was Colonel Coe, had to use his brakes 

for steering also which put an additional load on it. 
577 

So we were more fortunate than him. We should have had a 

whole lot more margin over brake damage and we, in fact, did not. 

Captain YOUNG. That gives you an indication of what kind of 

braking problems we have got to solve and we are doing that by 

improving the stators on the brake. But I would like to say Hoot 

did brake perfectly, just exactly the way they said was the best pro- cedure for putting on the brakes on an airplane and it turned out 

that we ended up with brake damage at 36 million foot pounds per brake where a guarantee - on the brakes is supposed to be 55 million 

foot pounds. So we still have a problem here and it is in work to solve it. We 

are going for thickerstators and in a couple of years, new brakes. 

Mr. NELSON. One of the other recommendations of the Commission is, quote, “make all efforts to provide a crew escape system for 

use during control gliding flight.” I assume that what that means is that if you got into a situation 

where you lost two engines after you dropped the SRB’s, and you 

knew that you didn’t have much chance of trying to ditch, that you would try to get into some controlled gliding mode so that the crew 

could bail out. Please give us the value of your experience as to 

whether or not that is possible as we look to the future of flight safety and launch abort and crew escape. Colonel HARTSFIELD. Well, I firmly believe that we need such a 

system and I.am convinced that it is not that difficult to provide. 

To try to provide a means to protect the crew throughout the flight envelope, I think, is unreasonable and I am not sure it is achievable totally. 

As has been said many, many times, a certain amount of risk 

you have to accept. I do feel very strongly, in fact, I am convinced 

that this vehicle will not ditch worth a darn. I think it is going to 

tear up when it hits the water and you are going to lose the crew. 

There are contingencies that we look at and we are trying for 

contingency aborts in case we lose more than one main engine during power flight that could force us into the water. I think we 

should pursue and are pursuing-we have got a group looking at it 

right now-a way to allow the crew to bail out in gliding flight or 

even be extracted. 

There are some extraction systems like the Yankee systems that 

look very attractive at this point. 

Mr. NELSON. What is that, Hank? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. It is a type of system that uses a tractor 

rocket to pull the crew person right out of the vehicle. 

Mr. NELSON. To clear them from the tail or from the wings? Colonel HARTSFIELD. Tail or the wings. One of the problems we 

are having to fight is how to miss the wing and the OHMSPOD if 

you could just jump out of the hatch. You can’t run out of the top because you run into the vertical tail bent on the OHMSPOD. Bail 

out is a problem, but with the extraction system it looks like we 

may get around this. 

We have a group that is looking at that now and, of course, in 

the office we are very hopeful we are going to come up with a 

system that will cover this area of our envelope. I think it is worth 

pursuing. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you. 
578 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to just follow up briefly on what Bill was touching 

on and that is the escape system. I would like just to get your overall view first about if you could pinpoint a few things that you think need to be changed right away in terms of a reasonable 

escape system, what would it be? 

Hank, what are your thoughts about that? What is the most 

emergent thing that needs to be dealt with? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. Well, as I just said, I feel that we should 

pursue this bail out system and, as I say, a group is very active. 

Steve Nagel from our office is working on that group and heading it up, the part that is concerned with the bail out itself. 

Some of the preliminary results look very promising. I think that 

we have got the kind of expertise in this country around different 

contracts that could give us a lot of help in that area and I think 

we could come up with a system that is not all that expensive that 

we could retrofit into the orbiter and give us some confidence khat 

if we had some of these bad things happen to us, that we can at 

least save the crew. 

And, as I say, I think we have got to wait and see what this 

group comes up with, but they are working on a tight schedule. I 

think within a month or so they are supposed to report back to Mr. 

Aldrich. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Do I understand that it is your feeling that it is 

not realistic to assume that the crew or the vehicle would survive 

impact on the water under circumstances-- 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. I feel very strongly that the vehicle won’t 

survive. I think it is going to brake up if it lands on any unprepared surface. 

Captain YOUNG. It hits down about 200 knots and the Navy and 

the Air Force have no reported survivals of ditches that occurred 

at over 140 knots. So when you talk about kinetic energy, that is 

one-half MV squared, and as velocity goes up, things really start 

coming apart. 

In order to get heavy weights into orbit, we had to design the 

system so it really doesn’t have a high G cockpit like you provided for fighters or attack aircraft and it has a very low design for crash 

loads in both the payload bay and the forward nose part. So those things theoretically will come apart when you hit the 

water because they are very low crash loads provided them. So 

even if everything did come out right and the crew was still alive 

in the cabin, I think the probability is the payload would be right 

up there in the cabin with them. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Right. Commander GIBSON. Mr. Congressman, if I can add to that, I 

think if you asked around within the astronaut office and asked 

what the general feeling was about a ditching, which is after a contingency abort, two or three engines out, I think you would find 

the general feeling is that we are not going to survive a ditching. 

Mr. ANDREWS. You all don’t take those life raft training exercises too seriously then, I gather? 
579 

Commander GIBSON. No, sir. I have to confess we really don’t. 

Your question as to what the most immediate thing is, I think is, 

was hit right on the head by the Presidential Commission. I think 

their recommendation that said we ought to develop as quickly as 

we could a means to escape from a controllable sub-sonic orbiter, I 

think is the most immediate thing, so we have some recourse in 

the event of two engines out over ditching. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Deke. 

Major SLAYTON. I was going to comment there were some studies 

done-in fact, tests were run down at Langley Field in their water 

tank of shuttles ditching capacity. It ditches very nicely as a model. 

The dynamics of it are beautiful. 

But as John said, the structural loads are fantastic and the probability is it is going to break up. That was the conclusion in that 

time frame. 

to that? 

Mr. LUJAN. Will the gentleman yield with one question in regard 

We are talking about an escape opportunity, but just for a very 

short period of time; isn’t that correct? Because the first 2 minutes 

everybody agrees nothing could be done. And once you get into 

orbit-well, if you parachute out, you can’t get down anyway. 

So for how long a period are we talking about that you could use 

that escape hatch? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. Well, the oxygenators, again, that is loose in 

these engines, you could lose the engines late in the launch before 

you make orbit such that you don’t have enough velocity to get to 

orbit and you are coming down in the Atlantic near the coast of 

Africa. For example, there would be a case where, this type of contingency abort we are going into the water, but with this kind of 

system we would have a chance of getting out of it. So in some respects if you look at it, it does cover quite a bit of the launch trajectory. 

Mr. LUJAN. I am sorry. I don’t want to take a lot of time, but 

how long can you glide subsonic, would you say? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. Well, as you now, it is not a very good 

glider, but-- 

Mr. LUJAN. There is a long ways to fall, too. 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. The context we have looked at preliminarily 

is there is plenty of time to get the people out in glider flight. 

If you consider that you have got to start getting them out say 

around 20,25,000 feet, there is time to get everybody out before the 

orbiter strikes the water, get them out by 5,000 feet. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Just to follow up, does that suggest that we would 

have to limit the number of payload specialists that we could have 

onboard? Can we have an ejection system that works, gives you 

that window of time that you need to get everybody out and still 

carry as many specialists onboard as we do now? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. That is part of the study that Steve Nagel is 

looking at and certainly it may turn out that we have a limit on 

crew size. But we are at this point-we have not reached that 

limit. We are looking at systems that can get a number of people 

out. 
580 

Mr. ANDREWS. Do you think it is reasonable to have seven? Could 

you speculate on whether or not you could do it with seven at this 

point? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. I would rather not. I think I would rather 

let this group come to their own conclusions. 

Commander GIBSON. Ithink, Mr. Congressman, we are looking at 

kind of a two-part problem. The first one is let’s address the, can 

we escape from gliding under control and then beyond that is there 

anything that we could develop that has capabilities that would 

help us further during the ASEAN phase. When we start to say 

what can we do with the particular escape systems, they say what 

are your particular requirements? Do you want Mach 4, Mach 6, 

Mach 10, and what altitude do you want to be protected against 

immediately for the rocket motor at the re-entry heating, so I 

think we probably are approaching this from two phases. One 

being the gliding, jumping out of it and there you could conceivably accommodate seven people. Ejection seats, I don’t know exactly 

how we do that with seven people. But I think perhaps as we go far 

they are down the line we may be able to find some way of doing 

that and I think we may be able to find some larger envelope we 

can handle other than just gliding flight. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from 

New Jersey, Mr. Torricelli. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me suggest that I believe our five witnesses today have made 

a real contribution, in that they have suggested to us something we 

should have realized all along, and that is that no new structure 

within NASA is going to be sufficient, and consultations among 

NASA officials will never be enough, and what simply must be 

achieved is real trust, and that is, of those who are going to own, 

operate, fly, believe and need the shuttle, they are going to have to 

have trust in the judgments of those who are making decisions. 

But I think one of the contributions that you helped us understand, in addition to the needs to have trust in NASA management and the technical people who work for them, is that so many of 

these issues are so incredibly complex, is that no crew could ever 

be assembled that would know all the engineering requirements of 

the shuttle, that they would be in a proper position to exercise 

vetoes or independent judgments about whether or not the shuttle 

should fly. 

I have received some of those-I have reached some of those conclusions myself from comments that were made today, and I felt 

they were real contributions. 

Let me say, in addition, as much as I was impressed by those 

comments, during the course of the Rogers Commission’s deliberations, some comments were made, not surprisingly never attributed 

to different crews of the shuttle, suggesting that some of the civilians who had flown, including Members of Congress, teachers, prospective journalists, scientists, did not make noteworthy contributions to the flights. 

Comments were made to some annoyance of their contribution 

and presence on the flight. Let me suggest this to you as members 
58 1 

of the astronaut corps. The shuttle belongs to the American people, and we all have different objectives for it, and not all even involves 

science. 

There are reasons for having journalists, writers, poets, scientists 

on board the shuttle that may not be appreciated by the astronauts 

or some in NASA, but they are appreciated by many of the American people, and they are very real, and I only say that because as 

much as I think the astronauts made a real contribution to the deliberations of the commission and to this committee, I think it is 

worth reminding yourselves of those things as those things go forward, and we all have different objectives. 

Let me ask Deke something, we were in the Soviet Union together, and it is ironic now to note, and we stood watching the latest 

achievements of the Soviets with their space program, and with 

more than a little pride noted that our technology was superior, and while they were impressed by what they were doing, we really considered that we were not at all in the same league. Well, that which we then saw as prospective science is now 

flying and ours which we marveled as being a real achievement is 

not, and ours is not. You have now seen NASA go through several 

generations of talent and of personnel. 

Is the talent what is was? Do we have the same confidence in the 

best and the brightest of the American population, not just flying, 

design, leadership, not just at the top levels, but at mid-levels, 

should this committee be equally concerned about the talent we 

have in NASA as we are with the engineering that is being provided for NASA, as you have seen it evolve over these last number of 

years? 

Major SLAYTON. That is a very good question, and I am not sure I 

am qualified to answer it. My opinion is, speaking of flight crews, 

probably the later groups, as we have gone along, have been more qualified than those of us who started. 

We have gotten a higher level of excellence as we proceed on in 

this space program, because people have set being an astronaut as 

a goal at a very early age, and they have trained for it, and they 

are very competent to do that job. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. What has come before this committee, judgments 

we share, is that people who are in these management positions 

have to be able to make judgments on extremely complex technical 

issues, and they may not be from their own fields of study. 

No one in management could have been involved in all of these 

fields of study, and yet have to reach those judgments. That is true now, and it was true before. Do we have personnel 

as best as possible in management positions indeed as good as they 

were when you were flying to reach those judgments? Major SLAYTON. That was a point I was getting to, I think not 

only the astronaut corps, but in the rest of NASA, the same thing has happened. The younger engineers who come in to do the engineering jobs are more competent today then the people that started 

in the program. 

Maybe the one thing that might be lacking, if you want to go the 

top level, is that in the early days, we had some guys evolve out of 

the military; and they had a different level of discipline, maybe in- volving people today that are more technically oriented and not as 
582 

capable of dealing with operational problems, but the technical 

competence in the agency is equal to what it was before and maybe 

even better . What we are dealing with here is really a communications issue, 

and a management issue, but certainly not a technical competence issue. Some of that is understandable, I think, when you look at 

relationships between the centers and how the organization is 

structured; and you could say it could be restructured so you don’t 

have intercenter jealousies interfering with the communications 

channel. 

A lead center concept where level 2 is viewed by the other centers as being another center instead of having its headquarters’ 

level is one reference I would make. 

A lot of it in the management attitude; but again, my opinion is, 

you can make any organization work if you got the right people, and if you don’t have the right people, I don’t care how you organize it, it will not work, so you still end up dealing with individuals. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. That is part of the point I had hoped to come out 

here. We are seeking the perfect system, the right arrangements of 

boxes, and personnel judgments, and in fact, no system will operate 

properly without the right people and indeed with the right people, 

even a badly flawed system will operate sufficiently. Major SLAYTON. Precisely. 

Mr. TORRICELLI. Let say finally, Mr. Chairman, having now acknowledged that I think a real contribution has been made here in 

the understanding that this will not be fixed by putting in new 

levels of management or bureaucracy, but rather by having trust 

among the component parts of NASA, there is one other thing that 

I think we can do, too, and that is-rather what you can do, too. 

That is, the need to have the shuttle fly again, that there not be 

a national obsession in transforming the shuttle into a flying baby carriage. We will never achieve perfection and absolute safety. 

Only you have the credibility to say that to the American people, and I think Mr. Cripeen may have said it best for us, and that is, if 

astronauts had this power in the past to stop launches, they would 

have taken risks that management would not. 

The American people need to understand that. We are on the 

cutting edge of science. We are pushing the limits of technology. It 

will always be inherently dangerous. We need to know that, and 

need to understand there are risks to be taken, or America will 

never fly again, and only you can say it, or we are dismantling 

NASA now, and will do that too far and in understanding the 

risks, we are going to become obsessed with them. 

I hope that is a contribution you continue to make as a group. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. I am going to recess until 1:30. We would appreciate it if you 

could all come back and meet with us at 1:30. We will do that, and 

we will have Mr. Lewis from Florida who will lead off at that 

point. Following Mr. Torricelli’s comments, I think it is important to 

get on the record and think about this, if you will, there seems to 

be an accelerated exodus of the astronauts leaving the system, and 
583 

we want to talk a little bit about that, and the general morale as 

you would see it within the corps itself. 

We also want to talk about the pay level; in other words, have 

we backed up against the problem that the people who are participating both at management level, and in the astronaut corps, that 

the pay scales are forcing people to leave the system, so think 

about that, and we will start with those problems when we come 

back. 

The committee will stand in recess until 1:30. 

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 1:30 p.m., the same day.] 

AFTERNOON SESSION 

Mr. ROE. The committee will reconvene. 

When we broke up for lunch, we were talking about really personnel matters, and I believe Mr. Torricelli had started that part of 

the discussion, and then we got to the point view as to what, there 

seems to be an extensive exodus from what we can understand beginning to take place on the astronauts leaving the agency. 

That is one item. What is the morale of the agency at this 

moment, or are there more astronauts that will be leaving that you 

are aware of, and what should be done about it? Anybody want to 

start that off! What is your observation now? 

I have a document that was under date of December 18, 1985, 

that came to Congressman Frank Wolf, in a response to our colleague, Frank Wolf, from John F. Murphy, vis-a-vis the personnel 

situations that they were observing in NASA. 

I would like to add this document, by the way, to the hearings at 

this point. If there is no objection, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 
584 

C:MKK:jmb:C17382f 

Honorable Frank R. Wolfe 

House of Representatives 

Washington, DC 20515 

Dear Mr. Wolfe: 

This letter responds to your October 30, 1985, correspondence in 

which you requested information about recruiting and retaining 

top quality individuals for federal service. The situation at 

NASA is highlighted below. We will respond to the issues you 

raised in the o r d e r i n w h i c h they vere presented. 

Caliber of Recruits: 

Using grade point average (GPA) as a measure, the caliber of 

scientist and engineer "freshouts" (GS 7-9) that NASA has hired 

over the last three years has remained constant with an average 

GPA of 3.2 on a 4.0 scale. However, NASA management is concerned 

about the ability to attract graduates from this country's most 

prestigious universities. 

We have conducted some analysis of NASA hires from schools 

identified as top ranking as listed in t h e M a y 1 9 8 0 issue of 

'Engineering Education" (Enclosure A). As you will see, the 

number of freshouts we have been able to recruit from the top ten 

engineering schools has dropped from 11 percent in Fiscal Year 

(FY) 1983 to only 6 percent in FY 1985. Out of our 524 freshout 

hires in FY 1985, one student was hired from the Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology, none from Cal Tech, two from UCLA 

(Berkeley), and three from Stanford. In FY 1985, only 23 percent 

of our freshout hires came from the top 36 engineering schools on 

the list. In comparison, we hired 28 percent from this s'ame 

group of schools in FY 1983 while Rewlett-Packard hired 40 

percent from these schools. 

In summary, although we have no real evidence of a decrease in 

the quality of our hires, there is a growing general perception 

that quality may be declining. Due to the technical and complex 

nature of our mission, it is a concern which we share with you. 

The Cslfber of People NASA Is Losfng and Why They Are Leaving: 

Between FY 1983 and FY 1985, NASA scientist and engineer losses 

for reasons other than retirement increased from 294 to 361 
585 

employees (Enclosure B). Most of our separations occurred at the 

GS-13 grade level and above and represent the 106s of fully 

trained, experienced personnel. Of the 361 losses, nearly 25 

percent indicated their resignation was due to a higher paying 

position. It is our perception that a greater number actually 

leave to accept higher paying positions but do not indicate that 

as the specific reason. We also believe that some personnel who 

retire also do so to accept higher paying positions, but we have 

no specific data on the numbers involved. 

Recruiting Programs on Campus and the Success of NASA's Efforts: 

Our eight field centers do on-campus college interviewing at more 

than 150 schools. However, planned campus visits are sometimes 

cancelled due to either a lack of student interest or a lack of 

NASA travel money. 

Our private industry competitors often send numerous 

representatives to campuses prior to their interview dates in 

order to host various activities. They place full-color ads in 

campus newspapers and placement manuals and advertise through 

other on-campus media. Their financial resources allow them to 

do the type of marketing necessary to attract students to their 

interviewing schedules. Once the students are interviewed, our 

competitors have the resources to invite students to tour their 

facilities. Their salary offers often average between 

$3,000-$5,000 greater than NASA's. 

Budgetary limits simply do not permit NASA to compete well i'n the 

open marketplace. Our field centers have no specified .- recruitment budgets, except those designed to cover travel 

expenses. There 1s no specific money for recruitment 

advertising. recruitment brochures, pre-recruitment on-campus 

programs or lectures, workshops, receptions, faculty luncheons or other activities to highlight NASA programs. Despite our best 

efforts, more than 40 percent of our employment offers to 

freshouts were declined in PY 1985. At our Aaes Research Center 

in California, for instance, 55 percent of the offers were 

declined. 

These declination rates, however, do not capture the magnitude of 

the problem since they reflect only those who turn down a formal 

enploymeat offer. Far more students simply indicate that they 

are no longer interested in being considered once they compare 
our salary offers with those offered to them by private industry. 

Although we have been unable to quantify the exact number, we 

firmly believe that only by adding the "no longer interested" 

responses to the 40 percent declination rate can one begin to 

realize the serious nature of the problem. 

Difficulty in Filling Vacancies at NASA: 

All of our field installations experience time delays in filling 

position vacancies. The major reasons for such delays are our 

high rate of declinations due to low starting salaries and the 

shortage of candidates in the job market. The following examples 

illustrate ~ome of the delays. 

Ames Research Center: 

This past year the Ames Research Center (Ames), Moffett Field, 

California, experienced an increased emphasis on computer 

development and applications. Due to hiring difficulties, this 

need has largely gone unfilled. For example, ten senior-level 

computer related electronics engineering vacancies attracted only 

nine eligible candidates. This response occurred despite 

extraordinary recruiting efforts, including newspaper advertising 

and tech-fair participation. Of these nine candidates, three 

received offers. Two refused the salaries offered, although one 

eventually accepted an advance-in-hire rate comparable to a 

private company's offer. This inability to attract high quality 

candidates. despite extensive recruitment efforts, is attributed 

to the high demand for computer/engineering expertise, a sho'rtage 

of high quality candidates, the high cost of living in the . Silicon Valley (where Ames is located), and an inadequate 

government salary and benefits package. 

The competition for engineers and those with computer skills at 

all levels is extremely keen in the Silicon Valley area. A local 

paper there stated that there were more than 900 major and small 

high-technology firms within commuting distance of Ames. Daily, 

there is an array of aggressive advertisements from private 

industry competitors in the 'San Jose Mercury News.' As an 

example, the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (located 

adjacent to Ames) recruits extensively due t o a n increase in 

defense contracts. Reportedly, they hired almost 1,000 new 

college graduates last year. Their offer of $37.000 to a 

Stanford graduate with a Master's degree in electronics 

engineering was substantially higher than Ames' offer of $25,980. 
587 

At the Dryden Plight Rerearch Facility, an element of Ames, 

recruitment for entry-level enaineera has been difficult due to 

the 85,00@-Qln,OnO ralary gap that exirta between private 

indurtry and the Federal Government, erpecially in that area of 

the country. The demand for qualified engineera in the Southern 

California area ia high, especially with the increaae in defenae 

rpending. This area ir noted for a predominance of large 

aircraft manufacturers (i.e., Rockvell, Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, 

and others). NASA ir unable to compete with the ralariea and 

benefita offered by thcae firms. 

National Space Technology Laboratorier: 

Three coaputer/engineering poeitiona at our National Space 

Technology Laboratorier i n M i r r i r a i p p i w e r e advertised in 

November 1984. One of these poritionr was filled in April 1985, 

and the other tvo positions vere filled in Hay 1985. Even thouRh 

there positions were advertised locally and nationally, it took 

five to mix months to fill them. 

Kennedy Space Center: 

At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, recruitment for one 

entry-level engineering position van initiated in December 1984. 

Approximately 20 candidates uere interviewed, and three indicated rome interert in this poaition. Offcra were extended to a11 

three candidate.; however, a11 three declined. Two of the 

declinations were due to the low aalary being offered, and 

recruitment action for thin position vas eventually cancelled, A8 a reault, an agency rtaffing need van not met. 

In January 19R4. recruitment for eight elcctronicr engineering 

poritionr van initiated. Aa of May 1985, four of theae positions 

remained unfilled. Uore than 30 offerr were made during that 

16-month period, and better than one-half of the candidates 

declined due to ralary. At Kennedy, as well an other centers, 

the bulk of t h e m i r r i o n related vork is performed by contractor 

cmployeea who vork ride-by-ride with NASA rmployeer. Therefore, 

candidates for employment with AASA often decline NASA offera 

becaure they can mtill work vith the rpace program at the ramc 

location for a rignificantly higher contractor ralary. 

In cloning, we murt qry that NASA rharer your concern for the 

well being of our Nation'. program#, and we velcome your rupport 

to remedy there difficultier, rrpecially the difficultier that 

would impede AASA'r progrerr toward accomplirhing it# unique 

mirrion. Bopefoll~, the information and perceptioar we have 

rhrred in t h i n l e t t e r w i l l be useful to you. 
Should you or your staff wish to discuss this matter farther, 

please contact MS. Christine Rodgers, Chief, Staffing and 

Employee Relations Policy, at NASA Headquarters. She may be 

reached by telephone at 453-2597. 

Please let us k n o w w h e n we may be of further assistance to you. 

John F. Murphy 

Assistant Administrator 

for Legislative Affairs 

Enclosures 
1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

10. 

MIT 

U. of Ca. Berkeley 

Stanford 

Harvard 

Illinois, Urbana 

Michigan 

Cal Tech 

Ohio' State 

Purdue 

Columbia 

Totals 

589 

Attachment A 

ENGINEERING SCHOOLS 

TOP TEN 

NASA 

HIRES 

FY '83 

6 

3 

4 

0 

9 

6 

0 

15 

11 

0 

54 

- 

*ll% 

NASA 

HIRES 

FY '84 

5 

4 

4 

0 

4 

4 

1 

4 

7 

0 

33 

- 

all% 

NASA 

HIRES 

FY '85 

1 

2 

3 

0 

5 

8 

0 

11 

3 

0 

33 

- 

HP 

83 

20 

65 

49 

12 

23 

19 

4 

8 

30 

4 

234 

- 

- 

234 &6% m=20% 

School rankings appearee in article "A Rational Method for 

Ranking Engineering Programs" Enqineering Educations, May 1980. 
11. 

12. 

13. 

14. 

15. 

16. 

17. 

18. 

19. 

20. 

590 

ENGINEERING SCHOOLS 

U. Of PA 

Carnegie Mellon 

Wisconsin 

Princeton 

Texas 

Cornell 

Northwestern 

Yale 

Case Western Reserve 

Iowa St. 

Totals 

2ND TEN 

NASA 

HIRES 

FY '83 

0 

2 

5 

0 

0 

0 

1 

0 

8 

2 

20 

- 

NASA 

HIRES 

FY '84 

1 

0 

0 

0 

2 

0 

0 

0 

3 

0 

6 

- 

NASA 

HIRES 

FY '85 

1 

1 

2 

0 

13 

0 

3 

1 

6 

1 

28 

- 

HP 

83 

9 

8 

26 

6 

10 

16 

9 

3 

5 

19 

111 

A 

- 

&=5% 1s9% 
59 1 

ENGINEERING SCHOOLS 

3RD TIER (16 SCHOOLS) 

21. 

22. 

23. 

24. 

25. 

26. 

27. 

28. 

29. 

30. 

31. 

32. 

33. 

34. 

35. 

36. 

Minnesota 

Ill. Inst. Tech 

Georgia Tech 

Lehigh 

Pittsburgh 

Texas A&M 

Washington 

VPI 

Wash. U. (St. Louis) 

Stevens Inst. Tech 

Florida 

U. of So. Cal. 

RPI 

UCLA 

Utah 

Oklahoma State 

Totals 

NASA 

FY '83 

8 

1 

18 

0 

4 

8 

2 

14 

0 

0 

4 

2 

6 

1 

0 

0 

68 

nIws 

- 

*ll% 

NASA NASA 

FY ' 84 FY '85 

1 3 

0 0 

14 15 

0 0 

0 3 

9 13 

0 0 

3 16 

0 0 

0 0 

2 5 

0 0 

2 5 

0 0 

0 0 

0 1 

31 61 

-- 

nIws nIws 

- - 

.. 

+ll# 

HP 

83 

12 

2 

11 

2 

1 

13 

23 

8 

6 

1 

5 

.I 9 

7 

15 

8 

7 

130 

- 

- 

130 

&l2% 1m 
592 

OVERALL % FROM TOP 36 ENGINEERING SCHOOLS 

NASA's SsE FRESH OUT HIRES 

FY 'a3 - 28% 

FY '84 - 24% 

FY '85 - 23% 

Hewlett Packard 1983 - 40% 
SLE FRESHOUT HIRE REPORT 

FY '85 

FRESHOUT # FROM TOP # FROM # FROM 

CENTER AVG. SLE HIRES TEN ENGR. 2ND TEN 3RD TIER 

GPA SCHOOLS 

OSSA 

- 

GSFC 3.2 95 

OAST 

- 

Amee 3.4 33 

LaRC 3.3 26 

LeRC 3.3 72 

OSF . -

JSC 3.2 105 

KSC 3.2 56 

MSFC * 3.0 135 

1 (19) 1 4 

7 (21%) 1 1 

1 (4%) 0 6 

12 (17%) 9 6 

6 (6%) 12 27 

3 (5%) 0 9 

3 (2%) 5 8 

NSTL 3.5 2 0 0 0 

AGENCY 

TOTAL 3.26 524 33 (68) 28 (5%) 61 (1
- 

300. 

200. 

100. 

- 

NASA S

PY ' 83 

fagend: 

Notar 

Clear -bar refle

Shaded bar show

Percentage. refle

their reason for 

separated employe

chose not to shar

number of employe

be significantly 

retirees also lef

no data on the nu
595 

Mr. ROE. He says, however, NASA management is concerned 

about the ability to attract graduates from this county’s most pres- tigious universities, the number of fresh-outs we have been able to 

recruit from the top 10 engineering schools has dropped from 11 

percent in fiscal year 1983 and only 6 percent in 1985. 

It further says, although we have no real evidence of decrease in 

the quality of our hires, there is a growing general perception that 

qualit may be declining. NAJA scientists and engineering losses, for reasons other than 

retirement, increased from 294 to 361. He goes on and says, that 

where private industry is involved, their salary often averages between $3,000 to $5,000 greater than NASA’s, and so forth. 

He goes on to say that these declination rates, however, do not 

capture the magnitude of the problem since they reflect only those 

who turn down a formal employment offer. Far more students indicate that they are no longer interested, so 

that came from the NASA folks, and that is their observations. I 

want to know what your observations are, if you want to tackle 

that. 

Captain Young. Captain YOUNG. We don’t hire very young people to be astronauts. They require engineering degrees and scientific degrees, and 

the best qualified usually have doctor’s degrees. I don’t think that the NASA has ever had any trouble getting 

the best people for the kind of work that we do in the Astronaut 

Office into the program. 

A lot of people come in to be selected as astronauts and have an 

idea that we are doing something different besides engineering work, design work, flying work and minding payloads and some 

things that are not quite as glamorous as they see in the movies, 

like “The Right Stuff,” but we don’t have any problem whatsoever recruiting, and any time you want to recruit, you could get the best 

people out of the military services, out of the civilian service, and 

the kind of people that want to be astronauts, and do the kind of 

work that we do, are available, and they put in for the program 

every time we pick them. 

We have an agreement with the military services on a case-bycase basis, that some people would probably want to be back to the 

military service to finish out their tours. In other words, before 

they retire, they would probably want to make general or admiral, and the way we are right now at the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration, it would be very difficult to do that, because 

it is not a line-type organization, in research and development, so 

that is where that stands. 

We expect to lose some more people, and we also expect that 

some of the more senior military people will retire and go into private service with companies. 

Mr. ROE. You don’t see this to be a problem at this point? 

Captain YOUNG. No, I think it is to be expected, though, during the stand-down period, young people and very senior people who 

are not going to fly will go, will go into some other line of work, 

particularly military people, and this is because the military people who go to work directly for the Federal Government, at any reasonable pay rate between the comparison of the pay they could get 
596 

on the outside, and the pay they could make working for the Government will take a significant financial hit over what they could 

make, even if they could stay at the military service and work at 

NASA. 

Mr. ROE. Should there be some other kind of added incentives in 

pay to keep the astronauts longer? 

Captain YOUNG. If you want senior military people, like Dick 

Truly, an admiral, if you want senior military people to be in management positions, to be associated with NASA, because of the way 

the pay structure is, and I am just hypothesizing a solution to the 

problem, would be to provide a certain number of general or admiral billets and fill them with senior management astronauts. 

That way, you could get them to stay and work for the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration, and participate as senior 

management officials. That is the only way I could think of to do 

it. 

It would probably take some incredible new law or something 

like that, which would be very troublesome, but that is the only 

way I see sort of legally to incentivize senior military people to 

stay and work at NASA as managers, because of the financial 

burden that they would take, if they can’t stay in the military, 

they have to retire at a certain point in their military careers. 

Mr. NELSON. Could I ask you to ask the opinion of General McDivitt? He is one of the few that, with his association with NASA, 

was promoted to a general officer, and just what John is saying has 

been a problem. That is why Dick Truly, in part, left the active astronaut corps, 

because by going back in the military, he had a chance to take a 

command, get promoted to general officer status. Now, we have the 

benefit of him as an admiral, admirable admiral, as a matter of 

fact, coming back to NASA, but that is why he left the active astronaut corps. 

Mr. ROE. Do you want to comment on that, General? 

General MCDIVITT. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would. I would like to 

go back to when I first became an astronaut. I think Deke might 

have participated in this meeting with Congressman Teague when 

he was a subcommittee chairman for the Space Flight Subcommittee for this committee, and asked us at that time what we thought 

about the pay for astronauts. 

The conclusion was for those people in the military, we ought to 

keep it at the same pay as the military. There may be a lot of guys 

on my left who don’t like that idea, but the thought was, if you 

were a military officer, the things that you were doing as an astronaut were somewhat different but not totally different than all the 

other people in the military, and if you wanted to have a military 

career, you could progress through the ranks at the same pay as all 

the other people who took risks. 

This is a risky job, was for me, being an astronaut, and there are 

a lot of people in the military who take tremendous risks, too, so 

we didn’t feel that it was worth a disruption in the normal military 

structure to take, and pay special attention to astronauts. 

So I served as an astronaut, and I think I made about-I was a 

captain when I started, I made about $9,500 a year when I started. 
597 

I rose through the ranks of-I think lieutenant colonel, in the 

Astronaut Office. When I transferred over to Program Management, I went into a slot which didn’t have an equivalent star rank 

associated with it, but there had been a lunar module program gen- eral who was an Air Force general, probably equivalent to a major 

general slot, and General Phillips had been a three-star general, so 

it was about a two-star slot if you wanted to slot it against a military equivalent. 

I started there, I think, as a colonel, and I subsequently got promoted in that job to brigadier general. I went into that job because 

I wanted to get into management, and I had that opportunity, and 

it looked to me like the best aerospace management job that was 

going to happen this century, so I took it. 

I didn’t take it because of the pay, and the interesting thing was 

that being the program manager, I probably had-I didn’t have 

any other military people at the time working in the program 

office, but I probably had about 75 of my top level people who 

worked for me making more money than 1 did. 

I had the opportunity to retire, resign, whatever, and I had the 

opportunity after I retired to take a job with NASA in one of the 

excepted positions. I am not sure what they call them, but there 

are positions within the civil service part of the Government where 

you can collect your military retirement and also get civil service 

Pay * 

I had that opportunity, but I had elected at the time to do something else. I had sort of set out a career path for myself, which included flying until I decided it was time to quit, and when you are 

flying, there are probably three ways to leave the profession. 

One is to get killed. One is to flunk your physical, and the other 

one is to quit at the time that you think it is appropriate to quit, so 

I see astronauts leaving is not necessarily a bad sign, but probably 

a good sign. 

At some time, they have to do that, and it is better to control 

your own destiny at the time you would like to leave as to flunking 

your physical. I had a career plan, and I was going to fly until 

sometime undefined, and move into program management and 

then leave the military service and do something else, which is 

what I did, but I found that management job to be quite rewarding. 

I was accepted earlier as an astronaut, also as a military officer, 

and I found no friction whatsoever. I had good support from the 

Air Force at the time. I am really pleased to see Admiral Truly 

come back and jump into a job like that, because it is important 

that the knowledge that they pick up grunting around as an astronaut and moving up through the ranks can be put to good use in 

management, and I would encourage that this be done. 

But there is no way that a person in management can be a surrogate for the Astronaut Office, or representing the Astronaut Office. 

The only one guy who can do that is the guy who is running it, and 

when they jump into management, they have to go into management and do the management job that is expected. 

Mr. ROE. Any further comments on these issues? 

General MCDIVITT. Deke, do you want to add anything about 

that meeting we had 20, 30 years ago? 
598 

Major SLAYTON. We were looking at the concept of whether there 

shouldn’t be a pay supplemental for the people in astronaut jobs 

and the relationship between the civil and the military. I think the 

right decision was made. 

There are guys in the military that certainly take an equal risk 

with this, and there shouldn’t be any discrimination, so nobody 

ever went into this business to make money. If they wanted to 

make money, they go do something else, and it is because it is a 

challenge, and you go do it. 

Commander GIBSON. I will agree with what General McDivitt 

and Mr. Slayton said. Any of the guys who are doing what we are 

doing now is not because of the money involved, but because it is 

something we love to do, and I agree with General McDivitt, I 

think that we as military members of the Navy or the Air Force, 

as a commander or colonel or lieutenant colonel, are doing a hazardous job, but perhaps no more hazardous than what other members of the military are doing, and I think we should stay exactly 

where we are. 

Mr. ROE. Captain Young. 

Captain YOUNG. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think it is a 

pay situation. What I am saying is, one of the recommendations 

was to use astronauts in senior management positions more often, 

and if we are going to do that, the senior military people, before 

they can stay with NASA, the way the system is now, most of them 

will have to retire, and take a big pay cut at a time when they are 

trying to put their kids through college. 

I think that would be very difficult for them to do, but if they 

wanted to get into management positions, they can no longer do 

that as a colonel or captain in their respective military service. 

They are going to have to terminate their service with the Government or they are going back to their service like Dick Truly did 

to get into a senior management position, and that is what he did. 

I don’t think anybody is in the Astronaut Office for the pay associated with the job, or any time, as we have said many times, any 

time somebody doesn’t want to be an astronaut, they are better to 

go out the door. 

That is better for the Government and certainly much better for 

the whole space program. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am a little bit confused. 

Right now, there are certain members of the astronaut corps who 

are career-blocked, as long as they stay in the corps. In other 

words, I believe the Navy, you can only go as high as captain? 

Captain YOUNG. Yes, sir, that is correct. That will be true, in the 

Air Force, you will be up to colonel, and then if you went into management at NASA, you might get promoted, but it would be very 

unusual. 

Mr. LEWIS. Do you think this restriction should be eliminated, so 

that you can-true, you are not taking any more greater risks than 

other people in the military, but you shouldn’t be penalized for 

being an astronaut, which essentially you are, if you stay on the 

list to become an admiral or BG, you have to stay a captain for, 

say, 4 or 5 years, if you remained in the corps? 
599 

Captain YOUNG. The way things are now in the services, for 

people to advance in their service, the procedure is right now for 

them to return to their parent service to do that kind of advancement. 

I am not saying that is wrong, but that is the situation. If you 

want to have astronauts as senior managers who are military 

people, some look at that kind of a system, ought to be looked at a 

little more, because when you put people in senior management positions, both their rank as a civil service person and their rank as a 

military person ought to be commensurate with their job responsibility. 

Mr. LEWIS. I see. 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. I think that is what was said about the limitations in the office. You can’t be a pilot astronaut and be a general, the job doesn’t call for it. To make flag rank in my mind, you 

have to have the responsibilities that are commensurate with the 

rank, so to be promoted and stay with NASA, I think you have got 

to be given a management job which is not in the Astronaut Office 

itself. 

Mr. LEWIS. I would like to explore a little bit about the safety 

systems. I recognize it is an accepted fact that during the first 2 

minutes of the flight, that it has been written off, nothing can be 

done. I also realize that there is a great difficulty in terminating 

the thrust of the rockets, that has to be done instantaneously, at 

the same time or else you torque and tear up the vehicle. But we 

did have an escape hatch, I believe it was in the Apollo Program 

and in the Mercury Program, is there some way we could be looking at a similar type of system so you could blow the crew cabin 

loose from the entire shuttle with an escape tower and then dump 

the tower, and deploy a shoot or something like that, or is this so 

cost-prohibitive we forget about it? 

Captain YOUNG. One of the design concepts that is being looked 

at right now; but the present thoughts are that that is extremely 

expensive and extremely complicated and would be a complete redesign of whole space shuttle, and it just doesn’t seem like a thing 

you can do if you ever want to fly the space shuttle before the 

1990’~~ plus it costs you a whole lot in payload, and there are other 

ways, maybe even in first stage to achieve the same thing with an 

awful lot less, with an awful lot less change to the vehicle. 

We are looking at techniques right now that use software on 

board that will allow you to lose one or two or three engines early 

on possibly, and make it back to the landing site. 

It is some pretty sophisticated automatic programming, but since 

it is a flying machine, some of those things seem possible, and 

those things, coupled with escape systems. Technology in escape 

systems, has come a long way in the last 15 years. It is absolutely 

remarkable what has been going on in this country, and maybe 

some of those things will help us solve some of that problem in the 

first 2 minutes, as opposed to complete redesign of the whole piece 

of machinery. 

Mr. LEWIS. As we have done in the past, isn’t there a possibility 

that we could be looking at designs as we go and put them in the 

shuttle 2 or 3 years from now, or even a year or two from now? 
600 

I don’t mean to freeze our schedule, until we would have a safe 

sort of system, I know we like to be safe constantly, but we know 

there is a calculated risk, and it is going to be there, but we could 

look at that down the pike. 

Captain YOUNG. Congressman, you are absolutely right, and we 

could give you the information that is being briefed to some of our 

senior management this week, and with some of these designs that 

people are looking at, it will be a quite comprehensive, thorough review, and we have just started on it, and some of these ideas are 

really unusual and have a lot of thought behind them. 

We would like for you to see them, but the complicated details of 

an escape system that tears up the whole orbiter, I don’t remember 

just how that was put together and worked. We sure would be glad 

to brief you all on that later on. 

Mr. LEWIS. That would be nice to have that. Let me ask you also, 

as we start flying once again, and as we progress, how far are we 

from making a night landing with instruments in the shuttle? How 

far away are we? 

There is always going to be that possibility that we might have 

sufficient areas socked in, and you may not be able to come out of 

orbit to come to some of the auxiliaries, so how far away are we 

from making an instrument landing with the shuttle? 

Commander GIBSON. You may recall we have made several night 

landings. 

Mr. LEWIS. I understand. That was instrument timed, as well, 

but that doesn’t happen anymore. 

Commander GIBSON. We feel we are a fair ways away from an 

automatic landing or a landing under zero-zero weather conditions, 

a fair ways away from that kind of a capability, because of a lot of 

the dispersions and things that we see built into the vehicle’s performance, it being able to do an automatic landing. We originally 

have done an automatic approach down to around 200 feet, and in 

general, we have not been as happy with the development and the 

progress in that particular area, in a number of areas, one of them 

being the crew’s ability to monitor what is going on and intervene 

if something is not right. We don’t have the correct displace to be 

able to watch what is going on and know when it is time for us to 

take over and not let the thing progress any farther, and we have 

significant dispersions, and the vehicle lands short of the runway, 

all of this comes from simulation. The vehicle many times will land 

short of the runway and other times half way down the runway. 

Automatic landing, we don’t really feel that that is the wave of the 

future for the shuttle. I think we can possibly work on the weather 

minimums and work on crew training and reliability within the 

machine and better our averages at getting back, but we don’t feel 

really that automatic landing is the way to go. 

Mr. LEWIS. I see. 

What kind of limitations do you feel should be placed on civilian 

flying, if any, when the shuttle starts flying again? 

You touched on this earlier this morning, but I would like a little 

bit more clarification. 

Captain Young or Colonel Hartsfield or someone? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. I am a civilian, and I am all for it. 
601 

I think there are some very positive aspects of flying. I will offer 

my personal opinion about this. 

There are some career people not on the vehicle, specialists in 

payloads, the space labmissions. We are taking up a specially 

trained scientist to operate the experiments in the spacelab; and as 

I recall, Mr. Charley Walker of McDonnel-Douglas who made his 

first flight with me on 41-D, and his presence on board was called 

for because he had a complicated device to run and only he had the 

expertise to run it. 

And in these cases, in my mind, it is very much justified to put 

these type people on board where they have a very strong crew 

function. There are other reasons that are at the pleasure of the 

administration to fly people and some of these programs I applaud. 

I can see some good benefits coming out, like the teacher in 

space, the journalist in space, and these programs are very well 

laid out and competition to make it fair to everybody. And there 

are some other areas that I personally have reservations about, but 

it is agency policy, so I am a little reluctant to speak about-but in 

the area of commercial payload specialists-that, to me, is something that I personally don’t approve of, but there is some good to 

be gained from it, perhaps. 

In all of these cases, I think from the crew standpoint we need to 

integrate the crew early enough, and this is for all across the 

board, and by that I mean we need to get these people into the 

crew training cycle early enough, that we can get to know them 

and understand how they think and operate. And they can learn 

how we operate to build a crew, and after all, it is a team effort to 

fly one of these vehicles. 

In the past, the way the program has been run with last minute 

switching around, payload specialists, in my opinion, that was not 

the way to operate. We were not given enough time to integrate 

those people fully into the crew, at least to my satisfaction, so in 

that light I do have some reservations about the program and the 

way it has worked in the past. 

In some respects, since this was still, in my mind, not an operational vehicle in the traditional sense, still very much a R&D vehicle, that we may have been a little premature in bringing people 

on board, but that is a judgment call. You have to decide where 

along the line that it is appropriate to carry extra people. 

Mr. LEWIS. I see. I think you have answered my questions honestly. I share the opinion with you. I just feel that there is a scientific need for civilian-type persons to go up in the shuttle for-at 

this point in time, or even in the past, that was the way to go. 

I had another question. 

Mr. ROE. I would now recognize the distinguished gentleman 

from California, Mr. Brown. 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have just one question, but with your indulgence I have a brief 

extraneous statement beforehand. 

I have not been very diligent about attending these meetings 

with the full committee and I apologize for that. 

It was not due to a lack of interest. It has been due to the-- 

Mr. ROE. George, pull your mike closer, please. 
602 

Mr. BROWN. It has been due to the demands of other committees, 

that I have certain responsibilities, too, and I have also a very high 

respect for the capability of the leadership of the other members of 

the committee who are here. 

With that brief apology, gentlemen, may I ask just one question. This morning, I was chairing another subcommittee at which a 

former NASA official appeared who had been responsible years ago 

for quality improvement in the agency. 

He was speaking in the broader context of the decline of empha- sis on quality improvement through the American economy, but he 

pointed out that this had occurred in NASA also. 

I would like to ask you to comment as to whether, in your observations, there has been a declining attention to the need to continually focus on quality improvement, and if that has been the case, 

are we taking adequate steps to remedy that situation in any of the 

actions recommended as a result of the Commission report? I don’t know who is the best one of you to answer that. 

Commander GIBSON. We had perhaps an example of that on Cap- tain Young’s second shuttle flight which was the night flight of the 

shuttle and I guess it was not any intent to reduce the quality, but 

perhaps the level of the testing that we do with the shuttle also 

has changed a bit from what we did in Apollo. Apparently, during Apollo we tested every little subassembly, down to the little chips within the computers. On Captain Young’s flight, STS-9, they had a computer failure 

that was caused by a little ball within a part that wasn’t tested by itself. 

We went to testing assemblies as one large unit. In other words, 

we test the computer but not necessarily that little chip, so each 

little individual item down within the inner workings of the shuttle doesn’t get tested to quite the degree and extent that they were 

years ago during Apollo, and in some instances, perhaps, that gives 

us a little bit less overall reliability than we might have had in the 

past. 

But it was-I guess, it was a cost-saving measure that was done 

for the shuttle because of the financial constraints on development. 

Mr. BROWN. I suspect a lot of what happened was due to a cost 

saving, and in hindsight we can see that it was a little bit shortsighted but quality improvement is a very broad concept and it requires the participation at every level of management, every level 

of operation. 

It is a real commitment to making sure that you are constantly 

seeking ways to improve on the operation, and this is the aspect that bothers me about NASA, as well as about the American industry as a whole, that we are losing out because of a failure to focus 

on ways in which we can continue to improve in our quality control processes. And if we have to shake up the whole organization in order to 

change the culture a little bit to focus on this, we probably ought 

to do it. 

NASA is a critical organization in terms of the need for quality 

improvement at all times. 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. Congressman Brown, some of that has taken 

place now. I know some people I am working closely with right 
603 

now in our office are very much involved in looking at our Life 

Cycle and Reliability Program, and Mr. Aldrich has directed all 

these things to come together. 

For example, some of the original parts that went into the shuttle were designed for the 10-year lifetime, and the 10 years is 

coming up next year. Some of these things like tanks were built in 

1977, so we are reaching the point where we are going to have to 

look at a lot of these things and extend the lifetime. And we are 

trying to pull together-the agency is, I know-a better organized 

Life Cycle Quality Assurance Improvement Program that I am not 

sure really existed like it should have in the past, but the focus is 

on that, acd I feel very confident personally that we are going to 

do the right thing by that. 

Mr. BROWN. We are going to have to find some ways to measure 

this. We use the term “quality control, quality assurance, quality 

improvement”. 

You can’t differentiate this from safety. It is the lack of adequate 

assurances as to quality that caused the safety programs, so the 

two are tightly tied together and we are going to have to take the 

necessary steps to change that situation. 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. I don’t think you would get an argument 

from any of us on that. We very much support that. 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you. I have no further questions. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from California. 

General Stafford has joined us, and we want to welcome you to 

our panel. We have had some excellent observations and responses from all of the witnesses. 

We might want to take you at this point, if you have any initial 

thoughts you might want to express to the committee, and we will 

go on from there. 

General Stafford. 

General STAFFORD. It is an honor to be here today with my fellow 

colleagues and I regret I do not have a prepared statement since 

the call came in late last week, and I have been in the middle of a 

very hostile takeover attempt. 

I am defending a corporation, and I arrived about 15 minutes ago 

in Washington, but I have a series of observations on the Commission’s report. 

The Commission did a very credible job under very difficult circumstances and all of them should be lauded for their performance in there. 

In the letter transmittal from Chairman Rogers to President 

Reagan, it outlines a basic fundamental fact, “space flight”, or “the 

Commission recognizes that space flight has a risk associated with 

it that can not be totally eliminated.” 

That is true of the past, present, or the future. 

I will go into some highlights under the recommendation one, 

the design, it states that it is a faulty design in that seal and 

having reviewed it, I agree with that. 

There are similarities, whether you look at the joints in a solid 

rocket motor or electrical system or a hydraulic system-the weakest points are always the connections and what can therefor be 

done to eliminate the connections, or simplify a system should be 
604 

done, and it is also important that you have an independent oversight as recommended with the National Research Council. 

I have seen both in NASA, in the Air Force, people continue to 

try to fix a system or a design where it should maybe be started 

over or a new look taken, and this will give it a lot of credibility by using the National Research Council as an oversight. 

In the second item, the shuttle management structure, I guess I 

was never comfortable with the lead center type of management 

structure, after having seen how satisfactorily Apollo worked. 

I think it is, as to Dr. Jim Fletcher’s credit, that he has assigned 

Gen. Sam Phillips who managed Apollo to give an overall review of 

NASA management and come up with his recommendations. 

Basically, sir, both the Space Shuttle Program and the space station are so important to this country that we have to have the 

right management structure. 

I am looking forward to the report that General Phillips-and he 

had Dale Myers to assist him-to see what they will do with the 

recommendations. 

There are also recommendations that the functions of flight crew 

operations should be elevated in the NASA management. I think this is a very important observation, and I will say that 

after the retirement of Dr. Robert Gilruth, that over a period of 

years the flight crew operations, directed, and the astronauts 

tended to be submerged under a level of bureaucracy and this 

should be corrected. 

As years pass, people forget things, and a lot of people don’t remember the fire about 19% years ago. A few at this table do. We 

were very much involved. 

In the same way, 25 years from now a lot of us won’t be here to 

testify or not have this position, but I think it would be somewhat 

appropriate, sir, if in the language of the bill this year, that it 

would somewhat direct that this action take place, because you would like to have an organization that functions that is independent of personalities. And so it is my recommendation that this would be into the law 

of the land, and down the road if somebody wanted to change it, 

they could show reason to change it. 

With respect to astronauts in management, there has been a lot 

of good example of astronauts that are qualified that have progressed into various levels at management, both at NASA and in 

the Air Force, and this is a very valid recommendation of the Commission, that astronauts that are qualified to progress in management at NASA, and I would also say in the DOD. 

The next item I will skip, three. 

Four, the safety organization, I think it is very valid you have a 

separate safety organization, but safety does not rest with a safety 

organization but rests throughout the whole organization from top 

to bottom, and everybody has to be responsible for it. 

The Air Force and the Navy have made remarkable strides over 

the years, sir, in reducing their operational accident rates, and a 

lot of that credit can be given to the Air Force and the Navy safety 

centers and the way they function, and this is a very valid recommendation and somewhat parallels what the Air Force and the 

Navy has done. 
605 

General STAFFORD. On category-I will go to land and safety, category No. 6. I guess I agree completely with John Young that until 

a lot of things are fixed on the shuttle that she only land at Edwards Air Force Base. I have landed hundreds of times at the Cape, 

thousands of times at Edwards and the lake beds around it and it 

is the largest, safest landing place in the world. 

One of the major problems with the Cape, you can do a retrofire 

over Australia and by the time you get a small, puffy cumulus 

cloud can be a 30,000 or 40,000-foot thunderstorm over the runway 

and you are stuck with it. Also, if I am correct, Mr. Chairman, that 

runway at the Cape, at KSC, does not meet Air Force standards for 

- safety and specifications, with respect to the shoulders and some of 

the overruns. 

I think this needs to be corrected. I know Edwards Air Force 

Base, when I was commander there, we stabilized the overruns for 

100 yards each way. So the heaviest aircraft in the world can go off the runway and 

there is no problem within that 100 yards. 

At the Cape there are deep ditches, and if a shuttle would go off 

the end and, say, a heavy weight abort return to the landing site, 

you could damage the shuttle very easily. To me, you have to stabilize both ends of those runways as far as you can go. 

This is a standard Air Force practice. You survey every base and 

as far as you can go on both ends you stabilize the overruns of the 

runway. The next issue on recommendation No. 7, launch abort, and crew 

escape. I am sure this has been discussed here this morning. In my 

own viewpoint, I reviewed Paul Weitz’ testimony to the Commission on page 182. What I think Paul said-and John’s testimony 

was on 184. I agree completely. There needs to be a positive means 

of crew escape out of the spacecraft orbiter. 

This can be done. There is a lot of technology. The early ejection 

seats we had were SR-71 seats. Those were designed in the very 

early sixties. A lot of technology has gone forth. 

There are things that have come out of Vietnam, like the 

Yankee system and a Lear jet. Where the flight test has been out 

of control, this Yankee system would get you out very quickly. 

There are also helicopters that have used a similar type system. 

To me, there is absolutely no reason that you could not have an 

escape device for five people on that upper deck to get out from a 

subsonic flight, from subsonic, say, from 0.85 on down to zero velocity, even in a semicontrolled fashion. 

This should really be a mandatory item, that a positive escape 

mechanism is put into the orbiter. Now, I guess one area that I 

read through the report on page 184, I disagree with my old friend 

Bob Crippen that nothing could have helped the crew in this instance. 

That was my initial reaction, too, but after seeing the findings of 

the Commission, talking to the members of the Commission, it appears that structurally that crew module was pretty much intact 

when it hit the water and had they not lost cabin pressure up 

there, the positive escape mechanism could have possibly helped 

them survive that whole thing. 

64-295 0 - 86 - 20 
606 

This, to me, is a very key issue, Mr. Chairman, that positive 

escape mechanisms be put into that orbiter, whatever time and 

money that it takes. 

Item No. 8-- 

Mr. ROE. Just for clarity on that, General, I just want to back up 

on that point. That is your observation. Your observation is that 

perhaps if we had developed some type of a safety mechanism at 

that point that we might have been able to do something with that 

cabin, the one that we just lost, the Challenger? General STAFFORD. Yes, sir. Reviewing the data and talking to 

some knowledgable people, it appears the breakup of-the module 

was pretty much intact and stayed that way structurally. If the. 

crew module had not lost pressure on that large drag on the flat 

back of it-it is similarly shaped like a reentry vehicle. 

It would have stabilized in a somewhat random fashion and they would have had plenty of time at lower altitude to punch out. Even 

if they had lost pressure at higher altitude, with an oxygen mask 

they might have had the situation. 

Originally I said nothing could have saved them but then looking 

as the facts came in from the investigation, I am firmly convinced 

that they might have had a chance. 

Mr. ROE. A number of Members feel as you do, too-I think it is 

interesting to note everybody starts talking about the cost, the 

cost-the cost, as you pointed out, we don’t know. We haven’t finished the study, so we don’t really know what the cost would be. 

So I think that is a very good approach. 

General STAFFORD. Yes, sir. I think this is a mandatory item before the next launch. Now, go back to a little bit of history that 

Deke remembers very well, when he was head of Flight Crew Operations and I was his assistant that in the design of the shuttle at 

one time without the crew’s knowledge, the two ejection seats for 

the first flights were baselined out. 

After we found out about it, we went back, we had a caucus, we 

talked to Dr. Gilruth and said without those seats, we don’t fly the 

mission, that is it, period. So they put the seats back in. 

At the same time, Dr. Rocco Petrone, we had many physicians in 

NASA still associated with the Space Program-talked to me about 

it and he was head of the Marshall Space Flight Center at the time 

and he said to me: 

Tom, I don’t understand why you don’t have ejection seats in there when this 

issue was coming up. We will do the best we can to give a reliable propulsion 

system, but there is no way I can sign a piece of paper to ever guarantee 100 percent safety. 

So he said we needed ejection seats in it and ejection seats were 

put back in. On item No. 8-1 am nearly finished here-on the 

flight rate, it says NASA must establish a flight rate that is consistent with its resources and, as I reviewed the data, and I talked 

to quite a few of the crewmembers even before the accident, it was 

obvious that there was a tremendous strain on the training system, 

particularly on the simulators. It appears those shuttle mission 

simulators were working three shifts a day, two for training and 

one for maintenance after that 6 to 7 days a week. 

If you review the data on page 149 in the report, it shows a 

number of days before launch when they could even get on the 
607 

system, it is coming down like that. There is just not that many 

available days. 

I also noted Hank Hartsfield’s testimony on page 170 that they 

were reaching a point where they would have to call it quits, that 

just the crew would not be trained at that time. 

Having managed simulators, worked with them for years, I understand completely the facts we are up against. I guess it was my 

recommendation, sir, that even for a launch mission profile of 12 

per year, you probably will need a third crew station and also that 

simulator complex was spec’ed and designed in 1972. 

It is old. It needs to be upgraded with respect to its computers, 

its data processing, so it will have more reliability, more flexibility 

for change out of software and less time for maintenance and that 

is one of the key items that I think we need. 

There is another crew station and the upgrade of that total simulator complex. The other area under flight rate, as we look at the 

shuttle and the requirements for the national programs in the 

future, sir, like the space station and SDI and with only three orbiters available, I feel the system is probably stretched beyond 

what you could effectively use it as. 

For example, you could have a blowing tire down the road and 

the tire could damage a wing. You could have had some type of 

fault and you could have one or two orbiters down. The space station is going to require at least 18 launches to assemble that station. 

You are going to have SDI coming on and I don’t think three orbiters will have, as I say, some of the minimum, national minimum 

requirements besides the DOD requirements. 

We have some major long-lead items, major structural items that 

have already been built and it is my recommendation that we take 

these long lead, major items and integrate those together into a 

fourth orbiter. 

One area that needs to be clarified. I have heard certain statements like, Why should we build another orbiter when we have 

new technology? This is probably referred to with respect to the 

national aerospace plane. Well, I have been on the senior steering 

committee of that under DARPA for over a year, sir, and the national aerospace plane-I know I have talked to certain members 

of the committee-is a great program but it is strictly a research 

program just like the X-15, and it is called the X-30. 

There is no way should ever the national aerospace plane be confused with the replacement for an orbiter. It might be the technology for an orbiter maybe the year 2015 or 2020, but one of the major 

areas for flight rates in this is a construction of a fourth orbiter. 

The last item, maintenance and safeguard, the Commission said 

definitely we should stop pulling parts out of one orbiter and put 

them to another. As I look down the table here, we are all fighter 

pilots, probably all have been associated with maintenance in some 

way, all know what a hangar queen is. That is when you take parts 

of one plane to try to repair the others. 

You order a part for it. In the meantime, you need another part. 

And it looks like this was kind of the situation that was going on 

at the Cape. There is no doubt there needs to be adequate data for 
608 

logistics and funding for spare parts to meet a realistic launch pro- file, so you can do away with the hangar queen. And that, in a short summary, sir, was my observations in going through the report. 

Mr. ROE. Splendid. I want to follow up, but I am going to call on 

the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania first, but I do want 

to follow up and think about it a little bit. We are not going to get into too much policy today, but I do want to follow up on the situation you have generated-you all generated it-is that we are 

speaking of these really important improvements that we can 

make, the landing gear, the whole thing. Then how is that going to go toward the time frame when we fly 

again. Do we have to retrofit all the things that are involved? I 

want to get into that. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Walker. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Can I assume that most people on this panel welcome the cancellation of the Centaur Program? Was there anybody who dissented 

from that in terms of the astronaut corps? 

In other words, that was fairly widely seen as something which is 

positive in terms of the mission. I am getting shakes of heads that 

won’t show up in the record. 

General MCDIVITT. Ihave no opinion. I don’t really know. 

Mr. WALKER. OK. All right. 

Second, General Stafford, you just talked a little bit about ejection seats and so on, the need for those. Some of us are concerned 

with regard to what would be needed for redesign on that when we 

look at the lower deck. Are you saying that there is a technology 

that would allow you to use ejection seats in the lower deck of the 

craft? 

General STAFFORD. MrWalker, in my statement I said that it is 

certainly feasible with the type of technology we have for egress systems to have five people on the upper deck. 

Now, the lower deck is a whole different situation and I just have not addressed that. What you have to then look at, sir, is, Do 

you need more than five people on a mission? 

Mr. WALKER. Well, we really are getting in then to some questions about policy. If what we are saying is we would have to fly 

everyone on the upper deck, that you would limit your crew size 

substantially, it gets into questions of policy on space station then, 

on people that you would be-for instance, hauling to orbit on 

space station. You get into questions of people who are carrying 

out civilian missions, such as electrophoresis experiments, and a lot 

of that which are primarily the people you fly on your lower deck, 

and particularly for long duration flights there might be a need for 

more people. 

In other words, we really will, if we decide to go that direction, 

we really will make more than simply a policy decision with regard 

to ejection seats as soon as you have limited yourself to the upper 

deck. You will make some key policy decisions as to what we are 

capable of doing in space in the next decade; isn’t that true? 

General STAFFORD. I guess that is true. I am going to have to 

defer to some of my colleagues who are more current. There are 

two large openings now from the lower to the upper deck and you 
609 

could possibly sequence some type of Yankee escape system out of 

that, but I know there are studies going on and I would defer to 

the study. 

I made a positive statement, sir, at least five people can be effectively egressed out of that upper deck. 

Mr. WALKER. OK. The idea of perhaps even having ejection seats 

for the lower deck is something that is being studied? Is that what 

the understanding is, Colonel Hartsfield? 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. Yes. Part of the study that is going on now 

is to look at what you do with the middeck, how you get people out. 

They are looking at bailout systems for the middeck, as well as 

Yankee type extraction systems. 

Mr. WALKER. Just like from my own perspective, it would be 

good to have an opinion from this group, since you span the space 

program all the way from Deke, with the Mercury 7 Program, and 

on up to the present time. Do any of you have an opinion as to the 

relative safety of space flight even given all the problems we have 

with Challenger, the relative safety aboard a space shuttle as compared to the early days of the Space Program, and as we progressed? 

Major SLAYTON. I can give you one very precise data point. The 

Atlas, when we committed to fly it in the Mercury Program, had a 

probability of success of 0.8 which is one failure out of every five 

flights. 

We only flew four, so we didn’t test that. The shuttle, on the 

other hand, we are dealing with a level of 0.999 probability, or 

something in that ballpark, so I think that is the relative magnitude that we have come in terms of safety since 1959. But don’t let 

me mislead you into thinking that it is still 100 percent safe. There 

will never be 100 percent safe vehicles. 

Mr. WALKER. I think that is clearly the message that has to come 

through in everything that we do with the program. We have to 

understand that it is a risky business and is going to continue to be 

a risky business for as long as any of us can see out into the future. 

But I think that it is also important, given some of the hard-hitting criticism that is just finally now being impacted with regard to 

the program that has had this failure, that we have made progress, 

it seems to me, in resolving some of the safety issues and have 

made it a somewhat less risky business for the future and hopeful- ly are going to use what we learn in these hearings to continue to 

move in that direction. 

General Stafford. 

General STAFFORD. Mr. Walker, Dr. Lovelace, the outgoing and 

Acting Administrator, when the administrations changed, asked 

me to be on a safety review panel that included George Lowell, Les 

Hawkins, Bob Gilruth, to give him a feeling about launching the 

first shuttle that John and Crip flew on and then later on Jim 

Bakes and Chris Craft asked to be on another panel. Basically, by 

and large, it comes out that 85 percent of your risk is on launch. 

The other 15 percent is mostly reentry because space by itself is 

a fairly benign environment but the main thing if you can protect 

for most of that launch space going out you have covered most of 

the items. But as Deke pointed out, the Atlas was not a very reli- 
610 

able vehicle, but they did have a launch space system that had the 

most reliability. We also did the same in Apollo. 

We had some ejection seats and, thank God, we never used them. 

We came close, I think, one time, maybe twice. But in this case 

under the high risk area, which is your boost phase going out, 

unless you can get back to the landing site, you have nothing. As 

pointed out in Paul White’s testimony to the Commission and verified, if you have to ditch the orbiter in water, it is probably going 

to break up and the same thing on rough terrain. 

Mr. WALGREN. Well, of the additional 15 percent, I assume that a 

large portion of that, the risk involved is in the landing, too. 

It is not unlike flight itself where takeoff and landing tends to be 

your two opportunities for the greatest problems. 

General STAFFORD. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. WALGREN. One other question a colleague of mine said he 

would like to ask and had to leave. 

That is on the question of the SRB’s at the present time. Is there 

any opinion among the group on two questions-first of all, on 

whether or not we ought to go to second sourcing for purposes of 

SRB’s; and second, whether or not the nonsegmented booster is a 

better idea than sticking with the present segmented units? Anybody have an opinion? 

Commander GIBSON. Mr. Congressman, on both of those items 

the nonsegmented boosters, that is a proposal that is being looked 

at and has been looked at to some degree. We aren’t very deeply into it yet. The redesign team is primarily right now looking at utilizing the existing hardware, seeing if we can do that, seeing if we 

can come up with a design that is usable and accomplishes all the 

recommendations that the presidential commission made. 

But they are not very heavily looking at the unsegmented booster right now. I assume you mean the one that is poured in one 

piece. Mr. WALGREN. Right. 

Commander GIBSON. They are not looking at that one heavily 

now. That one has a lot of GSE ground support equipment concerns. It has some shipping concerns and things such as that. The 

redesign team, which is at Marshall, of course, has not really been 

chartered to look at that particular design heavily. 

General Stafford. 

General STAFFORD. Well, there are two areas. One is just in general competition and procurement. I know in the Air Force, once 

we decided to put pressure on Pratt & Whitney for a second fighter 

engine, General Electric engine, I was one of the two people that 

started that whole program. Eventually, Pratt & Whitney’s reliability went up a whole lot 

and their costs came down a lot. So, just from a basic procurement 

standpoint, I think a second source is definitely good. With respect to the monolithic case, yes, there is no doubt there 

is probably GSE efforts on it, but as I pointed out, the fewer connections you have whether it is electrical or hydraulic, tends to be 

simpler. 

Most of our ballistics missiles, the way we have had reliability is 

the only seals we have had in that is just at the top for the igniter 

and down at the nozzle. 
61 1 

Mr. WALGREN. I tend to agree with you in terms Of competition. I 

do think it improves things. 

The only question that I hear raised about the question of second 

sourcing here, though, if, in fact, you are going to go to a more unified safety structure, if you are going to improve your quality assurance program and have greater quality assurance out of NASA 

alone, it does stretch your resources then in order to provide qual- ity assurance and safety inspection at two sources for your SRB’s 

rather than just one. 

Anybody see that as a problem? 

General McDivitt. 

General MCDIVITT. I will not answer as an astronaut but try sort 

of as somebody from the aerospace industry. It would be costly to 

facilitize. Somebody would have to pay for that. If you are going to build exactly the same design, that is one issue. If you are going to build two different designs, that is something else. If you have a 

competition between two distinctively different designs and pick a 

single source, then that is another issue. 

I think you really have to look at what the objective is. I leave 

that to you, Mr. Congressman. Mr. WALGREN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman. 

I am going to call on Mr. Mineta next, but I want to start a little 

different course of events here for our members and for you folks. 

We had not planned on getting into too much really broad-based 

policy. That is going to be following on our next step. 

However, if you have listened to your own testimony you have 

brought up a number of points that are very important. 

We have talked about many of the safety factors. We talked 

about the problems of the landing gear. We talked about an escape methodology and half a dozen other things that are things that 

could be done and could be done really right now. 

I think that is a fair commentary to make and should be made. 

In fact, I think somebody said we shouldn’t fly unless we get that 

done, so we know that should be done. 

The second point, I think we ought to clarify for the record the 

people of the country, and a lot of Members of Congress, think that 

we have three identically the same orbiters so as to say on the 

shelf now, and that is not accurate. 

Am I correct on that, that the capability of the three remaining orbiters are not the same? 

Captain Young, is that correct or not correct? 

Captain YOUNG. Columbia, the first one built, has about, it 

seems-I can’t remember the exact numbers-about 6,000 pounds 

of additional scar weight due to the development of flight instrumentation that was carried on the first flight, but the performance capabilities, except for that-sea-weight-of all the orbiters, are 

pretty much the same. 

Although the configurations are different in places, we are standardizing a lot of that during the stand-down, and I think the performance capabilities of all three shuttles so far as anybody can 

tell is, you know, as far as a casual observer, is pretty much identical. 
612 

Mr. NELSON. May I follow that just with one comment? 

Mr. ROE. Of course. 

Mr. NELSON. That is following on General Stafford’s comment. 

Since much to do has been made out of the White House about 

whether or not the shuttle is old technology, I would suggest, Mr. 

Chairman, that we get these guys, who are the experts in flight, to 

tell us whether or not they think the space shuttle is old technology. Mr. ROE. That is where I am leading. The matter before the Congress, as I see it to be decided, is many matters, but it boils down to 

two things. First of all, there is no debate that we should be in space as 

quickly as possible, because the safety of the country depends upon it. 

It is not a Buck Rogers thing at all. That is not the issue. 

Anybody who feels otherwise just doesn’t understand the order of 

magnitude involved. I think that is No. 1. 

The question is, How to do that with the safety factors involved? 

There is a major debate taking place: Should we have a balanced 

fleet, manned, unmanned? 

I think that has already been decided. The answer is yes to that. 

I think anybody with reason would understand that. 

Now, the question remains, how long and what do we do about 

that shuttle? 

The point that the gentleman from Florida was just making which I want to elucidate on, is one, the question comes up of the 

level of technology involved. 

You mentioned it yourselves when you spoke a little bit about redoing the-computerizing the simulators and so forth. 

Do you recall that issue? 

So, you are saying that yourselves, that there is technology that 

is 10 years ago. We ought to be on with it. Let’s get it going. What 

are we waiting for? 

You see where I am coming from? 

But the issue then comes back to priorities and that America 

should be doing and expending and allocating the resources to do 

this with, because allocation of the resources are absolutely critical 

at adequate levels if you are going to meet any of the kind of demands that have been placed in this whole system as we see it 

today. We sit with a number of satellites, in effect, that have been designed specifically to go on the shuttle. 

Now, if you don’t fly the shuttles we have got hundreds of millions of dollars of satellites sitting someplace around that we can’t 

use at this point. They have either got to be reconfigured to go on an unmanned 

rocket or we have just got to sit and wait until we get back in. 

So, we are sitting on, would you say, hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of-at least. OK. And the leadership of America is 

really severely questioned at this point as to these decisions we are 

about to make, both from the White House point of view and from 

the Congress itself. 

So, in my judgment we have a short-range problem as to how 

quickly we can get the existing fleet back flying and then, the 
613 

longer range problem which we will get into in further hearings, which is the long-range policy decisions: Do we go to Mars; what do 

we do? 

When you talk about getting the existing fleet up to par and get- ting the fourth orbiter into production, so to speak, there are a 

number of safety factors that are important ones, from your testimony and other people’s testimony that has come out. 

Therefore, there is a retrofit issue involved here. There is time 

and space. The common denominator is time and money, how we 

do this. 

Then the question is-that is the debate, whether we are going to 

be flying a year from now or 2 years from now or 3 years from 

now. 

Some place there is a series of decisions that have to be made, 

money, resources, so forth and so on, but then somebody has got to 

make the decision and the time element-how much of the safety 

work do we do that we know how to do? 

You understand where I am trying to come from as to when we 

get back and flying again. 

Do you have any-I guess, Captain, you are right up there in the 

middle of it now. What is your position? Captain YOUNG. There is nothing in this country with wings on 

it that flies into or out of orbit that can carry 50,000 or 60,000 

pounds up there and bring half of it back and use people in space. The next time you open your automobile hood on your car and 

you are looking for 85 horsepower and you see 85,000 horsepower, 

you are looking at a high pressure fuel turbine in there. Don’t 

press too hard on the accelerator; you will end up on the moon. 

There is a lot of things in the space shuttle that are sort of old 

technology. We are talking about in later days putting in new computers because the technology is the late 1970’s and we know we 

can build a computer with half the weight and twice the memory 

and twice the speed and use those new computers and new inertial 

systems and new electronics and new avionics. 

I thought when we started all this that the space shuttle of the 

late 1970’s would be a totally different machine from an avionic 

standpoint in the 1990’s. 

You are talking about in the future for the Space Shuttle Program with these very lightweight tiles on it that reenters and 

spends 20 minutes in temperature in excess of 2,000 degrees and it 

doesn’t suffer any damage and lands reasonably where you want it 

to. 

There is no other machine like it in the world. 

So I think in terms of what it does, it is the most advanced technical system in the world. There are places where it suffers from 

old technology and we are trying to fix a lot of those areas. 

In terms of going to totally new technology, as Tom was talking about, the aerospace plane and the other mechanisms, they are 

very good technical projects and very different ones. Knowing what 

I know about engines and knowing about heat protection, I think 

that the aerospace plane is a really good technical program, but it 

is a long way off. It is really tough and if we could get an aerospace plane in a couple or 3 years that would fly into orbit and carry 60,000 pounds up there and come back and land on a runway and 
614 

take off horizontally, that would be the way to go. But as Tom says, it is a long way off. 

I think the idea of sticking with the space shuttle and doing as 

much as we can to advance it during the standdown time, which 

was being done, is the way for the country to go in the long run. I 

am not saying that just because I fly it. I jut don’t see any alternative that is reasonable to get done by 2 or 3 years from now. 

Mr. ROE. Put on your negative hat. If Congress is going to ask 

this specific question-they are asking it and so are the American 

people-they are asking this one question: Why should we build 

the fourth orbiter? Why should we not go to advanced technology? That is what the American people are saying. 

Why, in your role, in all of your roles, far that matter, both historically, previously and now, why should Congress spend $3.2 billion or thereabouts to build a fourth orbiter and not take some 

other route at this point? 

Captain YOUNG. Because the kind of thing that you want to do in 

the next 3 or 4 years with a new orbiter you are not going to be 

able to do with new technology in 10 years. It is about as simple as 

that. That is a lot of programs coming dawn the road that need 

access to space and the space shuttle orbiter gives it to us, and it 

gives it to us rapidly, more rapidly than those other kinds of things will do. 

I wish I could say it was the other way around but it is not to be. 

It is really hard to go into a new program, build, for example, an 

ELV rapidly and get it up in the air in a year or two. It is tough. 

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, if you would yield for a moment? 

Mr. ROE. Sure. Just 1 second. 

What I am trying to nail down, and it is so hard to get anybody 

to answer this-of the 3 weeks of hearing, I want to get on the 

record loud and clear, hey America, the reason that we have to do 

it is because of this reason. You are starting to answer it but 

people are timid. If we are going to hold-I will yield in 1 secondif we are going to hold our leadership role and that isn’t the total 

answer, if we are going to hold our leadership role, if we are going to talk about the security of the Nation, then the only option we 

have before us is to do something. What is that option? 

Pardon my enthusiasm but I am trying to get that loud and clear 

on the record somehow. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania. 

Mr. WALKER. I wanted to point out, I think of us asking the question about the technology though I am not necessarily asking the 

question exactly the way you have posed it. The question is whether or not you need to use taxpayers resources to build a fourth orbiter or whether or not there are some other resources that can be 

used in order to pay for the fourth orbiter and you know, there 

may be a question as to whether or not :you ought to finance it 

through other means rather than taxpayen; dollars so that the taxpayers dollars can be reserved to go onto the next higher technology level such as the aerospace plane. 

Mr. ROE. I have no objection to that at all. However we get the 

money I think that becomes almost-I don’t mean it unkindly, it is 

very important, but the first and foremost point before us is why 

and when? Why should we have to do this? Many people have said 
615 

to me why are you people going to spend $3.2 billion to do it? They 

have got three of them. Three ought to be plenty to do this job. 

General STAFFORD. Perhaps, sir, I did not make my point clear 

when I discussed about the launch rates and resources. In my evaluation three just will not do the job supporting SDI, which needs 

certain manned missions, and space stations, which you need that 

to put it up. When you get down to three, with any problems at all, 

it just will not support the national means. That includes a lot of 

expendable launch vehicles, too. 

Mr. ROE. Isn’t the general saying that from as far as the program is concerned now, as we presently see it-never mind that 

the Soviets are talking about landing on Mars in 1992 in a report 

that they just printed-we are saying that in order to first of all, to 

launch the satellites that we have on the shelf both weatherization 

or whatever we are going there, the whole list of them, we have got 

to do something or wait. We are coming back and saying in the 

second point, as I see it, along the line, whether we are going to 

commercialize or anything else, we still have to deal with this technology. Isn’t it also true that the space station itself sits and waits; 

and fourth-- 

Mr. NELSON. Would you yield? 

Mr. ROE. Let’s take the gentleman from Texas first. 

Mr. ANDREWS. General Stafford, I want to commend your remarks. We have had weeks and weeks of testimony before the 

Challenger tragedy and certainly many afterward, about the administration’s program in space, about the military’s proposals for 

space, about NASA’s proposals. We have heard many private citizens come in and talk about their efforts, what they want to do in 

outer space. 

It is clear to this committee that without a fourth orbiter our 

space program will be severely hampered in our lifetime. There is 

just no question, as you stated, that we simply can’t do all the 

things we want to do in this generation without orbiters. We can 

build a space station but we can’t fully utilize that station without 

four. We can have space commercialization and try to compete 

with the French and the Soviets, but we can’t do it as well as we 

need to without four. 

The holdup right now is not this committee and not the Congress, but the White House. As long as we’re in this time frame of 

indecisiveness we really run a risk of not being able to have four. 

Mr. ROE. I just want to correct on point. If the gentleman would 

understand, I know you feel as enthusiastic as I do. I don’t think 

we are prepared really to say who doesn’t want to do what. I don’t 

think we should be-we are not leveling blame on any individual 

for the accident. I don’t think we should be leveling blame yet on 

decisionmaking. That doesn’t mean I totally disagree with the gentleman, but-- 

Mr. ANDREWS. If the chairman would yield. 

Mr. ROE. Let me just finish and then I will yield and give you all 

the time you want. What I want to nail down today, and intend to 

nail down, if it is the last damn thing I do in these hearings, is to 

have somebody come in and lay down what do we do positively? 

This isn’t a NASA bashing committee. That is not our intent. Our 
616 

intent is to lay the fact out before the American people so they can 

make a decision. 

I think the gentleman has eloquently portrayed it. I don’t know 

what has happened to me today. It won’t all come out at once. The 

point we would like to get generally from you folks, who have been 

pioneers, who are really running the show as far as the orbiter is 

involved, itself, and so forth, is that a general way we should be 

going. 

Go ahead, General. 

General MCDIVITT. The Apollo Program has been used as an example of how a good program ought to be run. The technology we 

used in the Apollo Program by the time we started landing on the 

Moon and for the years afterward that it flew, was not new technology a la 1970, but it was technology that was used when we designed it early in the 1960’s. When I was running the program 

office I had a number of signs put on the walls of the program 

office that said the better is the enemy of the good. The meaning 

behind that was if we have a piece of equipment that’s good 

enough to go to the Moon, let’s not keep making it better and 

better and better, because if we do, we will never go to the Moon, 

we will just keep making it better. 

If I had a radio that would transmit 350 to 400,000 miles adequately, the Moon only being 250,000 miles away, that was great. 

We should go ahead and use that. There were a lot of radio engineers who wanted to have one that went 10 million, 2 billion, or 

whatever and if we had done that, we would never have gotten to 

the Moon on time. 

One of the major advantages of the Apollo programs was it 

worked against a time constraint. We were going to be on the 

Moon by 1970. That forced us into making decisions that got us 

someplace instead of optimizing things better and better and 

better. 

As John so eloquently said, the shuttle does the job. It may need 

some update in avionics or some of the other things, and I heartily 

support that, but to start all over on a new airframe and a whole 

new set of techniques, we are going to see the space program not a 

year or two behind, as this tragedy probably will cause, but a 

decade behind because we are going to have to start all over again. 

I think if we are going to fly in space, we ought to build some 

more shuttles and get on with it. 

Mr. ROE. Is there anybody on the panel-and then I will defer to 

the gentleman from California-is there anybody on the panel that 

disagrees that we should build a fourth orbiter? 

General MCDIVITT. Mr. Chairman, just a short time ago, we tried 

to decide whether we ought to have a fifth one. 

Mr. ROE. I remember. 

Major SLAYTON. Mr. Chairman, I am not disagreeing. I would 

just propose to you the preliminary data I am familiar with, being 

an outsider, would tell you that an orbiter realistically will not fly 

over three or four flights a year, any one of them. And so if you 

say I am now going to build a space station and if you look at the 

traffic models people have related to the space station alone, the 

requirements, a three orbiter fleet will not support a space station. 
617 

So to me, the conclusion is very obvious. If we are serious about 

doing the space station in this country, you can’t do it with a three 

orbiter fleet. You are going to have to have four because that is a 

program that requires an orbiter. 

There are a number of payloads sitting out there that do not 

have to go on an orbiter. They can be done equally well by other 

vehicles and in my opinion, they should be done by other vehicles 

and reserve the orbiter for things it alone can do, which are very large payloads that require manned interface and require recovery. 

Mr. ROE. Is it reasonable to say-and then Mr. Mineta, you are 

next-is it reasonable to say, make this observation, that if we neglect going ahead with the fourth orbiter at this point, in view of 

the posture we have discussed and we were to design and redesign 

under “so-called advanced technology,” that we could lose as much 

as 10 years? Major SLAYTON. I wouldn’t even want to hazard a guess, but it is 

significant, obviously. 

Mr. ROE. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Scheuer. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Can I repeat the question you posed before we 

broke for lunch about the increasing rate of astronauts from the 

program. They did answer that? 

I will go ahead. Can I ask you, continuing on this policy line, 

what are your 25-to-50-year goals for our space program? What national interest should we be trying to meet in the field of national 

security, in the field of economic development, in the field of advancing scientific knowledge for health, education, whatever purposes, and considering what those long term goals are, what is the 

best vehicle, what is the best system for us to be shooting for over 

the next quarter or half of a century to achieve those goals? 

That is a very nebulous question, but we almost have to have 

some long range goals up here before we can solve the medium and 

short range problems. If we don’t have our Iowa star out there, we 

are sort of making short term questions without a long term reference point, and that is dangerous. 

Major SLAYTON. Well, sir, if I might take a shot at it, and other 

guys can follow up. In my opinion, the National Space Commission, 

which is run by Dr. Payne, and I have not reviewed that in total, 

but the summary of that appears to me to basically answer your 

question. I think they have tried very hard to lay down a 25-year plan and a 50-year plan and do exactly what you are proposing, to 

lay out a logical sequence, how do we get from where we are to 

where we think we want to be in that time frame? 

I personally think it is a very well done document. I am sure, 

like all others, you can find things we would like to see changed. I 

will see what everybody thinks about it. In my opinion, it is a very 

good road map for precisely what you are referring to. 

Colonel HARTSFIELD. I think I would agree with Deke on that. I 

haven’t read the report in detail, but I did scan through it and it 

looks like it has done a very good job of laying out where we should 

be going. In my mind, these long term plans set the tenor of the 

research you are going to do to assure your preeminence in space. 

Now, that should be our goal. 

In the near term, getting back to the other question, what we 

should be doing right now, I agree with everybody else. I don’t 
618 

think that we can support what we have set out in there to do with 

three orbiters. If we really want to keep our position and move forward we are going to need that fourth orbiter. There are a lot of 

things out there that are going to be done that depend on the orbiter. That is taking the men and materials into space to do some 

basic research even before the shuttle comes along. 

For example, the Europeans have a very well organized program 

of materials processing in space, and you know, we are seeing the 

lead taken away from us and that disturbs me very much. Our 

country ought to be the leader in this field. We ought to be providing the future initiatives and technologies and inviting the experimenters to come and do this work and let us insure our preeminence in space. And I think we need another orbiter to do that. 

Getting back to the technology question of the orbiter, I couldn’t 

agree with John more. We have a magnificant flying machine here. 

I have flown three different ones and they are all-getting back to 

the first question-they all fly about alike. I don’t detect any difference in them. They are all wonderful machines. The basic airframe 

is good. I would like to make an analogy to the 38’s we fly. They 

are 20-something years old now but we are still flying them. They 

are good machines. 

There are C-47’s that were build back before World War I1 still 

flying around. Sure, progress is being made. There is new technology. If you start right now, obviously you won’t build a C-47, but it 

doesn’t mean it still isn’t a good machine for what it is being used 

for now, and you update the things you have to update. I think we 

need that kind of update with the orbiter as well, to make changes 

where the technology advances. 

I also agree with Jim down there, better is the enemy of good. It 

can get you in a lot of trouble. You have got to be careful, but obviously technology does advance products and the companies that 

make them are no longer in business that provided the original 

equipment. So you have to do a little improvising, but it doesn’t 

mean it can’t be done and can’t be done at a reasonable cost. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Would you yield? 

Mr. SCHEUER. Ofcourse. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I would like to go back, just to follow up on your 

comments, I don’t think any of us are pointing fingers at anybody 

about the lack of a commitment on the fourth orbiter. But the 

truth is, we can have hearing after hearing, and that is what we 

have had. We can hear testimony days upon days of testimony, 

which we have had, about the need for the fourth orbiter. 

What is so critical right now is we have got this window of time 

to strike, to start the commitment and set the agenda. No question 

about it, there is one thing the House of Representatives cannot do 

and that is set a space agenda. We can work on policy and work 

around the edges of what that agenda should be in terms of our 

budget, but the decision has to come from the administration on 

whether we have another orbiter or not. We can debate on how it 

should be paid for and we will, but until we have that decision 

made by the White House, then this program is going to linger and 

we are losing valuable time. That was my only point. 
619 

I think it is so critical that we urge the White House to make a 

decision about the orbiter and let’s get on with the debate of how 

we pay for it. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SCHEUER. May I continue, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. ROE. Mr. Scheuer, the gentleman from New York. 

Mr. SCHEUER. We have talked about the inordinate cost of the 

long term space program going up into tens if not hundreds-well 

hundreds of billions of dollars I suppose, and also the fact that we 

are not first in space and other countries, particularly the Soviets, 

according to the British, have a significant advantage on us. They 

are ahead in the technology race. 

Major Slayton, you have had some hands-on experience working 

with the Soviets in the Soyuz mission. You must have a feeling in 

your blood and guts and in your central nervous system of what it 

is like to work with the Soviets in this ultrahigh-technology effort. 

Would you and any of the others who are interested in enhancing, 

think it might be worth your while to think about a join effort, 

let’s say, to get to Mars, or to achieve any of these long term 25, 50 

goals? A joint effort perhaps with the Soviets, perhaps with the Soviets and the European consortium, perhaps with the Soviets and 

the European consortium and the Japanese on several grounds: 

First, that we ought to divide up the costs. No country really can 

afford to do it all and do it right. If costs are absolutely stupendous. 

Second of all, no country has a lock on technology and this is a 

case where the whole is certainly equal to the sum of its parts, and 

maybe is greater than the sum of the parts. Maybe the interaction 

of the scientists would achieve breakthroughs that no one of them 

separate could make. So you have a cost/benefit. 

Then perhaps we might find that in working together we 

wouldn’t, each of us, have to worry so much separately about the 

national security implications of being first in space, of getting 

there firstest with the mostest. We might decide that space is for 

all of us and that it ought to be a serene place and not a warlike 

place. And fourth, from the point of view of science and technology, applications of what we learn to earth problems, the incredible advances in medical technology, in telecommunications, that we have 

already used for health and for education here on Earth as a result 

of space research, well, we could share that and that might be part 

of the glue that binds us together. I see tremendous possibilities in a global effort to achieve these 

25 to 50-year goals in space, and I know that this centrifugal force 

is tearing us apart and scatterizing, destroying joint efforts that 

are great, are there enough centripital forces drawing us to the 

center to counteract these centrifugal forces that are scatterizing 

us to the four winds? 

Is it a desirable thing for the global competitors, based on enlightened self-interest and a feasible possibility, you have had the 

hands-on experience, and you must have a feeling in your central 

nervous system that this is doable, or are they the kind of people 

you might not want to make a commitment to work with over a 

quarter of a century? 
620 

Major SLAYTON. I am in favor of it. Tom and I worked with the 

Russians for about 3 or 4 years in preparation for the Apollo-Soyuz, and Tom was the commander of that crew. 

In 1975, we recommended publicly at that time that we thought it would be a great idea to have a joint mission with the Russians, 

with the Mars exploration thing. We were over there last fall with 

Congressman Nelson and his committee, and pursued those same 

kinds of discussions with him, and I think we received a very favorable reception over there, in general. They were hung up on making a trade for Star Wars, but other 

than that, they thought it was a good idea. Tom and I are going back there again next week, to get a little dialog with them, so my personal opinion is, you have got in a number of excellent points 

that are all in favor of a joint operation in the future, and I am a 

firm believer in that. 

We take a small percentage of the money spent on defense budgets and plow it into joint missions, doing something constructive 

like that, it will be to everybody’s benefit. 

Mr. SCHEUER. General Stafford, you were the commander of that 

joint mission with the Soviets. Can we hear your views? 

General STAFFORD. A lot can be done in a very positive sense. I 

will defer to the idea of taking it out of defense budget, Zeke’s idea. 

A lot can be done. We were very well received. We accomplished a 

lot over there, and I am looking forward to going back over there 

with Deke. 

When you look at the magnitude of a Mars mission, and I have a 

lot of experience working in joint projects, NATO people, Air 

Force, R&D, our experience was this, joint production was fine. Joint R&D was extremely difficult, but on the other hand, like 

Apollo-Soyuz, each had their own vehicle development and developed a minor interface, it worked very well. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Can you take a look at the whole panoply of R&D 

and divvy it up and assign big hunks of it, one hunk to the Europeans, one hunk to the Russians, one to us? 

General STAFFORD. An entity like ESA would take and develop that with the Japanese, that is fine, and worry about the interface, 

assuming it meets a lot of specifications, but to try to integrate R&D across national boundaries has been a very difficult thing. 

It is a good idea to go forward, but you have to use some judicial judgment in how you do go forward. 

Major SLAYTON. The forcing function of having to do that has a 

whole lot of side benefits from a national standpoint. 

Mr. SCHEUER. What would be the best way to get that process 

going among these four groups, the Russians, Japanese, the West 

German consortium, ourselves, perhaps the Canadians, five groups, 

what would be the best way of getting some collective thinking 

going as to how, A, the process of setting long-term goals could be 

established, and B, how the question of the enormously complicated and esoteric research could be established to design something and 

then finally, how the production responsibilities could be allocated? 

What would be the mechanism by which these five groups would 

be thinking through these problems? Major SLAYTON. Let me take one shot at it. In my opinion, the 

first step has to be to get a dialogue going with the Russians, and 
621 

today, you can’t do that, because as I indicated earlier, they are 

holding everything we were proposing to them in that time frame 

hostage to Star Wars, so until you can break that logjam and get a 

dialogue going, you can’t go anywhere with it, but presuming you 

get over that hump, dealing with those guys is not like talking to 

the Canadians, but we certainly know how to do it. 

Once you get everybody in the same room, get around and jointly 

discuss goals from a technical point of view, instead of poltiical. Obviously, the political ends up being the prime driver in the long 

haul. 

Mr. SCHEUER. I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman, but as a parenthetical footnote, one of the great payoffs of such a collective 

effort would be that no one of the parties involved would have to 

worry about the other guy having Star Wars, because they would 

all have Star Wars and space would be a collective thing for all 

mankind, and not the property of any one nation that would 

threaten others. 

However, you might describe the threat as reasonable or unreasonable, that would be one of the major payoffs. 

Mr. ROE. If the gentleman would yield now to the distinguished 

gentleman from Florida, Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a little sideline 

on this issue, but Tom and Deke are going over there again to 

Moscow, a follow-up to the reunion that we had when they had the 

10-year reunion here in Washington, and Tom and Deke went over 

with our committee, had this marvelous reunion with the kosmonauts and their families, and it was on that occasion we saw things 

that Americans have not seen in 10 years, we went to Star City, 

their mission control, updated mission control, and so forth. 

I throw this in because Tom told me this 2 days ago. Vance 

Brand was not able to go with us because his wife was having a 

baby, and he was a third member of the Apollo team, and in the 

The US. State Department is objecting to Vance Brand going to 

Moscow next week with Deke and Tom, because he is an active astronaut. I have asked John about this, and he doesn’t see any particular problem. 

Apollo-Soyuz dock-up. 

Captain YOUNG. Isaid I don’t know anything about it. 

Mr. NELSON. OK, do you have a particular problem with it? 

Captain YOUNG. Idon’t know anything about it. I would like to 

know what the State Department problem is, but I don’t have any 

idea. 

Mr. NELSON. Let’s use this as a forum to try to get the message 

to the State Department which I have spoken to one State Department person, and we have called the State Department, let’s see if 

we can’t get Vance Brand on the way to pursue what seems to be a 

very promising area of discussion, and we might say that since the 

Summit in Geneva, there have been some positive signs on the 

question of space cooperation coming forth from the Soviets, and 

let’s see if we can get that accomplished. John, that was an accurate response by you. I didn’t mean to put 

you on the spot there. I know you don’t know anything about it, 

and maybe that says something about the system, too, that you 
622 

don’t know anything about it, that it is the State Department doing that. 

Mr. SCHEUER. Will my colleague yield? 

Mr. NELSON. Certainly 

Mr. SCHEUER. It seems to me that somebody over at the State Department is an avid reader of Mr. LeCarre, and some of the other 

writers in this genre of international spy mystery thrillers. 

I remember having read something about snatches that were 

made, people impersonating other people, and if I were in the State 

Department and I wanted to conjure up a worst case theory, I 

could think of a possible scenario whereby it might be dangerous for us to send an astronaut over there who was active, privy to the 

most top secret, state of the art events going on here, and maybe they could have a mirror image of each one of the astronauts ready 

to snatch and replace, but unless you engage in that kind of fantasy, and in that kind of hysteria, I would be hard put to think of a 

legitimate reason for not sending a tough, sophisticated profession- al astronaut over there in the company of his colleagues and other 

American professionals to reason a bit, to rationalize a bit with 

their Russian equals, and I certainly would echo that feeling, Mr. 

Chairman, that this committee and you surely have a role in sitting down with the State Department, finding out what are their 

concerns, above and beyond the John LeCarre genre. 

Mr. ROE. It is amazing they don’t have any objection to sending 

Members of Congress. Mr. SCHEUER. I would feel a little bit offended, to think that we 

would be-- 

Mr. ROE. I don’t think you could be cloned. 

Mr. Nelson. 

Mr. NELSON. First of all, the issue we are discussing about the 

question of what is the appropriate technology for a replacement orbiter, the real question is how are we going to have American assured access to space for the duration of this century until such a 

new technology, aerospace plane, if it proves out, is operational, 

which is not until the next century, and so it seems that we have 

heard ample testimony here, despite the fact that you get frustrated from time to time, because the explanations, Mr. Chairman, are 

technical and we need it in black and white, that says we need it 

for this reason, and basically that reason is, assured access to space and in this particular case, this is our vehicle for manned access to 

space. 

Now the question of the funding, we are talking about not $3 billion or $3.2, we are talking about around $1.82 billion for the orbiter. The $2.8 billion figure fm a replacement cost came when you added all the things that were in Challenger and lost in the explosion which included the TDRSS satellite cradle, the manipulator 

arm, the space suits, upper stage, et cetera, so you are looking at a 

cost more of around $2 billion for a replacement of a specific orbiter, and as we talk about this question of assured access, let us 

hasten to remember that the Soviets now have the third generation of space station up there which gives them that 24-hour presence 7 

days a week for things that we look forward to, such as material 

processing which we can only get in snatches and bits now as we 

take a shuttle mission up, and then that question of the possibility 
of new materials and new drugs, et cetera, all then folds into the 

question of the space station, and our ability to assemble it, to resupply it, and then do all the other things, science as well as national security things, that have to go on a manned vehicle as a 

shuttle. 

You ccime then, after all of those considerations, let the record 

show clearly, you come down to the bottom line for the sake of assured access to space you have to have a replacement for Challenger, and I hope that the record will reflect that and I thank you, Mr. 

Chairman, for raising that issue so we could have the record reflect 

it from this very distinguished and very articulate panel that we 

have before the committee today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from Florida for his eloquent remarks. We want to thank you-the distinguished gentleman from 

Pennsylvania. 

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman. We did have quite a discussion here 

a moment about sending Vance Brand to the Soviet Union. I think 

also we ought to ask some questions, but it does occur to this gentleman that far more than just spy novels, there might be some 

reason the State Department might have about sending an active 

astronaut versus two people who are in policy posts, and also at a 

time when our space program is in some trouble, that having an 

active astronaut in the Soviet Union might give them some propaganda value that having two former astronauts would not necessarily give them. 

There may be some legitimate concerns that the State Department would have and I am willing to explore it, but suggest all 

they are doing is suggesting the spy novel scenarios, and so on, we 

maybe ought to ask the question rather than doing that kind of 

speculation here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROE. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I want to 

thank you all for being with us and having the patience for sitting 

through what we are trying to rehash. I think you represent to 

America the people who really have been specially selected to fly 

the spacecraft, and that is what I want to call them, spacecrafts, so 

is what they are so the credibility of having you here today and 

making the observations you made, and of course, this will be photographed and sent throughout the Nation and what we are trying 

to achieve, what we are trying to do on this committee is to get the 

three branches, the three legs we talked about together. 

You started now today on the policy issues. We feel that at least 

as far as this member is concerned, and I am sure most of the 

others, pretty well exhausted the technology relating specifically to 

the accident. We think we have done that. I think we have some 

additional work to do, as far as management issues are concerned, 

we need a little bit more work on that, and to get into the policy 

end of it, but what you have contributed today above and beyond 

the obvious excellent testimony is almost unanimous observation, 

and you come from different domains, if you like, at the particular 

stages at the moment, in order for America to move ahead and 

move ahead with dispatch, and to recapture or sustain our leadership, we have to go ahead with the fourth orbiter at least, and that 
624 

is one of the most important points that is emerging, and emerging 

from a credible group of witnesses. 

Did you say something? 

So having said that, we want to thank you for your patience, intelligence you have contributed greatly to the committee’s deliberations, and if we need you again on some of the policy issues as they 

emerge, we will be calling you back. 

The committee will stand adjourned, and we are working out 

schedules that we will be working on for when we return after July 

4. 

Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
APPENDIXES 

July 15, 1986 

Honorable Robert A. Roe 

Committee on Science and Technology 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Washington, O.C. 20515 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

During our ,June 11, 1986 hearing on the Space Shuttle Challenger 

accident I referred to four studies that had assessed the risk of 

failure of the solid fuel rocket hooster. As you recall, I 

mentioned that between 1990 and 1985 NASA and the Air Force 

coiranissioned three studies on the odds of a shuttle booster 

failure. NASA came up with a much more optimistic figure after 

these studies were completed. At this point, Chairman Fuqua indicated that some question exists as to whether these studies had 

been comlnissioned by the Department of the Air Force or NASA. In 

light of the question raised hy Mr. Fuqua, I have prepared the 

following for inclusio? into the record imediately following our 

colloquy. 

Wi%h every warm best wish, 

Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated. 

Sincerely, 

JAMES H. SCHEUER 

Chairman 

Subcomittee on Natural Resources, 

Agriculture Research and Environment 

JHSl Sd j s 

Attachment 
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

US. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515 

July 15, 1986 

MEMORANDUM 

TO : 

FROM: James H. Scheuer, Chairman 

Robert A. Roe, Chairman 

Subcommittee on Natural Resources , Agriculture 

Research and Environment 

Reports on probability estimates for space shuttle 

failure 

SUBJECT: 

During our hearing on June 11, 1986, I questioned the NASA 

witnesses on three studies predicting the probability of space 

shuttle failures, including the solid rocket boosters. It was 

suggested that these studies were in fact commissioned by the 

Department of Energy. A review of this matter indicates that 

indeed the studies were commissioned by NASA and the Air Force 

(except the the fourth report, which was issued by NASA itself). 

The background is as follows:' 

1. In 1978 NASA asked the J.H. Wiggins Company to evaluate 

the safety implications of eliminating the range safety 

destruct system for the shuttle. (Contract NAS 10-9374). 

This work involved identifying shuttle failure modes from 

launch to main engine cutoff (MECO) and quantifying their 

probabi 1 i ty of occurence. This report was called' "Space 

Shuttle Range Safety Hazards Analysis'' , Technical Report 

81-1329 prepared for NASA Kennedy Space Center, July 1981. 

This work, which was not released for about 3 years after 

its completion, was followed by an additional J.H. Wiggins 

Company analysis that assigned probability numbers to 

shuttle failure modes from MECO to payload separation (TR 

No. 79-1359, October 11, 1979). 

2. In December 1983 Sierra Energy and Risk Assessment (SERA) 

issued a report by R. K. Weatherwax and E. W. Colglazier. 

The report analyzed the Wiggins study and concluded that 

it seriously understated shuttle risks. SERA was a subcontractor to Teledyne Energy Systems, Inc. under a contract 
627 

MEMORANDUM TO 

July 15, 1986 

Page Two 

Robert A. Roe, Chairman 

to the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Air Force Systems 

Command, Kirtland Air Force Base, NM, as part of their 

advisory capacity to the DOD representative to the Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Panel . (AFWL-TR-83-61) The 

panel was concerned with the risks of using a liquid 

hydrogen upper stage, known as Centaur, and a nuclear 

radioisotope powered interplanetary orbiter such as the 

Galileo mission to Jupiter. "Review of Shuttle/Centaur 

Failure Probability Estimates for Space Nuclear Mission 

Applications." 

report examining the two earlier reports. The report had 

been requested by the Air Force Weapons Laboratory as a 

continuation of the Air Force's independent evaluation of 

range safety. The Sandia report was prepared under 

Contract DE-AC04-76DP000789 for the U.S. Department of 

Energy at the request of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory. 

The Sandia report identified some areas in which more justification would improve the Wiggins' reports credibility 

and traceability. 

SERA did not adequately support their conclusions that 

current probability estimates could be low by several 

orders of magnitude. "Review and Evaluation of Wiggins' 

and SERA'S Space Shuttle Range Safety Hazards Reports for 

the Air Force Weapons Laboratory." 

In February 15, 1985 NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center 

produced "Space Shuttle Data for Planetary Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) Safety Analysis." 

(JSC 08116) The document analyzed the Galileo and Ulysses 

Spacecraft missions to be flown on the shuttle. The two 

planetary probes would use nuclear radioisotope generators 

for electrical power and Centaur liquid hydrogen fueled 

boosters to carry them from shuttle orbit into interplanetary space. NASA examined the potential impacts of catastrophic failures on the shuttle and its payload, in part 

using the J.H. Wiggins analyses to assign probabilities to 

these fai 1 ure modes. 

3. In December 1984 Sandia National Laboratories issued a 

The Sandia report also concluded that 

4. 
JUNE 11 HEARING - APPENDIX 512 

Responses to written questions submitted by Chrm. Roe during the 

June 11, 1986, hearing. 

Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance 

QUESTION 1: 

There is concern that NASA makes little distinction between 

safety engineering, reliability engineering and quality assurance 

activities at various levels within the Shuttle program. For 

example, the reporting at the Marshall Space Flight Center for 

safety, reliability and quality assurance is through the 

Engineering Directorate. 

Do you regard this as appropriate? Should those who control 

Shuttle design and fabrication activities have authority over 

those who must certify that these activities are being performed 

appropriately? 

ANSWER 1: 

On July 8, 1986, NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher 

announced the establishment of the new Office of Safety, 

Reliability and Quality Assurance (SR&QA). Mr. George A. Rodney 

was appointed to head the office as Associate Administrator for 

SRGQA. He will report directly to the Administrator and will 

have authority throughout the agency. In that capacity he will 

address the concerns raised in this question. The objectives of 

the office are to ensure a NASA SRSQA program that monitors 

equipment status, design validation, problem analysis and system 

acceptability in agency-wide plans and programs. 

The responsibilities of the Associate Administrator will include 

the oversight of safety, reliability and quality assurance 

functions related to all NASA activities and programs. In 

addition, he will be responsible for the direction of reporting 

and documentation of problems, problem resolution and trends 

associated with safety. Specific activities are to: 

-- Ensure that SRGQA policies, plans, procedures and 

standards are established, documented, maintained, communicated 

and implemented. 

-- Direct thorough, prompt and accurate investigation, 

reporting and analysis of all NASA mishaps, incidents and 

accidents and to ensure resolution of all investigation-related 

recommendations. 

-- Ensure that a fully documented trend analysis program is 

conducted that includes accurate reporting of anomalies. 

-- Ensure that SRGQA issues are fully considered during 

design reviews, flight readiness reviews, test readiness reviews, 

operational readiness reviews or equivalent formal reviews which 

are conducted prior to start up of operations for ground 

facilities, manned and unmanned launch operations, aircraft 

flight programs and acceptance testing of experimental facilities 
629 

and hardware having significant risk to persons or property. 

-- Ensure that field installation SRdQA organizations are staffed with sufficient and qualified professional personnel to 

ensure accomplishment of assigned tasks. 

QUESTION 2: 

NASA has made the argument that the maturing of technology in the 

Shuttle program reduces that need for intensive quality and 

reliability control. 

Were cracks in the SSME's allowed more recently when originally 

no cracks were permitted? Has the number of inspections been 

reduced? For example has propellant X-rays been reduced relative 

to early flights? Is it perhaps time to revisit this issue and 

find ways and means to increase these activities as we proceed 

into the next phase of the Shuttle program? 

ANSWER 2: 

As noted in the answer to question number one, NASA's entire 

Safety, Reliability and Quality Control program will be 

reassessed by the recently named Associate Administrator. In 

response to your specific question.about cracks in the SSME's, 

there are two types that occur and concern us. 

Could you please explain this position? 

1) Cracked Turbine Blades-Various cracks that are known to 

propagate fast have been and always will be unacceptable. A 

leading edge crack in a blade is an example of this type of 

crack. There are other cracks that take 10 to 20 tests to 

propagate to an unacceptable level. To be able to fly with the 

potential of these types of cracks, margin testing is performed. 

In other words, to be able to fly a turbine blade with a 

potential crack at'10 flights, we will take known cracked blades 

and test them for 20 flights. The airline industry has long had 

procedures to fly wings blades, etc. with known cracks, but they, 

like us, must demonstrate margin. 

2) Cracked or Flawed Welds-The SSME has miles of welds and 

because an unending pursuit has been made to improve the welds 

and inspections, rarely does a problem weld slip through an 

inspection. The failure last year of a weld on engine 2308 has 

brought with it even better inspection techniques. All Class One 

welds are 100 percent x-rayed and inspected. 

In summary, cracks in the SSME are no more tolerated now than 

they have been in the past. On the contrary, inspections to find 

cracks have increased in both quality and quantity over the life 

of the program. 

With regard to your question about x-rays of propellant, early 

flight- solid rocket motors were x-rayed. During the operational 

phase, the aft casting segments and any casting segment 

experiencing a design change or anomaly have been x-rayed. 
630 

QUESTION 3: 

If NASA's quality control procedures were functioning throughout 

the Shuttle program, how is it possible that certain important 

certification procedures as they related to temperature effects 

on the SRB joints were improperly performed, and in many cases, 

not even accomplished, although quality assurance personnel 

signed documents that indicated that the tests were done? 

ANSWER 3: 

Early in the program, verification of the SRM to induced 

temperature requirements was planned through both analyOis and 

test. Eventually, Morton Thiokol certified the joint for induced 

temperature through analysis only. In retrospect, this was 

inadequate. Additionally, when questioned by the NASA Data and 

Design Analysis Task Force during the accident investigation, 

they stated that the vertical flight environmental requirement 

had been misinterpreted for a storage requirement. Finally, 

NASA's acceptance of the certification was based on the 

specification for the O-ring material. It has an operating range 

between minus 30 and plus 500 degrees Fahrenheit. The acceptance 

should have been based on the performance of the entire joint at 

temperature extremes rather than the specification for this 

single component. 

QUESTION 4: 

What sort of certification tests should have been done in order 

to assure the program management that sufficient data was 

available to make a meaningful judgment on whether or not the 

solid rocket motor field joint would perform satisfactorily under 

the environmental conditions encountered? 

ANSWER 4: 

The Solid Rocket Motor redesign team is currently involved in a 

study to answer this question to ensure that the redesigned joint 

is properly certified to operate throughout the environmental 

conditions encountered. They will be assisted by an Oversight 

Committee and the National Research Council (NRC) Panel which 

includes well-known authorities in the field of propulsion, 

materials, structures, reliability, and aerospace engineering, as 

well as experts in related industrial technologies. The 

Oversight Committee and the NRC Panel will pass judgment on the 

SRM redesign team's findings. 

QUESTION 5: 

"How would you confirm that any redesign was an improvement over 

the present design? That is, what certification tests would be 

planned to assure that any redesign of the joint would not 

produce the catastrophic failure experienced by the Challenger?" 

ANSWER 5: 

The verification plan that is being implemented includes tests on 

subscale fixtures, full segments, and flight configuration solid 
631 

rocket motors. The subscale tests will be conducted on fixtures 

less than two feet in diameter simulating field joints primarily 

to evaluate sealing performance using various seal types and 

materials under wide temperatures and dimensional extremes. 

Other subscale tests will be conducted on small motors hot fired 

to evaluate seals, Insulation, thermal behavior, etc., with 

varying tolerances. Full size joints will be tested to evaluate 

and develop joint environmental protection (temperature and rain) 

designs and to verify computer models of joint dynamic behavior. 

Three to five full size segments will be assembled into two 

shortened motors containing inert propellnt. Small Igniters will 

be installed in these shortened motors and fired to produce near 

identical pressure profiles as experienced during actual SRM 

ignition. These shortened motor tests will be used to evaluate 

the joint. movement under dynamic conditions and the pressuring 

hot gas dynamic effect on the insulation gap and joint sealing 

capability. Appropriate full size segments will be assembled 

into a structural test article that will be subjected to flight 

loading conditions. Finally, four full scale motor static hot 

firings are planned to be tested either horizontally or 

vertically. All these tests, to be conducted over the SRM 

operational environment range coupled with detailed extensive 

analysis, will assure that the redesigned joint will not 

experience the failure experienced by the Challenger. 

QUESTION 6: 

"It is our understanding that Marshall has responsibility for 

reviewing proposals for a monolithic SRB design?" 

ANSWER 6: 

Yes, that is correct. 

QUESTION 6A: 

What is the status of these reviews, 

feelings regarding the advisability to 

design of an SRB? 

and what is your present 

proceed into a monolithic 

ANSWER 6A: 

MSFC has received an unsolicited proposal from Aerojet. This 

proposal is currently being assessed by the MSFC Procurement 

Office to determine the compatibility and acceptability of the 

proposal with the current procurement regulations. Since a 

technical and programmatic evaluation of this proposal has not 

been performed, MSFC is not able to respond to the question on 

advisability to proceed into a monolithic design of an SRB. 

QUESTION 7: 

"We understand that the monolithic SRB design would require at 

least three to four years of development and testing in order to 

certify its suitability for flights. What is your estimate of 

costs and schedule to produce a monolithic SRB design?" 
632 

ANSWER 7: 

Based on historical experiecce 06 development of large Solid 

Rocket Motors (SRM), it is' estimated a minimum of four years 

would be required to design/develop and qualify a monolithic 

Shuttle SRM. The current Shuttle SRM required approximately six 

years from initiation of the contract to completion of 

qualification. There would be some reduction in that time period 

on the basis of the experience gained during the Shuttle SRM 

development program assuming the development of a performance 

identical monolithic SRB design. Using the Shuttle SRM 

development cost as a basis for projecting the cost of developing 

a monolithic Shuttle SRM, the estimated cost would be $500 - $600 

million in real year dollars. This very preliminary estimate is 

based on taking the Shuttle SRM cost and escalating that cost to 

the time frame for development of a monolithic Shuttle SRM. 

QUESTION 7A: 

"What facilities would be required to test such a design and do 

such facilities exist?" 

ANSWER 7A: 

A facility with capabilities similar to the current T-24 complex 

at Morton Thiokol (see Attachment 1, hereto) would be required. 

The only known existing facility with such capability is the 

Morton Thiokol facility at Wasatch, Utah. Even this facility 

would require modification to access the motor into the stand and 

handle the monolithic design, i.e., new cranes, air bearings, 

transporter, etc. 

Certification 

QUESTION 8: 

"Prior to the first Space Shuttle Launch, George Hardy (the SRB 

Project Director) signed a verification statement that all SRB 

certification requirements had been met by Thiokol. Larry Mulloy 

(the then current SRB Project Director) signed a similar 

verification statement before the fifth Space Shuttle flight, On 

what basis were these verification statements signed?" 

ANSWER 8: 

The basis for the certification prior to the first flight was: 

1) Project experience gained through the day-to-day 

Involvement in the project development and qualification 

activities; but more importantly, the review and counsel derived 

from the Design Review and Certification process. This process 

consists of the Preliminary Requirements Review (PRR), 

Preliminary Design Review (PDR), Critical Design Review (CDR), 

and Design Certification Review (DCR). These reviews are 

conducted by teams of senior engineers from the contractor, MSFC 

and other NASA Centers. These teams report the result of their 

reviews to a Board chaired by the Project Manager and made up of 

senior engineers from MSFC, other Centers, and outside industry 
Present Facility Description (T-24) 

MORTON TniolcoL IN~ 

Space Dlvlrlon 

INFORMATION W THIS PAGE WAS PRfPAAED TO WPPOAT AN ORIL PAFSfNTIIION 
Present Facilitv Description (Cont) 

Reaction mass 

20 x 59 x 18.5 ft high 

20,000,000 Ib concrete 

60-ton steel plates 

Rear pit (20 x 10 x 15 ft d

Crane 

200 ton at 39 ft hook heig

5 ton at 29 ft hook height 

Environmental house 

30 x 154 ft retractable 

Temperature control--heat 

MORTONTHHXOL INC - 

Space Division ' 

INFORMATION Of THIS PAGE Was PREPLREO 10 SUPPORT AN ORAL PRESfNlIlION 
Present Facility Description (Cont) 

Quench KO21 

Forward 

Aft 

64,000 Ib Cog 

Purge 

Nitrogen 

Water deluge and 

Skirt 

Hydrazine service 

Hydraulic service c

Handling 

Air bearings 

Rounding rings 

MORTON THIOKOL INC 

Space Diviwon 

INFOAMIllON OF 11115 PAGE WAS PnEPARfD 10 SUPPORT AN ORIL PR,ESENTNION ,ll, Ilar ,,,an, fi 
Present Facility Description (Cont) 

MORTON THIOKOL. IK 

Space Division ' 

lNfOALAllON OF THIS PAGE WAS PREPARED 10 SUPPORT AM OR#& PRESENlATlDN "Lrn ,-"L,.rnV oc rn..r.nrmrn C_..D.ClC '...'.,< ),,, ,,(r (,,lA, ,l.Cr,IrC.n., 7 
Present Facility Description (Cont) 

L 

MORTONTHIOKOL. Iw. 

Space Division . 

INFORMATION OF THIS PACE WAS PREPARED TO WPPORl AN ORU PRESENl&TION -..T -,,, ".... 
Present Facility Description (Cont) 

c 

MORTON THIOKOL. Iw 

Space Division . 

9. INFORMATION W TWS PAGE WAS PREPARID 10 YlPPORl 1N ORU PRESENIATION ..~ . .* ,. ,,., , ,,.. , 
SRM Test Stand Force Measuremen

Notes: 

~ 

# 

1. 

2. 

3. 

~~ 

All load elements are 

compression positive 

Test load cells are numbered 

,@ 

1 thru 15 

Calibration load cells are 

numbered 16 thru 20 

4. 0 Struts 

5. 1-10 (460KI 

MCJRT~ THIOKOL. INC 

Space Division 

INFCRMATION TY IYfZ PIG6 WAS PAIPARIO 10 SIJPPOAT AN OAIl PRISCNIAIION _- 
SRM Test Stand Force Measureme

L 

Axial thrust 

4.6 M Ib 

Ten 460,000 Ib load cells (five co

3.5 M Ib roll flexure 

Verification load system 

Aft side load 

650KIb 

Two 325K Ib load cells 

Full-calibration system 

Fwd side load 

150KIb 

One load cell 

Full-calibration system 

MORTON TMIOKOL INC 

SpdCC Diviwon 

. ..- 
641 

c 
SRM Aft Test Stand 

c 

MO(ITONTHIOKOL.INC. 

Space Division 

~WoRMaltoL( "6 THIS PACF WAS PREPARED 10 SUPPORT AN ORM PRfSfNlAlION ." 
Present Instrumentation 

c 

Digital 

A system 

B system 

C system 

D system 

Total 

FM 

Direct 

Multiplex (2KC) 

Single carrier (20KC) 

Timing 

Total 

Total channels 

MORTON THlOKol. INC 

space Division 

IW-ATION OF THlS PAGE WIS PRIPIRfO TO WPPORl AN ORll PRfSLWIAlION 
Present Instrumentation (Cont) 

Digital Instrumentation System 

Conlrol 

Recorder 

Master 

Computer 

System Control 

I 

I 1- 

MORTON THIOKOL INC 

Space Diviwon 

INFORMATION OF THIS PAGE WAS PREPARlD 10 WPPORT AN ORAL PntStNINION 
Present Instrumentation (Cont) 

Digital Data System 

L 

647 

and defense leaders. The objective of these reviews is to assure 

that the design is being developed and verified consistent with 

requirements and good engineering practices. 

2) Formal certification by Morton Thiokol, Inc. (MTI) on the 

Certificate of Qualification (COQ) with supporting evidence 

documentation that the joint had been qualified to all contract 

requirements. This COQ and its evidencing documentation is 

reviewed and concurred in by the MSFC laboratories, approved by 

the Quality and Reliability Assurance Office and the SRM Chief 

Engineer. Based on these reviews and approvals, the Project 

Manager makes the final approval. 

The' basis for certification before the fifth flight was a 

Vehicle Certification Review for the lightweight SRM. In that 

review, only subsystems affected by the weight reduction were 

recertified. Other subsystems were certified by similarity to 

the STS-I configuration and the basis for that certification was 

not re-evaluated. 

Adequacy of Design 

QUESTION 9: 

"The Rogers Commission concluded that there was sufficient data 

in the August 19, 1985, briefing by Thiokol to NASA for NASA to 

suspend Space Shuttle flights until the problem was fixed. Yet, 

the Thiokol conclusions in that briefing stated that "analysis of 

existing data indicates that it is safe to continue flying (the) 

existing (joint) design ....*. Why did Thiokol conclude this? 

ANSWER 9: 

The August 19, 1985, meeting was stimulated by incidence of 

O-ring erosion, and more specifically, the violation of the 

primary O-ring in the nozzle joint of STS-SIB and the 0.032 in. 

erosion noted on the secondary O-ring of that nozzle joint. That 

condition was attributed to not detecting a bad primary seal 

because of the vacuum putty masking the 100 psig stabilization 

pressure during leak check of the nozzle. A detailed erosion 

analysis of the nozzle O-ring on STS-51B indicated that the 

primary O-ring never sealed at ignition in order to sustain the 

erosion observed. The O-ring erosion computer model accurately 

predicted the observed erosion as a combined jet impingement and 

blow-by erosion at ignition. This same model then predicted the 

erosion observed on the secondary face seal of the nozzle around 

the corner. The conclusion was that this condition would not be 

encountered again because proper corrective action had already 

been taken; all joints were being leak checked with a 200 psig 

stabilization pressure to prevent putty from masking the leak 

check allowing a bad seal to go undetected. It was also 

concluded that the STS-SIB problem may be unique to the 

nozzle-to-case joint because the primary nozzle O-ring groove was 

considerably wider than the field joint (0.375 in. vs 0.305 in.) 

and the O-ring was also smaller (0.275 in. vs 0.280 in.), and 

therefore had farther to travel after the leak check had forced 

the primary O-ring into the wrong side of the O-ring groove. 
648 

The nozzle secondary face seal was considered to be a good seal 

under all conditions. Cold gas pressurization and hot gas 

erosion tests conducted with subscale hardware on full size 

O-rings indicated that primary O-rings in either nozzle or field 

joints could sustain up to 0.145 - 0.161 in. erosion before they 

would fail. 

Based upon prior history from flight motors, the worst O-ring 

erosion noted in a field joint was 0.053 in. on STS-2 and 

excluding STS-SlB, the worst jet impingement erosion noted on a 

flight nozzle was 0.068 in. on STS-51D. 

This represented safety factors of 2.7 and 2.1, respectively, on 

erosion of the primary O-rings. Only one secondary O-ring ever 

sustained erosion. That was on STS-51B and that O-ring exhibited 

0.032 in. erosion; 4.5 times greater erosion is needed for 

failure. 

O-ring blow-by was less understood at that time and had been 

observed in a field joint on one flight STS-51C, and excluding 

STS-SlB, on nozzles from just three flights, STS-6, STS-51C, and 

STS-51G. Two of these flights, STS-6 and STS-51C, had evidenced 

slight blow-by on the nozzle with no erosion. The blow-by 

observed on the field joint of STS-51C was attributed to the cold 

weather experienced prior to that flight which resulted in the 

coldest O-ring temperature (53'F) ever flown. This flight was 

preceded by the three coldest days in Florida history. STS-51C 

was considered to be the worst case condition which would not 

occur again. The conditions observed on STS-51C, although not 

desirable, were considered acceptable. The blow-by observed on 

the field joints of STS-51C resulted in the O-ring resiliency 

testing that showed that cold O-rings could not keep up with the 

joint opening. 

It was because of this O-ring resiliency data that Morton Thiokol 

concluded that the field joint was most critical and that was 

highlighted on Page C-1 of the August 19, 1985, presentation 

under Primarv Concerns - Field Joint - Joint deflection and 

secondary O-ring resiliency. Page C-2 showed that the bench 

testing conducted indicated that the o-ring was capable of 

maintakng contact with the metal parts for ihe initial phase 

(0-170 msec) of the ignition transient but not for the total gap 

opening. It was concluded that blow-by occurred early in the 

ignition transient (0-170 msec) during the seating phase of the 

primary O-ring. That is why there was never observed erosion on 

the secondary O-ring. 

In the conclusions on Page D-15 of the August 19, 1985, 

presentation, it was noted that, "The primary O-ring in the field 

joint should not erode through, but if it leaks due to erosion or 

lack of sealing, the secondary seal may not seal the motor." On 

the nert page, the first recommendation was: "The lack of a good 

secondary seal In the field joint is most critical and ways to 

reduce joint rotation should be Incorporated as soon as possible 

to reduce criticality." The conclusion was that if the same 

condition was experienced in the field joint that had been 

observed on the STS-51B nozzle joint, the jolnt may not survive. 

In order to assure that condition doesn't happen again, it is 
Primary C

Field joint--joint deflection and second

Nozzle joint--circumferential gas flow 

Igniter Gask-0-Seal-seal overfill and r

MORTON biiono~. INC. ' 

wanld, Opcra11onr 

___ 

c-
Primary Con

ricld joiitt--liigliest concern 

Reclassilication of SRM field joint 

the SRB CIL by Change No. 23 on 

Erosion penetration of primary se

pressure integrity 

Ignition transient (0 to 600 

0 to 170 msec: 

seal 

h

. 170 to 330 msec: re

s

330 to 600 msec: h

c

Steady state--600 msec to 2 mln 

If erosion penetrates prima

secondary seal capability 

Bench testing showe

contact with metal p

- Bench testing showe

during initial phase (0 

Undefined potential circumferenti

joint gaps with vacuum putty - ne

MOIUONTIIIOKOL __ INC , 

w.lnI'I, O~,r,moar C
General C

All O-ring erosion has occurred where 

fornied 

Gas paths in tlie vacuum putty can oc

during motor pressurization 

Improved filler materials or layup confi

check of the primary O-rings may redu

probably not eliminate it or reduce tlie 

Elimination of vacuum putty in a tighte

if circumferential flow is not present - 

may be required 

Erosion in tho nozzle joint is more seve

secondary seal in tlie nozzle will seal a

The primary O-ring in the field joint sh

to erosion or lack of sealing the secon

The igniter Gaslc-0-Seal design is adeq

inspections are made to eliminate ove

D-
652 

necessary to eliminate any conditions that could prevent a 

primary O-ring from sealing during the first 170 msec. It was 

concluded that analysis of existing data indicates that is safe 

to continue flying the existing design as long as all joints were 

leak checked with a 200 psig stabilization pressure, are free of 

contamination in the seal areas and meet O-ring squeeze 

requirements. It was believed that if this was done, it would 

eliminate any potential of blow-by beyond 170 msec and the only 

problem that might be encountered is jet impingement erosion on 

the primary O-ring due to holes in the putty. This jet 

impingement was limited to the ignition transient of 600 msec and 

margins of safety greater than 2.0 for this condition hgd been 

demonstrated. 

QUESTION 9A: 

"Why did NASA not disagree?" 

ANSWER 9A: 

At the time of the August 19, 1985, briefing, seven flights and 

two ground test motors had experienced O-ring erosion plus other 

occurrence of heat affect and/or blow-by. Each of these 

observations had been analyzed in ,the Flight Readiness Review 

process and a rationale for flight established and accepted at 

Levels I1 and I. Based on Thiokol's conclusion that the joint 

was safe as long as there was a 200 psig leak check, no 

contamination and proper squeeze, NASA believed there was no 

basis for disagreement. However, had NASA recognized that a 

proviso regarding O-ring resiliency should have been included, 

the agency would have disagree. 

QUESTION 10: 

"Thiokol and Marshall first learned of the existence of "joint 

rotation" in a "hydroburst test" in 1977. However, throughout 

subsequent years, the two organizations could never agree on just 

how much rotation did occur. A final "referee" test was not 

concluded until after the 51-L accident." 

o "Why did it take nine years for Thiokol and Marshall to set up 

the tests required to resolve this critical issue?" 

ANSWER 10: 

The first "joint rotation" was observed in the late 1977 

hydroburst test where O-rings were extruded into the sealing gap. 

These tests indicated that the seal would work properly even with 

joint rotation. Since the sealing of the joint was secure even 

well above the performance requirements and all joint assemblies 

have leak checks, joint performance and calculation of O-ring 

squeeze continued to be accomplished with "worst-on-vorst" design 

parameters. Later tests conducted with the structural test 

article (STA-1) in 1978 and 1979 indicated more joint rotation 

than was observed on the initial tests in 1977. Questions were 

raised relative to the validity of the instrumentation and data 

from STA-I taken from a single location (through the leak check 

port) in a horizontal position. However, extrusion tests were 
653 

conducted which showed that the SRM joint would seal properly 

with an extrusion gap more than twice that observed on STA-1 with 

five times the maximum expected operating pressure. 

Worst-on-worst dimensional tolerance analyses (thinnest tang, 

maximum clevis width, maximum O-ring groove, minimum thickness 

O-ring) with the measured gap opening from STA-I, also indicated 

it would be possible to lose the squeeze on the secondary O-ring. 

Because of this, the O-ring size was increased and joint 

tolerances were decreased to maximize O-ring squeeze and 

dimensional measurements of the clevis and tang were instituted 

on every flight set of motors to assure that adequate-O-ring 

squeeze was maintained on both the primary and secondary O-rings 

to assure seal redundancy. For these reasons, joing rotation 

performance was considered adequate for flight even though the 

exact extent of rotation was still a controversy. To obtain 

additional data on the exact magnitude of joint rotation, 

measurements were taken at Morton Thiokol in vertical hydrotests 

at 12 percent over the maximum expected operating pressure, on 

flight hardware being processed through the refurbishment cycle. 

This course was followed in lieu of dedicating hardware to 

resolve the controversy. This data indicated less rotation than 

was measured on STA-I. 

With the on-set of O-ring erosion problems, the referee test was 

implemented to resolve these differences and look at increasing 

the margin in the joint as well as determining the rotation at 

various locations around the entire joint rather than at only a 

single location. The referee test confirmed the smaller joint 

rotation values and also confirmed that these values were 

uniform around the joint. 

The bottom line of why it took nine years, is that we thought the 

performance was adequate even though the exact magnitude of 

rotation was a controversy. Also, additional data were obtained 

by measureing flight hardware being processed through the 

refurbishment cycle. With the advent of O-ring erosion problems 

resolution took on a new emphasis in the context of increasing 

the margin in the joint; therefore, the referee test was devised. 

It should be noted the referee test was devised and preparations 

for the test were in process prior to STS 51-L. 

QUESTION 11: 

"How much of the Shuttle SRB design is based on the Titan 

design?" "Please explain or elaborate on the following: 

o Shuttle SRB tang and clevis are revised from the Titan. 

o Shuttle SRB tang is longer than on the Titan, thus 

contributing to more joint rotation on the Shuttle SRB than 

on the Titan. 

- Titan has only one seal, the Shuttle has two. 

- Titan insulation of one case fits tightly against the 

insulation of the adjacent case to form a more gas-tight 

fit than the Thiokol design. 
o It appears that a great deal of the Shuttle SRB design 

originated from the Titan. How much of the Shuttle testing 

was done by analysis based upon the Titan data base? 

the Titan and Shuttle SRB enough alike to result in reliable 

analyses?" 

Are 

ANSWER 11: 

At the time that design of the Shuttle SRB case segments was 

begun, the majority of experience with such designs had been 

developed by the Titan I11 SRB program. The Shuttle SRB-design 

was, therefore, based on the Titan SRB design. However, the 

Shuttle dimensions were bigger and the loads were greater than 

Titan's. The Titan case segment dimensions are 120 inches in 

diameter by 120 inches long, while the Shuttle SRB segments are 146 inches in diameter and 164 inches long. 

The tang and clevis arrangement on the Titan SRB was changed on 

the Shuttle SRB because state-of-the-art large forging 

fabrication capability would not provide enough material to 

permit machining of a clevis on the large one-piece weld-free 

forward dome and still provide for an integral forward skirt 

tang. As a result to this factor, a tang-down design was 

assessed. 

It was found that assembly, reliability and safety were enhanced 

by the tang-down design. The tang-down design provides an 

advantage during assembly of the Shuttle SRM. The clevis, with 

its required field joint O-ring installation operation, is 

stationary; while the tang side of the joint, which requires no 

installation operations, is the one suspended from a crane. 

The tang length on the Shuttle SRM casings was increased to 

accommodate loads and to enhance assembly operations. No data 

were available to the Shuttle program during the design of the 

SRB's on the Titan SRB joint rotation or on static-test hardware 

evaluations. The fact that the Titan had experienced heat 

affected areas of the O-rings during static tests were not known 

to MTI prior to the STS 51-L accident. Joint tolerances on both 

the Shuttle and Titan SRB's were essentially the same, although some allowance was made to accommodate Shuttle SRM horizontal 

assembly for static test. 

Two O-rings were incorporated in the Shuttle SRB to provide 

redundancy and permit leak check of the assembled joints, 

features not possible with the Titan design. Titan joint 

insulation does have the interference but fit to allow for 

fabrication tolerances, while the SRB joint used putty filled 

gaps for tolerance allowance and to avoid placing extra long-term 

stress on case-to-insulation bonds. 

The Titan and Shuttle SRB's are enough alike to result in 

reliable analyses when using Titan data as a base. Tang and 

clevis joints have been used in other motors than Titan, but 

Titan Solid Rocket Booster experience (120 inch diameter) with 

high strength steel (D6AC) was a natural to use as a base from 

which to scale up for the Shuttle SRB (146 inch diameter and also 
D6AC). Higher loads and recoverability were two main additional 

factors of the Shuttle SRB structural analysis. Also, the new 

requirement of fracture toughness was unique to the Shuttle SRB 

case material and resulted in a refined analysis for reuse 

criteria, which included rehydroproof as part of refurbishment. 

QUESTION 12: 

first 

f icer 

"How many SRbQA personnel does Marshall have? 

ANSWER 12: 

Total - a4 

Categories: Quality-46, Reliability-7, 

By category?" 

Inspection Verification-25 and Secretarial-6 

QUESTION 12A: 

"When the O-ring maximum erosion was determined to be 

0.070, then O.O>O, then 0.125 inches, was a safety o 

consulted about whether this was an "acceptable risk"? Further, 

after the field joint's primary O-ring was designated a 

Criticality 1 and the secondary O-ring failed to seal, didn't 

safety personnel raise concern about the "risk"? Were safety 

personnel even aware of the erosion data from each flight?" 

ANSWER 12A: 

The Safety Director and the Director of the Reliability and 

Quality Assurance Office are members of the Flight Readiness 

Review (FRR) Board which accepted the rationale for each flight. 

OUESTION 12B: 

"Were reliability engineers ever consulted by Thiokol or Marshall 

with the continued use of O-ring when it was not performing as 

intended?" 

ANSWER 12B: 

When Morton Thiokol discovered the O-ring charring problem, 

Reliability Engineering was immediately contacted. They prepared 

reports and participated in monthly meetings where the problem 

and its corrective actions were discussed. They supplied input 

to the Flight Readiness Reviews (FRR) concerning FMEA/CIL 

(Failure Modes and Effects Analysis/Critical Items List) changes 

and COQ (Certification of Qualification) status. They also 

attended the SRM O-ring Task Force meetings when the task force 

was created, plus accumulating the data bank on each flight motor 

anomaly. 

MTI Reliability Engineers were involved in the O-ring charring 

problem and they agreed with others at Morton Thiokol to continue 

the Space Shuttle Program while a design solution was in 

progress. 

In the case of MSFC, Quality and Reliability Assurance personnel 

have been and are involved in the day-to-day activities of the 
656 

Project and were fully cognizant and involved in the O-ring 

charring problem and they agreed with others at NASA to the 

rationale for flight presented in the Flight Readiness Reviews 

(FRR) . QUESTION 13: 

"Mr. Aldrich testified before the Commission that O-ring erosion 

was not considered to be an anomaly and, therefore, it was not 

logged and, accordingly, there are no anomaly reports that 

progress from one flight to the other. 

o Was O-ring erosion really not considered to be an 

anomaly? Why? 

If it were considered an anomaly, wouldn't it have had to 

be reported to level II? o 

o Did the action of putting the O-ring erosion problem on 

Marshall's Problem Reporting System (PAS) exempt Marshall 

from having to report to Level I1 about the problem? Is 

that why Marshall chose to put the O-ring erosion problem 

on the PASA rather than the PRACA (Problem Reporting and 

Corrective Action Sy 6 t em) ? " 

ANSWER 13: 

Mr. Aldrich, undoubtedly was referring to the fact that O-ring 

erosion was not reported on the Flight Test Anomaly List (FTAL) 

that is published as part of the Flight Evaluation Report. The 

SRB Project Office's definition of a flight anomaly for 

identification in the FTAL was limited to those anomalies that 

affected the powered flight performance of the SRB. the O-ring 

erosion was considered an anomaly; however, it did not meet the 

FTAL definition and was not included in the FTAL as part of the 

Flight Evaluation Report. 

O-ring erosion was reviewed in the flight readiness process with 

Level I1 6 I. In addition, the following anomaly reports were 

written on O-ring erosion and were included in the MSFC Problem 

Assessment System (PAS), PAS Numbers A07934, A08615, A08939, 

A09968, A08014, A08299, A08687, A09260, and A09288. 

All O-ring erosion anomaly reports were reported to Level I1 

through PAS. Prior to May 26, 1983, when Change 37 to Volume V 

of JSC Document 07700, Level I1 Program Definitions and 

Requirements (PDR), was implemented, MSFC PAS personnel reported 

all Criticality 1, lR, 2 and 2R problems to Level 11. Since that 

time, only system level problems (interface problems, common 

hardware problems and interproject hardware problems) are 

required to be reported. However, PAS personnel state that they 

continue to submit Criticality 1, lR, 2, and 2R problems to Level 

I1 and that all O-ring erosion problems were submitted to Level 

11. 

MSFC's Problem Assessment System (PAS) is the only active problem 

reporting and tracking system at MSFC. Problem Reporting and 

Corrective Action System (PRACA) is used at JSC and KSC in the 
657 

same manner that the PAS is used at MSFC. PRACA is not active at 

MSFC but an effort has been underway for some time to establish 

PRACA as a computerized intercenter problem reporting system. 

However, this has not been accomplished. 

QUESTION 14: 

In December 1982, the O-ring was redesignated a Criticality 1 

from a Criticality 1R. Is Marshall required to inform Levels I1 

and I about anomalies of Criticality 1 items?" 

ANSWER 14: 

JSC 08126A, Problem Reporting and Corrective Action (PRACA) 

System Requirements Document For Space Shuttle Program is not 

specific in the context of specifying reporting of Criticality 1 

items. It does require that the Space Shuttle Program Office 

(SSPO) be informed of launch-constraints problems and resolutions 

for clearing constraints. A launch-constraint problem is defined 

as "a problem which, if it occurred in launch processing, flight, 

landing, or recovery, would have adverse safety or mission 

performance consequences". It also requires reporting of System 

Level Problems which are defined as problems occurring on flight 

common usage hardware or Space Shuttle inter-project accountable 

hardware and element physical interface hardware that occur 

during or subsequent to acceptance testing of a Line Replaceable 

Unit (LRU) or during certification testing. Prior to the 

issuance of Change Notice 37 on May 26, 1983, to Volume V of JSC 

Document 07700, which is the document that calls out JSC 08126A 

as the implementing document for the Shuttle Problem Reporting 

and Corrective System, the definition of a system level problem 

included problems occurring on Criticality 1, lR, 2 and 2R 

hardware in addition to problems on common, inter-project and 

interface hardware. Change Notice 37 deleted Criticality 1, lR, 

2 and 2R from the definition of a reportable system level 

problem. Regardless of the specifics contained in JSC 081266, 

all initial Problem Reports (PR) (see answer to Question 9) on 

O-ring problem were forwarded to the JSC (Level 11) PRACA Data 

Center. In addition, all initial PR's and the monthly MSFC 

Problem Assessment System (PAS), Open Problem List (OPL) are 

distributed to the Director of Reliability, Maintainability and 

Quality Assurance, NASA Headquarters (Level I). Therefore, Level 

I1 and I should have been informed through the PAS system that 

the O-ring erosion problems were being encountered and were open 

problems since problems resolution reports had not been 

processed. In addition, as previously stated in the answer to 

Question 13, and in testimony before the Presidential Commission 

and Congressional Committees, the problems on O-ring and the 

rationale for clearing flights in light of these problems were 

presented to and approved by both Level I and I1 as part of the 

Flight Readiness Review (FRR) process. 

QUESTION 14~: 

"How often do you witness continuous anomalies of Criticality 1 

items? " 
ANSWER 14A: 

One or two on every flight (for example, joint erosion, nozzle 

pocket erosion, turbine blades, turbo pump bearings, ullage 

pressure transducer problems). 

QUESTION 14B: 

"Would you say its unusual?" 

ANSWER 14B: 

No. . 

QUESTION 14C: 

"Why didn't you feel it necessary to inform Levels I1 or I, OK 

even your SUQA people?" 

ANSWER 14C: 

Levels I and I1 and the Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance 

people were informed as previously explained in the answers to 

Questions 13 and 14. 

QUESTION 15: 

"The Problem Reporting and Corrective Action document (JSC 

08126A, paragraph 3.2d) requires project office to inform Level 

I1 of launch constraints. Why didn't Marshall (Mulloy) inform 

Level XI?" 

ANSWER 15: 

The means of reporting and clearing problems which would impose 

launch constraints is through the FRR process. O-ring erosion 

was established as a launch constraint in the MSFC PAS system for 

51-F and subsequent by the SRM Project Office. This problem was 

presented to Level I1 and Level I during the 51-F FRR and 

rationale for flight established and accepted. O-ring erosion 

continued to be identified as an open problem in the MSFC PAS 

system requiring further investigation before closure. In 

subsequent FRR's, previously established rationale for flight was 

assessed to identify any changes necessary to the established 

rationale. In the 51-L FRR, this issue was reported to Level I1 

and 1 that there were "no findings from continuing analyses that 

changes previously established rationale for flight" (see 

attachment). 
(A-lo14 

CATEGORY 

CERTIFICATION/VERI

1. CHANGES 

2. NONCONFORMANCES ' 

3. CERTIFICATES OF OUALlFlCATlON 

4. HAZARDS 

5. ALERTS 

6. 1ST TIME WAIVERS 

7. FMEAlClL CHANGES 

8. LIMITED LIFE SENSITIVE ITEMS 

9 ASSEMBLY AND CHECKOUT PROCESS TO DATE 

10. CONTINUING FAILURE ANALYSES 

PROPE

APPRO

PROPE

APPRO

NEW CO

CHANG

NO NEW 

NONE O

FIVE F

IOENT

CIL UP

CHANG

ALL H

COMPL

AN0 IC
660 

JUNE 12 HEARING - APPENDIX #1 

National Aeionai,i,c- : ' ' 

Space Admirisira:, 3' 

Wasr#nq!on C 2 2054f 

I C: MDD: brb: C-19463i 

Honorable Robert Roe 

Acting Chairman 

Comnittee on Science 

House of Representatives 

Washington, DC 20515 

and Technology 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

AUG 5 1986 

It is requested that the following clarification be included in the hearing 

record resulting from the June 12, 1986, hearing at which Dr. Fletcher 

testified on the Chall enger accident. 

In addition to the memorandum requested on page 149, line 3657 by 

Mr. Nelson, we are providing a explanation of actions take as a result of 

the August 19, 1985, meeting. 

Although Level I did not send specific directions to MSFC after the 

August 19, 1985, meeting in Washington, D.C., the three caveats required 

for safety were completely and thoroughly implemented. Requests for 

additional information on the four topics, relative to the O-rings, as 

stated in Mr. Herr's letter of August 23 definitely indicate that 

Headquarters was not fully satisfied with the August 19 MTI presentation. 

This was also shown by Mr. Weeks testimony and by the testimony of Mr. John 

Thomas of Marshall Space Flight Center. 

The first item of pressurizing the seal to 200 psi was implemented on all 

subsequent joints. As the Committee knows, the pressure was raised from 50 

psi to 100 psi and, finally to 200 psi after extensive ground tests and 

postflight examinations showed that the putty could hold about 150 psi and 

therefore, 200 psi was required to insure the primary seal was effective as 

a seal even though it was moved in the groove to a reverse position. 

Contamination has also been a concern for many years (perhaps as far back 

as the very beginning) in fact, the Dr. Williams/Lt. Gen. (Retired) Thomas 

Morgan Committee that reviewed the SRM designfcertification prior to STS-1 

(in late 1980) specifically, concerned themselves with contamination of the 

grease and O-ring lands. As Mr. John Thomas testified, there was evidence 

to indicate contamination had been very well controlled on all stacked SRMs 

(launches) including 51-L. 
66 1 

In regard to the third item, that of c o n t r o l l i n g t h e squeeze: 

Mr. John Thomas testified that the squeeze requirements had been met on all 

of the SRM's that were examined (in post-mortem) and in particular 51-L 

squeeze specification requirements were fully met. In fact, the August 19, 

1985 presentation concentrated on O-ring and joint deflection, but did not 

discuss 

temperature 

or elude 

variations). 

to the temperature problem (O-ring sensitivity to - 

I understand that this letter may be inserted in the transcript in the form 

of an appendix and referred to by footnote in the main text. 

Sincerely, 

Director, Congressional Liaison Division 
PRE-LAUNCH ACTIV

TEAM 
PRE-LAUNCH 

COL. BOB BOIJR

STEVE HAWLEV 

JIMHARRINCTON IKSCI -LEA0 RILL ROCK IK

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0 ACCURATE PREDICTIONS OF 

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TECHNICAL STAFF 

MSFC - NTSB 

JSC - USAF 

EDWARD A. O'CONNOR - 

COLONEL, USAF 

E. H. WERER - DEPUTY 

NASA, KSC 

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SHUTTLE COMPONENTS RECOVE
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0 SUPERVISOR OF SALVAGE 

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4 NUCLEAR RESEARCH SUBM9RIIYE WITH UNDERWATER INV

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MANNED SUBMERSIBLES 

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51-L REC

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- CREW MODULE: . . . . . 

0 INERTIAL UPPER STAGE: . , 

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ORBITER 

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0 

0 

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0 

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MAIN LANDING GEAR DOORS 

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RIGHT ELEVON 

PORTION OF PAYLOAD 

PORTION OF PAYLOAD 

LOWER SKIN PANELS 

BAY DOORS 

BAY RAIl I ATORS 

PORTION OF AFT THRUST STRUCTURE 

PORTION OF 3 MAIN ENGINES 

PORTION OF BASE HEAT SHIELT! 

RIGHT AFT SIDE WALL 

PORTION OF CREW 4ODULE 
51L COFIPOflENTS RECOVERED 

RIGHT HAND COMPONENTS 

SOL ID ROCKET BOOSTERS 

o AFT SKIRT ASSEMBLY 

o FRUSTUM 

o PARACHUTE ASSEMBLY 

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LEFT 

o F

o P

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701 I 

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RIGHT SOLID ROCKET RO
INSIDE W

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RIGHT HAND SOLID ROCKET MOTOR AFT CYLINDER; AFT CE

0 PART NUMBER AND SERIAL NUMBER FOUND ON THE 

0 BURNED OUT AREA WAS CONSISTENT WITH PHOTOG

0 CIRCUMFERENTIAL LOCATION WAS DETERMINED BY 

ON THE TANG, 
707 
IDENTIFICATION OF FAILED RIGHT HAdD 

RIGYT HAND SOLID ROCKET MOTOR ATTACH SEGMENT: AFT S

0 BUSHINGS FOUND INSTALLED IN THE AFT ATTACH 

269 DEGREES WERE TRACED THROUGH MANUFACTURI 

THAT BUSHINGS WERE USED TO REPAIR HOLES AT 

THE RECOVERED PARTS 

0 BURNED OUT AREA WAS CONSISTENT WITH PHOTO E

0 CIRCUYFERENTIAL LOCATION WAS DETERFINED BY 

ALIGNMENT SLOT IN THE TANG TO A UflIQIJE HOLE 

STUB. RELATIONSHIP PROVED THAT THE TANG AL

AT 240' 
709 
RECOVERED SOLID ROCKET MOTOR 

CONCLUSIONS 

0 LOCATION OF BURN-THROUGH CONSISTENT WITH FAILURE 

ROCKET YOTOR AFT CENTER SEGFIFNT TO AFT SEGMENT FI

0 NO EVIDENCE OF ANOMALOUS OPERATION IN OTHER AREAS 

SOLID ROCKET MOTORS HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED. 

0 INITIATING CAUSE OF BURN-THROUGli IN FIELD JOINT A

RECOVERED HARDWARE. 
USN 

SUPPORT 

USS PRESERVER 

USS KITTIWAKE 

USS OPPORTUNE 

uss SUNBIRD/NR-~ 

OCEANEERING, INC. 

I I 

V
SUPERVISOR 

THE FOLLOWING SALVAGE ASSETS ARE AV

RESPONSE UNDER DIRECTION OF THE SUP

ALL FLEET ASSETS - 

0 SALVAGE VESSELS 

- AIR AND MIXED GAS DIVING 

- SATURATION DIVING CAPAR

0 NR-1 

- LONG DURATION SAR CAP4E

CONTRACTOR ASSETS - 

0 SIDE SCAlY SONAR SEARCY SYST

0 PRECISION NAVIGATION VSTEY

0 REflOTE OPERATED VFI-1 I CLES ( R

0 EMERGENCY StiIP SALVAGE YATE
SRB 

CONTACT 1131 
714 

h 

9 
715 
PRESIDENTIAL C

ON TH

SPACE SHUTTLE CHALL

HEHBERS : 

DR. RIDE

HR. RUHH

HR. HOTZ 

HR. ACHE

'TEAM LEADER 
ORGAN1 ZA

W. M. ORAUGHO

DEPUTY 

r""-*--7 

! NSn ! ............................. 

! 

SRWA ! L . - . - . - . a 

ABORT RANGE 

TESTING OPTION SAFETY CON

HISTORY T
DlREclORATE I 

0 MARCH 11, 1986 - GENEM; STS 51-L PREPAR

0 MARCH 12, 1986 - SAFETY; HANIFESTING 

0 MARCH 20. 1986 - PLANNING AND SCHEDULES 

0 MARCH 24, 1986 - RANGE SAFETY; HILESTONE 

RAIN DAMAGE ASSESSMENT 

MARCH 25, 1986 - SSHE FAILURE CONTAINHENT

0 MARCH 31, 1986 - TESTING; OPERATIONS BASE

PROCEDURES 

0 APRIL 7, 1986 - HSFC SR 8 RA (AT HSFC) 

APRIL 8, 1986 - WORKLOAD ASSESSMENT; SOF

APRIL 9, 1986 - LANDING CONSIDERATIONS 

0 APRIL 14, 1986 - ASCENT ENVELOPE, FIRST S

APRIL 15, 1986 - SR 8 QA 
OPERATIONS 

DIRECTORATE 
don 8. Johmon Center 

MISSION 

OPERATIONS 

DIRECTORATE 

MAJOR FINDINGS 

0 MAJOR FINDINGS 

STS 51-L MISSION PLANNING AND PREPARAT

- STS 51-L MANIFESTING, MISSION OPERAT

PRELAUNCH, AND LAUNCH WERE TYPICAL A

ACCIDENT 

STS 51-L MISSION OPERATIONS 

- THERE WAS NO ACTION POSSIBLE THAT C

51-L CREW 

- THE RANGE SAFETY SYSTEM (RSS) DID N

ACTIONS OF THE RANGE SAFETY OFFICER 

REVIEW OF THE RSS IS APPROPRIATE AN

NSTS MISSION PLANNING 

- THE OPERATIONS MAINTENANCE INSPECTI

PROVIDE LEVEL I1 WITH ADEQUATE CLOS

COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM TO TRACK AND A

REQUIREMENTS 

NSTS MISS I ON OPERAT IONS 

- THE CURRENT PROGRAM COHnITMENTS PRE

DEVELOPING A CAPABILTIY TO SUPPORT 
- AT THE TIME OF THE STS 51-L LAUNCH, KSC 

- STATISTICAL WEATHER AND FORECASTING UNC

UNREASONABLE SAFETY OF FLIGHT RISK BASE

WEATHER WAIVE-OFFS AND DICTATE A NEED F

MISSION 

THE CURRENT LANDING AND DECELERATION SY

- 

mauATE MARGIN FOR ROUTINE KSC AND TAL 

I - THE PROGIUW CONSIDERED CREW ESCAPE NUME

UTILITY. TECHNICAL COHWITY. COST. SC

- THE ASTRCWUUT OFFICE PLAYS A SIGNIFICAN

I 

I SYSTEMS ERE IMPLEMENTED 

WITH DEVELOPEMNT, FLIGHT PREPARATION, A

THEIR MANAGEMENT ARE MEMBERS OF ALL MAJ

FLIGHT RATE AND SCHEDULING 

- 1985 HISSION OPERATIONS WERE WCESSFUL 

IN6 PERTURBATIONS. HOWEVER. THE TRENDS 

REWIRED TO SUPPORT PREPARATMS FOR THE 

MET 
. ~ORulNuusIoNs 

THE NSTS PRoUwl SHUOLD DEVELOP A BOTT

RATE. AS A START. RIGID HANIFESTING C

ENFORCED 

AN INSPECTION AND MINTENANE PRO6lUW 

FLAWLESS PERFORMWE OF CRITICAL SPACE 

THE NSTS PROGRAII SHOULD FKUS ATTENTIO

WRGIN FOR END-OF-MISSION AND INTACT A

FACILITIES AND FLIGHT HARDWNE 

THE NSTS PROGRAH SHOULD EVALUATE THE O

ESCAPE SYSTEMS AND AUGMENTING ORBITER 
BACKUP CHA
STS 51-L MISSION PLANNING AND PREPARATIO

0 MANIFEST CHANGE TRAFFIC FOR STS 51-L W

MISSION OPERATIONS RECONFIGURATION PRO

CARGO INTEGRATION REVIEW. EXCEPT FOR F

LATER THAN DESIRED (2 WEEKS) 

FLIGHT PROCEDURES AND THEIR ASSOCIATED 

FOR FLIGHT. THE FLIGHT REQUIRED FEW N

MISSION OPERATIONS PARTICIPATION IN LA

ALL REQUIRED ACTIVITIES WERE COMPLETED 

STS 51-L CREW AND FLIGHT CONTROL TEAM 

STS 51-L MISSION OPERATIONS 

0 OPERATIONS TEAM PRELAUNCH ACTIVITIES W

AND PROBLEMS SOLVED 

RECONSTRUCTED FLIGHT WHICH WOULD HAVE 

THE ACCIDENT WAS IMMINENT 

FLIGHT SOFTWARE PERFORMED AS REQUIRED 

THE ACTIONS OF THE RANGE SAFETY OFFICE

TO THE ACCIDENT 

NO ORBITER ANWIES PRIOR TO THE ACCI

THERE WAS NO SURVIVABLE ABORT OPTION A
SUHHARY OF REPOR

CMCLUSI DNS 

OPERA NONS 

THE CURRENT SHUTTLE HISSION SIHULATOR CAN 

THE CURRENT FLEET OF THREE SHUTnE TRAIN

YEAR 

CREW WORKLOAD IN THE LAST WEEKS BEFORE F

SOFTWARE AND PROCEDURES AGGRAVATES THE S

TO AVOID UNACCEPTABLE IMPACTS TO FOLLOW 

HISS1 ONS 

SECONDARY PAYLOADS AND PAYLOAD SPECIALIST

LATE CHANGES TO A HIssm ADVERSELY IMPAC

NASA HAS NO FORMAL AGREEHENT WITH PAYLOA

THE NW PAYLOAD SAFETY PROCESS FAILED 

COnPLIANCE WITH PAYLOAD SAFETY REMllREHE

POINT FAILURES IN THE CENTAUR UPPER STAG

I 

THE OPERATIONAL HAINTENANCE AND INSPECTI

AUDIT SYSTEM. AND DOES NOT PROVIDE ADEQU

SHOULD BE HODIFIED TO INSURE FLAWLESS PE
SUMMARY OF RE

CONCLUSIO

1. Johnson Space Center 

NSTS MISSION OPERATIONS 

- OPERATIONS CAPABILITY MHONSTRATED TO 

MATURE OPERATIONS GOALS ORIGINALLY ES

A HIGH LEVEL OF OPERATIONS PREPAREIME

ABILITY OF HISSION OPERATIONS TEAM TO 

FLIGHT SUPPORT AT JSC IN JANUARY OF 1

OF QUALIFIED PERSONNEL MALING WITH A

A SINGLE SUPPORT CONTRACTOR, AND A TR

THE PROGRAM COMMITHENT FOR 1986 PRECL

AN INCREASING FLIGHT RATE 

THE PROGRAM SHOULD CONSTRAIN THE FLIG

DEVELOP FULL OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY 

THE QUESTION OF WHETHER A RANGE SAFET

WILL BE ADDRESED BY A JOINT DOD/NASA 

LAUNCH AND LANDING WEATHER CRITERIA H

AN ITERATIVE PROCESS AND APPEAR TO BE 

KSC WEATHER IS DYNAMIC AND SUBJECT TO 

CONSERVATIVE WEATHER DECISIONS 

PERIODIC MAJOR ANOMALIES (STS 41-A. 4
THE OPERATIONS TEAM SHOULD CONTINUE TO MA

DECISIONS. ACCURATE, LDCALIZED WEATHER F

REDUCE THE REWIRED AHOIJNT OF CONSERVATIS

THE PRffiRAtl WILL ALWAYS NEED TO HAVE HULT

TO WEATHER UNCERTAINTIES 

UNREASWBLE RISK BASED ON KNOWN CREDIBLE 

THE PROGRAH SHOULD ESTABLISH SYSTEH PERFO

ROUTINE KSC LANDINGS ARE TO BE PLANNED. 

RESUMED AFTER THESE CRITERIA ARE MET 

* KSC SHOULD CONTINUE TO BE SUPPORTED As AN 

THE CURRENT LANDING AND DECELERATION SYST

SUPPORT ROUTINE KSC OR TAL LANDINGS 

THE PROGRAtl MUST MAINTAIN AND BE SUCCESSF

PREVENTING FIRST STAGE FAILURES 

THE ASTRONAUT OFFICE PLAYS A SIGNIFICANT 

BOARDS AND PANELS 

- THE PRM DID NOT IMPLEMENT A CREW ESCA

COST, TECHNICAL COMPLEXITY, AND/OR PERFOR

THE PROGRAM SHOULD REEVALUATE THE UTILITY 

EVALUATE AWENTING ABORT MOLES FOR LOSS 

* AT THE TIME OF THE STS 51-L LAUNCH, KSC L
SUMHARY OF REP

CONUUSIW

FLIGHT RATE AND FLIGHT SCHEDULING 

ALL CANDIDATE MANIFEST CHANGES ARE EVA

THAT MUST SUPPORT THEM 

* SCHEDULE IMPACTS IN 1985 WSEO BY MA

THE TIME HAOE AVAILABLE BY CANCELED FL

LATE MANIFEST CHANGES TO SECONDARY OR 

FROW PRIMARY FLIGHT OPERATIONS 

UNWORKABLE FLIGHTS SHOULD NOT BE CARR

- EXTERNALLY GENERATED CHANGES WHICH AFF

SIGNIFICANT SOURCE OF SCHEDULE IMPACT

THE PRODUCTION PROCESS AND METHODS TO 

A FORECASTING TOOL TO PREDICT THE IMP

IMPLEHENTED. THE OPERATIONS ORGANIZA

OF HANDLING REASONABLE HANIFEST CHANG

HISTORICALLY. LAUNCH DATE SLIPS HAVE 

RECONFIGURATION PROCESS 
CONCLUSIONS 

LAUNCHES SHOULD BE SLIPPED IF MAJOR MILE

UP' OPPORTUNITIES SHOULD BE PROVIDED PE

CUSTMER REWIREMENTS FOR PAYLOAD SPECIA

MONTHS PRIOR TO LAUNCH 

THE JSC OPERATIONS ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT 

AND ARE NOT GENERALLY REQUIRED TO WORK W

- PERSWNEL GENERALLY CAN AND Do TAKE LEA

MANAGEMENT UNDERSTANDS AND t"S FOR THE 

I 
PRESENTAT IO

JOHN W. THO

DEPUTY, ACCIDENT AN

DATA AND DESIGN ANALY

MATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SP

BEFORE TH

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE 

HOUSE OF REPRES

T-O 
T
I ACCIDENT A

I I 

SPACE SHUTTLE MAIN EXTERNAL TANK 

ENGINE WORKING GROUP WORKING GROUP 

H. W. COLDWATER G. 0. HOPSON 

1 I 

SYSTEMS IUSlTDRS SYSTEMS 

WORKING GROUP WORKING GROUP 

H. N. SCOFIELD R. W. HUGHES 

d 

LEAD J. R. 

DEPUTY 1. W. 

ORBITER 6 GFE 

0. A. COULTAS IJSCI 

ORBITE

INT

L. E
STS 514 INVEST

m 

c 

N 

ID 

In 

0 

I 

03 

I 

m 

lQ 

sTEAMSIBOARDSICOMMISSION 

- MSFC CONTINGENCY 

INVESTIGATION TEAMS 

- NASA INTERIM BOAR0 

- PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION 

- NASA TASK FORCE TEAM 

PRESENTATIONSIBRIEFINGS 

- INTERIM BOARD CHAIRMAN 

- COMMISSION 

- TASK FORCE & COMMISSION MEMBERS 

- ADMINISTRATOR 

TASK FORCE REPORT 

- PRELIMINARY ISSUE 

- UPDATES WITH CHANGE 

NOTICES 

FEB 

* 

6 13 

(IV KSC 

T-3 
SUMMRY FIND

0 RIGHT SRM AFT FIELD JOINT LEAKED HOT CO

0 HOT GAS LEAK WEAKENED AND/OR PENETRATED 

0 HYDROGEN TANK BREACH AND/OR RIGHT SRB R

VEHICLE STRUCTURAL BREAKUP 

0 NO OTHER STS 51-L SHUTTLE ELENENT OR TH

SRN JOINT LEAK 

T-4 
F

Solid Rocket Mo

1-
CAW (TANG) 

LFA< CMFCK PORT 

HO 1 GREASt BEAD -4 

335 - INSIJLATION lLOHKi 

PIN RETAINER RAND 

PIN 
737 

T -7 
738 
m +ROLL 

SYSTEMS 

LOCATION 

STS 51-L RIGHT SRM 

T-9 
OPL 
T-11 
742 
743 

SRM JOINT FAILURE 

CONTRIBUTING NECHAN ISNS 

0 

0 JOINT TENPERATURE AT LAUNCH 

0 O-RING RESILIENCY 

0 ICE IN JOINT 

GAP OPENING DUE TO JOINT DYNAMICS AND MOTOR PRESSURE 

0 JOINT DAMAGE/CONTAMINATION AT ASSENBLY 

0 

0 PUTTY PERFORMNCE 

O-RING SQUEEZE AFTER RATING - STATIC O-RING COBPRESSION 

0 

0 

PRESSURE HOLDING CAPABILITY - PRESSURE ACTUATION TIRING 

ASSEMBLY BLOWHOLES - O-RING EROSION 

T-13 
744 

ASSESSMENT OF CONTRIBUTING MECHANISMS 

GAP OPENING DUE TO JOINT DYNAMICS AND MOTOR PRESSURE 

ANALYSES AND TESTS ESTABLISHED GAP OPENING FOR ALL JOINTS FOR STS 51-L 

GAP OPENING LESS FOR AFT FIELD JOINTS THAN FORWARD JOINTS 

GAP OPENING PROBABLE CONTRIBUTOR IN COMBINATION WITH OTHER FACTORS 

T-14 
m 

cN 

W 

wl 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

6 

0 

RIGHT SRH AFT FIELD JO

PRESSURIZED JOINT 

(EXAOOERATEDJ 

TIME (M
ASSESSNENT OF 

JOINT TE

0 TESTS SHOW O-RING RESILIENCY S

TENPER ATURES 

0 COLD O-RING WILL NOT TRAC

0 ANALYSIS AND TESTS INDICATE PO

0 TESTS SHOW FAILURE OF SECONDAR

VIOLATED 

0 ALL SIX STS 51-L JOINTS HAD AR

0 JOINT TENPERATURE PROBABLE CO
"1 

a 

SRB AFT JOINT 

NOTE: 

SIMILAR TEMPERATURES 

FOR FORWARD JOINTS 

40- 2 

UI 

s 

30 

20 

I 

0 90 

RIGHT 

r I 

180 270 

LEFT S
ASSEHBLY OF CONTRIB

JO I NT DAHAGVCONTAH I N

0 RIGHT HAND AFT SRR JOINT NOST DIFFICU

0 ANALYSIS SHOWS ASSERBLY STRESSES NOT 

0 TESTS SHOWED POTENTIAL TO GENERATE CO

0 SONE LIHITED EXPERIENCE OF O-RING DAM

0 

ASSERBLY DANAGVCONTANINATION POSSIBL

FIELD JOINT 

T--1
514. FI

R

LlllIL(1) 

00 

LH AFT 

L
ASSESSMENT OF CO

O-RING SQUEEZ

0 LOCATION OF RIGHT SRN AFT FIELD JOI

APPROXIHATE LOCATION OF HAX INTERFE

0 THESE CONDITIONS COULD PRODUCE 

0 TESTS SHOW O-RING SQUEEZE MAGNITUDE 

PRESSURE APPLIED AT MOTOR IGNITION--

0 INITIAL GAP 0.020" JOINT SEALS 

o 

o 

INITIAL GAP 0.010' JOINT SEALS 

INITIAL GAP 0.004" JOINT FAILS 

0 TESTS SHOW HARGINAL SEAL CAPABILITY 

PRESSURE TO 0-R I NGS DELAYED 

0 FOUR OF SIX STS 51-L JOINTS HAD DIR

IWIHUN SQUEEZE 

0 POTENTIAL DIMENSIONAL CHANGES (DIAN

CONDITION 

0 BAXIHUN SQUEEZE IS PROBABLE CONTRIB
COnPARISON OF O-RING SEAL

T-21 
ASSESSNENT OF CONTRIBUT

PUTTY PERFORM

0 TESTS SHOWED POTENTIAL FOR PUTTY TO DELA

TRANSIENT--BUT PERFORMANCE IS VARIABLE 

0 FLIGHT HARDWARE DISASSEMBLY CONFIRNED PR

0 MSTACKING STS 61-6 SHOWED SEVERAL BLOW 

AND CAUSE O-RING EROSION 

0 TESTS CONFIRMED THAT DELAYED PRESSURE AC

0 OVER THE RANGE OF POTENTIAL STS 51-

0 AT STS 51-L TENPERATURES 

0 PUTTY IS A PROBABLE CONTRIBUTOR IN CONB

1-22 
753 

CONCLUSIONS 

NO SINGLE ACCIDENT CAUSING MECHANISM COULD BE DISCERNED 

DAMAGVCONTM I NAT I ON AT MAT I NG IMPROBABLE 

MECHANISM ACTING IN CORBINATION MOST PROBABLE CAUSE 

o GAP OPENING 

0 HAXIMUM O-RING SQUEEZE 

0 LOW TEMPERATURE 

- O-RING RESILIENCY 

- ICE IN JOINT 

0 PUTTY VARIABILITY 

0 SRW JOINT IUST BE REDESIGNED 

T-23 
JUNE 12 HEARING-APPENDIX # 3 

Responses to written questions submitted by Chairman Roe during the 

June 12, 1986, hearing at which Dr. Fletcher testified. 

SRB Case Reuse 

QUESTION A-1: 

a. 

b. 

C. 

d. 

When did you learn that the SRB cases have been expanding after 

the first three or four proof tests? 

Why did you not know this sooner? 

Why are the cases expanding? 

Is it not true that since the test pressures are below the 

"elastic limit" of the steel in the cases, they shouldnotbe 

expanding as they appear to be? 

Does the fact that the cases are expanding mean that the true 

formulation of the steel used in making the cases may be 

different from what the manufacturer says it is? 

What does all of this mean about the reusability of SRB cases? 

After each use, are reusable hardware components tested to the 

same degree as a new component would be tested? 

Are criticality 1 and 1R components tested to a more exacting 

and complete standard than other hardware components? 

ANSWER A-1: 

a. The first real knowledge of SRM case "growth" after reuse, was 

not fully established until after MTI conducted "growth 

testing" on two steel case samples during the early spring of 

1986. Whether or not the case growth totally ceases after the 

initial three or four pressure cycles has also not been totally 

explored by MTI or MSFC, but is currently underway. 

Case growth may not have been known in finite dimensional terms 

until the date stated above, but it had been suspected by both 

MSFC and MTI engineers for some time prior to that. All 

pressure vessels tend to "grow" to some degree whenever they 

are proof pressure tested above the design operating limit. 

The degree o€ growth of the SRM cases was not fully 

characterized until "case growth" became a part of the overall 

"O-ring" seal and joint rotation concern. 

b. As stated above, all pressure vessels, metal or filament 

construction, expand by some finite amount depending on the 

amount of design margin (safety factor and design life) 

orginally designed into the pressure vessel. 

The normal proof pressure seen by the case membrane (i.e., 1.2 

x 1004 psig) is well below the "elastic limit" of the D6AC 

steel material. However, the cyclic growth characteristic of 

this material for repeated pressure cycles have not been fully 

determined for this material at this time. MSFC and MTI are 
7 55 

taking a thorough look at the basic billet material 

specifications and raw material traceability, as well as the 

heat treatment of the cases at the vendor level. 

At the present time, the MTI/MSFC assessment of the potential 

impact from the case growth problem would not be significant 

and the cases can be reused. In the worst case this would 

require that used cases be grouped into lots of like number of 

reuses (Zx, 3x, 4x, etc., reuses) and mated and flown with 

cases of like pressure exposures rather than intermixing of new 

and reused cases as has been done in the recent past. 

After each use, all SRM steel cases are refurbished via a 

series of visual inspections, non-destructive evaluation (NDE), 

pressure testing and returned to inventory for casting of 

motors. During the refurbishment cycle, the reused case 

segments are pressure tested to 1.12 times operating pressure. 

All new and refurbished SRM components are tested to the 

specific requirements (specifications) of that particular 

element whether they are criticality 1 or 1R. 

Personnel 

QUESTION A-2: 

a. 

b. 

C. 

d. 

What have your employee losses been in the past five years? 

(Please detail losses by specialty in the scientific and 

technical areas. 1 

What reasons for leaving have been given by departing 

personnel? 

Specifically, has salary been important as a reason for 

1 e av i ng ? 

What employees do you expect to lose over the next ten years, 

either due to retirement or normal attrition? (Again, please 

estimate losses by specialty in scientific and technical 

areas. ) 

What difficulties do you anticipate in replacing these people? 

What personnel do you expect to add to your agency's workforce as part of your response to the loss of the Challenger? 

What difficulties do you anticipate in hiring these people? 

Are there any critical personnel specialities which you have 

particular difficulty hiring and retaining? 

To what extent are personnel management policies, and in 

particular salary, a problem in this area? 
7 56 

ANSWER A-2: 

a. Listed below are NASA's employee losses for the past five 

years : 

Tot a1 

Non AST 

Engineers 

AST 

Engineers 

Life 

Scientists 

NASA Losses FY 1981-1986 

FY FY FY FY FY 

1981 - 1982 - 1983 - 1984 - 1985 

1838 - 1556 - 1176 - 1530 - 1494 

- 

- 

- 665 - 503 - 386 - 576 - 569 

Technicians 261 - 207 - 161 - 156 - 204 

* FY 1986 data as of June 30, 1986 

FY 

1986* 

1169 

- 

- 

- 5 

- 457 

4 

180 

- 

- 

b. 

C. 

The major cause of losses has consistently been retirements. 

Our average losses due to retirement for the period covered 

were 50.0 percent. This rate has varied from lows of 46.9 

percent in FY 1982 and FY 1983 to a high of 59 percent so far 

in FY 1986. 

To the extent that employees so indicate, an average of 17.1 

percent of our losses have been for higher pay. However, we 

also know, but have no quantitative data, that many retirees 

leave NASA for higher paying jobs in industry. 

Assuming that our experience in the next ten years will not be 

significantly different from our FY 1981-1986 experience, we 

would expect our total losses to be 15,000 to 18,700. As best 

we can determine breakdowns would be approximately: 

Non AST Engineers 

AST Engineers 

Life Scientists 

Technicians 

180-224 

5400-6700 

30-37 

1750-1950 

The difficulties we would expect to experience in replacing 

these people are similar to the current difficulties we outline 

in the next two questions. 

ks part of our response to the Roger's Commission recommendations, we would primarily expect to add personnel with skills 

and expertise in program management, contract oversight, safety 

reliability and quality assurance and the state-of-the-art of 

scientific and engineering backgrounds essential to major 

redesigns of the solid rocket boosters and other 

Shuttle-related hardware. We anticipate two primary 

difficulties in hiring these people. First, we are concerned 
757 

about acquiring the personnel resources we need in a timely 

manner if we must do this within current Federal hiring 

procedures, and secondly, we are concerned that our salary 

structure is not sufficiently flexible and competitive to 

attract the very best talent our Nation has to offer. Timely 

staffing with top quality personnel is critical to the recovery 

process and the continuing excellence of the United States 

Space Program. 

d. NASA benefits from nation-wide direct hire authority for GS-800 

engineering positions through the GS-11 level at all of our 

field installations and through GS-12 at some locations. 

However, in spite of this authority, we are experiencing 

difficulty in recruiting entry-level engineers largely due to 

salary. Our documentation shows that NASA's acceptance rate 

for entry-level engineers from March 31, 1985, to March 31, 

1986, declined to 39 percent from a level of 46 percent for the 

preceeding two years. This is 16.7 percent below our 56 

percent rate in FY 1983. Additionally, at GS-7 (our primary 

entry level), our acceptance rate was only about 26 percent. 

Currently the Government pays GS-7 recent college graduates in 

all engineering disciplines a special salary rate $23,170. 

This is the statutory maximum under the current special salary 

rate provisions. At the same time, our private sector 

competitors are offering these graduates an average salary of 

$27,000 to $29,000 depending on the engineering discipline. It 

would take approximately a 20 percent increase for us to match 

our competitors. However, absent a legislative change, the 

most we could offer in the next year would be the percentage 

increase to the General Schedule (perhaps two or three percent 

in January 1987). 

A continuing infusion of recent college graduates is critical 

to the continued success of NASA's mission, and accomplishing 

this has become increasingly difficult. Inadequate salaries 

are an equally significant problem at the executive levels in 

the agency. 

For occupations and grade levels other than engineering, NASA 

must use the Office of Personnel Management staffing process. 

his mechanism is generally recognized as slow, cumbersome, and 

unable, in many cases, to provide high quality candidates. 

NASA has a unique mission which requires it to maintain a 

strong in-house technical capability and strong support staff. 

Our ability to accomplish this is hampered by the system under 

which we operate. 
7 58 

JUNE 18 HEARING - APPENDIX #1 

MORTON THIOKOL. INC. James A Robertson 

Vice President 

Government Relations 

July 9, 1986 

Mr. Robert C. Ketcham 

General Counsel 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Science and Technology 

Suite 2321 Rayburn House Office Building 

Washington, D. C. 20515 

Dear Mr. Ketcham: 

In your letter to Mr. U. E. Garrison of June 19, 1986 you included a 

number of questions which you asked Morton Thiokol to answer for the 

Committee record. We have reviewed these questions and answered them 

to the best of our ability and I have enclosed them herein in 

accordance with your request. You will note that we re-stated the 

question in each case to insure clarity. 

I hope that this response satisfies the needs of the Committee and if 

you have any further questions, we would be pleased to respond. 

Sincerely, 

3ARjbbc 

'PAosure 

1735 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 403, Arlington. Virginia 22202 (703) 8926300 
759 

CONGRESSIONAL QUESTIONS FOR MORTON THIOKOL, 23 JUNE 1986 

ISSUE NO. 1 - INADEQUATE DESIGN OF FIELD JOINT 

1. Who designed the field joint for use on the Solid Rocket 

Motor (SRM)? 

Answer: Morton Thiokol designed the field joint of the SRM. It was patterned after the Titan Booster joint. Morton Thiokol 

submitted the design for review and approval to NASA/MSFC at 

several phases in the development program. NASA recommended or directed design changes which were incorporated in the final 

design that was approved by NASA. 

2. What were the design parameters for this joint? In terms of 

materials, operating temperatures, pressure gradients, and 

structural loadings? 

Answer: Structural materials of the joint met the design parameters of high strength and fracture toughness dictated by load 

analysis of the loads data book furnished by NASA. Fracture 

mechanics tests were conducted to cover the low end of the operating temperature limit of 40'F. No initial design advantage was taken for the decreasing pressure gradient down the length of 

the motor and all joints were designed for the maximum expected 

operating pressure (MEOP). Military and state of the art material 

and processing specifications were used. 

3. The design of the joint appears to be extremely sensitive to 

close dimensional tolerances. What provision was made in 

the design to accommodate the use of "construction type" 

equipment, such as cranes, under artificial lighting conditions? 

Answer: All handling loads, conditions, and equipment expected 

at KSC were investigated and allowed for in the original design. 

Evidence from the recent 61G destacking at KSC shows that the 

joint design is not extremely sensitive to close dimensional 

tolerances. The joints always fit together, horizontally and 

vertically. Available equipment, particularly cranes are not 

"construction type," but are high quality units originally built 

and used on the Apollo Program and capable of redesign assembly. 

The cranes used for SRM assembly are equipped with precise operating controls meeting the joint design requirements for mating 

and pinning. 

4. Did the operating temperature design specifications recognize 

that freezing temperatures were not unusual in Florida? 

Answer: NASA's operating temperature specification did not 

address freezing temperatures. 
5. What safety margins were specifically incorporated in the 

design-speciEications with regard to temperature? 

Answer: NASA prepared the specification. There are no temperature 

safety margins specifically incorporated or identified in the 

specification. 

6. With regard to temperature and turbulence, was Thiokol aware 

that the Shuttle was designed to fly missions in a wide 

range of climatic conditions or was it Thiokol's understanding that the Shuttle was a fair weather vehicle? 

Answer: Morton Thiokol understood that the Shuttle was designed 

to be assembled and prepared for launch in a wide range of climatic 

conditions. We understood that launch would occur between the 

motor operating temperature range of 40'F - 90'F. The design load 

requirements which were provided by NASA accounted for these 

conditions for launch, boost and SRB recovery. We also understood 

that elements of the Space Shuttle including the SRM's would have 

to withstand even more severe climate conditions during storage, 

handling, transportation, and on pad locations. 

7. Was prototype SRM built and tested? If so, what scale was this prototype built to? 

Answer: A series of full-scale prototypes were built and tested 

in support of the SRM design development. Structural tests, 

vibration tests, burst tests and static tests all used full scale 

hardware. 

8. How was the joint tested prior to acceptance for use in the 

SRM? Describe the test equipment used in the conduct of 

this test? 

Answer: With the concurrence and/or direction of NASA, we con- ducted all of the following tests: Initial full-scale axial 

structural joint tests were conducted at the U.S. Bureau of 

Reclamation 5-million pound pull test facility at Denver during 

the summer of 1975. Pull test data of the five-hole joint speci- mens produced a structural safety factor of over 2.0, even with 

cyclic and special defect testing. 

Special instrumentation of the first three hydroproof tests of 

each of five case segment configurations provided early confirmation of the joint. Static tests, structural flight loading tests 

and test to failure hydro burst (with preburst cyclic pressurization) were conducted for joint acceptance. 

O-ring extrusion tests were conducted in February of 1977 to show 

sealing of 0.066 inch gaps at 2,000 psi. Further tests were run in October 1980 with 0.125 inch gap up to 5000 psi. 

-2- 
9. 

Answer: Thousands of strain gages and displacement transducers were used in the acceptance tests, in addition to pressure recording requirement. 

10. 

What instrumentation was used in the test to obtain data? 

What specific data was derived from these tests and how did 

it compare with the design criteria? 

Answer: Gages around the pin holes, on the tang and clevis legs, 

across the joint and into the membrane area were used for confirmation and refinement of the detailed stress analyses performed. 

The stresses and strains in the joint measured in the tests 

confirmed that the factors of safety required were met even with 

overloads. All structural performance tests exceeded performance 

requirements. 

11. Did the tests indicate the behavior which is referred to as 

"joint rotation"? 

Answer: Yes. 

12. When were these tests conducted? 

Answer: The first evidence of "joint rotation" behavior was noted in the standard weight burst testing in September 1977 

after the first DM-I static test in July. 

The structural flight load tests started in July 1978 and joint 

rotation was noted during testing into 1979. The lightweight 

case joint testing at MEOP and up to 1.4 MEOP were conducted in 

September 1980 and was followed by the burst test. 

A series of twelve segment hydroproof tests had controlled measurements of joint rotation taken in 1982 and 1983 at the time of 

DM-5, DM-6, QM-4 static tests and STS-5 and STS-6 flights. 

13. When Thiokol, at first objected on January 27 to the 51L 

launch due to cold temperatures, specifically, what was the 

basis for that objection? What effect did the engineers at 

Thiokol think the temperatures forecasted would have on the field joint? 

Answer: The concern expressed was that the O-rings' capability 

to seal would be reduced. The basis for this position was: (1) 

the excessive soot blowby past the primary seal found on two of 

the STS-51C field joints after the January 1985 launch. This 

vehicle was launched after several of the coldest days in Kennedy 

Space Center history and the calculated O-ring temperature at the 

time of launch was lower than on any other flight vehicle up to 

that time; (2) the O-ring resiliency test data at temperatures 

from 50'F to lOOOF showed that the O-rings became more sluggish 

at lower temperatures. Though no pressure was applied to the 

O-rings during the resiliency tests, the engineers felt that the 

chance of blowby or leakage would be increased. 

-3- 
762 

Some engineers believed that the temperatures could affect the 

joint sealing capability, which could result in anomalies ranging 

from soot blowby past the primary O-ring to leakage past and 

erosion indications on both seals. 

14. What tests had Thiokol performed on the O-ring material 

before the accident? What were the results of these tests? 

Answer: There are 21 reports and presentations which contain 

data from O-ring material tests. These included resiliency, 

compression set, extrusion, and erosion rate. These documents 

have been provided to the Presidential Commission on the Space 

Shuttle Challenger Accident and axe available from the National 

Archives. 

15. In the design, what function was the putty supposed to 

perform? Was it supposed to keep the heat off the O-rings? 

Answer: Yes, it was intended to keep the heat away from the 

seals. 

16. At the time of design, was it envisioned that the putty 

would act as a piston to compress the air in the joint and 

thus "seal" the primary O-ring? 

Answer: Yes. 

17. What tests had Morton Thiokol performed on the putty material 

before the accident? What were the results of these tests? 

What was the moisture content of this material prior to such 

tests? 

Answer: The material has been widely used in many different 

solid rocket motors since 1958. There are nine reports and 

presentations which contain data from specific Shuttle Program 

putty material tests including heat and erosion resistance, 

consistency, resistance to pressure and chemical properties. The 

moisture content was not measured prior to the tests. All of 

these documents have been provided to the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident and are available from 

the National Archives. 

18. Was Thiokol aware of the hydroscopic nature of the putty? 

While Utah is dry, "the Cape" is very humid? How did Thiokol 

provide for this difference in selecting the putty and in 

testing it? 

Answer: Morton Thiokol became aware of the hydroscopic nature of 

the putty as we worked with it during development. MTI performed 

tests at controlled temperature and humidity levels representative 

of the environment at KSC and found the putty tack and stiffness 

to be affected by humidity. In order to minimize the effects of 

humidity, improved packaging methods were incorporated and the 

allowable exposure time of the putty to the natural environment was limited. 

-4- 
The Randolph putty was used in the Castor IV and Patriot solid 

rocket motors manufactured at Morton Thiokol's Huntsville, Alabama 

division. These motors, made in a humid climate and aged for up 

to 50 months, were fired successfully. That experience, together 

with bench test data which also showed the Randolph putty's 

performance to be comparable to the previously qualified Fuller 

O'Brien putty, was the basis for selecting the Randolph putty for 

the SRM program. The Randolph putty was used in the DM-5 and QM-4 

static test motors prior to using it in the STS-8 flight motors 

and all subsequent flight motors. 

19. What are the differences in the behavior of the putty in 

humid conditions as compared to the normally dry conditions 

found in Utah? That is, what happens to the adhesive properties, viscosity, compressibility and thermal properties? 

Answer: The Randolph putty tends to become dry, less tacky, and 

stiffer in a less humid environment. It becomes more tacky and 

less stiff in a more humid environment. The thermal properties 

would not degrade because the asbestos filler does not leach out 

when the putty is humidified. Viscosity and compressibility have 

been measured by MTI, but not on putty conditioned in a humid 

environment. 

ISSUE NO. 2 - FAILURE TO CORRECT FAULTY DESIGN 

1. When were the first casings made that incorporated this 

Answer: The first SRM case segments were fabricated in the summer 

of 1976 for use in the first static test in July 1977. 

2. Why was the design changed from that of the Titan SRM? Were 

there deficiencies in that design? What were they? Why was the Shuttle joint design inverted from that of the Titan, 

which obviously permits the increase of rain water? 

design? 

Answer: The Titan case segment dimensions are 120 inch diameter 

by 120 inches long, while the SRM segments have a 146 inch diameter 

and are 164 inches long. Joint tolerances were essentially the 

same, although some allowance was made to accommodate the SRM 

horizontal assembly for static test. There were no structural 

deficiencies in either design. Recognizing this is a man-rated 

system, two O-rings were incorporated in the Shuttle SRM to 

provide redundancy and to allow leak check of the assembled 

joints. The Titan SRM had only one O-ring. 

The clevis/tang was inverted from Titan because state-of-the-art 

large case forging fabrication would not accommodate a clevis on 

the large, one-piece weld-free forward dome with an integral 

forward skirt tang. Also, assembly reliability and safety were found to be enhanced because of stationary clevis O-ring installation rather than on a suspended clevis. 

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3. When did personnel at Morton Thiokol first become aware that 

there were problems with the design of the field joint on the SRM? 

Answer: In September, 1977, a cyclic pressure test combined with 

a "hydrobust" exhibited joint rotation. There never have been 

any structural deficiencies identified in the present joint 

design. 

4. What was the nature of those problems as understood at that 

time ? 

Answer: It was noted that the seal gap opened upon pressurization. 

The extent of the movement was not great enough to lose pressure at 

the required 1.4 MEOP of 1310 psi, but it did prevent burst of the 

steel case due to leakage at 1483 psi (1.58 MEOP). 

5. What action was taken to correct the problems? Was NASA 

notified of them? When, and by what means? Was it a formal 

letter to the Contracting Officer? 

Answer: Joint design tolerances were tightened and extrusion 

tests were run which verified sealing of 0.125 inch gaps up to 

5000 psi. O-ring diameter was increased and O-ring material 

quality was increased. All design changes were made with the concurrence and approval of NASA through the formal change system 

NASA was initially informed of the intended tolerance changes by 

letter in December 1977. 

6. Was a formal letter ever sent to NASA advising them of the 

design deficiencies? When? 

Answer: NASA was furnished copies of the test reports and kept 

informed in frequent technical interchange meetings as well as quarterly program reviews. 

7. Did NASA ever formally respond and if so what was the nature 

of the response? 

Answer: No written formal recognition or response was exchanged. 

Continuing technical discussions and analysis were conducted and 

further testing was planned and conducted. 

8. Did Morton Thiokol agree with the response? 

Answer: See the above answer. 

9. When was the "joint rotation" problem first recognized? 

Answer: We recognized rotation in September 1977. 

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10. Was this "joint rotation" problem aggravated by switching to 

light weight steel SRM cases? 

Answer: The pressurizations and hydroburst of the lightweight 

case in September 1980 indicated a slight increase in "joint 

rotation" at proof pressure causing the gap to increase from 0.038 

inch to 0.042 inch. From a structural aspect, the lightweight 

case burst at 1545 psi with a 1.67 safety factor. 

11. When the casings were changed, was it submitted to a configuration control board? 

Answer: Yes, all changes to the baseline (NASA approved) SRM 

flight design are reviewed and approved by the NASA Level I11 

Configuration Control Board after review by a Morton Thiokol 

Level IV Board. 

12. Who was on that board at the time the submission was made? 

Answer: The members of the then-existing NASA Level I11 CCB are unknown at this time. 

13. When was the submission made? 

Answer: Lightweight cylinder drawing #1U50717 was submitted to 

the Morton Thiokol Level IV CCB 10 September 1979, lightweight 

attach drawing #1U50716 on 6 December 1979 and lightweight stiffener 

drawing #1U50715 on 6 December 1979. This change was approved by 

NASA on 9 December 1981. 

14. What consideration did the field joint receive in configuration control board reviews? 

Answer: The field joint, as well as all other attributes of the 

lightweight case configuration, was reviewed in the Morton Thiokol 

Level IV Board for total impact on performance, cost, safety, 

quality, reliability and schedules. The factors considered by the 

NASA Level I11 Board are unknown to Morton Thiokol. 

15. Was any consideration given to redesign the field joint at 

that time? If not, why not? 

Answer: No redesign of the joint was considered necessary to 

meet the program requirements. The joint hardware was all interchangeable and all production tooling was fabricated to process 

the acceptable joint configuration. No structural joint problem 

existed that warranted redesign. 

16. In August 1985, when the field joint was redesigned, and when 

new forgings were ordered, was that a Thiokol decision or was the action taken at NASA's direction? 

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Answer: We began efforts to phase in the capture feature early 

in 1985. In anticipation of the Buy I11 contract, Morton Thiokol 

instructed segment suppliers to order the larger billets in June, 

1985. 

In July 1985, verbal approval was given by NASA engineers to 

pursue the steel case capture feature. Formal direction to obtain 

capture feature billets was given by Morton Thiokol to Rohr on 5 

August 1985. NASA released drawings of steel case cyclinders with 

a capture feature tang in October 1985. 

17. If NASA directed the action, was this covered by a contract 

change order? 

Answer: No formal change order has been provided by NASA. 

18. Was this design change to be incorporated in the steel 

casings or was this a "long lead" procurement for the filament 

wound casings? 

Answer: The design change was for steel case setments. 

19. Was the new design for the field joints ever intended for use on the steel casings? 

Answer: Yes, steel case capture cylinders have been the goal 

since early 1985. 

ISSUE NO. 3 - POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTING CAUSES BEYOND FAULTY O-RINGS 

1. What do you believe caused the large quantities of "black 

smoke" at 0.678 seconds after ignition? 

Answer: We believe the black smoke at 0.678 seconds was caused 

by combustion gases flowing around (blow-by) the field joint 

O-rings. The combustion gas flow path would encounter O-ring 

material, grease, and putty thus creating black smoke. 

2. While very slight it would appear that the rotation of the 

joint places a tensile strain on the NBR insulation near the 

joint. What is the elasticity of the NBR at 2E°F and how was this tested? 

Answer: The strain capability for NBR at 28'F is 50% which is 

many times larger than any strains induced in the rubber due to 

joint rotation. The strain capability is determined using an Instron Tensile Test with a crosshead speed of 20.0 inches per 

minute. 

3. How can the insulation be burned so quickly (in 0.678 sec) 

considering its thickness and the fact that it is supposedly 

designed to protect the steel casing all the way through 

propellant "burn-out . I' 

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767 

Answer: The field joint insulation thickness is such that it 

could not be burned through in 0.678 seconds. However, minor 

burning of insulation surfaces adjacent to the joint can occur as hot gas flows into the joint. There is no indication insulation 

adversely affected Challenger. 

4. According to various reports, the NBR insulation and the 

propellant are inspected visually. 

of inspecting these materials? In "Quality Assurance" 

circles, what is the accepted degree of reliance that can be 

put on "visual inspection"? 

Is this the only method 

Answer: 

Insulation - Yes. Visual inspection is the only method used to 

inspect insulation adjacent to the field joint. Away from the 

joint region ultrasonic and X-ray techniques are used to examine 

insulation and bondline integrity. 

Evaluation of fired motors has shown visual inspection in this area to be a reliable indicator of insulation bond. 

Generally, direct inspection methodology i.e., non-destructive 

testing, lab testing or standard measuring instruments are preferred over visual inspections, if desired results can be obtained 

with a practical, reliable method. In the case of SRM and insulation to steel unbond inspections at the field joints (edge unbonds), 

no practical reliable NDT method has been developed to date. 

Answer : 

Propellant - A visual inspection is not the only method of propellant inspection. Other techniques are radiographic inspection, 

mechanical properties testing, and burn-rate testing. Visual 

inspection is considered as a totally reliable Quality Assurance 

technique for the propellant grain. 

5. Doesn't the propellant frequently crack when "cold soaked" 

during the manufacturing process? 

Answer: There has never been an instance of a thermally induced 

crack on a SRM segment. 

6. At ignition, what would be the effect of a crack through the 

Answer: A propellant crack through to the insulation would cause an unplanned burning surface which would cause a measurable 

difference in burning between the two sides. 

7. How was the propellant inspected for the SRM that failed? 

propellant to the NBR insulation at a field joint? 

How many people were on the inspection team? Who was the QA 

person and what documentation did he or she sign indicating 

that there were no cracks in the propellant or the insulation? 

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768 

Answer: 

Insulation - There were three separate visual inspections, two at 

MTI in Utah and one at KSC. The insulation inspection team at MTI 

involved three persons. The insulation inspection at KSC involved 

two persons. The MTI insulation inspection team included MTI 

Quality Assurance and Air Force Quality Assurance. The KSC 

insulation inspection team included MTI Quality Assurance and 

NASA Quality Assurance. 

The MTI inspection team signed the shop traveler and inspection 

plan. The KSC inspection team signed the planning log sheet. 

Answer: 

Propellant - The segments underwent the following QA inspections: 

Visual inspection at casting pits, x-ray of aft segment cutback 

area, visual inspection at final assembly, prior to storage and 

shipment, visual inspection prior to installation of shipping 

covers, and visual inspection at KSC. 

Each propellant inspection team consisted of two to four people. 

In each case at least one Morton Thiokol Quality Engineer and at 

least one government QA representative were present, and at the 

end of each inspection, the shop traveler or inspection plan was signed. 

8. What is the ductility of the propellant and how was it 

measured, assuming that a standard "impact test" would be 

impossible? 

Answer: Ductility is not a measured parameter on SRM propellant. 

9. What are the healing characteristics of the propellant at 

ambient and at elevated temperatures? 

Answer: 

using the definition of healing as reuniting of separated propellant surfaces. 

10. 

SRM propellant does not exhibit healing characteristics, 

What thermal data do you have that could answer the question 

of crack propagation as a function of the propellant's 

thermal properties and as a function of the vibration of the 

SRM at ignition? 

Answer: Test data over a range of 0' to 145'F is used to characterize the propellant. This data is then analyzed for crack 

propagation using fracture mechanics techniques. The grain has 

been analyzed for thermal cooldown to 32OF. 

Vibration loads are very small in comparison to thermal loads, 

and are not included in fracture mechanics grain analysis. 

- 10 - 
11. What data are there that would indicate what thermal gradient 

the fuel could withstand before cracking and specifically 

whether the low temperature of the fuel on January 28 could 

cause a crack? Could such a crack provide a "burn-path'' that 

could lead to a failed joint or even a possible failed 

casing? 

Answer: The propellant is characterized using test data, and the 

propellant grain is then structurally analyzed using the data as 

input to the analysis. Conditions of one such structural analysis were a motor conditioned to 32'F followed by a five day -30°F 

temperature soak with 30 MPH winds. The analysis showed no indication of propellant cracking. Therefore, the low temperature 

of the propellant on January 28 would not have caused a crack. 

However, a propellant crack could provide a burn-path that could 

lead to a failed joint or casing. 

12. Given a radial crack in the propellant extending to the 

insulation, what data is there that would support or refute 

the burning of NBR insulation under such a condition? 

Answer: The NBR at the base of the crack would be exposed to an environment similar to that observed in the forward segment fin 

regions where the material affected rate (insulation erosion 

rate) is approximately 4 mils/sec. Based upon a minimum insulation 

thickness of 0.4 in. ih this area, a burn through would not occur before 93 seconds. 

There is no evidence of such a crack. 

ISSUE NO. 4 - FUEL CRACKING 

1. Given this potential defect, and assuming that a crack were to develop, do you have data that suggest what would happen 

to the thermal insulation material (NBR) and the casing? 

Could these materials withstand the combustion temperatures 

of the fuel? 

Answer: The NBR at the base of the crack would be exposed to an environment similar to that observed in the forward segment fin 

regions where the material affected rate (insulation erosion 

rate) is approximately 4 mils/sec. 

The insulation material when exposed to the combustion gas temperatures will erode at approximately 4 mils/sec and insulation 

survival time would be based on the insulation thickness at the 

base of the crack. 

2. Do you have thermal data on SRB fuel that could answer the 

question of crack propagation as a function of the fuel's 

thermal and mechanical environment? 

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770 

Have you generated experimental test data that would indicate 

what kind of temperature differential the fuel can withstand 

before it cracks, and whether or not these cracks can serve as fuel burn paths that could lead to the casing or the field 

joint? 

Answer: Propellant crack propagation potential is analyzed using 

fracture mechanics techniques. This analysis is based on thermal 

data and mechanical properties of the propellant. Grain structural 

analyses have been performed for a thermal gradient down to -30'F; 

and a temperature soak of 32OF with no indication of propellant 

cracking in either case. However, a propellant crack, could serve as propellant burn-paths that could lead to the casing or the 

field joint. 

3. Even if such test data exists and even if you have complete 

confidence in your analysis of temperature effects on the 

fuel, do you plan to perform additional tests as part of 

your redesign efforts? 

Answer: We are always attempting to enlarge our data base on SRM 

propellant properties and testing. As new techniques become 

available, they will be incorporated to provide a better overall 

characterization of the propellant. 

ISSUE NO. 5 - FULL SCALE TESTING OF SEAL PERFORMANCE AND 

REDESIGNED JOINT 

1. It is our understanding that NASA has undertaken a program 

at their Langley Research Center to obtain baseline data on the sealing characteristics of various materials, including 

the Vitron material used for the SRB O-rings. 

Are you familiar with this activity and are you participating 

in it? 

Answer: Morton Thiokol is familiar with the NASA activity at the 

Langley Research Center. Parallel studies using different subscale 

test apparatus are in progress at Marshall Space Flight Center and 

at Morton Thiokol. Progress on the Langley studies is communicated 

by MSFC personnel to Morton Thiokol. 

2. How will the information obtained from these studies be used 

in the joint redesign? 

Answer: The seal/seal material selected for joint redesign must 

follow any dynamic movement of the joint during all phases of 

motor operation without allowing any gas leakage. The Langley, 

MSFC, and Morton Thiokol studies will identify the seal materials 

that will best seal the redesigned joint over the required temperature range. 

3. (a) These Langley tests are scaled down versions of the 

actual joint configuration, but we understand that MTI plans 

some full scale tests of the O-ring seals and joints. Could 

you describe these tests for us? 

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771 

Answer: 

seals and case field joints will be accomplished with full scale 

hardware in a configuration called the Joint Environmental Simulator 

(JES). The JES consists of a forward dome, two case cylinders, an 

ET attach segment and an aft dome/port dome assembly. This 

vertically tested assembly provides two "typical" case field 

joints for testing. The motor contains an inert propellant 

simulation of the propellant grain. 

is used to provide hot gas pressurization of the test assembly at 

the same rate experienced in an SRM motor. Joint geometry, joint 

deflections, and temperature at the seals is faithfully reproduced 

in this short duration test. Extensive instrumentation monitors 

the joint rotation, temperature, and pressure at the seals. 

3. (b) What is the cost and schedule for this test program? 

Answer: The JES tests are scheduled at a one per month rate 

starting in July 1986. NJES tests at a one per month rate are 

scheduled to start in October 1986. The total number of JES and 

NJES tests in this program depend on the degree or success and the 

number of concepts carried through full scale evaluation. Costing 

studies have not been completed. They will depend upon the number 

of tests required. 

3. (c) How will the results be used in the joint design? 

Answer: The JES and NJES tests will be used to verify that the 

redesigned joint/seal will work in full scale hardware at simulated 

motor conditions. Final verification will be accomplished in full 

scale static test motors. 

4. (a) What design features are you investigating? 

Answer: A number of design features are being evaluated in the 

JES and NJES. Some of the major features are: 

With the approval of NASA, full scale tests of the O-ring 

A live propellant cartridge 

(1) Features limiting or eliminating joint rotation. 

(2) Features that provide pressure actuation of the 

seal but eliminate any circumferential flow in the 

slot that could increase the heating rate at the joint 

seal. 

(3) Characteristics of the seal/seal material to re- producibility affect a pressure seal under all conditions 

of motor operation and over the required temperature 

range. 

4. (b) Are you getting outside assistance (from NASA or others) in your joint redesign efforts? 

Answer: 

effort for the joints and seals. In addition, Morton Thiokol has 

secured the services of a number of individual consultants and 

outside companies to support the redesign. 

MSFC is conducting a parallel and independent re-design 

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772 

4. (c) Do you believe that you are under pressure to complete 

the redesign to meet NASA's planned July, 1987 date to refly 

the Shuttle? 

Answer: The SRM must be redesigned to satisfy a number of stringent 

design and safety criteria. The design must be verified and 

certified through numerous subscale and full scale tests. This 

process, which must satisfy Morton Thiokol, NASA, and the NRC 

Design Overview Panel, will be accomplished as soon as possible 

commensurate with Safety and Reliability requirements of the 

Program. 

ISSUE NO. 6 - QUESTIONS FROM MARILYN LLOYD 

1. The Rogers' Commission report noted that in all the testimony 

they received that NASA's safety staff was never mentioned. 

They go on to say that no witness related the approval or disapproval of the reliability engineers, and none expressed 

the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the quality assurance 

staff. The report also notes that no one thought to invite a 

safety representative or reliability or quality assurance 

engineer to the January 27, 1986 teleconference between 

Marshall and Thiokol. My question is, gentlemen, didn't you 

find this strange or unusual? Did anybody make a statement or a comment s to why such individuals were not present at 

these critical decision points? 

Answer: The original question on 27 January 1986 was, "will the 

predicted cold temperatures at and prior to the time of launch 

have an impact on the solid rocket motor?" This is a question of 

design. Therefore, the program office called Project Engineering 

which has the responsibility to oversee all efforts within the 

engineering disciplines on the Space Shuttle SRM program, and 

Design Engineering, which ultimately had to answer the temperature 

question. 

Safety and quality were involved throughout design, manufacture, 

shipment and assembly. 

Since the issue of the moment did not concern the quality of the 

parts or how they were inspected, Quality Engineering personnel 

were not called to attend the meetings, held throughout the day. 

Reliability Engineering and System Safety personnel have a broader 

responsibility to assess failure modes, criticalities, and effects 

and to determine hazards associated with the design, its manufacture and use. As Reliability and Safety engineers analyze the 

design, they consult with and provide their results to the Design 

Engineer, who is the expert on all phases of the design. Thus the 

Design Engineer is the single person to provide the technical 

judgment on the design, since he understands all facets of the 

design, including the failure modes and effect, and the safety 

issues. 

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773 

ISSUE NO. 7 - QUESTIONS FROM MR. VOLKMER 

1. Isn't it true Mr. McDonald, that one of the problem reports 

you signed (PAS A09288) shows that launch constraints had 

been issued on Flight 51-F to 61-B? 

Answer: Mr. McDonald did not sign PAS A09288. That document is 

prepared by NASA MSFC. The problem report did indicate that this was a launch constraint. As we testified to the Rogers' 

Commission, neither Mr. McDonald nor anyone else at MTI was made aware of this launch constraint. 

2. What specific areas have resulted from your redesign meetings 

at Marshall June 9-11? 

Answer: The redesign meetings included a review of the criteria 

for redesigning the case field joints and the case to nozzle 

joint. Several joint concepts were reviewed with methods for 

minimizing joint rotation. In addition various seal concepts and 

insulation concepts for these critical joints were reviewed. No 

selections have been made. 

3. Do you feel Marshall or other NASA personnel are pushing you 

to choose a design before you have finished your evaluation? 

Answer: Marshall may wish us to "choose" a design before evaluation can be completed. And they are aware that we may have some unusable hardware fabricated if later evaluation indicates that 

the selected designs are inadequate. We are conducting alternate 

concepts in parallel, and we have to accept the risk that early 

decisions affecting hardware may have to be modified or scrapped 

later. This is the only practical approach to minimizing schedule 

delays. Further, the costs that may be incurred in this type of 

approach are small compared to the costs associated with the added 

down time of the Shuttle program. 

ISSUE NO. 8 - QUESTIONS CONCERNING COUNTDOWN PROCEDURES 

1. How does Thiokol participate in the countdown? 

Answer: Morton Thiokol does not participate in the launch Countdown. Management and technical observers are present in the 

launch control center Firing Room No. 2 (backup Firing Room) in 

the event that their services are needed during the countdown. 

2. Where was Mr. McDonald on January 28? Who was he talking to? 

Answer: At the time of the launch, Mr. McDonald was sitting at a 

console listening to the countdown on a headset, adjacent to the 

MSFC Console in Firing Room No. 2 with Carver Kennedy of MTI's 

Shuttle Processing Contractor Operations. Mr. Mauldin of NASAMarshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) was at the MSFC console. 

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774 

3. Are the hardware contractors polled at T-minus 9 minutes by 

the launch director? 

Answer: Morton Thiokol is not polled at T-9 minutes. We do not 

know if other hardware contractors are polled. The launch director 

can question Morton Thiokol at any time during the countdown. 

4. Were Thiokol personnel asked to sit in on the discussion 

regarding Rockwell's concerns about ice on the pad? The SRB 

might have been vulnerable to damage. 

Answer: No. Morton Thiokol personnel were not asked to sit on 

the discussion concerning ice on the pad. 

5. (a) Why did Thiokol apparently have difficulty understanding 

NASA certification test procedures and quality control 

requirements as compared to other major system contractors 

for the external tank and orbiter (including the SSME's)? 

Answer: We believe the question is directed toward the understanding of temperature specification, since that is the only area of 

confusion on any element of the SRB. Morton Thiokol has no difficulty in understanding our contractually-applicable specifications. Thiokol'has not reviewed the specifications of the other 

contractors and therefore cannot comment on their requirements. 

5. (b) Is the SRB a more difficult systein to certify than the 

others? 

Answer: With regards to temperature conditioning, the SRB is 

much more difficult to certify than the others. The 1.1 million 

pounds of solid propellant in the 126 foot long SRB is a massive 

rubber insulator which would take literally weeks to condition to 

low temperatures in a large environmentally controlled building 

prior to static test. 

5. (c) Are NASA's specifications on the SRB less succinct than on the other major system components? 

Answer: We do not have access to or know what the specifications are on the other major system components. 

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