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enraged_hbo_max_user t1_j6fw0h0 wrote

I still think it’s crazy no one went to jail, if only for a few years, because of this. Wasn’t the manufacturer of the rocket telling them there’s no way they could launch in those temps, and NASA managers pressured them until they reversed themselves? If that isn’t criminal gross negligence (malfeasance? IANAL) then I don’t know what is.

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montani t1_j6e9b0i wrote

God I feel old.

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_MobyHick t1_j6eecn5 wrote

That was my first though too. Seeing that up there like it's "Dewey Defeats Truman" or something from history.

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montani t1_j6f25dq wrote

Yeah its my first real national event memory but I remember everything about watching the news that day

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immargarita t1_j6g3lof wrote

You're not. They never got to be old. Awful time in our lifetime, I remember all my school teachers going from jubilation to tears. I was too little to understand any of it then. Just thankful these events don't happen much today.

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bookishbaker1 t1_j6ezah2 wrote

This was before everyone had a phone in their pocket with the news on it. I was in my company's booth at a trade show. I found out about it when a salesman came into the booth and told a horrible joke.

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o_c_d t1_j6f7hft wrote

Now we know after nasa analysis it wasn't an explosion.

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PoorGuyCrypto t1_j6f9rkz wrote

Didn't it have something to do with poorly-built gaskets that were connected to a polygamist cult?

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o_c_d t1_j6faihz wrote

Uh, no.

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PoorGuyCrypto t1_j6fd3lu wrote

https://jalopnik.com/how-a-cult-built-the-o-rings-that-failed-on-the-space-s-1846151814

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o_c_d t1_j6fdh3k wrote

While you have provided... a link... the official nasa analysis blamed cold Temps where the ring lost its property to seal the aft joint.

Here is my link. https://youtu.be/6JlSfB32sJo

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heili t1_j6i2822 wrote

The rubber o-rings weren't "poorly built", they were launching well outside the design parameters for temperature. Roger Boisjoly and other Thiokol engineers tried to warn them, but Thiokol management overruled them because they didn't want a huge publicity event to turn into yet another scrubbed launch.

The engineers knew in 1977 it wasn't safe to operate at those cold temperatures. Management of Thiokol and NASA didn't give a shit because they wanted their "Teacher in Space" moment. And they killed seven people.

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burjwa_look t1_j6icea0 wrote

As a child of eleven at the time, I recall that this was a snow day in much of Western Pennsylvania. I was out playing in the snow that morning, when my neighbor, also eleven, came out and told me about the accident.

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NSlocal t1_j6iz7id wrote

I was in 8th grade. We were supposed to watch it live in class but the TV was never delivered to our room. I remember it was science class and our science teacher coming into the room crying. I am glad I didn't see it live.

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