The Challenger Launch Decision

Download or read book The Challenger Launch Decision written by Diane Vaughan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: List of Figures and TablesPreface1: The Eve of the Launch 2: Learning Culture, Revising History 3: Risk, Work Group Culture, and the Normalization of Deviance 4: The Normalization of Deviance, 1981-1984 5: The Normalization of Deviance, 1985 6: The Culture of Production 7: Structural Secrecy 8: The Eve of the Launch Revisited 9: Conformity and Tragedy 10: Lessons Learned Appendix A. Cost/Safety Trade-Offs? Scrapping the Escape Rockets and the SRB Contract Award Decision Appendix B. Supporting Charts and Documents Appendix C. On Theory Elaboration, Organizations, and Historical EthnographyAcknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Download or read book Truth, Lies, and O-Rings written by Allan J. McDonald and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2012-03-11 with total page 1075 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Challenger, despite warnings against doing so by many individuals, including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of Challenger on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation’s collective memory. In Truth, Lies, and O-Rings, McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center. As he fought to draw attention to the real reasons behind the disaster, he was the only one targeted for retribution by both NASA and his employer, Morton Thiokol, Inc., makers of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters. In this whistle-blowing yet rigorous and fair-minded book, McDonald, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James R. Hansen, addresses all of the factors that led to the accident, some of which were never included in NASA's Failure Team report submitted to the Presidential Commission. Truth, Lies, and O-Rings is the first look at the Challenger tragedy and its aftermath from someone who was on the inside, recognized the potential disaster, and tried to prevent it. It also addresses the early warnings of very severe debris issues from the first two post-Challenger flights, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Columbia some fifteen years later.

Download or read book Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident written by DIANE Publishing Company and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1995-07 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Bringing Columbia Home written by Michael D. Leinbach and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voted the Best Space Book of 2018 by the Space Hipsters The dramatic inside story of the epic search and recovery operation after the Columbia space shuttle disaster. On February 1, 2003, Columbia disintegrated on reentry before the nation’s eyes, and all seven astronauts aboard were lost. Author Mike Leinbach, Launch Director of the space shuttle program at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center was a key leader in the search and recovery effort as NASA, FEMA, the FBI, the US Forest Service, and dozens more federal, state, and local agencies combed an area of rural east Texas the size of Rhode Island for every piece of the shuttle and her crew they could find. Assisted by hundreds of volunteers, it would become the largest ground search operation in US history. This comprehensive account is told in four parts: Parallel Confusion Courage, Compassion, and Commitment Picking Up the Pieces A Bittersweet Victory For the first time, here is the definitive inside story of the Columbia disaster and recovery and the inspiring message it ultimately holds. In the aftermath of tragedy, people and communities came together to help bring home the remains of the crew and nearly 40 percent of shuttle, an effort that was instrumental in piecing together what happened so the shuttle program could return to flight and complete the International Space Station. Bringing Columbia Home shares the deeply personal stories that emerged as NASA employees looked for lost colleagues and searchers overcame immense physical, logistical, and emotional challenges and worked together to accomplish the impossible. Featuring a foreword and epilogue by astronauts Robert Crippen and Eileen Collins, and dedicated to the astronauts and recovery search persons who lost their lives, this is an incredible, compelling narrative about the best of humanity in the darkest of times and about how a failure at the pinnacle of human achievement became a story of cooperation and hope.

Download or read book Challenger: An American Tragedy written by Hugh Harris and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The former launch commentator “offers a personal—and sometimes painful—look back at one of the darkest chapters in US human spaceflight” (Space.com). On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Seventy-three seconds after launch, the fiery breach of a solid motor joint caused a rupture of the propellant tanks, and a stunned nation watched as flames engulfed the craft, killing all seven crew members on board. It was Hugh Harris, “the voice of launch control,” whom audiences across the country heard counting down to lift-off on that fateful day. With over fifty years of experience with NASA’s missions, Harris presents the story of the Challenger tragedy as only an insider can. With by-the-second accounts of the spacecraft’s launch and a comprehensive overview of the ensuing investigation, Harris gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the devastating accident that grounded the shuttle fleet for over two years. This book tells the whole story of the Challenger’s tragic legacy.

Download or read book The Burning Blue written by Kevin Cook and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of a national trauma—NASA’s Challenger explosion—and what really happened to America’s Teacher in Space, illuminating the tragic cost of humanity setting its sight on the stars You’ve seen the pictures. You know what happened. Or do you? On January 28, 1986, NASA’s space shuttle Challenger exploded after blasting off from Cape Canaveral. Christa McAuliffe, America’s “Teacher in Space,” was instantly killed, along with the other six members of the mission. At least that's what most of us remember. Kevin Cook tells us what really happened on that ill-fated, unforgettable day. He traces the pressures—leading from NASA to the White House—that triggered the fatal order to launch on an ice-cold Florida morning. Cook takes readers inside the shuttle for the agonizing minutes after the explosion, which the astronauts did indeed survive. He uncovers the errors and corner-cutting that led an overconfident space agency to launch a crew that had no chance to escape. But this is more than a corrective to a now-dimming memory. Centering on McAuliffe, a charmingly down-to-earth civilian on the cusp of history, The Burning Blue animates a colorful cast of characters: a pair of red-hot flyers at the shuttle's controls, the second female and first Jewish astronaut, the second Black astronaut, and the first Asian American and Buddhist in space. Drawing vivid portraits of Christa and the astronauts, Cook makes readers forget the fate they're hurtling toward. With drama, immediacy, and shocking surprises, he reveals the human price the Challenger crew and America paid for politics, capital-P Progress, and the national dream of "reaching for the stars."

Download or read book Challenger Revealed written by Richard C. Cook and published by Thunder's Mouth Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reagan Administration pushed hard for NASA to launch shuttle mission 51L, before it was ready. 73 seconds into the launch, the shuttle exploded, killing seven and leaving a nation traumatized. Richard Cook, lead resource analyst at NASA for the Solid Rocket Boosters, was the first to warn of possible catastrophic failure. His memo, detailing astronaut concerns and warnings from the shuttle builders at Morton Thiokol, was ignored by top NASA officials and members of the Reagan administration. In the aftermath, NASA launched an investigation to "discover" the cause of the disaster. Though within NASA there was absolute certainty about the O-ring failure, they began a cover-up by publicly proclaiming that the cause was unknown. A Reagan administration Commission perpetrated the same lie. When Cook realized that the Commission was not interested in the truth, he leaked the original documents to the New York Times, setting off a cascade of disclosures, including revelations by Morton Thiokol engineers that they had tried to stop the launch.--From publisher description.