Small mistake, big consequences.

Originally published in Quora by Shivam Pandey.

On January 28, 1986, millions of Americans watched in horror as, 73 seconds from its launch, the space shuttle Challenger and it's seven crew members were burnt down into ashes.

So was the mistake unavoidable or something that NASA was not aware about.

Let's explore!

Challenger was a part of Space shuttle program of NASA and was one of the first of its kind to carry human attendants to the developing space station.NASA was excited about this project as later president Nixon was about to make an address to the nation and he was to include the success of challenger in it. So the date of launch was not to be shifted much. NASA gave the contract of building space rocket booster (SRBs), in 1973, to Morton Thiokol company. For the time being you can consider two rocket like structure adjacent to plane like design as SRB.

Thiokol designed the SRBs and they used O-rings to seal the joint between each segment of cylinders that formed the long cylinder like architecture of the rocket booster. But it was in 1977 that problems began to pop up in the design.

Robert Boisjoly noted that temperatures have significant impact on these O-RINGS and it looses it's flexibility if temperature is low than 51 degree. He announced about his findings to NASA and his officials. A teleconference took place between NASA and Thiokol, a day before the launch was scheduled. Boisjoly repeatedly pressurised the fact that it would not be wise to launch space shuttle if temperature is too low and air force department already predicted low temperature on day of launch.

However, the NASA officials and Thiokol bosses were adamant on their decision and Joe kioiminister, Boisjoly boss, thinks that he works in O-RINGS department so he is always concerned about O-RINGS only.

The NASA gave nod to launch even when the launch temperature was -2 degree and the anticipated happened. The O-rings failed completely and space shuttle went into pieces killing all the seven members on the board.

So even with the initial warning, NASA could not reschedule its launch decision and seven members lost their lives for one small mistake.

Do visit the original content at Quora and show the appreciation by upvotes.

https://www.quora.com/Have-you-ever-witnessed-a-life-ruined-from-a-small-mistake/answer/Shivam-Pandey-541?share=13876bb8&srid=uYBLj

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