On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 7:14:59 PM UTC-7, Snag's Shop wrote:
Oren wrote:

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 20:32:39 -0400, Tekkie�

wrote:


What do they have to say about O-rings?
It gets cold in Florida?

Do either of you actually know the story about that failure ? I do , I

worked on that booster system , in several capacities . A good friend was

still employed there I had already moved to Tn. and I got the real skinny

the day after the crash . And yes , a chilled o-ring caused the failure ,

but Floriduh just doesn't get that cold - unless there's a liquid hydrogen

line leak spraying .

Back story to the whole episode is that the Thiokol engineers told 'em not

to launch , politics overruled and people died . Pretty much like

politicians everywhere . It's easy to spill blood when it ain't your own ..


I will NEVER forget watching on TV as the late, much-lamented Richard Feynman -- one of the authentic geniuses of this or any era -- did his thing with the glass of ice water and the O-rings immersed therein. While all the stuffed shirts who had been dicking around for weeks in the so-called "investigation" looked on, Feynman said -- masterpiece of understatement - I almost remember the exact words, modestly spoken: "I think this may have some relevance to our investigation.."

He had gotten up early in the morning and found a hardware ? store open to buy the needed supplies for his demonstration.

Whatta guy! They still tell tales at Caltech about how somebody would put a problem on the board; the other physicists would be going through the routine steps; Feynmna would just stand there. Suddenly he would write the correct answer on the board while the others were still plowing through their steps. If I were a religious person, I'd say he was in touch with the "divine". Whatever...things just came to him via a different path...

HB