The Challenger Disaster: What Happens When Politics Overrides Science
By Jeremy Bloom
We’re seeing more and more science overruled by politics – in climate change, in clean energy, in high-speed rail.
But that’s a formula for disaster – like the Challenger disaster that took the lives of seven astronauts and irretrievably damaged the American space program. Given that it was recently the anniversary of that tragedy, it’s worth recalling how the disaster happened.
It was going to be cold that morning — too cold for the o-rings on the fuel tanks to seal properly. That’s what the engineers told management — over, and over. But the engineers didn’t have the final say. There was pressure from upper management to make sure Challenger went up that day (it might have had something to do with NASA brass wanting to give Ronald Reagan a talking point in his State of the Union speech, scheduled later the same day).
When one of the engineers went home the night before, he told his wife, “I think they are going to kill those astronauts tomorrow.”
And so Challenger launched. And exploded in flight.
The next time you hear someone saying the science on climate change “hasn’t been proved definitively,” recall the words of the engineer who was pushed into giving the go-ahead:
The VP of engineering was pressured to change his mind and “Take off his engineering hat, and put on his management hat.” He then told NASA that “The data predicting blow-by (of super-hot gases) was inconclusive.” NASA heard silence on the phone after that, which was interpreted by them to be a go ahead to launch.
“Inconclusive.” How many times have you heard a GOP senator or Presidential candidate say the science on climate change is “inconclusive?”
We’ll never know why management was pushing so hard for a launch that day — the official investigation insisted it was NOT because of the State of the Union, but that was based on the word of officials who gave the orders, who in the wake of the disaster had strong motivation to cover their asses.
There was also a rumor from anti-environmentalists that an EPA ban on asbestos had caused the o-rings’ putty to fail (but there was no ban until 3 years later).
But there’s no doubt that political pressure and budget cutting left NASA’s managers (political appointees) feeling the pressure to get that mission launched.
The real tragedy of the Challenger disaster was that it was entirely preventable. Most of the problems with the joints were known about years before the accident, some were even recognized before the first shuttle flight. (There were also a number of problems with the main rocket motors, but most of these were solved before the fatal flight. (Feynman p.28)) But fixing the problems would have meant even more delays in a program that was already behind schedule. Instead of fixing the problems as they were found, NASA management rationalized that if the last flight succeeded then the next one would too.
Worse was the political interference before the start of the shuttle program. In order to avoid high upfront costs, the Nixon administration went with a scaled-back program. This saved money initially, but cost more long-term, and left the shuttles with vulnerable, fragile external fuel tanks — which contributed to both shuttle explosions.
The author of the book Willful Blindness, Margaret Heffernan, notes that it’s not the engineers, designers, technicians and even manufacturers who make these kind of decisions:
Technically, the cause of the shuttle’s fatal explosion turned out to be a small rubber ring which cracked when subjected to exceptionally cold weather prior to launch and the extreme heat at launch. The fault was well understood — so why had the shuttle been allowed to take off? [Richard] Feynman described with some scorn the political pressure felt by engineers to deliver to then-President Reagan a story with feelgood PR:
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled,” Feynman wrote. Today, most of us would be surprised to encounter anyone who felt that science regularly prevailed over PR. Feynman took it for granted that once everyone realized the trade-off between Nature and politics, they’d make the safer choice. Few would be so certain today.
As the Senate begins debate on a comprehensive energy bill, let’s hope they’re not baking in the next shuttle disaster… or Flint disaster, or Porter Ranch disaster.
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