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THE RECOVERY: INVESTIGATION AND RETURN TO FLIGHTChapter XThe Recovery: Investigationand Return to FlightFor every Shuttle launch, technicians in Marshall’s operations support Centerwatched consoles showing continuous updates of data. For the ill-fated 51–Llaunch, they were stunned when the screens froze shortly after liftoff. Initiallysuspecting a telemetry problem rather than a catastrophe, the technicians turnedto television screens and saw the vapor cloud caused by the destruction of theexternal tank.

They sat in complete silence hoping to see the orbiter come outof the cloud, but instead they saw contrails of burning, falling debris. Workingsilently, they began collecting the data necessary for the post-accident investigation.The weeks after the Challenger accident were the most traumatic in the firstthree decades of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Marshall people felt shockand a deep sense of loss. They had dedicated themselves to the Shuttle program, identified with its accomplishments, embraced the astronauts ascolleagues and friends, and so experienced the accident as personal failure.Many wondered if their anguish would ever go away.1Marshall personnel began investigating within moments after the disaster.Serving on task force panels and on laboratory teams, many worked 12-hourdays for months. Their dedication paid off as Center employees played themajor role in finding the technical cause of the accident and in fixing the problem.

This effort, which Marshall people called “the recovery,” enabled theCenter and the Agency to return the Shuttle to flight within three years.While Marshall worked on technical matters, however, independent investigations made Marshall the Center of controversy. In the first half of 1986 officialgroups and congressional committees studied the events and decisions beforethe accident, and journalists provided running commentary.

Although389POWER TO EXPLORE: HISTORY OF MSFCinvestigations often made useful examinations of technical causes and organizational circumstances and suggested improvements in NASA and the Shuttleprogram, the process sometimes degenerated into an inquisition. The inquiries,and especially the scapegoating, were agonizing. The months of investigationand preparation for flight showed the ability of Marshall and NASA not only tofix technical flaws, but also to address sensitive questions, accept criticism,overcome organizational weaknesses, and reorient cultural patterns.Center of ControversyAfter the death of three astronauts in the Apollo 204 fire, NASA had used aninternal investigation board which largely confined itself to technological issuesand ignored organizational and political factors that contributed to the accident.The narrow technical approach reflected the congressional and presidentialcommitment to the Apollo end-of-decade deadline and NASA AdministratorJames Webb’s ability to protect the space program from outside criticism.Challenger not only had an internal investigation by NASA technical panels,but also an independent inquiry by a presidential commission.

In part thishappened because NASA leaders did not protect the Agency. AdministratorJames Beggs, subject of an investigation by the Justice Department (which wasunrelated to his NASA services and which eventually cleared him of all charges),had surrendered authority over NASA. Deputy Administrator William Grahamwas new to the Agency and deferred the question of the nature of the investigationto the White House. President Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff, Donald Regan,worried about allegations that the White House had pressured NASA to launchon 28 January to ensure that the first teacher-in-space would fly on the day ofPresident Reagan’s State-of-the-Union message. The charges were groundless,but the Reagan administration was in the midst of numerous scandals and Reganwanted a thorough inquiry to avoid any hint of a cover-up. ConsequentlyPresident Reagan decided to appoint a special investigatory commission.2The commission, established on 3 February and headed by former Secretary ofState William P.

Rogers, began directing NASA investigation teams by midFebruary. Rogers was a lawyer and he later told reporters that he wanted athorough and accurate investigation in order to avoid the sort of controversythat had followed the Warren Commission. One way of achieving this was to390THE RECOVERY: INVESTIGATION AND RETURN TO FLIGHTkeep the inquiry open.

Rogers said that “full disclosure has advantages overindictments. You don’t want to punish. You just want to make sure it doesn’thappen again.”3NASA implemented its contingency plan and established several technical panelsto study various scenarios that could have caused the accident. James R.Thompson (called “J.R.” by his colleagues), formerly Marshall’s Shuttle mainengine project manager and later a university research administrator, headedthe NASA investigation.

Since the disaster occurred during launch, a phaseduring which Marshall had primary responsibility, Center personnel played keyroles on the technical panels. Propulsion engineers gathered in the HuntsvilleOperations Support Center to check prelaunch and flight records. With thisdata, teams led by Center Deputy Director Thomas “Jack” Lee, began to identify possible failure modes and isolate causes.

Preliminary analysis pointed toanomalies in the right solid rocket booster (SRB). John W. Thomas, manager ofthe Spacelab Program Office, headed a team that performed tests on the casejoint, and James Kingsbury, head of the Center’s Science and Engineering labs,led another team that planned design improvements. Other Marshall employees worked on the parts recovery team to help salvage pieces of 51–L from theocean floor.

Several hundred Marshall employees participated in these teamsand worked more than 12 hours a day from February until mid-May.4An unclear division of labor between NASA and the presidential commissioncontributed to problems that Marshall had with the media. NASA Headquarters directed that no one serving on the NASA task force give media interviewsand referred questions about the accident and the investigation to the commission.

Marshall personnel with expertise on the subject areas, moreover, wereworking long hours and had little time for talking with the press. The Center’sPublic Affairs Office handled technical inquiries from 25 news organizations,including most of the major national outlets, which had set up shop at Marshallwhen attention focused on the solid rocket boosters. The office relayed answersfrom Marshall experts, but the reporters were not satisfied by the limited accessand information.

The Center’s public information officers believed that the Headquarters’ policy left Marshall defenseless and, by depriving the media of news,encouraged an adversarial posture toward Marshall and the entire Agency.Reporters searched for stories by hanging out in the Marshall cafeteria andcamping outside the homes of Center officials.5391POWER TO EXPLORE: HISTORY OF MSFCMeanwhile on 10 February in a closed session of the presidential commission,Morton-Thiokol officials described the history of the joints and their originalrecommendation to delay the launch because of the dangers of cold weather.During a lull in testimony on 11 February, Commissioner Richard Feynmanperformed a dramatic demonstration with a section of O-ring, a clamp, and aglass of ice water; this showed that a cold, compressed O-ring material onlyslowly returned to normal shape when the pressure was released.

The demonstration showed how temperature could inhibit the sealing of O-rings and helpedreporters explain the cold weather thesis and move easily from technical causation to managerial responsibility.Afterwards, the commission increasingly challenged Marshall officials. Rogersdescribed NASA’s decision process as “flawed” because the eleventh-hourteleconference had allowed a launch with a known hazard; he asked the Agencyto exclude SRB project officials, Shuttle managers, and Center directors frominternal investigation teams.6 Rogers became very critical, saying Marshallpersonnel had lacked “common sense” and had “almost covered up” the jointproblems.

Feynman called the joint design “hopeless” and said that poorcommunication between engineers and managers at Marshall was symptomaticof “some kind of disease.”7After 15 February the national media also began finding fault with NASA andregarded the ban on interviews as an attempt to cover up a scandal. Marshallofficials wanted to talk to the media to correct what they believed was aninaccurate interpretation of the launch decision. They decided to keep silent,however, fearing that the commission would regard press interviews as crudeattempts to influence proceedings.8On 26 and 27 February the commission took testimony from Marshall officialsinvolved in the teleconference. Center Director William Lucas said the tone ofquestioning was “very sharp.” Center officials complained of difficulty explaining how they had experienced events and believed the commission did notlisten sympathetically.

Judson Lovingood, deputy manager of the Shuttle Projectsoffice, said, “we’re engineers . . . and that makes me tend to think one way andtry to communicate one way. I found it difficult to communicate with somemembers of the commission. And that’s not critical of them. But . . .

anengineer does not think like a lawyer might think.”9392THE RECOVERY: INVESTIGATION AND RETURN TO FLIGHTAfter they had testified, Marshall officials held a series of press interviews.Defending his people, Lucas said “in my judgment, the process was not flawed,”and “given what they say they knew, what they testified they knew, I think itwas a sound decision to launch.”10 Managers defended the launch process whichallowed decisions to be made by low-level experts. They exonerated the joint’sdesign, argued that they had lacked hard evidence that the cold was a hazard,disputed the claim that cold weather was the technical cause of the O-ring failure, and suggested that assembly errors could have damaged the O-ring andcaused the accident.11The Marshall strategy of openness backfired.

Media reports interpreted theirstatements as attempts to discredit the commission and as signs of an arrogantrefusal to admit mistakes. Marshall public information officers later complainedthat the media had twisted information and lamented that Marshall had been“gang-banged by the media.”12 The commission’s response was just as critical.One commission member believed that the Marshall managers’ defense of theflight readiness review process and their decisions was “totally insensitive.”Commissioner Joseph F. Sutter believed Center managers were “pretty defensive.” After reading the stories and after the commission requested tapes of theinterviews, Marshall officials concluded that talking to the media did more harmthan good.13In retrospect, Marshall leaders challenged the wisdom of a public investigation.

Bill Sneed said NASA should have tried “to understand what went wrongand tried to make it right, rather than almost put the people on trial.” Lucasargued that a public investigation was “clearly a gross error.” The commission,he believed, was “totally politically motivated” and “its genesis almost determined its outcome.” Its purpose “was never to find out technically what wentwrong, but to find out where we could put some blame that would deflect it asfar from the [Reagan] administration as possible.” Lucas worried that the public inquiry had been “counter-productive entirely” and “could close NASA up.”An internal investigation would have discovered as much without the side effect of making people “more inclined to protect their own tail, so to speak,rather than have a purely open situation.”14The presidential commission and its NASA investigation teams published a common report on 6 June 1986. The report contained four major conclusions: theSRM (solid rocket motor) joint had a flawed design; NASA’s safety and393POWER TO EXPLORE: HISTORY OF MSFCquality systems hadbeen inadequate;the Shuttle flightschedule had beentoo demanding; andMarshall had poorcommunications,especially with theLevel II ShuttleProgram office.15The accident analysis team, led byThomas and supported by Marshall Plume of flame from aft field joint of right SRM of STSpersonnel, studied 51–L, approximately 60 seconds after ignition.flight data andwreckage, performed 300 tests on 20 different joint configurations, and concluded that the O-rings had failed and caused the disaster.