posted June 19, 2007 05:39 PM               

quote:

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10. The Challenger Cover Up, 1986
In depth description of the Challenger accident and how NASA covered up the true cause of the explosion, NASA makes many changes to the design of the Shuttle "secretly" but it is decided that the accident was caused just by a flawed O ring in the joint of a Solid Rocket Booster, in fact it was a structural failure due to the dynamic forces of the lift-off that NASA never fully understood, an aerospace engineer, Ali Abutaha did and gave his findings to the space agency, which rejected them but secretly took them into account in redesigning and strengthening the Shuttle system, Flight International exposes cover up which was greeted by total silence in the USA.

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posted June 20, 2007 01:24 AM               

If respectable authors jump into the "we're being lied all the time- conspiracy everywhere" bandwagon, simply to get the attention, who are we going to trust? As if we needed to give more ammo to the paranoid idiots.

posted June 20, 2007 03:49 AM            

The issue might turn out to be an association / causality one - there were lots of changes after the Apollo fire, for example, but that didn't prove that all the changes were linked to the fire.

posted June 20, 2007 10:01 AM               

That being said, the original post says "how NASA covered up the real cause of the accident". If that doesn't sound like conspiracy, I don't know what does.
Maybe it's the language that needs to be changed, eg. "contributing factor that lead to the accident"- then it would be interesting to read.

posted June 20, 2007 10:26 AM               

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As Challenger rose into the skies, the right hand booster was shedding pieces from the damaged booster and was fishtailing slightly through the sky - a fact that was clearly recognised by the crew, who had worked out was wrong, were on the point of saving the orbiter and crew but ran out of time. They were within 1 sec of saving the mission with a contingency abort!

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NASA very carefully censored any images that showed what was really happening - unlike the hundreds of views from several angles that were usually published after a launch. The space agency also misidentified the crew cabin falling into the sea, which explained why it took so long to find the fallen seven-person crew, which included the schoolteacher, Christa McAuliffe.

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posted June 20, 2007 10:29 AM            

Oddly enough, I remember him accurately hypothesizing what was eventually proven to have taken place, with regards to the mechanics of the Challenger accident, within the first hour or two whilst live on a news report on BBC2 (at a time when live, streaming news was very rare here in the UK!)

With this in mind, along with his undoubted credentials, I do find it a bit odd that he subscribes to this "conspiracy theory" about 51L.

As an aside, not too long ago, he did have a letter published in "Spaceflight" supporting "creationism", in response to NASA producing evidence which could point to a globally wet Mars in the very distant past, and scientists generally saying it could not have happened on Earth, as referred to in a religious sense at least. I will freely admit, my eyes widened at that point, but we are all, of course, entitled to our own beliefs.

posted June 20, 2007 12:54 PM               

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Originally posted by cspg:
If respectable authors jump into the "we're being lied all the time- conspiracy everywhere" bandwagon, simply to get the attention, who are we going to trust?

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This is not the first time we've seen this. Look at Nick Cook, who went from being editor of Jane's to theorizing about Nazi flying saucers and Zero Point Energy.

And I think we really saw it a year ago when Aviation Week produced a cover story on the "Blackstar spaceplane" that was a classic example of sloppy journalism (no named sources, no indication of direct knowledge, etc.). A lot of people took the position that "because it is in Aviation Week, it has to be true." But that's not a good assumption. I wrote a rebuttal where I pointed out that Aviation Week once wrote a breathless story about a Soviet nuclear-powered bomber that was not true -- proving that Aviation Week can be spectacularly wrong at times.

What this means is that readers have to be very discerning and careful and attentive. They cannot simply determine that a story is valid because it comes from a valid source or a reputable publication.

That's really unfortunate, because I've discovered over the years that there are very few people who have the ability to be discerning like that. It is not necessarily a case of intellect, but of attitude -- they have to possess the ability to question everything that they read and weigh its validity and be willing to look for more information.

posted June 20, 2007 02:31 PM               

He regularly appeared on TV programmes for "young people" and managed not to be patronising. Many of us thus graduated to reading him every week in Flight International when we grew-up!

I recently had a conversation with another reporter from that magazine who said Furniss and 'Flight' had recently "parted ways".

I wonder if his more 'left-field' views on such matters as space and religion are the cause (or effect) of this new found freedom?

posted June 21, 2007 12:39 AM               

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Originally posted by Dwayne Day:
That's really unfortunate, because I've discovered over the years that there are very few people who have the ability to be discerning like that. It is not necessarily a case of intellect, but of _attitude_--they have to possess the ability to question everything that they read and weigh its validity and be willing to look for more information.

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posted June 21, 2007 08:03 AM               

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Originally posted by dom:
Yes, many of us this side of the Atlantic had our interest in spaceflight broadened by Tim Furniss' excellent reporting.

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posted June 21, 2007 08:12 AM               

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NASA very carefully censored any images that showed what was really happening - unlike the hundreds of views from several angles that were usually published after a launch.

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I suppose every major event has to have some sort of conspiracy or cover-up behind it now. Sells books and stuff, I guess. How millions of people can parrot this stuff with sincerity is beyond belief.

posted June 21, 2007 10:29 AM               

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Originally posted by aurora:
Where are all those lovely Shuttle views that are usually issued? NASA banned them.

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Flight International reported on the flames coming from the right hand booster and shedding material in 1992 even providing an artwork based on an remote camera image of the launch by a famous magazine photographer which was not used!!

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You suggest that for a journalist to be objective, he needs to consider both sides of a story. However, a journalist also needs to be discerning about the validity of such sides, less he be used to further false information.

posted June 21, 2007 05:55 PM               

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Originally posted by aurora:
considering the slating I got in the beginning by people on the chat room who should have known better.

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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

You cannot call people liars and not expect to provoke a reaction.

posted June 22, 2007 02:17 AM               

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I am a journalist and look at BOTH sides of the argument!!!! Which is being objective...

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posted June 22, 2007 11:28 AM               

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Dear Readers of collectSpace.com:

As co-author of the forthcoming Challenger memoir by Allan J. McDonald, formerly of Morton Thiokol, I have followed the thread about Tim Furniss's new book with great interest. I have also shared the thread with Mr. McDonald himself and, even though we admittedly have not yet read Mr. Furniss's book, here is our preliminary judgment.

Mr. Furniss is primarily basing his conspiracy theory, it seems, on the claims made by a Mr. Ali Abu Taha, one of numerous sidewalk rocket scientists who in the wake of the Challenger accident wrote to NASA or Morton Thiokol — and in some cases to various members of Congress and even the President of the United States — claiming that the failure of the O-rings in the SRB had not really been the problem. Some of these individuals had examined videotapes of the flight, while others had read the Presidential Commission's report. The failure mechanisms put forward by these pundits ranged from sabotage by an expert marksman shooting at the Shuttle at liftoff, to structural failure of the solid rocket motor case at liftoff, to a structural failure of the struts attaching the SRB to the external tank, to cracks in the solid propellant grain, to failure of the internal insulation in the SRM joint area, to leaks in the ET causing overheating of the SRB joint from a hydrogen fire, to exhaust plume interactions between the SRB and the SSMEs causing reverse flow along the side of the aft segment of the SRB, to failure in the Space Shuttle Main Engines, and, last but not least, a hard left turn of the huge mobile transporter that moved the Shuttle on the mobile launch platform to the launch pad.

This last theory had been fully documented and analyzed by a Mr. Ali Abu Taha, who submitted it to NASA in a lengthy report. Abu Taha claimed that, since this had been the first launch off Pad 39B, the mobile transporter carrying the Shuttle stack had to make a left turn to reach this pad whereas all previous launches from Pad 39A had been in direct line to the VAB, requiring no turns during transportation. Abu Taha claimed that the jerky movement of the transporter caused the Shuttle stack to wobble, causing added loads on the joints; then, when the Challenger stack turned left to go to Pad 39B, the whole stack leaned over, causing excessive loads on the aft field joint of the right hand solid rocket booster. This added load, which NASA had not accounted for in its loads analysis, was sufficient to crack the steel joint in the SRB, which then failed on ignition.

Unfortunately for Abu Taha's analysis, the Shuttle transporter did not move out to the pad at anything like a breakneck speed: when this huge iron monster made its turn to go to Pad 39B, its speed down the track was less than one mile per hour.

Abu Taha was so convinced that he had diagnosed the problem that NASA invited him to come down to KSC to witness the slow crawl of the transporter for what was to be the next planned Shuttle flight, which had already been stacked in the VAB at the time of the Challenger launch. NASA even instrumented the stack to determine the deflections and loads during transportation to the pad.

Needless to say, these loads were minuscule, and Abu Taha, after witnessing this event, withdrew his failure scenario.

But Mr. Abu Taha did not give up, publishing another new failure scenario and releasing it to the press. This theory was even harder to disprove, a sure-fire way of persuading the ill-informed press. Still convinced that a structural failure had occurred due to excessive loads introduced into the joint area by the struts during SSME start-up and bend-over of the Shuttle stack prior to SRB ignition, Abu Taha conducted an analysis that purported to show that the actual loads induced by this action were much higher than the design loads calculated by NASA and that that was what caused the SRM case to fail structurally in the area of the joint. Furthermore, Abu Taha said he had personally examined some of the films from the launch and claimed that he could see pieces coming off the Shuttle which disturbed the plume; he could see what he thought was hot gas leaking from the aft joint area, as evidenced by disturbances in the outer boundaries of the exhaust plume of the right hand SRB for the full duration of the flight right up until the Shuttle exploded. Abu Taha claimed that the moving struts pulled a piece of the case loose in the area of the joint and that this piece had never been found because the salvage ships and submarines only picked up debris in the area of impact rather than closer in to shore where the failed case section would most likely have been.

Abu Taha's failure scenario totally lacked credibility. If it had been correct, these same excessive loads would have occurred on every flight of the Shuttle, not just Challenger, and, anyway, solid rocket motors don't continue flying for 73 seconds with broken cases — including 20 seconds of operation at a maximum pressure of over 900 psia! Things would have gotten much worse much more quickly. If hot gas had been continually leaking out of a structurally failed area as Abu Taha suggested, it wouldn't have taken very long to fail completely, because the thermal insulation would also have had to fail structurally to allow the first puff of black smoke to exit the case.

Unfortunately, Abu Taha's second failure scenario turned out to be much tougher for the NASA and MTI engineers to put to bed; for years after the accident, it reappeared in one form or another in several magazine articles, often with some relatively well known, or even not-so-well-known expert endorsing it or attesting to Abu Taha's academic credentials. In fact, George Washington University in Washington, D.C., offered a course in "Failure Analysis of Complex Systems" taught by Abu Taha, which used his analysis of Challenger as a case study. As far as we know, his course may still be in the curriculum.

In sum, Mr. Furniss seems to have bought into Abu Taha's second scenario, the one that claims that the pre-launch loads from the SSMEs, which bend the vehicle over, broke the SRM case in the area of the struts near the field joint. It is a scenario that was explored by NASA and MTI engineers and dismissed totally as junk science.

I hope this clarifies the issues for those who are reading, or plan to read, or plan to dismiss without reading, Mr. Furniss's book.

Sincerely,

James R. Hansen, Ph.D.
Auburn University

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posted June 22, 2007 01:05 PM               

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Originally posted by aurora:
You can't just knock the chapter without reading it.

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posted June 22, 2007 06:00 PM               

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Originally posted by aurora:
Dwayne - read the book when it's on online before you attack me. You can attack me all you want after you've read it but something tells me you will go rather quiet and you'll want to lie down in a dark place to recover.

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First, you are making very inflammatory claims--you're accusing people of lying about a major space accident. If you're going to make such bold claims, then you will be held to high standards. You have to expect to defend yourself. And you don't have the right to play victim--you picked the fight.

Second, this is not a "book." A book has an editor and a publisher. This appears to have neither. I would also add that a _reputable_ book will also have a review process. Publishers will ask people with credentials to read it and check its accuracy and its claims. I don't see any evidence of that in this case.

posted June 24, 2007 12:58 AM               

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Originally posted by James R. Hansen:
As co-author of the forthcoming Challenger memoir by Allan J. McDonald, formerly of Morton Thiokol...

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posted June 24, 2007 08:13 AM               

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Originally posted by aurora:
Which is being objective, unlike the subjective evolutionists and big bangers.

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The above quote is a huge red flag which I'm surprised nobody else has picked up on. If the comments by James Hansen and others posted in this thread weren't enough, the anti-science mindset displayed in that one sentence makes me extremely wary.

posted June 25, 2007 09:04 AM               

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Originally posted by aurora:
The science of Evolution and the Big Bang are theories and Creation deserves equal coverage as it is also science worth considering.

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You ought to go on some of the science creation sites, you will be amazed. It is certainly worth considering.

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posted June 26, 2007 02:25 AM               

Mr. Furniss, in his responses to this thread thus far, made point of the fact that being a journalist means being objective. Make no mistake, the chapter I was given to read was far from objective. Furniss makes it clear from the start that as far as he is concerned, Abutaha is correct and the Rogers Commission was wrong.

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The Rogers Commission began work on 6 February 1986 and by 16 February, its chairman Rogers, blamed the O-ring for the accident — but was wrong.

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Indeed, when he finally does cite direct criticism of Abutaha, in the form of a rejection letter sent by a peer reviewer for the AIAA, Furniss almost admits to a blind trust in the validity of Abutaha's research. The letter reads in part,

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The subject report in its entirety reflects lack of understanding of the development of shuttle and SRB design loads criteria and the structural certification process. The report in its entirety is based on false assumptions and therefore has led to false conclusions on the author’s part. The report could be very misleading to those who are not familiar with shuttle design loads, specifications, and certification and therefore it is recommended that this report not be accepted by the AIAA for publication.

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OK, maybe we space journalists cannot judge technical matters amongst the engineers... but at least we can read. Ali allowed me to read from his files.

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As to the nature of Abutaha's claims, there is little to anything new and in fact, James Hansen's summary of the situation (as appears earlier in this thread) is spot on. Furniss spends a lot of time (and repetition) describing Abutaha's "dynamic overshoot" theory, likening it to stepping on a scale and observing its measurement overshoot your actual weight for the first few seconds. To Abutaha, the source of most, if not all of NASA's problems with the shuttle originate with the "twang" at launch: after the SSMEs ignite the shuttle stack pitches forward and then returns to vertical before the SRBs ignite. Abutaha believes a dynamic overshoot exerts forces beyond the safety limits on the stack, resulting in, among other things, the destruction of Challenger and the warping of the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror.

Much of the chapter is spent citing individuals, either by name or title, who either supported or rejected Abutaha's claims (all of course, as provided by Abutaha himself). Ironically, some of the letters that Furniss chooses to excerpt as supportive of Abutaha read much more like (overly) polite rejection letters rather than endorsements.

Furniss and/or Abutaha come to the ultimate conclusion that the only possible reason why NASA would reject Abutaha's research and his "help," and that the U.S. media would reject the opportunity to give Abutaha a platform to promote his theory, was a cover-up. In addition to citing missing imagery (for which Furniss nor Abutaha have any direct proof; Furniss only cites, as he did on this thread, that if it existed for other flights, it should exist for STS-51L, nor does he make any noted attempt to locate said missing imagery in NASA's archives), he also suggests that the Rogers Commission members were only fed imagery that NASA wanted it to see (specifically, only 2 seconds of video from the launch), that a "smoking gun" explosion was missed by most of the world due to image distortion on our television sets and that for reasons of national security, Abutaha was either prohibited or self-restrained from sharing what he knew.

And why, you ask, would NASA rather blame the O-rings and its own management problems rather than the loads on the entire vehicle? Furniss explains early in the chapter:

quote:

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Frankly, it was a stitch up. It may have been politically correct to do so as these were the days of the “Evil Empire” and the Soviet Union was a threat - especially when it came to leadership in space. US spy satellites had presumably seen preparations for the launch of a new Soviet space station and even evidence of a Soviet Shuttle being prepared. The Shuttle therefore had to be returned to flight as soon as possible and modifying O-rings would be easier than redesigning the entire booster. So, it was to a certain degree understandable. However, the findings of the Commission were an insult to the memory of the Challenger Seven.

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It would seem that Furniss and Abutaha set out to rectify that injustice by lobbing an even greater insult at the Challenger Seven's pilot and commander. The authors thankfully do not put forth the old (debunked) rumor of a hidden alternate transcript of the crew's last words, but rather reinterpret the official transcript to fit their theories. To Abutaha (and by connection Furniss), Dick Scobee and Mike Smith were well aware of the problems plaguing their spacecraft and were in the final stages of initiating a Return to Launch Site abort when they were lost. As evidence of this, the authors cite the pilot's and commander's comments concerning a routine airspeed indicator check, which they reinterpret to be a pressure reading. Yet despite hundreds of hours of simulator time and years of training, neither astronaut express their concern to the ground, nor is any explanation given by Furniss or Abutaha as to why these skilled astronauts would neglect to use their most valuable asset, Mission Control, to help them work the problem.

If, for the moment, I were to assume Abutaha's claims to be correct, then Furniss pays Abutaha a disservice by not dropping the discussion of a conspiracy altogether and instead, using the 45 pages to delve deep into his research, citing hard facts and evidence, which is all but missing from the current draft. The supporting letters should be reprinted in their entirety rather than excerpted and their authors should have been interviewed specifically for this book. The chapter should be riddled with foot- or endnotes, citing sources, for which there are presently none. Instead, Furniss seems preoccupied with documenting the perceived injustices levied against Abutaha rather than devoting a serious chapter to a point by point rebuttal to the Rogers Commission findings (or better yet, seeing as though Furniss claims objectivity, a side by side comparison without reaching conclusions about either).

But I have no reason to put any credence into what Abutaha claims as Furniss provides neither a smoking gun nor a plausible scenario for a cover-up.

posted June 26, 2007 07:12 AM               

I agree with Robert's assessment above but have a question about another item. The author says NASA launching rockets when their engines have achieved 100% power is one of the causes of the overshoot effect (and hence Challenger accident). On page 156 the author states "von Braun had noticed that if engines were fired up to full thrust and then released the rockets exploded on the launch pad, burst during ascent or failed to reach flight path. The 90% lift-off thrust became a rigid requirement in the space programme, though no one knew exactly why. The original early lift-off of the Shuttle was based precisely on the 90% throttle level condition."

Does anyone have knowledge of changes in the Shuttles' liftoff procedure? I for one remember every launch as waiting for the engines to reach full thrust and then releasing the vehicle. Indeed I thought this was a safety factor, if the engines are not working to rated power the launch may be shut down.

posted June 26, 2007 07:46 AM               

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Originally posted by aurora:
...did not even mention the smoking gun of the Time magazine image that I have held my own hands showing flames coming from a breach in the booster during the roll programme and another of material falling from the top of the fated SRB at lift off.

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You also did not conduct an interview with photographer Ralph Morse, whom Abutaha credits the photographs, instead relying on Abutaha's own account of Morse's opinion.

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He does not mention the eyewitness of an airline pilot (who was once "trained" to fly potential military Shuttle missions, in the the early days) who witnessed the launch from a unique angle, nor the full significance of the amateur video from New Smyrna Beach which shows a third contrail coming out of the stricken booster, only the last 2s of which was shown to the Rogers Commission.

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He ignores the fact that NASA misidentified the crew cabin which explains why it took so long to find

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The delayed lift time of the Shuttle from 3s to 6s (approx) was absolutely critical putting enormous dynamic strain of the vehicle and payloads many of which failed. Robert rejects the "dynamic overshoot" despite the enormous evidence described carefully in the chapter.

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I think that if readers are interested in reading an inspirational story of a 12 year old boy "space nut" who achieved an ambition to become a space journalist (an October Sky-like story) and to read a personal journalist's view of the history of the 50 years space age of which Challenger represents just 10% of the book, it's worth 12 pounds!

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posted June 26, 2007 07:50 AM            

The mission report goes on to state that the crew were well aware of the problems with the vehicle; Judy Resnik noticed high liquid hydrogen temps; Mike Smith was "startled" by the "wild ride"; both the Commander and Pilot were monitoring pressure problems in the right-hand SRB as the entire crew were aware that the stack was "fishtailing". Finally, the book states that after Houston gave the "throttle up" call indicating all was well with the ship " a somewhat puzzeled Scobee" acknowledged this giving the last public utterance from Challenger.

All of this is reported to the reader as a record of the events as they actually happened, not that large parts of the narrative are speculation on the part of the authors.

I think that, at best, it is very unfortunate that these reasons for Challenger's failure are given credence in a publication I am sure alot of people will utilise as a reference tool. At worst, it paints both Dick Scobee and Mike Smith in a very poor light, as Robert points out in a previous post, as they were apparently not inclined to inform Houston of the problems they were encountering. This is more of an insult to their memory, and that of their crewmates, than any of the official reports into the accident.

A seperate thread on Springer Praxis books has touched upon the, on occasion, lack of editorial control over authors of some of their published output. This could be the worst example. Referencing these allegations as such could be acceptable if they were reported secondary to the Rogers Commisions findings. On this occasion, the offical investigation is only given a brief mention, stating that its findings were in error. In a reference book, this should not be the case. Including the narrative concerning the alleged behaviour and feelings of the crew, which can only be conjecture, and stating that this was fact, is also on very shaky ground.

Tim, with regards to your autobiography, I would love to read it as I have always enjoyed your reports on spaceflight going back to when I was a child (such as on Saturday Superstore) and cherished your books from Janes such as Space Shuttle Log/Manned spaceflight log, it is just that, on the matter of 51-L, I happen to disagree with you.

posted June 26, 2007 09:36 AM               

What a severe blow to Springer-Praxis' reputation... Should we keep buying their books? That's really bad news.

posted June 26, 2007 10:39 AM               

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Originally posted by cspg:
What a severe blow to Springer-Praxis' reputation... Should we keep buying their books? That's really bad news.

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I take it you're posting tongue in cheek here? The thread on Springer-Praxis is here.

To reiterate, SP has a reputation for several things:

• they send book proposals out for review, but not the actual manuscripts

• much of their work (with some exceptions) is rehashed from the works of other authors who do much of the research and get little credit in the SP books (it's worth asking -- how can some of these authors produce so much stuff in such a short period of time?)

• some of their books have come dangerously close to plagiarism; at the very least they have used substantial amounts of material from other books without attribution