posted 09-25-2008 11:57 PM               

On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Challenger, despite warnings against doing so by many individuals, including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of Challenger on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation’s collective memory.

In Truth, Lies, and O-Rings, McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center. As he fought to draw attention to the real reasons behind the disaster, he was the only one targeted for retribution by both NASA and his employer, Morton Thiokol, Inc., makers of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters. In this whistle-blowing yet rigorous and fair-minded book, McDonald, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James R. Hansen, addresses all of the factors that led to the accident, some of which were never included in NASA’s Failure Team report submitted to the Presidential Commission.

Truth, Lies, and O-Rings is the first look at the Challenger tragedy and its aftermath from someone who was on the inside, recognized the potential disaster, and tried to prevent it. It also addresses the early warnings of very severe debris issues from the first two post-Challenger flights, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Columbia some fifteen years later.

• Hardcover: 648 pages
  
• Publisher: University Press of Florida (April 26, 2009)
  
• ISBN-10: 0813033268
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0813033266

posted 09-29-2008 01:59 PM               

• First book written on the Challenger accident by someone who was actually involved in the decision to launch and the aftermath;

• First book to address all of the factors that led to the accident, some of which were never addressed in NASA's Failure Team report submitted to the Presidential Commission;

• First book that contains anyone's personal experiences as a "whistleblower," retribution against that individual by his company, and his reinstatement to lead the redesign as a result of pressure from the Presidential Commission and the U.S. Congress;

• First book to critically evaluate all testimony given to the Presidential Commission and the U.S. Congress and to point out conflicts and evidence of a cover-up by NASA concerning the launch decision;

• First book to address the controversy, conflicts, and difficulties encountered in the redesign program to restore the Shuttle to safe flight ASAP.

• First book to address early warnings of very severe debris issues from the first two flights after Challenger in 1988 that later resulted in the loss of Columbia some 15 years later.

• First book to address what happened to all of the people at NASA and Morton Thiokol that were involved in that ill-fated decision to launch the Challenger on that cold chilly morning of January 28, 1986.

posted 09-29-2008 02:24 PM               

Foreword
Prologue: Cold, Hard Facts

Part One: Red Flags

Chapter 1 - When It Rains It Pours
Chapter 2 - Tests and 'No-Tests'
Chapter 3 - Dire Warning
Chapter 4 - A Total O-Ring Failure
Chapter 5 - An Impotent Task Force
Chapter 6 - 'In the Interest of Avoiding Pain'

Part Two: Misdiagnosis

Chapter 7 - The Teleconference
Chapter 8 - The Caucus
Chapter 9 - 'Obviously, A Major Malfunction'
Chapter 10 - 'Don't Blame Yourself'
Chapter 11 - 'When is the Space Shuttle Going Up, Daddy?'

Part Three: Search For The Truth

Chapter 12 - Shocking the Presidential Commission
Chapter 13 - Cover-Up
Chapter 14 - 'God, That Took a Lot of Guts'
Chapter 15 - A Leper in the Limelight
Chapter 16 - Walking Out
Chapter 17 - 'The Extremes of Allowable Engineering'
Chapter 18 - Changing Hats and Minds

Part Four: Obfuscation

Chapter 19 - Rationalization and Innuendo
Chapter 20 - 31 Degrees?
Chapter 21 - We Have a Problem with Houston
Chapter 22 - Finger Pointing
Chapter 23 - The Apocalypse Letter
Chapter 24 - 'Trouble with Your Logic'
Chapter 25 - The Monkey Changes Backs

Part Five: Commissioners And Congressmen

Chapter 26 - The Green Ball Theory
Chapter 27 - Commencement
Chapter 28 - Commodore Locke Assailed in Washington
Chapter 29 - The Bucks Stops Here?

Part Six: No Consensus

Chapter 30 - The Bell Tolls for Thee
Chapter 31 - Redesign and Resurrection
Chapter 32 - Boisjoly's $2 Billion Lawsuit
Chapter 33 - No Mountain Too High
Chapter 34 - The Peacekeeper Explosion
Chapter 35 - Witness for the Defense...and Prosecution
Chapter 36 - Confirming the Silver Bullet

Part Seven: Return-To-Flight

Chapter 37 - Flight of the Phoenix
Chapter 38 - Premonitions
Chapter 39 - Dissolution
Chapter 40 - Requiem

Mcdonald Biography: Big Sky Values
Bibliographical Essay
References
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Index

posted 04-07-2009 08:33 AM               

At the beginning you need to go through several technical stuff chapters where basic knowledge of the SRB's design and related technical terminology and a portion of technical imagination will definitely help. On the other hand it is inevitable to go through this to understand what happened on January 28, 1986.

To me a big help is Spacecraft Films' Challenger set with recorded key testimonies and I recommend it to everybody, it gives another dimension to that what you read in the book.

posted 05-11-2009 03:56 PM               

We believe McDonald would say that good engineering is dispassionate, and the tone of the book reflects the enormous challenge of facing those who refused to acknowledge good engineering in an effort to meet schedule.

posted 05-21-2009 10:43 AM               

Auburn professor helps pen first-of-its-kind book on Space Shuttle Challenger

Twenty-three years after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, Auburn University Professor and author James Hansen has helped produce a compelling book recounting exactly why the U.S. space program's first fatal in-flight accident occurred.

Hansen, professor of history and director of Auburn's Honors College, teamed up to write the new 626-page book "Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster" with Allan McDonald. McDonald was an engineer who warned NASA officials that Challenger's solid rocket motor could explode at ignition if launched that very cold morning on Jan. 28, 1986.

In the book, which was just released by the University Press of Florida, Hansen assists McDonald in telling how his words of warning were ignored and the fateful consequences of that decision.

"The fiery destruction of Challenger, with seven American astronauts on board, including the first ordinary citizen, a beloved schoolteacher, happened more than two decades ago," writes Hansen in the foreword to the book. "One might think that historians have duly recorded -- and that the technical aerospace community has fully comprehended for some time -- exactly why the U.S. space program's first fatal in-flight accident occurred on the cold, heartless morning of January 28, 1986. Surely, the facts underlying the horrible tragedy must have all surfaced by now, all the evidence fully examined and reexamined, all the expert testimony scrutinized, all the critical failure points analyzed and digested, all the penetrating engineering studies performed, all the revelatory books and articles written, all the important lessons learned."

"It is not the case," Hansen writes.

In the first published memoir by anyone directly associated with the decision to launch Challenger, McDonald, with Hansen's help, writes about officials ignoring - and then covering up - the warnings he offered, and the price he paid to expose the truth. McDonald was director of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Project for Morton Thiokol Inc. in Utah at the time. He was sent to Kennedy Space Center as the company's senior management representative for the Challenger launch.

According to Hansen, in the years after the explosion, McDonald tried to avoid publicity -- first, because he was testifying in investigations, then because he was concentrating on redesigning the solid rocket motor for a safe return to space. But during that time, Hansen said McDonald had put together six big boxes of notes, including 1,400 handwritten pages about what happened. He retired in 2001 and decided it was finally time to tell his story.

Hansen said that the main reason McDonald wanted his story published was that he didn't want the lessons learned to be forgotten and he wanted to make sure there wouldn't be another such disaster.

"If you don't put all that information on the table, you're liable to make the same mistake," McDonald said. "And like the Presidential Commission acknowledged, this is a failure in human management, which is equally as important as the piece of equipment that failed. If either one of those would have been operating properly, the accident wouldn't have happened."

Hansen said "Truth, Lies and O-Rings" isn't just about what went wrong with the Challenger disaster but it is also about what went right as it also recounts what McDonald and others did to redesign the solid rocket motor and get the Space Shuttle flying again.

"The first time a shuttle returned to space after the accident, in 1988, Al was there," Hansen said. "During the countdown, he was holding his breath, along with everyone else. I was doing the same at home, watching TV. I had no idea then that I would team up with Al to tell his powerful story."

posted 09-18-2009 01:00 AM               

Alan McDonald has written a nice memoir on his time at Morton Thiokol from his work on the Filament Wound Casing boosters intended for the Vandenberg launches to the work on the SRB redesign. It certainly pulls no punches and I have no doubt it might open some old wounds among those involved. But, I do think to date it is probably one of the best books written about Challenger. It is certainly the best one I've ever read anyway.

For anyone even remotely interested in shuttle SRBs, this will provide a very good explaination of how they operate and the challenges involved in design, construction, operation and redesign of the motors. It does get a bit technical, but I think the typical collectSPACE crowd can follow it with no problems. You also get some good background into some of the individuals on the Rogers commission. Neil Armstong's own comments during the various public and private sessions reflect how sharp his engineering mind is on issues like these, as is Sally Ride's.