Space Shuttle Columbia

The space shuttle Columbia broke down over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral in the attempt to put a satellite payload into orbit. All seven crew members died which included five NASA astronauts and two other payload specialists. The NASAs managers were anxious for several reasons, including economic, political pressures and schedule timings for the launch. This event also involved the competition between European space agency and the Russians. The purpose of the mission was to release the satellite probe to collect data before a similar Russian probe was launched.
This disaster occurred on the 28th of January 1986. Exactly after 73 seconds after the launch the space shuttle broke apart into its flight. Hot gas was expelled
The structural integrity of the joints is extremely important because any of the gases that leak from the segments will erode the gas tight path and begin to melt the outside of the booster.
The solid rocket boosters from several earlier missions gave signs of weakness and black, thick smoke had been noticed to be leaking from the joints, this was made worse because the air temperature of the launch of the Columbia was below freezing. The rubberised O-ring was stiff and resistant to the pliability needed for the fast
Before the crisis, the engineers and Thiokol’s vice president Bob Lund expressed their ideas, conclusions and stated that there wasn’t sufficient data to show that the joints would properly seal the o-rings if they were cooled below 12°c . This had confused NASA because the booster design specifications showed that the temperature could be below -0.55°c. It was later found out that the limit temperature was for storage of the booster, and the launch temperature was limited, because the dynamics tests of the rocket boosters showed that it had not been below 4.44°c. The solid rocket booster manager, Larry Mulloy, stated that the data was not consistent, and this challenged the engineers logic. The managers seemed to believe that the o-rings could be eroded up to two thirds of the radius in previous missions. Joe Kilminster , the vice president of the space booster program , made new recommendations, the new recommendations stated that the cold was still a safety concern . Allam Mcdonald who was the president with NASA management, was stunned because there was a recommendation to launch and he proposed to NASA that they should not launch the shuttle. Due to NASAs opposition, Thiokol management reversed itself and recommended that the launch process should take