Talk:Thiokol

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A fact from Thiokol appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 March 2005. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that rocket engine maker Thiokol, who made the Space Shuttle's booster rockets, also built airbags for Mars Pathfinder and the Mazda Miata?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2005/March.

Wikipedia

POV?

It seems POV and hardly fair to starkly say in the final section "This company made the O-rings responsible for the Challenger disaster" without any mitigating explanation. It's like saying "Bethlehem Steel made the plating which failed so dramatically in the Titanic disaster", or whichever steel company they came from. It would be somewhat less ridiculous to lay responsibility for the disaster at the feet of the captain, or the White Star Line; but still. It's a dangerous world we live in. It is especially dangerous to use a solid fuel rocket on a manned flight, much less TWO of them which doubles the chance that one will explode; and furthermore some of the largest solid-fueled rockets ever made.

I suppose I have a POV as well; that's why I'm putting this on the talk page. My father was in engineering, then engineering management, at Thiokol until 1978. He was firmly opposed to solid-fueled manned rocket flight. His feeling was that some day, the propellant will crack; some day, some other failure will occur. But he did his best on the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) project, which was damned good.

I'm sure that when, not if, another SRB fails, the company that built it will get the blame as well...not the people who decided to strap a pair of them to a manned flight.

The O-rings, which become less flexible when cold, and the SRB as a whole, were required by NASA to function at temperatures down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (+5 C). But the weather on the morning of the launch was extremely cold for that part of Florida. It been several degrees below freezing overnight, and there were still icicles on the launch platform at the time of launch. Near the region that failed, the temperature was measured at 26 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 C) shortly before launch. This was in part due to the low ambient temperature, and partly because of proximity to a mount connecting the booster to the main tank, which contained liquid hydrogen. No launch had ever been attempted in such conditions; the coldest temperature at any previous launch was a full 20 degrees F higher. That flight experienced partial O-ring failure, which alerted the Thiokol engineers (as well as NASA's) to a possible problem.

The night before the Challenger launch, Thiokol engineers conveyed their alarm to management. Management called a teleconference with NASA at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, and advised against the launch. MSFC's management response was, in essence, "Are you sure?" which in my mind is where the breakdown began. That's a crazy question to be asking when the contractor calls up and tells you the rocket they built might explode in cold weather well outside the design limits. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? In a sane world, with lives at stake, the builder has to demonstrate to the customer that the product has an excellent chance of working properly, not that it's likely to fail. Thiokol's answer was, in essence, "well...no..."; they had no definite proof (just some expert opinions. I'm not saying Thiokol management is blameless.) So the launch proceeded.

I've started typing and I can't stop...anyway, I'm planning to add some detail to the simple statement that Thiokol's O-rings failed. --Shyland 01:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Put in the mitigating circumstance, I suppose. But people could get the mitigating circumstances by reading the references. The bottom line is that the cause of the crash was faulty O-rings and the manufacturer of the O-rings was Thiokol.70.91.104.249 01:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thiokol built the SRB to NASA's spec: 40 to 90 degrees F. NASA launched on a morning when temperatures were well below spec, 20+ degrees below any previous launch, and even 15+ degrees below any previous test. NASA knew that Thiokol was working on a problem they had, even above spec. Who's to blame? --Shyland 01:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whether NASA or Thiokol are to blame for Challenger, I have a problem with "the Morton-Thiokol made O-rings". Later in that paragraph, it says that the rings were made of Viton, which is linked. Following the link says that Viton is a trademark of DuPont... Doesn't that mean that the O-rings were made by DuPont (probably as a subcontractor to Thiokol, but still)? Again, I'm not trying say "It's all NASA's fault!" (or even DuPont's), but saying the O-rings were made by Thiokol would seem to be an error. I would think the easiest way to fix the error would be to remove "Morton-Thiokol made". Unless it's a direct quote from the Rogers commission. edit: I did some research in the commission report. Thiokol did supply the O-rings, but who manufactured them isn't established (I'd assume DuPont). Maybe change made to supplied?74.93.204.1 (talk) 15:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very good point. Unless someone can provide a source indicating Thiokol manufactured the O-rings, the article should only indicated Thiokol provided the O-ring that failed, which I think is not reasonably in doubt. Please check to see if the edit I made adequately addresses your concern. (sdsds - talk) 16:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thiokol did not make the O-rings, that was subcontracted. I forget who the subcontractor was, although I remember some other details about it - for example, Thiokol used the same O-ring contractor for many years and to save either money or storage space they kept carving the negatives into the same mold blocks, as long as they would fit inside each other. So they had O-rings for a half-dozen different rocket motors in the same mold and had to make sure they poured into the right holes! I don't think DuPont was involved other than to supply the rubber. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.27.178.252 (talk) 15:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Victor Singer

I believe Vic Singer, an engineer and community activist who is "insufficiently notable" for a Wikipedia page according to the WikiGestapo, designed the airbag system pictured on the page. I seem to recall he originally worked out the math on a napkin or the back of an envelope or something, which amused the rest of us. Vic has many patents in aerospace and was involved in the design of many of Thiokol's more interesting systems from the 1960s until his retirement. He's currently the resident curmudgeon on several political committees in Newark, Delaware, where he's lived since at least the 70s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.27.178.252 (talk) 15:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Myspace

Someone seriously needs to fix the bottom of this page, it looks so bad it could qualify for a myspace profile page. Do we really need 3 images of a snowcat? Samantha.pia (talk) 07:25, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]