1
00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:03,360
Speaker 1: Good morning. I'm Scott Sloan. This is seven hundred wudwity.

2
00:00:03,360 --> 00:00:05,280
Speaker 2: Thanks for checking out the show on air and of

3
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:08,319
Speaker 2: course streaming anywhere you go. Reportable these days in the

4
00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:11,399
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app and you can catch the show afterwards too.

5
00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:14,320
Speaker 2: It's podcast will may get easy for it, Easy Easy Easy.

6
00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:19,000
Speaker 2: Today is an historic day because this landmark moment, this

7
00:00:19,040 --> 00:00:23,920
Speaker 2: tragedy occurred forty years ago today go up.

8
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:32,400
Speaker 3: It happened just over one minute inch of flight one

9
00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:33,479
Speaker 3: a minute fifteen.

10
00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:35,720
Speaker 4: Seconds flan City, twenty nine hundred feet per second, altitude

11
00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:38,240
Speaker 4: nine aautical mileth downrange, just in the seven nautical.

12
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:41,879
Speaker 1: Miles from mission control.

13
00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:45,880
Speaker 3: Silence, Then the bland chilling report.

14
00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:48,680
Speaker 4: We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that

15
00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:52,080
Speaker 4: the vehicle has exploded. Flight Director confirms that we are

16
00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:56,040
Speaker 4: looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what

17
00:00:56,120 --> 00:00:57,120
Speaker 4: can be done at this point.

18
00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:00,320
Speaker 3: A search effort couldn't begin for some fifteen minutes after

19
00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:03,320
Speaker 3: this debris, they said, just kept raining from the sky.

20
00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:06,440
Speaker 3: The head of the Space Shuttle program had no explanations,

21
00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:07,960
Speaker 3: just sorrow at the tragedy.

22
00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:10,639
Speaker 1: I vividly remember when that happened.

23
00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:12,559
Speaker 2: For a lot of folks it might have been school kids,

24
00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:14,480
Speaker 2: and still even more folks don't remember it because they

25
00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:17,840
Speaker 2: happened outside their lifespan. But I'll remember that like I

26
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:20,640
Speaker 2: remember nine to eleven. And how do we get to

27
00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:22,360
Speaker 2: this point? We've got this great space race going out

28
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:25,720
Speaker 2: right now, of course privately speaking, but everything we know

29
00:01:25,760 --> 00:01:28,200
Speaker 2: about space and how to get to outer space and

30
00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:31,560
Speaker 2: travel is written in blood. Writing about it in the

31
00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:35,119
Speaker 2: Burning Blue is Kevin Cook, Kevin, welcome to the show.

32
00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:36,160
Speaker 1: I'm doing fine.

33
00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:38,160
Speaker 2: Hopefully I set that up well enough for you too,

34
00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:39,920
Speaker 2: tying those things together. But I think there's something to

35
00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:41,959
Speaker 2: be said about that, right, is that we're in the

36
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,240
Speaker 2: new space race, but it's private space race between ultra

37
00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:48,760
Speaker 2: the ultra rich. Doesn't mean they're gonna cut corners, but man,

38
00:01:48,880 --> 00:01:52,200
Speaker 2: you know, when you're competitive like this, these are the

39
00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:52,560
Speaker 2: things that.

40
00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:53,120
Speaker 1: Happen, right.

41
00:01:54,080 --> 00:01:56,360
Speaker 5: I think you set it up just right, and it's

42
00:01:56,360 --> 00:02:01,080
Speaker 5: an exciting time in space exploration. These are eventually going

43
00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:04,840
Speaker 5: to be public private partnerships. I think we'll see SpaceX

44
00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:08,959
Speaker 5: and NASA working together, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and NASA

45
00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:13,800
Speaker 5: working together. We're gonna have Moon missions again, and in

46
00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:19,400
Speaker 5: before too many decades past a Mars mission with human

47
00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:22,480
Speaker 5: crew on it, and there is going to be schedule

48
00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:26,560
Speaker 5: pressure again, there are going to be engineer's warning, well,

49
00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:29,919
Speaker 5: I have concerns about this or that aspect of the machinery,

50
00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:36,040
Speaker 5: and again these things are going to crop up. There

51
00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:38,800
Speaker 5: is a program at NASA now called the Lessons Learned

52
00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:46,440
Speaker 5: program that encourages listeners to remember things like disasters like

53
00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:49,640
Speaker 5: the Challenger accident, so that we don't have such a

54
00:02:49,639 --> 00:02:50,400
Speaker 5: thing happen again.

55
00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:53,639
Speaker 2: Well, and the lesson here coming out of the Burning

56
00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:58,200
Speaker 2: Blue and the Challenger disaster, is that why Krista mcculloffe

57
00:02:58,200 --> 00:02:59,960
Speaker 2: was on that flight to begin with.

58
00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:05,520
Speaker 5: That's true. It had aspects of a publicity effort on

59
00:03:05,639 --> 00:03:10,600
Speaker 5: NASA's part. After Sally VI made worldwide news in nineteen

60
00:03:10,639 --> 00:03:14,360
Speaker 5: eighty three as the first American woman in space, Shuttle

61
00:03:14,400 --> 00:03:17,000
Speaker 5: flights came to seem routine, and NASA was eager to

62
00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:20,919
Speaker 5: have the teacher in space, the first civilian to fly

63
00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:25,320
Speaker 5: on a Shuttle mission. And Christa mccaulliffe, to her great credit,

64
00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:29,080
Speaker 5: I think understood that she was wonderful on television. She

65
00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:33,160
Speaker 5: was sincere, she was herself, but she had a purpose

66
00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:35,600
Speaker 5: to a cause. She didn't want to get famous. She

67
00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:38,360
Speaker 5: wanted to promote the cause of school teachers. She was

68
00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:42,880
Speaker 5: an active school teacher, a great one. She felt that

69
00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:47,840
Speaker 5: teachers were overworked and underpaid. I think that's true even

70
00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:52,000
Speaker 5: more so today. So she inspired an awful lot of

71
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:54,600
Speaker 5: people to become teachers. I think that's one of the

72
00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:57,560
Speaker 5: things that we could take from a story like the

73
00:03:57,640 --> 00:04:00,800
Speaker 5: Challenger disaster in nineteen eighty six. There are a lot

74
00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:05,320
Speaker 5: of teachers, dedicated teachers who followed her example, who are

75
00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:06,200
Speaker 5: still teaching today.

76
00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:08,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that moment. I think we all did it.

77
00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:10,920
Speaker 2: If you're old enough too, or if you just go back.

78
00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:13,520
Speaker 2: It was an excellent documentary on this. I think it

79
00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:16,520
Speaker 2: was on Netflix or maybe HBO, but Netflix. It was

80
00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:20,000
Speaker 2: great about that whole story too, because, man, you remember

81
00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:22,680
Speaker 2: what it was like being a little kid, and you

82
00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:24,520
Speaker 2: know everyone was following, here's a teacher.

83
00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:26,040
Speaker 1: I've got a teacher. It's like my teacher.

84
00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:29,000
Speaker 2: Right, you could identify as a kid with Krista mccauliffe

85
00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:32,520
Speaker 2: and every kid in America at that moment. That morning,

86
00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:36,240
Speaker 2: that cold morning, he sat there and watched it on

87
00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:38,560
Speaker 2: TV when they rolled a big old you know, CRT

88
00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:41,320
Speaker 2: two TV in the classroom and everyone's watching the Challenger

89
00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:43,360
Speaker 2: and where everyone clapped and was so excited, and then

90
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,720
Speaker 2: there was a catastrophe, And you want to talk about

91
00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:49,960
Speaker 2: traumatic moment in your childhood, that's it right there.

92
00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:53,640
Speaker 5: That's true. I've encountered so many people who remember exactly

93
00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:56,239
Speaker 5: where they were as I do. When we should start

94
00:04:56,320 --> 00:05:00,159
Speaker 5: to see what had happened. The one thing that that

95
00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:04,160
Speaker 5: the television documentary did not address was the fact that

96
00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:07,520
Speaker 5: when that awful explosion happened and the pitchfork in the

97
00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:10,120
Speaker 5: sky that we all saw on television, that was not

98
00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:12,919
Speaker 5: the end of the astronauts. They survived that moment that

99
00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:17,479
Speaker 5: was the explosion of the fuel tank. They survived for

100
00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:22,200
Speaker 5: another probably two full minutes and forty five seconds, trying

101
00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:25,840
Speaker 5: to regain control of the craft, which was impossible as

102
00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:28,520
Speaker 5: it turned out. I think they were heroic in any case,

103
00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:33,039
Speaker 5: and trying to reconstruct what happened after the explosion, between

104
00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:36,760
Speaker 5: that and the moment that actually killed the Challenger astronauts,

105
00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:40,839
Speaker 5: which was when the falling of Shuttle struck the Atlantic

106
00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:44,520
Speaker 5: at two hundred and seven miles per hour. Reconstructing those

107
00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:48,719
Speaker 5: moments was one of the more grueling and also fascinating

108
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:51,039
Speaker 5: aspects of working on the Burning.

109
00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:54,760
Speaker 2: Blue Yeah, and on that day in January nineteen eighty

110
00:05:54,760 --> 00:05:57,839
Speaker 2: six and watching that and so they were alive, didn't

111
00:05:57,880 --> 00:06:00,679
Speaker 2: die instantly. Were they aware that they're about the crash

112
00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:03,520
Speaker 2: into the ocean and at over two hundred miles an hour,

113
00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:04,720
Speaker 2: which is fatal.

114
00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:08,520
Speaker 5: It's likely that they were. That there was no escape,

115
00:06:08,520 --> 00:06:10,760
Speaker 5: That there were ejector seats in the very first Shuttle

116
00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:14,200
Speaker 5: missions that became impractical later that you can't have seven

117
00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:18,839
Speaker 5: people ejecting. There was no escape, there were no parachutes.

118
00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:24,479
Speaker 5: Those escape methods were built in after the Challenger disaster,

119
00:06:24,760 --> 00:06:27,120
Speaker 5: and they're going to need to be part of these

120
00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:30,440
Speaker 5: new efforts that we make, I think, to the near

121
00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:34,880
Speaker 5: future missions to the Moon and Mars, to learn the

122
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:38,840
Speaker 5: lesson of the Challenger disaster and not repeat it.

123
00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:42,360
Speaker 2: What's scary is listening to that audio, the cockpit voice recorder,

124
00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:45,760
Speaker 2: and I think it was Michael Smith that saw that,

125
00:06:46,360 --> 00:06:50,320
Speaker 2: basically saw the catastrophic moment happen, and I think the

126
00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:54,120
Speaker 2: last words on that recording were something like oh no, or.

127
00:06:54,720 --> 00:06:58,040
Speaker 5: It was oh he said. And then for weeks after

128
00:06:58,080 --> 00:07:02,960
Speaker 5: the accident, it was believed that the last words from

129
00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:08,120
Speaker 5: the Challenger flight deck were Roger go and throttle up.

130
00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:12,160
Speaker 5: It was only later that was understood it was re

131
00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:19,720
Speaker 5: assembled the audio from the flight deck that Michael Smith

132
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:23,080
Speaker 5: must have seen something just in the instance before all

133
00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:27,560
Speaker 5: of the electricity and the communications went out, and his

134
00:07:27,720 --> 00:07:31,560
Speaker 5: last words were, oh, that is the last thing that

135
00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:37,080
Speaker 5: was ever heard from the ASK Challenger astronauts Kevin.

136
00:07:36,760 --> 00:07:39,960
Speaker 2: Cook, the Burning Blue, the unstoried untold Sir of CHRISTA mcauliff,

137
00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:41,680
Speaker 2: and the NASA Challenger disaster.

138
00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:43,480
Speaker 1: But there's a lesson just a history.

139
00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:46,760
Speaker 2: It's also private base travel now with the Bezos and

140
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:50,080
Speaker 2: the Branson's and the Musks of the world, and you

141
00:07:50,120 --> 00:07:53,440
Speaker 2: know that there's tremendous, tremendous pressure to perform here too.

142
00:07:53,880 --> 00:07:56,720
Speaker 2: That was the lesson from the NASA Challenger disaster is

143
00:07:57,000 --> 00:07:58,840
Speaker 2: there are a lot of warning signs ahead of this.

144
00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:01,080
Speaker 2: One of those is the act that as I recall

145
00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:04,400
Speaker 2: that the launch itself was delayed many times because of

146
00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:05,400
Speaker 2: weather or other issues.

147
00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:08,680
Speaker 5: Correct, that's just right. And there was a debacle the

148
00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:13,280
Speaker 5: day before in which the launch was scrubbed because a

149
00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:17,120
Speaker 5: bolt malfunctioned in the hatch door, a bolt that you

150
00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:19,680
Speaker 5: could have replaced if you'd gone to the local hardware store.

151
00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:22,360
Speaker 5: Nobody could get to the local hardware store from the

152
00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:25,520
Speaker 5: launch pad that day. They had to wait until the

153
00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:29,560
Speaker 5: next day. The next day was far colder, dangerously cold,

154
00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:33,640
Speaker 5: And yet the decision is made to launch anyway because

155
00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:38,760
Speaker 5: of terrible schedule pressure, partly because of embarrassment to the agency,

156
00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:41,200
Speaker 5: because of what had happened in the scrubs that came

157
00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:46,520
Speaker 5: before this. These are all things that are going to

158
00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:48,679
Speaker 5: have to be born in mind by people who were

159
00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:50,800
Speaker 5: making launch decisions in our near future.

160
00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:54,319
Speaker 2: If the weather were warmer that day in January. Now,

161
00:08:54,400 --> 00:08:57,400
Speaker 2: to keep in mind, what January twenty eighth, nineteen eighty six.

162
00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:01,520
Speaker 2: You're in Florida, but extremely cold by Florida standards. If

163
00:09:01,640 --> 00:09:03,520
Speaker 2: it would have been a few degrees warmer, would we

164
00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:04,680
Speaker 2: have not had this disaster.

165
00:09:05,520 --> 00:09:08,160
Speaker 5: I think it's likely, and there's certainly a great chance

166
00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:14,080
Speaker 5: that hadn't been normal weather for Florida that January. There

167
00:09:14,120 --> 00:09:19,480
Speaker 5: had been other missions that something similar happened with the

168
00:09:19,520 --> 00:09:22,400
Speaker 5: old Rings. There was what was called blow by, and

169
00:09:23,760 --> 00:09:26,920
Speaker 5: certainly it might have happened had it been colder in

170
00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:30,280
Speaker 5: previous missions. I think it's one of the unknowables, but

171
00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:34,320
Speaker 5: there is a very good chance that they would have

172
00:09:34,360 --> 00:09:38,480
Speaker 5: been lucky again as as more than two dozen previous

173
00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:44,520
Speaker 5: Shuttle missions. Two dozen previous missions had had had some trouble,

174
00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:46,880
Speaker 5: many of them, but they made it back. That's why

175
00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:51,560
Speaker 5: the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Fineman said that previous

176
00:09:51,559 --> 00:09:54,800
Speaker 5: missions had essentially been playing Russian Roulette with the astronauts.

177
00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:57,840
Speaker 2: Well, the issue then came down. I had a president

178
00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:01,880
Speaker 2: a presidential commission. I believe on the on the O ring, right,

179
00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:04,480
Speaker 2: and so the O ring you have the solid rocket

180
00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:07,200
Speaker 2: boosters and that is the that's what's powering you into

181
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:09,280
Speaker 2: space at several hundred miles an hour.

182
00:10:09,679 --> 00:10:09,959
Speaker 1: Uh.

183
00:10:10,120 --> 00:10:11,680
Speaker 2: If you have a leak in one of these rubber

184
00:10:11,679 --> 00:10:14,400
Speaker 2: O rings, you got problems. And uh they uncovered a

185
00:10:14,400 --> 00:10:18,080
Speaker 2: momo from Morton Thia call the the engineers, the project

186
00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:21,040
Speaker 2: engineers on this thing. And if you saw the documentary

187
00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:24,440
Speaker 2: in the book, you detail this about engineers screaming for

188
00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:26,839
Speaker 2: help or please, like we're going to have a catastrophic falure.

189
00:10:26,840 --> 00:10:29,960
Speaker 2: People are going to die. Uh in that teme to fruition.

190
00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:31,000
Speaker 2: Take me through that part of it.

191
00:10:32,040 --> 00:10:34,480
Speaker 5: Well, there there was a teleconference the night before in

192
00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:38,280
Speaker 5: which the engineers that uh, that they had they had

193
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:40,920
Speaker 5: great worries and they would not sign on to UH

194
00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:46,360
Speaker 5: to a launch. The next morning, their managers pressured them

195
00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:50,040
Speaker 5: to UH, to change their minds, and eventually they did.

196
00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:52,200
Speaker 5: It's one of those things that one has to if

197
00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:55,040
Speaker 5: you put yourself in their shoes, you could say I've

198
00:10:55,080 --> 00:10:59,800
Speaker 5: got great concerns about this. Then then the managers may say, well,

199
00:10:59,800 --> 00:11:02,640
Speaker 5: what about the last dozen missions that tour went off

200
00:11:02,679 --> 00:11:05,600
Speaker 5: without a hitch. You were in a terrible position if

201
00:11:05,760 --> 00:11:09,440
Speaker 5: if you, if you UH say I'm against this, and

202
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:12,640
Speaker 5: then they launched anyway and nothing bad happens. They were

203
00:11:12,679 --> 00:11:16,400
Speaker 5: certainly vindicated by circumstance. And that's why there's a program

204
00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:19,840
Speaker 5: called the Lessons Learned program in NASA now saying we've

205
00:11:19,840 --> 00:11:22,800
Speaker 5: got to support engineers, support people who are willing to

206
00:11:22,840 --> 00:11:26,319
Speaker 5: say this is too dangerous. Let's fix the problem. Before

207
00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:26,880
Speaker 5: we launched.

208
00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:29,240
Speaker 2: Well, there were signs with other missions right in tests

209
00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:31,080
Speaker 2: that that indicated the owerring was failing.

210
00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:36,200
Speaker 5: Correct, that's right. And the the idea that that one says, well,

211
00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:40,640
Speaker 5: they looked like they were failing, but nobody got killed

212
00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:44,880
Speaker 5: in the previous missions. That's the Russian roulette aspect. They

213
00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:48,280
Speaker 5: came back. There was a task Force studying the Old

214
00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:53,080
Speaker 5: Ring problem at more than DIACOL studying and studying, but

215
00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:57,280
Speaker 5: it wasn't seen as important enough to delay any launches

216
00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:00,120
Speaker 5: while the studying was done.

217
00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:02,720
Speaker 2: Explain how the rubber O Ring and the cold weather

218
00:12:02,760 --> 00:12:04,720
Speaker 2: go to go what caused the explosion.

219
00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:10,320
Speaker 5: It's stiffened, as Richard Feinman demonstrated so beautifully on television

220
00:12:10,360 --> 00:12:13,640
Speaker 5: during the Presidential Commission. He had a glass of ice water,

221
00:12:13,679 --> 00:12:15,400
Speaker 5: he got a piece of rubber from the O Ring

222
00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:18,640
Speaker 5: difted in there. Showed how it's not as elastic when

223
00:12:18,640 --> 00:12:21,679
Speaker 5: it's cold, like like a lot of other things, it

224
00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:24,400
Speaker 5: gets denser and not flexible.

225
00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:25,080
Speaker 4: Uh.

226
00:12:25,120 --> 00:12:27,880
Speaker 5: So it was in the cold it was unable to

227
00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:31,360
Speaker 5: to uh to prevent the leak. The leak leads to

228
00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:33,839
Speaker 5: a plume of flame that then burns right through that

229
00:12:33,960 --> 00:12:38,679
Speaker 5: didn't hide and outer covering of the external tank, and

230
00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:40,960
Speaker 5: that causes the giant explosion we saw on TV.

231
00:12:41,720 --> 00:12:43,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we finally have some closure in that too.

232
00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:45,520
Speaker 2: But I think the interesting part about it is is

233
00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:48,000
Speaker 2: really how little the families were awarded.

234
00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:53,200
Speaker 5: Yes, and I mean I think it's hard to sue

235
00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:57,480
Speaker 5: the government. Uh And and several of the crew members

236
00:12:57,480 --> 00:12:59,880
Speaker 5: were members of the armed forces. That that plays in

237
00:13:00,040 --> 00:13:02,520
Speaker 5: to it as well. There were settlements. They didn't make

238
00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:06,000
Speaker 5: news because there really wasn't much space program news in

239
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:09,000
Speaker 5: the two and a half years after the Challenger disaster.

240
00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:12,560
Speaker 5: That's when things will being put back together in a

241
00:13:12,600 --> 00:13:16,680
Speaker 5: safer way. Of course, before long, shuttle flights will seem

242
00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:21,199
Speaker 5: routine again, pressure will increase to launch and that leads

243
00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:25,400
Speaker 5: to similar problems and the Columbia disaster.

244
00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:29,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, the relationship there between the Columbia disaster and this

245
00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:30,679
Speaker 1: is what.

246
00:13:32,120 --> 00:13:37,240
Speaker 5: Well, it's the fact that lessons learns need to be observed.

247
00:13:37,880 --> 00:13:42,080
Speaker 5: As Mike Tinellian, that's a wonderful person who runs the

248
00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:45,720
Speaker 5: Lessons Learned program down into Kennedy Space Center talks about

249
00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:48,720
Speaker 5: it's similar. We have a presidential commission. It's a little

250
00:13:48,760 --> 00:13:51,360
Speaker 5: bit like driving a past the wreck on the highway.

251
00:13:51,400 --> 00:13:54,080
Speaker 5: You see the smoke, you see the ambulances, and then

252
00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:56,839
Speaker 5: you're driving with your hands at ten and two for

253
00:13:56,880 --> 00:14:00,600
Speaker 5: a little while. But before long, as he said, you're

254
00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:02,440
Speaker 5: back to having your foot on the wheel and the

255
00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:04,880
Speaker 5: other foot out of the window. If you forget the

256
00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:10,720
Speaker 5: crucial importance of safety in the preparation for a launch,

257
00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:16,880
Speaker 5: that's what happened with Columbia after Challenger, and that's what

258
00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:22,040
Speaker 5: future planners are going to have to bear in mind

259
00:14:22,520 --> 00:14:27,560
Speaker 5: as we get to remarkably exciting and complicated missions to

260
00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:28,640
Speaker 5: the Moon and to Mars.

261
00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:30,240
Speaker 1: Somebody's going to die in the future.

262
00:14:30,240 --> 00:14:32,880
Speaker 2: It's bound to happen again, because yeah, we may learn

263
00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:36,280
Speaker 2: the lessons from history, but there's tremendous pressure. And look

264
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:39,160
Speaker 2: what led to the death of the Challenger crew, right

265
00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:42,160
Speaker 2: had we got to put Krystal call on our teacher

266
00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:44,080
Speaker 2: because you know what, now all of a sudden, school

267
00:14:44,120 --> 00:14:46,160
Speaker 2: kids are getting interested, we get them hooked, their parents

268
00:14:46,200 --> 00:14:49,320
Speaker 2: will be interested. Hey, great, we're putting someone on there

269
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:52,240
Speaker 2: for the only reasons. It's a pr move. I don't

270
00:14:52,240 --> 00:14:54,080
Speaker 2: know what research a teacher can do in space, but

271
00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:56,720
Speaker 2: nonetheless there's an every man component to that.

272
00:14:56,760 --> 00:14:58,080
Speaker 1: It's marketing, is what this is.

273
00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:00,880
Speaker 2: And then the pressure to launch the to launch because

274
00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:03,920
Speaker 2: we want to see Krystal calf in space ended in

275
00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:06,120
Speaker 2: tragically in her death. We did the same thing with

276
00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:10,280
Speaker 2: Challenger to some degree as well. With private space missions

277
00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:12,640
Speaker 2: happening in the near future, at some point, people are

278
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:13,760
Speaker 2: going to die again, aren't they.

279
00:15:14,680 --> 00:15:17,640
Speaker 5: Well. Elon Munk seems to think so it is a

280
00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:22,280
Speaker 5: risky operation. It's a risky thing to do with space exploration.

281
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:27,120
Speaker 5: I think the job of NASA, the agency as well

282
00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:30,280
Speaker 5: as it's private partners. I think these will be public

283
00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:34,320
Speaker 5: private partnerships the missions, especially when we're talking about Mars.

284
00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:40,440
Speaker 5: I think one recognizes the risk and the likelihood that

285
00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:45,240
Speaker 5: people may die. But for those preparing for missions like that,

286
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:48,320
Speaker 5: your job is to do all you possibly can to

287
00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:51,600
Speaker 5: prevent that, to make them as safe as possible. That

288
00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:54,400
Speaker 5: lesson was forgotten afore challenger, and.

289
00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:56,200
Speaker 2: Even with the technology of the way it is because

290
00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:58,000
Speaker 2: you know, Elon must have said, well, we can't have

291
00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:00,440
Speaker 2: a it's not like you have an airline, let fly

292
00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:05,040
Speaker 2: fifty sixty missions. The human body can't withstand that. So

293
00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:09,200
Speaker 2: solving that is through autonomous meaning self driving aircraft, self

294
00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:12,760
Speaker 2: driving spacecraft. All right, that's all well and good, and

295
00:16:12,760 --> 00:16:15,320
Speaker 2: we have more technology and monitors and the things we did,

296
00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:17,800
Speaker 2: but you still can't get past the fact that that's

297
00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:22,320
Speaker 2: an incredibly traumatic procedure for any airframe to go through,

298
00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:26,120
Speaker 2: and that is launching, relaunching and making something a regularly

299
00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:26,800
Speaker 2: scheduled flight.

300
00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:28,160
Speaker 1: Ultimately, that's what they want to.

301
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:32,120
Speaker 2: Do here Physically, is that possible for any aircraft?

302
00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:40,080
Speaker 5: It's sure difficult. And again, the spacecraft has so many parts.

303
00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:44,480
Speaker 5: The space level was the most complicated machine ever built. Well,

304
00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:47,560
Speaker 5: when you have a lot of parts, Murphy's law stares

305
00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:53,400
Speaker 5: you in the face every day with every decision. That's

306
00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:57,800
Speaker 5: what the Elon musk, that's what visos, that's what Richard Branson,

307
00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:04,280
Speaker 5: that's what face looking forward. And the lesson is it's difficult,

308
00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:08,639
Speaker 5: it's complicated, it's dangerous, it's potentially lethal. These are things

309
00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:11,639
Speaker 5: that need to be born in mind just before the

310
00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:15,399
Speaker 5: word go it's given to send somebody into space.

311
00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:17,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's gonna be interesting too. At

312
00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:19,720
Speaker 2: some point there's going to be a failure. Once again,

313
00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:21,840
Speaker 2: I don't think that means we stop trying.

314
00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:22,479
Speaker 4: Uh.

315
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:24,560
Speaker 2: It means you learn from those lessons. But if the

316
00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:27,680
Speaker 2: lessons keep getting repeated, as it started with the Challenger,

317
00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:31,600
Speaker 2: then I guess that that's also human nature too. We

318
00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:34,439
Speaker 2: have to accept a certain amount of casualties if this

319
00:17:34,600 --> 00:17:37,080
Speaker 2: is the price, if this is the goal. Kevin Cook,

320
00:17:37,359 --> 00:17:39,639
Speaker 2: The Burning Blue, the Untolt Ster of Crystal Calf and

321
00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:41,600
Speaker 2: nashis NASA Challenger disaster.

322
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:43,359
Speaker 1: Thanks again for the time, Good luck, with the book.

323
00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:45,879
Speaker 5: Thank you, Scott. I appreciate it and it's good to

324
00:17:45,920 --> 00:17:49,080
Speaker 5: be on w l W. I grew up listening to

325
00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:51,919
Speaker 5: to Al Michaels and then Marty Brenneman and Joe Dunsall

326
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:52,920
Speaker 5: in Big Red Machine.

327
00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:56,040
Speaker 1: Wow, how about that. So you're India, We're in Indiana.

328
00:17:56,160 --> 00:17:56,920
Speaker 5: Indianapolis.

329
00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:59,640
Speaker 2: Oh, Indianapolis. Okay, very good. Yeah, So all the best

330
00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:02,439
Speaker 2: to you and thanks again for coming on, Kevin. Thanks

331
00:18:02,440 --> 00:18:06,760
Speaker 2: gotvingeh Kevin cookback on the show. It's the fortieth anniversary

332
00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:08,359
Speaker 2: of that challenge with Chet forty year Where were you

333
00:18:08,359 --> 00:18:09,080
Speaker 2: forty years ago?

334
00:18:09,119 --> 00:18:10,800
Speaker 1: Today? Most people said, well, I wasn't

335
00:18:10,800 --> 00:18:15,040
Speaker 2: Born yet, smart guy Douche Scott's loan show, Home of

336
00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 2: the Red seven hundred W weldom