Part 2: Preliminaries; Committing Suicide Summary and Analysis

Preliminaries

Richard describes the shuttle. The large central part is the tank which holds the fuel. The engines are located at the back of the orbiter. The crew sits in the front of the orbiter; behind them is the cargo bay. Richard describes how after launch the tank separates from the orbiter and falls back to earth. He then describes the types of seals used to hold the joint sections together: "factory joints" and "field joints." Field joints are sealed at the space center while factory joints are sealed at the Morton Thiokol factory.

Committing Suicide

The space shuttle Challenger of course had a terrible accident on January 28, 1986, in which the entire crew perished. Richard knew of the tragedy but is surprised when he was called by head of NASA, William Graham, asking Richard to...