The Weather Channel 119 aired a program Sunday evening that changed history. Tittled, "When Weather Changed History"
The program is a re-write of history and an insult to those who warned of the impending disaster, and those who lost their lives.
The Rogers Commision primary conclusions were as follows.
It found that" the Challenger accident was caused by a failure in the O-rings sealing the aft field joint on the right solid rocket booster, which allowed pressurized hot gases and eventually flame to "blow by" the O-ring and make contact with the adjacent external tank, causing structural failure. The failure of the O-rings was attributed to a design flaw, as their performance could be too easily compromised by factors including the low temperature on the day of launch.[29] More broadly, the report also considered the contributing causes of the accident. Most salient was the failure of both NASA and its contractor, Morton Thiokol, to respond adequately to the design flaw. The Commission found that as early as 1977, NASA managers had not only known about the flawed O-ring, but that it had the potential for catastrophe. This led the Rogers Commission to conclude that the Challenger disaster was "an accident rooted in history."[30]
The report also strongly criticized the decision making process that led to the launch of Challenger, saying that it was seriously flawed. The report cited evidence that NASA managers did not know of Thiokol's initial concerns about the effects of the cold on the O-rings, and did not understand that Rockwell viewed the large amount of ice present on the pad as a constraint to launch.[4] It concluded that:
“ ...failures in communication... resulted in a decision to launch 51-L based on incomplete and sometimes misleading information, a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted internal flight safety problems to bypass key Shuttle managers. "
In who's interest is it to change history now, by blaming it on the weather?
