Challenger Disaster show

[nostatic]

In case you haven't seen this, I highly recommend it. A bit of melodrama thrown in, but really not much is necessary because reality and the characters are more interesting than fiction. Feynman is one of my few heroes in life - a brilliant and quirky man who, rather than show how smart he was by prattling on with endless detail, instead endeavored to find ways to explain complex things in a simple and effortless manner.

The Challenger Disaster : Science Channel

[IROC]

Originally Posted by nostatic

Feynman is one of my few heroes in life - a brilliant and quirky man who, rather than show how smart he was by prattling on with endless detail, instead endeavored to find ways to explain complex things in a simple and effortless manner.

+1!! Brilliant guy. There's a guy here at work who has a "FEYNMAN" personalized license plate. I'm jealous.

I've heard this show is great. I started working in the space program during the ramp up after Challenger and actually ran across some SRB segments at MSFC once...

[Grog]

My boat was moored on the pier where they brought in the Challenger parts that were recovered. Very sad watching them.

[sammyg2]

Saw it, recorded it.
Seemed as if it had some truth mixed in, which is very rare on telebision.

I loved the o-ring trick, even though a decent engineer could have blown him out of the water with technical details.
Chances are it was neoprene if he got it from the local hardware store, and no way would they be using neoprene in the presence of hydrocarbon. Most likely perfluroelastomer (cubic $$$) like DuPont's Kalrez (tm) which can take much lower temps and remain flexible and retain memory.

It was probably dumbed down for TV.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Saw it, recorded it.
Seemed as if it had some truth mixed in, which is very rare on telebision.

I loved the o-ring trick, even though a decent engineer could have blown him out of the water with technical details.
Chances are it was neoprene if he got it from the local hardware store, and no way would they be using neoprene in the presence of hydrocarbon. Most likely perfluroelastomer (cubic $$$) like DuPont's Kalrez (tm) which can take much lower temps and remain flexible and retain memory.

It was probably dumbed down for TV.

The o-ring trick used was the actual seal or at least "stuff I pulled out of your seal" in the real study.

I did not see the show so you may be referring to the tv episode. (on second read I think you are)

See 1:57 in...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCLgRyKvfp0

[DonDavis]

I thought he was supplied an actual piece ( not from the Challenger, a new piece from the shelf ) of the o-ring material from the manufacturer.

Btw, at the end of the movie, there is a clip of the real Feynman demonstrating the o-ring pliability at the hearing.

I enjoyed the show.

[ossiblue]

Yes, in the show posted by the OP, there was a little confusion in that he (the Feynman character) went to the hardware store before the demonstration but he went to buy a C-clamp, not an o-ring. IIRC (having seen the show only once), I believe William Hurt, who played Feynman, spoke the actual words Feynman says in the video clip during the dramatization of the o-ring material including the fact that he was using actual o-ring material from the space program. All this is minor detail to an otherwise very well done and fairly accurate drama of real history.

[Mark Henry]

The very day I asked my wife out on our first date.
Makes it pretty easy to remember and figure out how long we've been together.

crap.... I'm getting old

[sammyg2]

hop[efully this weekend I'll watch it again and pay more attention this time.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

hop[efully this weekend I'll watch it again and pay more attention this time.

Watched it last night. Very well done. William Hurt was awesome.

I faded in the middle a bit and missed the transition of where the Brian Dennehy character shifted his views on Feynman.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Bob Kontak

Watched it last night. Very well done. William Hurt was awesome.

I faded in the middle a bit and missed the transition of where the Brian Dennehy character shifted his views on Feynman.

Basically the shift came when Feynman "broke the code." He was the only person on the panel that didn't have a dog in the funding fight. Once it was clear that NASA was at fault and there was proof from an unbiased party, he fell in line.

Hurt did a great job. They really need to do a movie based on Feynman's books (Surely You Must Be Joking and What Do You Care What Other's Think). He was the real deal...

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by nostatic

They really need to do a movie based on Feynman's books (Surely You Must Be Joking and What Do You Care What Other's Think). He was the real deal...

I have not read them. I bet they are great and not geared towards the physics crowd.

I really like the guy. He was a Jim Brown or Jerry Rice in the field of physics. Well, at least a Joe Montana or LT, yet he was so down to earth.

I wonder what it would be like to have his kind of thought clarity.

Thanks for the tip on the show. Will revisit tonight.

[onewhippedpuppy]

It's a sad story in that the disaster was 100% avoidable. We spent some time studying the events surrounding the Challenger in my engineering ethics class many years ago.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Bob Kontak

I have not read them. I bet they are great and not geared towards the physics crowd.
.

I can't recommend them highly enough. Very funny stories and not too dense (my wife, who is an artist, is reading them now). Another book worth reading is "Genius" by James Gleick (Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman: James Gleick: 9780679747048: Amazon.com: Books).

When he died there was a palpable feeling of sadness that permeated the campus, but also this great joy and celebration of a brilliant life well lived.

http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041/ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/0393320928/ref=pd_sim_b_1 (about half of this book deals with the Challenger stuff)

[2porscheguy]

Originally Posted by Mark Henry

The very day I asked my wife out on our first date.
Makes it pretty easy to remember and figure out how long we've been together.

crap.... I'm getting old

Wow, me too! Actually it was our second date....just met her parents....her dad runs over to the TV to turn it on as he had just heard about it on the radio! Very sad and....yes, we're getting old!

[sammyg2]

Just for giggles, I sent an e-mail to pops asking what he knew about it, I seem to recall he submitted a white paper soon after the explosion and that he worked in conjunction with Morton thikol on many rocket motor projects over the years.

He explained that the coefficient of thermal explansion delta between the materials caused the compression on the ring to decrease, and the colder temperature prevented it from expanding enough to maintain enough pressure to hold back the fuel.
Here's part of it:

The ambient temperature was near 40 deg causing the massive amount of steel and the rubber 0-ring to thermally shrink causing the o-ring compression to be below that required to hold the motor pressure. It was rumored that political influence was brought to bare to go on with the firing even through the Thiokol engineers I spoke to vehemently opposed it. The coefficient of thermal expansion of steel is about 6 X 10 to the minus 6 inches/inch/deg F and that of the rubber O-ring material (probably Buta-diene) is about 12 X 10 to the minus 5 inches/inch/deg F. Normal design temperature is usually about 75 deg F and the temp at firing was 35 deg below that. The resultant thermally caused reduction in O-ring compression to probably close to 75% of designed.

[sammyg2]

I sent pops a note asking if he ever worked with Feynman, haven't heard back yet.
Pretty impressive guy tho .....

He applied to Columbia University but was not accepted.[9] Instead, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1939 and in the same year was named a Putnam Fellow.

He attained a perfect score on the graduate school entrance exams to Princeton University in mathematics and physics—an unprecedented feat—but did rather poorly on the history and English portions.[18] Attendees at Feynman's first seminar included Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, and John von Neumann.
He received a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1942; his thesis advisor was John Archibald Wheeler. Feynman's thesis applied the principle of stationary action to problems of quantum mechanics, inspired by a desire to quantize the Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory of electrodynamics, laying the groundwork for the "path integral" approach and Feynman diagrams, and was titled "The Principle of Least Action in Quantum Mechanics".

wiki

[sammyg2]

More info:

(dad's company) made the ablative insulating rings (kick rings) that covered the flanges of the solid booster segments. The solid booster was made in sections, appoximately 12' long by 18' in diameter. Solid propellent was cast and cured inside the steel cylinders and then machined to the final ballistic configuration.
These segments were shipped by rail from Thiokol in Utah to the Cape where thay were stacked with o-rings between the flanges.
After assembly of the motor segments, the "Kick Rings" were used to cover the flanges. The kick rings were ablative insulators designed to prevent the extreme heat from burning through the steel motor cases. The "kick rings" were fabricated by laying up silica-phenolic fabric patterns and then curing in an auotclave. The cured rings were then machined to the final configuration. Each ring was made up of several segments that were assembled into the final ring when installed on the booster motor.