NASA had developed a peculiar kind of attitude: if one of the seals leaks a little and a flight is successful, the problem isn't so serious. Try playing Russian roulette that way: you pull the trigger and the gun doesn't go off, so it must be safe to pull the trigger again.
-- Richard Feynman, Nobel prize-winning physicist
Kevin Cook's book is a flatly-written story about the explosion of the Challenger in 1986 but it is full of details about those who died and their lives, with emphasis on Christa McAuliffe, who has a middle school named after her that we are considering for our daughter. I don't think Cook comes across any new information that makes this story "untold," but he does gather a great deal of information about the flight of the Challenger and the political pressure from the Reagan administration to launch when it was too cold and the greed and arrogance of Morton Thiokol, who made rocket boosters that failed.
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