Challenger Revealed: An Insider's Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age - Hardcover

Richard C. Cook

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1560259809 ISBN 13: 9781560259800

Publisher: Basic Books, 2007

Synopsis

The Reagan Administration pushed hard for NASA to launch shuttle mission 51L, before it was ready. 73 seconds into the launch, the shuttle exploded, killing seven people and leaving a nation traumatized. Richard Cook, the lead resource analyst at NASA for the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), was the first to warn of possible catastrophic failure. His memo, which detailed astronaut concerns and warnings from the shuttle builders at Morton Thiokol, were ignored by top NASA officials and members of the Reagan administration. In the aftermath of the explosion, NASA launched an investigation to "discover" the cause of the disaster. Though within NASA there was absolute certainty about the O-ring joint failure, they began a cover-up by publicly proclaiming that the cause of the explosion was unknown. A Reagan administration Commission perpetrated the same lie. And when Richard Cook realized that the Commission was not interested in revealing the truth, he acted as a true patriot and hero and leaked the original O-ring warning documents to the New York Times. His article set off a cascade of disclosures about the events leading up to the disaster, including revelations by Morton Thiokol engineers that they had tried to stop the launch.

About this title

About the Author

In 1986, Richard Cook became one of the foremost whistleblowers of all time. He has done policy-level work at the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the FDA, and the Jimmy Carter White House. He has also published articles in The Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Space and Security News, and the Houston Post. In 1991, Cook was a recipient of the Cavallo Foundation Award for Moral Courage in Business and Government.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A gripping true-life thriller that describes the struggle to discover and disseminate the truth about the 1986 destruction of the space shuttle Challenger, this book provides new and startling material, presented in a spellbinding narrative with direct relevance to the current state of the US government. Former NASA resource analyst Cook, whose long public service record includes 20 years at the Treasury Department, rocketed from anonymous bureaucrat to public fame during the Challenger investigation, and later was awarded the Cavallo Foundation's Award for Moral Courage in Business and Government, for his efforts to uncover the facts about the faulty O-ring seals that led the shuttle's solid rocket boosters to explode. Easily the most informative and important book on the disaster, Cook's work is meticulously documented, augmenting his own insider knowledge with transcripts, memoranda, reports and interviews to provide the first truly comprehensive book on what happened on January 28, 1986, and why. Tracing the history of the space shuttle's design and development, Cook leads readers step-by-step, decision-by-decision to the tragic event. Rather than an accident, Cook concludes that the disaster was the result of Reagan's autocratic management style and closed-door decision-making process. Further documentation shows how the Rogers Commission, charged with investigating the explosion, was conceived as part of a cover-up effort, which also included collusion by some NASA managers, White House operatives and commission head William Rogers. By focusing solely on equipment malfunctions and internal NASA decision-making, it seems that Rogers evaded the most important question: why was it so important to those in power to launch the shuttle on that day? This account, featuring many players still working in government today, is essential reading on the topics of NASA and US government obfuscation.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1560259809
• ISBN 13: 9781560259800
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544