Richard Feynman talks about the O ring

Feynman states that the O ring material has no resilience at 32F or 0C which was the temperature at launch. This allowed the O2 leak from the main booster tank.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[PassiveSmoking]

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what is known as massive ownage.

[droculoh]

"I believe that has some significance to our problem."

That's a very VERY gentlemanly way of putting it.....

[biggbrattz]

xD Yes indeeeed!!

[butterflycaught900]

Feynman finished his analysis of NASA's conduct during this affair with the brilliant line: "Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled".

[louieiscarzy]

below certain temperatures rubber goes into a 'glass' phase, basically meaning that rubber will shatter or crack when very cold.

[ublade82]

That was foam, not ice.

[techdavey1000]

That's TWO Shuttle disasters caused by the cold. Remember when chunks of ice knocked-off insulating tiles that were needed for re-entry?

With the benefit of hindsight the astronauts should have remained on the ISS until the missing tiles were somehow replaced. A big tin of the old type of car exhaust paste might have solved the problem of making spare tiles but instead they flew down to their deaths. Very sad.

[caparn100]

Watch this Fzg1CU8t9nw (Horizon: Richard Feynman - No Ordinary Genius (full version)) from 1:20:00 to 1:22:35 and then from 1:23:18 to 1:23:55

[jameson32]

What a coincidence, the very same program I see to my right lead NASA to bringing him on as a consultant? Not the fact that he is a brilliant Nobel-prizing winning physicist? Doesn't that seem like kind of narrow minded? NASA may have already thought they knew the answer, but that's why you have committees.

[caparn100]

In 1983 Feynman made a program "fun to imagine things" where he described the physics behind the elastic band, and how they work better when heated up. I believe this is why some people at NASA bought him in. After the explanation he gave into the cause of the disaster he said some people at NASA already knew it was the failure of the O-rings at low temperature that led to the disaster and they lead him to the answer in a way that made him think he'd found it. Clever people at NASA!

[TheMoralHeathen]

Old school pwnage.

[adamhunter1223]

Ahem: BURN!