Remix.run Logo
gus_massa 3 hours ago

There is also an old article written by a professional bongo player about the Challenger explossion. He has other hobbies, but he was not a Rocket Scientist https://www.nasa.gov/history/rogersrep/v2appf.htm

The takeaway, is that the software was fine, but other systems like the main engine used too much cutting edge technology and have a lot of unexpected failure modes and too many problems like partialy broken parts that should no get partialy broken. [For a weird coincidence, Artemis II uses the same engines.] He concluded that when you consider all the possible problems the failure rate was closer to 1/100, but management was underestimating them and the official value that was 1/100000. [Anyway, the engines didn't fail in Columbia, it was one of the other possible problems.]

The articles explain that the shield has problems but management is underestimating them again. Let's hope the mission goes fine, but in case of a explosion it would be like a deja vu.