Prescription for Disaster: From the Glory of Apollo to the Betrayal of the Shuttle
By Joe Trento (with Susan Trento)
As a space buff, this book was a 'must-read' for me and I was impressed by the depth and honesty of its content. Joe has kindly accepted my invitation to discuss the book. It examines at the CHALLENGER disaster and the reasons why it occured.
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Joe, as you discovered during your research, there are three general areas which were responsible for the disaster: technical, political and organisational. I'd like to start with the later.
The NASA most people remember was a dynamic organisation from the 1960s, the group that landed men on the Moon, that reacted to save the Apollo 13 astronauts, that managed to develop a plan to save the Skylab station in less than 14 days.
By the mid-1980s it was another government agency interested in its own survival, perhaps above other considerations.
What happened? Did the people of NASA not care?