and why hasn't this happened to any other shuttles?
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Hi Ty! The space shuttle uses rubber seals called "O-rings" on the solid fuel boosters(the rocket looking things strapped to the side).
These rubber seals help prevent the hot flame inside the boosters from leaking out. But when rubber gets cold it becomes stiff and brittle and it doesn't seal very well anymore.
The people at Morton-Thiokol, the company who built the boosters, designed the orings to only be used above freezing temperatures. However, the people at NASA who decide whether it's safe to launch the shuttle figured that since they launched the previous shuttle when it was cold...This one should be OK too.
...and it wasn't.
The exhaust flame burned a small gap in one of the O-rings allowing flame to escape out the side of the booster which eventually caused the liquid oxygen tank strapped to the bottom of the shuttle to explode.
Sadly, we found out later that several engineers from Morton-Thiokol warned NASA about launching the shuttle in cold weather. Even producing evidence that the previous shuttle launch had ALMOST exploded because of the cold temperatures at launch, but they were ignored.
The short of it is...they were in a hurry and they got sloppy, and with rockets...that's always a recipe for disaster!
The reason it hasn't happened since is that after the Challenger disaster, NASA stopped launching the remaining shuttles during cold weather.
Here's a spectacular video taken from a camera mounted on the booster rockets of another shuttle launch...Watch the whole thing, its' AWSUM ;)
http://youtu.be/sWm4spqT18o
These rubber seals help prevent the hot flame inside the boosters from leaking out. But when rubber gets cold it becomes stiff and brittle and it doesn't seal very well anymore.
The people at Morton-Thiokol, the company who built the boosters, designed the orings to only be used above freezing temperatures. However, the people at NASA who decide whether it's safe to launch the shuttle figured that since they launched the previous shuttle when it was cold...This one should be OK too.
...and it wasn't.
The exhaust flame burned a small gap in one of the O-rings allowing flame to escape out the side of the booster which eventually caused the liquid oxygen tank strapped to the bottom of the shuttle to explode.
Sadly, we found out later that several engineers from Morton-Thiokol warned NASA about launching the shuttle in cold weather. Even producing evidence that the previous shuttle launch had ALMOST exploded because of the cold temperatures at launch, but they were ignored.
The short of it is...they were in a hurry and they got sloppy, and with rockets...that's always a recipe for disaster!
The reason it hasn't happened since is that after the Challenger disaster, NASA stopped launching the remaining shuttles during cold weather.
Here's a spectacular video taken from a camera mounted on the booster rockets of another shuttle launch...Watch the whole thing, its' AWSUM ;)
http://youtu.be/sWm4spqT18o