Easiest Person to Fool

Bob, your posts are full of unconnected dots. They don’t add up.

Are you saying the o-ring failure was not the cause?

 

@Logic Temperature at 16-17,00 ft is about zero F. Temp at 36,000 ft and up is minus 69 F. Would you use o-rings that couldn’t take those temps and might fail at just below freezing? I don’t think so.


What does that have to do with the o-ring failing that cold morning? Are you saying our rockets cool to -69F when they reach 36,000 feet?

=================

There is a relative difference between escape speed and reentry speed, but in both cases heat is generated, albeit considerable less at escape than at reentry speed.
Not to mention o-rings aren't involved in the reentry process.

Logic, here’s an article for you

www. simscale. com/blog/2019/01/space-shuttle-challenger-disaster/

It includes the line:

"However, over the last 30 years, this has been a major case study for engineers and academics alike who have questioned the theories rigorously. Today, our understanding of the matter has greatly developed and matured as technological advancements revealed the true causation of the Challenger disaster."
 
Conclusion The Challenger disaster was broadcasted worldwide and played time and again. To this day, people feel that they personally witnessed the disaster, and were somehow connected. A major factor was failure to effectively test polymeric material behavior across a range of temperatures. This, along with several other contributing engineering faults, eventually led to the tragedy. The Challenger disaster is an infamous example of how even the simplest engineering concepts must be respected, tried, and tested or misfortune can strike- and sometimes be fatal.
It's a simple article, yet in the end it's still the o-ring, perhaps with putty not protecting the o-ring as originally intended, though that was a left rather fuzzy.

 

https:// priceonomics. com/the-space-shuttle-challenger-explosion-and-the-o/

Published Dec 16, 2016 by Nemil Dalal


 

PS. Challenger STS 51-L Accident January 28, 1986

Not to mention o-rings aren’t involved in the reentry process.
I seem to recall that these type of o-rings had been used without problems on prior launches. The difference that day was extraordinary low ground temperatures, which changed the logistics, which were ignored. Your chart never came into play.

The craft never reached any of the altitudes in that chart. The failure happened almost immediately after lift-off. The failure was due to ground temperature which hardened the o-rings and delayed their sealing capacity.

As a result of this ballooning, the metal parts of the casing bent away from each other, opening a gap through which hot gases—above 5,000 °F (2,760 °C)—leaked. This had occurred in previous launches, but each time the primary O-ring had shifted out of its groove and formed a seal. Although the SRB was not designed to function this way, it appeared to work well enough, and Morton-Thiokol changed the design specs to accommodate this process, known as extrusion.
While extrusion was taking place, hot gases leaked past (a process called "blow-by"), damaging the O-rings until a seal was made. Investigations by Morton-Thiokol engineers determined that the amount of damage to the O-rings was directly related to the time it took for extrusion to occur, and that cold weather, by causing the O-rings to harden, lengthened the time of extrusion. The redesigned SRB field joint used subsequent to the Challenger accident used an additional interlocking mortise and tang with a third O-ring, mitigating blow-by.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Thiokol%E2%80%93NASA_conference_call

I am not trying to excuse the inexcusable scientific negligence because cancelling would have been “poor optics” in public relations in spite of the multiple warnings by Morton-Thiocol, the manufacturer!

 

 

Video unavailable This video contains content from BBC Studios, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.
This is as close as I believe I have come to finding the interview on line. I saw it, others must have too.

I’m done. I have presented what I know. Perhaps it’s best to accept the official story. I can believe it was a weather balloon at Roswell.

@ibelieveinlogic I’m done. I have presented what I know. Perhaps it’s best to accept the official story.
Bob, that is so typical. Make grand claims, be questioned, repeat grand claims, be questioned, run off in a huff. Yet the record is clear you have no attempt to respond to any question.

 

#340923, Logic: “Feynman admitted he had been led into forming wrong conclusions about the o-rings being the cause of the Challenger disaster. He was badly troubled by the knowledge that he had fooled himself. One of my all-time favorite people.”


#340931
@lausten
[Feynman admitted he had been led into forming wrong conclusions about the o-rings  — IBL]

citation please

#340975
@ibelieveinlogic: I saw David Frost interview Feynman. … That Reagan was a “star wars” junkie was well known. … Congress had ordered Reagan specifically… Challenger’s cargo was/is classified. … Downrange film of flames took either 3 days or 5 days (I can’t remember which) to be delivered. … killed by a botched attempt to put missiles into space … Sometimes we’d just rather be fooled.


#340981
@citizenschallengev3
That was quite the ramble, not sure how those threads tie together, but in your head guess it makes sense.

Back to the O-ring.

How did Feynman supposedly fool himself?

With what did he fool him?

You haven’t explained it at all.

Did an old memory of frozen cracked carburetor trigger his synapses to make connections?

Who knows?

How would that be fooling himself?

Please try to make sense out of your (that) story.

Tossing more wack-a-moles at us ain’t the way to do that.

Are you claiming something else brought down the Challenger.

#341145
@ibelieveinlogic

Quoting Cc…Back to the O-ring.

…How did Feynman supposedly fool himself?

…With what did he fool himself?

…You haven’t explained it at all.

…Did an old memory of frozen cracked carburetor trigger his synapses to make connections?

The invitation to supper and the look into the carburetor’s o-ring problem after supper were contemporary with Feynman’s investigations into the causes of the explosion. You might want to re-read the details in my post.


#341146
@ibelieveinlogic
How can anyone believe that putting weapons in space could be covered up for 40 years?
Consequences.  Reagan would have been impeached.  Absolute disaster for the Republican party.  NASA would have been seen as complicit and probably shut down; the space program was/is not universally popular.  Additional probes into other covert activities could have been embarrassing, or worse.  Any questions were killed immediately.  The entire episode was buried.

#341156
@citizenschallengev3

@ibelieveinlogic: The invitation to supper and the look into the carburetor’s o-ring problem after supper were contemporary with Feynman’s investigations into the causes of the explosion. You might want to re-read the details in my post.

Cc: “That has nothing to do with it.”

@ibelieveinlogic: Feynman admitted he had been led into forming wrong conclusions about the o-rings being the cause of the Challenger disaster. He was badly troubled by the knowledge that he had fooled himself. One of my all-time favorite people.
I’m wondering where, how, did Feynman “fool himself” about the o-ring cause ?

Cc: “Can you explain that?”

Cc: “Are you saying the o-ring failure was not the cause?”


#341166
@lausten
[Consequences.  Reagan would have been impeached. — Bob]
.......... Not following your logic. - Lausten

#341386
@ibelieveinlogic
all of them were Reagan fans?
I doubt that, but I would be quite surprised if everyone working on a classified project was not properly vetted and totally understood his/her responsibility to keep any secrets. The “military industrial complex” that Ike described in his farewell address is real. Anyone wishing to remain in that industry knows better than to tell what he knows. Besides that, every scrap of evidence one might point to is buried under tons of concrete.

There were and still are many calls for NASA to be shut down, …

Here’s a bone for most here: Trump established our Space Force. Any question on what the “force” part of that name means? Our weapons in space … if not under a President who was a “star wars” junkie… Note that the term “star wars” … By the late 1980s, the effort had been re-focused on the “Brilliant Pebbles”…
And there is more. Those who did not follow it at the time should read and be aware.


#341390R
@ibelieveinlogic
.....[Are you saying the o-ring failure was not the cause? - Cc]

Temperature at 16-17,00 ft is about zero F.  Temp at 36,000 ft and up is minus 69 F.  Would you use o-rings that couldn’t take those temps and might fail at just below freezing?  I don’t think so.

341407
@citizenschallengev3

What does that have to do with the o-ring failing that cold morning? Are you saying our rockets cool to -69F when they reach 36,000 feet?


#341438
@write4u

Shares a picture that was being transmitted around the world to spectators like me, wondering WTF were they thinking launching on that morning?  (I'm thinking it might ?? even be the very seam that failed, right next to the shackle, or whatever they call the connection to the main tank.)

#341515
@ibelieveinlogic
…[Video unavailable]
…[This video contains content from BBC Studios, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.]
This is as close as I believe I have come to finding the interview on line. I saw it, others must have too.

I’m done. I have presented what I know. Perhaps it’s best to accept the official story. I can believe it was a weather balloon at Roswell.


citizenschallenge.

So what?  This isn't about any of that.

I'm trying to understand how you think Feynman fooled himself?

Even more important Bob is that your words are laced with an inference, never clear statement, that there was another reason the Challenger Shuttle exposed that morning.  Has nothing to with the cargo, either in the bay, nor in the crews cockpit.  It has to do with one particular seal on one particular seam, that failed.  Or ???

All the rest is simply flaying your arms, to avoid the question.

 

But, I imagine you'll never try to seriously answer my concerns.  This thread will just dry up a blow away like all the rest.  Nothing offered, nothing achieved.

https://history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html

This is as close as I believe I have come to finding the interview on line. I saw it, others must have too. -- Bob
"Video Unavailable" is your evidence. This is why I started looking for ways to discuss "truth" without going to long discussions of evidence. They usually end up in a discussion about what "evidence" actually means and how nothing is provable. From what you've already said, including the sparse details you gave about your experience of the video, I'm nearly certain that if I watched it, I would draw a different conclusion than you did.

We live in this weird time where hundreds of years of philosophy have discussed this phenomenon of how we draw conclusions, but almost no one cares. Almost no one wants to reflect on their own thoughts, or spend more than a few seconds considering they might be wrong. It seems to cause physical pain. I’ve experienced the sinking feeling in my chest in those instants where I realize I’ve done something stupid, and I take the next step, I correct it in whatever way I can. Why is this so hard? We watched the whole world accept homosexuality over the course of a few years. Ellen got cancelled in 1999, then she became the darling of daytime television. It’s no big deal.

I know it’s scary to step out and be a little different, but all the ceilings and doors are opening now. It’s safe. You can change your mind Bob, we won’t make fun of you.

sparse details you gave about your experience of the video
I posted what I saw in the Frost interview. Feynman went into detail about how he was invited to supper (a most unusual event) and then was asked to look at the carb problem. Feynman later concluded it was a set up to lead him to the o-rings on the boosters. He stated clearly that he believed he had been manipulated into fooling himself. There was no room for doubt about what he thought.

The fact that I have not been able to retrieve the interview doesn’t prove a conspiracy or that the interview is not still available somewhere but if it were available I am confident it would show that Feynman thought that the idea of the o-rings failing was planted in his mind as an attempt to divert attention away from the true cause of the disaster. As I remember it, he was not willing to speculate on what was the true cause of the disaster, only that it was not likely that it was an o-ring failure.

I posted what I saw in the downrange video of the disaster. There was a delay of several days getting the video to the media and many questioned that delay. That video showed only one flame on the side of the booster and it was on the side away from the fuel tank. It was obviously not in a place to do any damage to the fuel tank. I do not remember any discussion about how a leak from the booster could have been ignited. I don’t know whether that fuel would ignite spontaneously in air. The boosters obviously didn’t stop working until well after the explosion. Even the “reconstructed” video shows the brightest spot at the time of the explosion to be at the shuttle itself not at the fuel tank. It looks to me like the ignition source was at the shuttle, not at the tank.

The rest of what I posted was just a few instances of actions relating to the common knowledge at the time that Reagan was a proponent of putting weapons in space in order to secure the high ground for the USA in our fight with the “evil empire”.

I cannot offer any proof of what I saw or of what was the true cause of the disaster, but the dots do connect for me. As I said before, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The truth is out there, but what could one do with it if he knew, other than tell others. I have nothing to prove, no reward to gain, no book to promote, no axe to grind.

Sorry for the delay in responding. Been really busy. Did you miss me?

You bet I missed you and our scintillating dialogue, hope you had a good time, whatever you were doing. Now back to trying to figure out what this story is all about.

 

That video showed only one flame on the side of the booster and it was on the side away from the fuel tank.

It was, as they say, a rapidly developing situation. Look at that video closely, you’ll see more than one flame - within milliseconds, which particular millisecond are you referring to?

 

As for the dinner invitation,

A) I’ll bet dinner invitations were no rare thing for the most popular (even as in ‘pop’ - students loved him) American living physicist evea.

B) Who invited him to dinner?

C) So looking at the carburetor was a set-up for pointing Feynman to make a false deduction?

D) Or perhaps - a deduction, assumption, ear worm, memory nudger - (In which case it was it perhaps a hint of where to look?) but, false deduction?

E) Was Feynman invited to dinner by a Morton Thiokol technician? In which case it was it perhaps a hint of where to look?

 

F) Has anyone, anywhere, ever, suggested a different reason for the Challenger being blown to bits, other than a o-ring that failed rather publicly?

 

This whole thing makes me think of having four pieces of a hundred piece puzzle, then filling in the blank space with inference and arriving at a complete image.

 

P.S. Hypothetically speaking:

Being shepherded towards the correct answer, can’t really be called deception. Can it?

You did say that was a David Frost interview?

Curiously, I can’t find any record of: “David Frost interviews Richard Feynman”

I’ve tried various approaches, th0ugh can’t dig up a complete list of his interviews. Though there is this:

www. itv. com/news/2013-09-01/in-pictures-sir-david-frosts-famous-interviewees

and Feynman doesn’t appear,

David Frost’s Wiki page lists many of his interviews but no Feynman to be found.

 

Which together with the other strikes outs I tried, indicates to me that it’s quite possible that that interview never happened.

The o-ring failing we have on camera, even if it took a couple days to release - if that tidbit is true, which it might not be. Shock oh, shock that the humans who made a profoundly stupid, deadly and unbelievably expensive mistake stalled on making that thing public, scared people make stupid decisions. It certainly wasn’t to retouch the images and put the blame where it didn’t belong.

But, like the say the truth shall be out’ed. (Although like all sayings, it’s only partially true.)

Oh, and incidentally the unmagnified film, was rerun a few dozen times before lunch came around that day. So the basic gist, of where the failure happened was pretty clear to every knuckle head obsessed with reviewing the video reruns.

Just say’n.

 

Oh but wait, a little more investigation provided this bit of authoritative evidence.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/rn_Colloquium1012.html

“An O-ring seal had failed at launch, but the hole was quickly resealed by aluminum oxides before any flames could escape and cause an explosion.”


 

 

Oh but wait, there’s more:

Strong wind shear that began 37 seconds into flight then tore the seal back open, resulting in the catastrophic breakup.
Why would the o-ring have torn open? Perhaps still too cold and too brittle, and who knows how many other small flaws it developed, due to shear pressure on the external tanks during those seconds between lift off and explosion?

 

 

As I posted more than once I have been unable to find any record of the interview. Both Feynman and Reagan are among my favorite people. I would not attempt to make either out to be a bad person. So. why do I post my concerns? I thought you would ask, but you never did. Not really. About an hour after making my previous post that question hit me. I feel I must answer it.

I suppose the reason is that I feel bad for Feynman. I can imagine that he must have been told all of his life what a smart person he was. I suspect he probably came to believe that he was indeed smarter than most of the rest of us and I expect he actually was. The problem for him would come if that recognition turned into pride. Pride is such a nasty thing. I can only imagine that he would have probably quickly come to realize that his pride in his intellectual ability was used against him and he allowed it. That he allowed it would have been the worst part for him. What I saw in the interview was I man confessing his sin, the sin of pride. His penance was to admit it publicly.

I feel bad for Reagan too. I believe he was lead into being a hawk on the USSR and to perhaps a lesser extent on China. We had developed the technology before and during the Eisenhower years that allowed us to determine they weren’t real threats. The military industrial complex couldn’t allow that to be known. Reagan was fed what was required to get his support for “star wars” expansion and he bought it. I imagine he was assured there was very little risk with that particular payload and a school teacher on board was a bonus. The way it turned out was a horror.

I believe Reagan was an honest man and I believe he would have cleared his conscience about the disaster in his memoirs. He may have made the mistake of telling someone he would write the truth about it. He may have started working on it. The entities involved couldn’t allow that. I suspect his sudden onset dementia was caused by doctors employed by or for those entities. I think they had no way other than his death to stop him from “telling all”.

Of course, like all good conspiracy theories, there is no proof. If there were proof, or even a preponderance of evidence, then it wouldn’t be a theory. Dots that connect easily for one may not connect at all for another. So there you have it, just one guy’s statement of what he saw, what he made of it and how it made him feel. Do with it what you will.

Of course, like all good conspiracy theories, there is no proof. -- Bob
Thanks Bob. Great insight into the thought process. Do you have any more on these entities?

I’ll ask the question I ask every theorist. We know how people become experts in their field and how they get their projects “launched”. In this case, launched into space. Now that I’m grandparent age, I’ve seen people go from birth to reaching that stage in life. Every person who has achieved something in science has some kind of family, friends and colleagues. For a theory like this to work, at some point, they have to shift from simply learning about whatever it is, then to implementing it, then to keeping it a secret.

We also know about keeping secrets. There is, sort of, a “science” to that. We know that people are recruited into secret keeping, sometimes at an early age. We also know how difficult it is. One of my favorite cartoons was of a UFO-ologist who was sitting up in bed a few months after Trump was President. He realized that if his theories were correct, Trump would have been told all the UFO secrets by now, and he would have revealed them. So he realized he was wrong. Few theorists think that way though, instead they make up a new theory about “entities” that are higher than the previously thought of entities who maintain the secret. For instance, I have a friend who has theories about spiritual entities that have all the knowledge and she can access it but I can’t.

Anyway, the question is, how are these secrets maintained, given that they must be maintained over generations? Generations that go to the same schools all the rest of go to, and read the same books and documents that everyone can read. Even if the documents are secret, new people get access to them all the time. This is Plato’s Noble lie. It has only ever been maintained in a limited area for a limited time.

... how are these secrets maintained ...
Two of my favorite older technologies are the U-2 and the SR-71. We have been flying U-2s for over 65 years. The published max altitude is well below the actual operational capability. Similar story for the SR-71; the published max speed and altitude is well short of its actual capability. Very few people know what these numbers are and they simply do not talk. Most of those who work in these areas are old fashioned patriots, and of course they were well vetted before getting in. I'm not going to say how I know, except that in certain situations if one can't tell whether something said is a slip of the tongue or a test of loyalty, then the best thing to do is to pretend you didn't hear and keep your mouth shut. Fortunately we have only an occasional bad guy who leaks sensitive info. I'm sure you can appreciate the fact that gaining access to paper documents was much more difficult than getting to them now that they are in a computer. One might want to believe that those concerned about security are aware of this vulnerability and the most sensitive info is never produced or stored electronically.
... they must be maintained over generations ...
Once these secrets are buried, they stay buried. Unless you have authorization to access such info, you don't get it. Unless you have a need to know, you won't know that the info even exists, and that applies to everyone, even the President. You might want to consider that the notion that there is a "book of secrets" or anything like that is just another conspiracy theory.
Fortunately we have only an occasional bad guy who leaks sensitive info. -- IBL
Sometimes, revealing what our military is secretly up to, is what a good guy does.
We have been flying U-2s for over 65 years. The published max altitude is well below the actual operational capability.
Have any supporting evidence for a suggestion that the U2 can fly 'well above' 70,000 feet?
https://www.australianflying.com.au/latest/perlan-ii-beats-u-2-altitude-record

Airbus Perlan Mission II set a new world altitude record for a glider last Sunday, soaring to 76,124 feet over Patagonia whilst collecting data on flight performance, weather and the atmosphere.
The mark, set by pilots Jim Payne and Tim Gardner, surpasses the maximum recorded altitude in level flight of a U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane of 73,737 feet, set in 1989.

It was the third time in a week that Perlan II set a new highest altitude, with 63,100 feet reached on 26 August and 65,600 feet reached two days later.

Perlan II is engineless, weighs just 680 kg, and soars on rare stratospheric air currents formed by mountain winds combining with the Polar Vortex.

“World records are gratifying evidence of progress toward a goal, but the goal itself is advancing our knowledge and expertise,” said Tom Enders, Airbus CEO. …


Record highest flight for a hot air balloon - 65,000’. (www. spacetoday . org/SolSys/Earth/AltitudesChart. html)

 

Although, that was a heck of a good secret with the cover story of searching for the Titanic - held tight for a long time, but, it too was out’ed, if you know what I mean.

:wink:

www .airbus . com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2018/09/airbus-perlan-mission-ii-glider-soars-to-76-000-feet-to-break-ow . html

supporting evidence for a suggestion that the U2 can fly ‘well above’ 70,000 feet? a new world altitude record for a glider
You just provided the evidence. Emphasis on glider. And with a jet engine? Or are those dots to hard to connect?
Although, that was a heck of a good secret with the cover story of searching for the Titanic – held tight for a long time, but, it too was out’ed, if you know what I mean.
I suppose you're referring to a submarine recovery effort? As I remember they said it failed. Of course they would say that.