Talk:Thiokol

A fact from Thiokol appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 March 2005. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that rocket engine maker Thiokol, who made the Space Shuttle's booster rockets, also built airbags for Mars Pathfinder and the Mazda Miata?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2005/March.

Wikipedia

POV?

It seems POV and hardly fair to starkly say in the final section "This company made the O-rings responsible for the Challenger disaster" without any mitigating explanation. It's like saying "Bethlehem Steel made the plating which failed so dramatically in the Titanic disaster", or whichever steel company they came from. It would be somewhat less ridiculous to lay responsibility for the disaster at the feet of the captain, or the White Star Line; but still. It's a dangerous world we live in. It is especially dangerous to use a solid fuel rocket on a manned flight, much less TWO of them which doubles the chance that one will explode; and furthermore some of the largest solid-fueled rockets ever made.

I suppose I have a POV as well; that's why I'm putting this on the talk page. My father was in engineering, then engineering management, at Thiokol until 1978. He was firmly opposed to solid-fueled manned rocket flight. His feeling was that some day, the propellant will crack; some day, some other failure will occur. But he did his best on the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) project, which was damned good.

I'm sure that when, not if, another SRB fails, the company that built it will get the blame as well...not the people who decided to strap a pair of them to a manned flight.

The O-rings, which become less flexible when cold, and the SRB as a whole, were required by NASA to function at temperatures down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (+5 C). But the weather on the morning of the launch was extremely cold for that part of Florida. It been several degrees below freezing overnight, and there were still icicles on the launch platform at the time of launch. Near the region that failed, the temperature was measured at 26 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 C) shortly before launch. This was in part due to the low ambient temperature, and partly because of proximity to a mount connecting the booster to the main tank, which contained liquid hydrogen. No launch had ever been attempted in such conditions; the coldest temperature at any previous launch was a full 20 degrees F higher. That flight experienced partial O-ring failure, which alerted the Thiokol engineers (as well as NASA's) to a possible problem.

The night before the Challenger launch, Thiokol engineers conveyed their alarm to management. Management called a teleconference with NASA at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, and advised against the launch. MSFC's management response was, in essence, "Are you sure?" which in my mind is where the breakdown began. That's a crazy question to be asking when the contractor calls up and tells you the rocket they built might explode in cold weather well outside the design limits. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? In a sane world, with lives at stake, the builder has to demonstrate to the customer that the product has an excellent chance of working properly, not that it's likely to fail. Thiokol's answer was, in essence, "well...no..."; they had no definite proof (just some expert opinions. I'm not saying Thiokol management is blameless.) So the launch proceeded.

I've started typing and I can't stop...anyway, I'm planning to add some detail to the simple statement that Thiokol's O-rings failed. --Shyland 01:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Put in the mitigating circumstance, I suppose. But people could get the mitigating circumstances by reading the references. The bottom line is that the cause of the crash was faulty O-rings and the manufacturer of the O-rings was Thiokol.70.91.104.249 01:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thiokol built the SRB to NASA's spec: 40 to 90 degrees F. NASA launched on a morning when temperatures were well below spec, 20+ degrees below any previous launch, and even 15+ degrees below any previous test. NASA knew that Thiokol was working on a problem they had, even above spec. Who's to blame? --Shyland 01:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whether NASA or Thiokol are to blame for Challenger, I have a problem with "the Morton-Thiokol made O-rings". Later in that paragraph, it says that the rings were made of Viton, which is linked. Following the link says that Viton is a trademark of DuPont... Doesn't that mean that the O-rings were made by DuPont (probably as a subcontractor to Thiokol, but still)? Again, I'm not trying say "It's all NASA's fault!" (or even DuPont's), but saying the O-rings were made by Thiokol would seem to be an error. I would think the easiest way to fix the error would be to remove "Morton-Thiokol made". Unless it's a direct quote from the Rogers commission. edit: I did some research in the commission report. Thiokol did supply the O-rings, but who manufactured them isn't established (I'd assume DuPont). Maybe change made to supplied?74.93.204.1 (talk) 15:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very good point. Unless someone can provide a source indicating Thiokol manufactured the O-rings, the article should only indicated Thiokol provided the O-ring that failed, which I think is not reasonably in doubt. Please check to see if the edit I made adequately addresses your concern. (sdsds - talk) 16:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thiokol did not make the O-rings, that was subcontracted. I forget who the subcontractor was, although I remember some other details about it - for example, Thiokol used the same O-ring contractor for many years and to save either money or storage space they kept carving the negatives into the same mold blocks, as long as they would fit inside each other. So they had O-rings for a half-dozen different rocket motors in the same mold and had to make sure they poured into the right holes! I don't think DuPont was involved other than to supply the rubber. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.27.178.252 (talk) 15:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I started reading this thread but didn't finish it. I worked for Thiokol in the early 80s (including doing some work on the SRM, but nothing to do with the mechanical structure, e.g., the O-rings). The boosters were built to NASA's specifications which among other things included the lowest ambient temperature at which they were to be operated - this I recall was well above the temperature on the day that Challenger was launched for the last time (which was an atypically cold day at the Cape). The fact that the boosters failed that day shouldn't have been too surprising - kind of like driving your pickup off a cliff and wondering why it didn't survive the fall - it just wasn't designed for the activity. One can fault Thiokol management for not standing by their engineers' recommmendation at the previous evening's call with NASA - where the infamous "take your engineer's hat off and put your manager's hat on" (to paraphrase) remark was made. Besides being too cold, the winds aloft at the Cape were also unusual that day and there was a tremendous windshear up at about the altitude where the vehicle finally broke-up. The leaking booster had possibly sealed itself with aluminum oxide slag (aluminum powder is used in the SRM, like many solids where plume visibility isn't an issue, to control instability but also add energy), but something apparently dislodged the scab, maybe it was traversing the wind shear layer or the stress when the liquids were throttled back up after going through max Q - the vehicle failed just after both happened. Interestingly, Thiokol already had the tang and clevis redesign for the joints (which was the main fix) as part of the high performance booster package needed for Vandenberg launches - going into polar orbit means you don't get the benefit of Earth's rotation, so the Shuttle system became very weight constrained. To shave weight from the boosters, they were redesigned from aluminum to composite. The filament wound cases were more flexible, so a stiffer joint was needed, hence the tang and clevis design. This same design kept the o-rings, even cold, engaged making the joint more secure (heaters were also added as part of the post-Challenger redesign). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.61.139 (talk) 14:09, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I also find the POV of this article really questionable. In places it is written as though by the company, and as though the company still existed. Why it is now defunct remains a mystery to a reader who has come in without inside knowledge. Did court cases resolve in the intervening time, finding the company responsible and causing the company to close? It really reads like an article bent on protecting 'the company image', not to mention the MySpace visual aspect happening at the bottom. The Wikipedia article on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster refers to the Rogers Commission's report that followed, analyzing how the disaster occurred. While most disasters on that scale have a complex series of factors as their cause, skipping down to the last paragraph of the section on O-ring concerns:By 1985, Marshall and Thiokol realized that they had a potentially catastrophic problem on their hands. They began the process of redesigning the joint with three inches (76 mm) of additional steel around the tang. This tang would grip the inner face of the joint and prevent it from rotating. However, they did not call for a halt to shuttle flights until the joints could be redesigned. Rather, they treated the problem as an acceptable flight risk. For example, Lawrence Mulloy, Marshall's manager for the SRB project since 1982, issued and waived launch constraints for six consecutive flights. Thiokol even went as far as to persuade NASA to declare the O-ring problem "closed".[6] Donald Kutyna, a member of the Rogers Commission, later likened this situation to an airline permitting one of its planes to continue to fly despite evidence that one of its wings was about to fall off. Following the source linked to the statement goes to the Rogers Commission's report itself, see the second sentence. You can read onward if you need to. This is HARDLY like saying the maker of the steel on the Titanic was responsible for its sinking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.97.147.125 (talk) 08:41, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Arguing about who exactly made the O-rings rather misses the point that Thiokol designed the whole solid rocket booster (see, e.g., paragraph 4 of chapter 6 of the Rogers Report). The crash wasn't caused by a faulty O-ring but by a flawed design exacerbated by low temperatures leading up to the launch. Coverage of this in the article is rather lacking, though. Dricherby (talk) 21:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Victor Singer

I believe Vic Singer, an engineer and community activist who is "insufficiently notable" for a Wikipedia page according to the WikiGestapo, designed the airbag system pictured on the page. I seem to recall he originally worked out the math on a napkin or the back of an envelope or something, which amused the rest of us. Vic has many patents in aerospace and was involved in the design of many of Thiokol's more interesting systems from the 1960s until his retirement. He's currently the resident curmudgeon on several political committees in Newark, Delaware, where he's lived since at least the 70s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.27.178.252 (talk) 15:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Myspace

Someone seriously needs to fix the bottom of this page, it looks so bad it could qualify for a myspace profile page. Do we really need 3 images of a snowcat? Samantha.pia (talk) 07:25, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Morton Thiokol

History remembers this company as Morton Thiokol and it is referred to be that name in critical articles in wikipedia.

The name change after the shuttle disaster should not influence the choice of name for this article, which I believe should be Morton Thiokol.

For numerous articles in wikipedia, a decision is made to name an article so as to reflect what the educated public considers to be the name, regardless of legal niceties such as a recorded name at time of registration of birth or entry to a country.

Please reconsider. For more than another generation, that management team should be remembered by engineers as "Morton Thiokol management" and I believe that many who are now gone would agree whole-heartedly. Let them be known by the name they bore at their time of infamy. Or we will be saying "Morton who?"

G. Robert Shiplett 20:56, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

2nd that ! Had trouble finding the article for exactly that reason. Who knows how to spell Thiokol only from audio out of a YouTube video especially when not being a native speaker ... I'm just happy it's not called Cordant :-). JB. --92.195.48.156 (talk) 15:56, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I always think of it as Thiokol because it was the original name, and also because my father worked there in the 1950s and 1960s. Out of curiosity, I checked the book A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon by Ned Sheehan, which covers so much about missile design. He refers to the company as "Thiokol Chemical Corporation". The book was published by Random House, and I imagine they knew the proper way to reference it. Thiokol had quite a history before the space shuttles were in use.

I wonder if there is some sort of standard rule on how to refer to a company that has gone through several name changes. CaddoArts (talk) 05:33, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I finally got curious and decided to try out the Bing Chat, and received this response to my question as to how to reference a company that had several name changes, Thiokol in particular. I asked for citations to back up the info and specifically asked it to exclude Wikipedia (which it ignored). The answer:

"In a scholarly work, it would be appropriate to use the name that the company had at the time relevant to the context of your writing. For example, if you are writing about the company’s early history as a producer of synthetic rubber, you could refer to it as Thiokol Chemical Corporation. If you are writing about events that occurred after one of its name changes, you should use the name that the company had at that time. It is also a good practice to include a brief explanation of the company’s name changes to provide context for your readers."

Citations were for Chem. Eng. News 1958, 36, 4b, 59. Publication Date: January 27, 1958, where it is referred to as Thiokol Chemical Corporation.

It is referred to as Thiokol Corporation in the article revised in 2016 in "Collection: Thiokol Corporation records | Hagley Museum and Library Archives." (https://findingaids.hagley.org/repositories/3/resources/1120, Accessed 17 May 2023.) The Hagley article was a good one, by the way.

So take it for what it's worth. It never did give me an authority on its own advice on citing a company with multiple name changes. CaddoArts (talk) 07:09, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Huh?

This article states: "Charles Bartley, working for the nascent Jet Propulsion Laboratory, discovers the use of thiokol as a stabilizer in solid-fuel rockets." Thiokol was used as the fuel in these rocket motors, not "a stabilizer" (whatever that means). The referenced sources clearly states this as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.131.186 (talk) 15:14, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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External links modified (January 2018)

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Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

1986: An O-ring fault in an MTI SRB destroys Space Shuttle Challenger in flight. The company is found at fault for the destruction of Challenger and deaths of the astronauts. (see Space Shuttle Challenger disaster).

This statement appears not to be supported in its current, very definite, form by either Space Shuttle Challenger disaster or Rogers Commission Report. The facts are much more complicated than can be summarised in a single dot point, but the latter article even states that Morton Thiokol did not accept liability. 165.225.114.181 (talk) 05:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This page doesn't seem to cover that the MT executives kicked the engineers out of a meeting with NASA when the MT engineers raised objections. That's a pivotal part of the situation.50.194.115.156 (talk) 16:06, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Worst industrial disasters in American history?

During its existence, Thiokol was responsible for two of the worst industrial disasters in American history.

This sentence and the following two paragraphs appear to be claiming that the February 3, 1971 Thiokol plant explosion and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster were "two of the worst industrial disasters in American history".

Question 1: Is this the claim the article is intending to make, or did some content go missing regarding the 2nd disaster?

Question 2: If so, do you / do people agree that the SSC disaster was one of the "worst industrial disasters in American history"?

I had never thought of it in those terms, but now I am unsure. It was clearly a disaster by any reasonable definition. Was it an industrial disaster? I tend to think of those as disasters directly involving an industrial process or operation, e.g. a fire/explosion/posion or radioactive material release/etc at an industrial facility, e.g. a factory/plant/mill/pipeline/etc. However, the space shuttle was clearly produced by complex industrial processes and perhaps qualifies as an industrial facility and/or piece of industrial equipment in and of itself. Anyone have an opinion about this?

Finally, how do we quantify the severity of an industrial disaster? Number of people killed/injured? The cost to rebuild/replace things that were destroyed in the disaster? The value of consequential damages (or something along those lines) stemming from the disaster? The social / political / public-opinion impact of the disaster in the area/country/world in which it happened? I think the SSC disaster might qualify as one of the two worst in American history under some of these definitions but definitely not others. DrDeke (talk) 18:38, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Deke, it seems obvious you’re correct - It is really strange to call the Challenger accident an industrial disaster. The terminology and POV reflected here - also exclusively calling them responsible, which NASA reports don’t agree with - is kind of wild. 107.2.88.156 (talk) 01:56, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]