Disinformation Debunked

A persistent rumor is that environmental concerns for asbestos lead NASA to use a weaker sealant for the Challenger. This is like to claim that lack of asbestos insulation on the WTC beams contributed to the collapse. This is just a conservative attack on environmental protection. The following account debunks the myth.

7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster

It didn't explode, the crew didn't die instantly and it wasn't inevitable

By James Oberg

NBC News space analyst

Special to MSNBC

Updated: 11:25 a.m. ET Jan. 27, 2006

James Oberg NBC News space analyst

Myth #5: Environmental ban led to weaker sealant
A favorite of the Internet, this myth states that a major factor in the disaster was that NASA had been ordered by regulatory agencies to abandon a working pressure sealant because it contained too much asbestos, and use a weaker replacement. But the replacement of the seal was unrelated to the disaster — and occurred prior to any environmental ban.

Even the original putty had persistent sealing problems, and after it was replaced by another putty that also contained asbestos, the higher level of breaches was connected not to the putty itself, but to a new test procedure being used. “We discovered that it was this leak check which was a likely cause of the dangerous bubbles in the putty that I had heard about," wrote physicist Richard Feynman, a member of the Challenger investigation board.

And the bubble effect was unconnected with the actual seal violation that would ultimately doom Challenger and its crew. The cause was an inadequate low-temperature performance of the O-ring seal itself, which had not been replaced.