Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

by Adam Higginbotham

In early October, Shea had received a letter from Hilliard Paige, a senior executive at the Missile and Space Division of General Electric, advising NASA on spacecraft safety issues. Paige had recently witnessed a combustion test conducted by one of his staff on samples of Velcro in a pure-oxygen environment. He had watched, aghast, as the material ignited in a flash and was abruptly consumed by flames. The technician told Paige that he had tried bringing the issue to NASA, but had found it hard to get their attention. Paige made his fears explicit: “I do not think it technically prudent to be unduly influenced by the ground and flight success history of Mercury and Gemini under a 100 percent oxygen environment,” he wrote. “The first fire in a spacecraft may well be fatal.”