Down at the Cape, Al McDonald was making a final attempt to persuade Mulloy to change course, itemizing three separate reasons to cancel the launch: not just the O-ring problem; but the Atlantic storms that had overtaken the recovery ships, jeopardizing the retrieval of the boosters; and the possibility that ice formed on the launch gantry would damage the orbiter as it took off. But the NASA managers brushed him off. They told him only that they would pass along his concerns to those whose job it was to worry about them.
