Petrone ran the West Coast contractor’s shuttle operations with an iron hand—and had left the Cape in disgust the previous afternoon, after witnessing the bolt fiasco unfold on Pad 39B. Now, watching the closed-circuit TV images of the icicles festooning the gantry and equipment around Challenger from the plant in Downey, he told his managers to make it clear to NASA that Rockwell could not approve the launch. “It is not safe,” he said.
