Yet, that afternoon, the engineers told Feynman in detail about the engines’ history of test stand failures, of the fractures in the turbine blades, and the potential for disaster in the high-pressure turbopumps. They told him that they faced at least a dozen serious problems; only half had been fixed. By the end of the day, Feynman was convinced that he had found evidence of the same syndrome in the main engine program that had led to catastrophe with the solid rockets: NASA managers who prioritized magical thinking over technical realities, while the alarm bells rung by their own engineers
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