The first half of this book presents the true cause of the Challenger catastrophe (a cause that has not previously been revealed to the public). The author therefore assumes that the reader is at least reasonably familiar with the nation’s space shuttle. If not, two excellent references are available: 1) An Illustrated History of the Space Shuttle by Melvyn Smith; and 2) The Space Shuttle Operator’s Manual by Kerry Mark Joels, Gregory P. Kennedy, and David Larkin.

After several years devoted to rewriting my manuscripts on the subject of Mission 51-L, I finally went to my most trusted friends for a review. Slowly they persuaded me to shorten the technical portions of my account and to include more about the impact that Challenger has had upon my own life. They feared that otherwise my revelations would be read only by investigators. For the most part, my friends’ kind advice is reflected in the second half of this book.

I discovered substantial confirmation for my original conclusions about the Challenger catastrophe while studying drastically reduced copies of film and video from NASA. Hundreds of hours went into my review of evidence tediously obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). My initial intent was to use about four hundred illustrations (most of them in color) that I had either photographed or printed from the NASA video. It seemed imprudent to refute NASA’s one-sided reports with any less. Eventually, however, some judicious choices facilitated the production of this relatively condensed account.

NASA has always blamed the 51-L disaster on the failure of a plastic O-ring located near the lower surface of the right rocket. Allegedly this failure occurred fifteen seconds prior to the main explosion, due purportedly to just a few hours of slightly below-freezing weather. Many leading rocket experts have never agreed with this conclusion, and neither do I. Nevertheless, government officials still stubbornly insist that the privacy of the astronauts’ families is more important than the release of many records which NASA has chosen to classify SENSITIVE.

This duplicitous argument must be dispelled at the outset. The families’ privacy is not at the heart of the matter! Several of the grief-stricken parents have already gone to their graves in anger over NASA’s failure to give them an official apology for the launch of Mission 51-L. The real issue is the truth, the foundation upon which both science and democracy rest.

Others in American history have uncovered similar (but less sophisticated) treachery than that exposed herein. For example, the Harding administration is remembered for the extravagant financial scandal known as Teapot Dome. After ten trying years, a determined investigator was able to show that President Harding had approved the greedy rip-off of our national oil reserves. Collusion between Cabinet members and the major oil companies was at the heart of the matter.

Because of comparable collusion, the major aerospace companies profited unlawfully from Mission 51-L. By restricting real openness about that treachery, the leaders of our manned-space program have managed to place nearly total control over our space shuttle launches into the hands of the main perpetrators. Surely it is not too late for informed citizens to rectify that situation.

John Thomas Maxson