Senator Mark Kelly

This stuff gets really

complex.

And then you go to fly the vehicle and the accidents we've had with Challenger and Columbia, you know, those were, you know, Challenger accident, nothing you can do about it.

Columbia accident, nothing you could have really done about it.

I

the vehicle disintegrates on entry.

But we've had other problems in space.

On my first launch, we got a master alarm on liftoff.

If I remember correctly, I think it had to do with an RCS jet, one of the reaction control system jets.

On my third flight where I was a commander, this is something we never trained for, was one of the solid rocket boosters.

They're designed to burn.

So they're solid propellant.

You can't turn them off.

They're designed to burn out exactly the same time.

They're poured to very high tolerances in Ogden, Utah at a company called Thiokol.

And they're supposed to flame out two minutes and five seconds into the liftoff, flame out at the same time.

Well, in our case, one got to chamber pressure of zero before the other one and the space shuttle started rolling and yawing.

Because that's not even.

Yeah, not even thrust started rolling and yawing.

And I was about to hit the button to take over manually to then try to correct this.