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Keith Cowing's Devon Island Journal - 18 July 2007: Ancient Memorials for Modern Space Explorers, SpaceRef
"Today was supposed to have been our third live webcast to Challenger Learning Centers across the U.S. However, just as we were testing the satellite link, it died. After some hours of trying to figure out what went wrong, I decided to switch my team's attention to our other main task while on Devon Island. In addition to doing our webcasts, the other main task we had was the building of a memorial inukshuk to the crew of Space Shuttle Challenger."
The big "Y", Miles O'Brien
"Today, I am lucky to be a member of the Board of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. It is an organization that does much to engage and inspire kids - and keep the dreams and hoped of that lost crew alive. The organization does great things - but it needs our help. I encourage you to support it."
Editor's note: we were most pleased to be able to vote Miles onto the Board of Directors of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education last week.
As I recall, one of the responses to the Challenger disaster was to kick Morton Thiokol (a.k.a. ATK) off the shuttle and build the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) in Yellow Creek, MS. It was bigger in diameter than the ATK solids rather than in length, so it didn't have the big pogo stick problems. It reduced the number of joints from 3 to 2 instead of increasing them to 4. Also the joints it used were not those stupid clevis things ATK uses, but instead were a design that tightened as pressure increased.
Seems like the Aries program would be a lot better off if they resurrected the ASRM and got rid of ATK, but then what would be the point to Aries without that sole source contract to ATK?