A gripping true-life thriller that describes the struggle to discover and disseminate the truth about the 1986 destruction of the space shuttle Challenger
, this book provides new and startling material, presented in a spellbinding narrative with direct relevance to the current state of the U.S. government. Former NASA resource analyst Cook, whose long public service record includes 20 years at the Treasury Department, rocketed from anonymous bureaucrat to public fame during the Challenger
investigation, and later was awarded the Cavallo Foundation's Award for Moral Courage in Business and Government for his efforts to uncover the facts about the faulty O-ring seals that led the shuttle's solid rocket boosters to explode. Easily the most informative and important book on the disaster, Cook's work is meticulously documented, augmenting his own insider knowledge with transcripts, memoranda, reports and interviews to provide the first truly comprehensive book on what happened on January 28, 1986, and why. Tracing the history of the space shuttle's design and development, Cook leads readers step by step, decision by decision to the tragic event. Cook concludes that rather than an accident, the disaster was the result of Reagan's autocratic management style and closed-door decision-making process. Further documentation shows how the Rogers Commission, charged with investigating the explosion, was conceived as part of a cover-up effort, which also included collusion by some NASA managers, White House operatives and commission head William P. Rogers. By focusing solely on equipment malfunctions and internal NASA decision making, it seems that Rogers evaded the most important question: why was it so important to those in power to launch the shuttle on that day? This account, featuring many players still working in government today, is essential reading on the topics of NASA and U.S. government obfuscation. (Feb.)
