Exhibit 1199 ยท Commission report
Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, vol. 1, ch. VI: An Accident Rooted in History
However, as tests and then flights confirmed damage to the sealing rings, the reaction by both NASA and Thiokol was to increase the amount of damage considered "acceptable."
Traces the joint design flaw from early tests through repeated erosion and blow-by findings. The Commission states that management first failed to recognize the joint as a problem, then failed to fix it, and then treated it as an acceptable flight risk, widening the amount of damage classed as acceptable.
- Source
- Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (Rogers Commission)
- Date
- 1986
- Quoted from
- Chapter VI, opening section "Early Design", p. 120
- Grade
- Primary record
- Document
- https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1ch6.htm
- Accessed
- 2026-11-10
- Cited by
- Findings citing this exhibit
- Note
- This is the primary-record wording for what Vaughan later named the normalization of deviance. The Commission itself does not use that phrase.