Failure Report: Space Shuttle Excursion

On January 16th, 2010, Space Shuttle Excursion experienced a catastrophic failure during the launch process, resulting in the complete explosive disintegration of the craft shortly after takeoff. All crew members on board, including astronauts Dan Peppergrave, Ruth LaGatta, Roger Birdcastle, Jack Hug and Lawrence DeLong, suffered mild to moderate injuries, including second-degree burns, fractured ribs and the total death of all of them.

This document, as ordered by the NASA Accountability and Safety Agency (hereafter referred to as "NASA"), seeks to outline the cause or causes of this launch failure. While NASA is still collecting evidence from the site of the Excursion explosion and a final accident report cannot be completed until the investigative process has concluded, our preliminary investigation points to several possible faults in the launch process that may have partially contributed to the catastrophe.

The shuttle's orbiter vehicle and rocket boosters are comprised of hundreds of thousands of extremely sophisticated components; even a failure rate of 0.01% would result in thousands of components failing, so it's very difficult to pinpoint the exact malfunction or malfunctions that resulted in the shuttle's rapid destruction upon takeoff. Some evidence suggests that the relatively warm weather on the launch day may have caused the O-rings that connect the orbiter's cooling system to its secondary subwoofer to expand, resulting in decreased output to the shuttle's life support and stereo systems. Some weathering of the craft's external shingling was observed, as well as light mossing around the rain gutters, but these factors were determined to be narrowly within standard safety parameters.

Link