Truth, Lies, and O-Rings

Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

By: Allan J. McDonald, James R. Hansen - contributor

Narrated by: Jonathan Yen

Length: 26 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Challenger, despite warnings against doing so by many individuals including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of Challenger on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation's collective memory.

In Truth, Lies, and O-Rings, McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center. As he fought to draw attention to the real reasons behind the disaster, he was the only one targeted for retribution by both NASA and his employer, Morton Thiokol, Inc., makers of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters.

In this whistle-blowing yet rigorous and fair-minded book, McDonald, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James R. Hansen, addresses all of the factors that led to the accident, some of which were never included in NASA's Failure Team report submitted to the Presidential Commission.

Truth, Lies, and O-Rings is the first look at the Challenger tragedy and its aftermath from someone who was on the inside, recognized the potential disaster, and tried to prevent it. It also addresses the early warnings of very severe debris issues from the first two post-Challenger flights, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Columbia some 15 years later.

©2009 Allan J. McDonald (P)2018 Tantor

Very repetitive

Sometimes I felt like I skipped back in the story because it was basically word for word repeats of things sometimes. The story itself was good though.

Speak Truth To Power!!!

I Loved it! The narration was superb. I will recommend to my family, friends and co-workers.

Heavy Detail Order with Kindle Edition

Lots of technical details. Lots of company and governmental politics. Order with Kindle Edition.

Interesting, but VERY long

This book was very interesting and caused me to research more about the Challenger accident and watch lots of videos. The story is very compelling, although the author has a “holier than thou” approach to the tale. It’s hard to know if that’s the *real* story or the author’s slant. Nonetheless, his story is pretty amazing.

So many acronyms so little time

I’ve always wanted to read a good book about the Challenger disaster and this is one I’d put in that category. But good lord there are so many acronyms you get lost somewhere between KSC and SRB. It’s a bit distracting and somewhat takes away from the enjoyment of the book. There’s a lot of technical talk but if you can get past that it’s worth the listen. There are times where McDonald seems to be indulging in a bit of grandstanding but within the context of the subject it’s forgivable.

Warm up your rewind button

Extremely detailed look back at the Space Shuttle program from the inside. Many, many transcripts, memos and news articles are read verbatim, and many characters with job titles are introduced so be prepared to hit the “back” button if you want to follow the story. The author obviously had an axe (or two) to grind so the point of view was pretty self serving at times and should be read with a healthy dose of skepticism. The narration was pretty bad.

Good story—VERY technical

The content of this book is compelling, but often times the technical details that are available for those who are interested ball down the story while we’re waiting for something to develop. I have never met a NASA engineer, but I bet he would be just like this… :-)

JUST THE FACTS AND LOTS OF THEM

A FINE WORK WITH GR8 DETAIL. THE SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAM SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER THAN THIS.

Very interesting & detailed

This was too long and detailed to listed to all the way through. And, it would have helped to have done disgrams to understand some of the details. But, overall, this is an outstanding, detailed, technical retrospective of a situation gone bad. Highly recommended.

In-depth, technical, very long but worth it!

Truth, Lies, and O-Rings is a great in-depth analysis of what led to the space shuttle Challenger’s destruction 73 seconds after launch in January 1986, from an individual who was directly involved. A lot of over-my-head technical details, but the author explains them well. Dry if you do not already have an interest in the topic. Also, will make you hate NASA. Longest audiobook ever (sped up to 1.25x speed) but an excellent narrator. 4/5 overall.