“Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously, a major malfunction.” [1] These somber words of Steve Nesbit, NASA’s Mission Control spokesman, were said minutes after the worst disaster in the history of the American space program.
On January 28, 1986, at 11:39 a.m. EST, the Space Shuttle Challenger, carrying seven astronauts, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe, explored 73 seconds into its mission at an altitude of 48,000 feet.
Six months earlier Richard C. Cook, a resource analyst at NASA for the Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters, wrote a memo to NASA officials warning of a serious defect in O-rings sealing rocket segments. The warning was ignored.
Cook, 62, said NASA insiders knew on the afternoon of the disaster that faulty O-rings were to blame but proclaimed publicly the cause was unknown. When a Presidential Commission, chaired by William Rogers, seemed intent on deflecting criticism of NASA, Cook was convinced a cover-up had begun.
Determined not to be silent or silenced, he leaked important documents to The New York Times, including disclosures that engineers of Morton Thiokol, Inc., the rocket booster contractor, had vociferously opposed the Challenger launch. Cook acknowledges the contributions of whistleblowers Roger Boisjoly and Alan McDonald of Morton Thiokol and the support of Richard Feynman, a member of the Presidential Commission and a Nobel Laureate, and John Young, NASA’s most veteran astronaut at the time.
A public servant for most of his career, Cook, prior to working for NASA, had done policy-level work at the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Carter White House. “Everywhere I went there was a very high ideal of service and integrity,” he said. That is, until he got to NASA, which he calls “an Agency of yes men.”
Cook tried to uphold the integrity of his calling to public service. “It’s not just saluting the flag when it goes up or bowing down to the political bosses,” he said. “It means being a thinker, being a human being with human values, serving the values of our Republic. The oath I took when I became a civil servant was to the Constitution. It was not to the President, or to an executive, or to my career. It was to the Constitution of the United States, and the first words of the Constitution are ‘We, the people.’”
“When I got into NASA, I was so excited to be part of the Space Shuttle program,” he said. “But when the Challenger disaster occurred and my personal ethics were challenged, I couldn’t go along with it. I had to make a stand. But I thought I was making a stand as an honest public servant, not as someone rocking the boat or trying to embarrass someone. I wound up spending the next 20 years in a rather obscure job in Treasury.”
Looking back at his televised Commission testimony, Cook has few regrets. “I only regret that I didn’t hit harder at the time,” he said. “I lacked confidence in myself and I lacked support from anybody. I tried, when I was testifying, to play the role of the analyst who was neutral and raised questions [about the disaster]. I was very, very afraid of going beyond the information I had at the time. I guess it was the only way I could have survived it, but I really didn’t know at the time all the multiple layers of cover up.”
In 1991 Cook received the Cavallo Foundation Award for Moral Courage in Business and Government.
Once at the U.S. Treasury, Cook pursued a passion he developed years earlier in the Carter Administration. During the late 1970s, he organized a group of colleagues to study and discuss monetary reform. It disbanded when Ronald Reagan was swept into office in 1981. “But I got from that experience a lifelong interest in monetary policy,” Cook said. “When I wound up at Treasury after NASA, I knew exactly what I wanted to learn about and I spent the next 20 years developing that field of knowledge.”
Cook once again got a reputation for dedication and integrity. One Treasury executive called him, “the best analyst he’d ever seen in government.”
After he retired, Cook wrote Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, which was published in 2007. He revealed for the first time the reasons behind the cover up. First, Cook said NASA officials sought to conceal that they had knowledge of the O-ring problem and were callously compromising crew safety.
Next, NASA and the Presidential Commission sought to protect the Reagan Administration, which pressured NASA to launch Challenger for the teacher-in-space publicity. And finally, all three groups sought to conceal that the Space Shuttle had finally found its mission: a platform for testing space weapons under the Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars,” and the militarization of space.
Some whistleblowers become embittered with time. Not Cook. “I’m basically a happy man at this time,” he said. “Now I’ve gotten so much support. I get emails very day from people who have read the book [“Challenger Revealed”],” he said. “A screenplay is under way for a movie. I have such a rich life, and it involves people who appreciate what I’ve done and what I’ve written about.”
As for his legacy, Cook said he would like to be remembered as an honest civil servant.
Endnotes
1. Spaceflight, Now. “The Challenger Accident.” Spaceflight Now. Web. 15 Oct 2009. http://spaceflightnow.com/challenger/timeline/.
Copyright © 2009 by Vince Reardon
5 Comments
May 12, 2009 at 12:28 pm
[...] http://vincereardon.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/richard-c-cook-whistleblowing-isnt-for-sissies/ [...]
May 13, 2009 at 9:27 am
Dear Mr. Creek,
I voted for Obama too. But I don’t think it was Obama who caused Richard Cook’s problems. It was the Reagan Administration, a complacent government agency, NASA, and a President Commission that almost engaged in a cover-up. We are both fortunate that there are a few people around like Ric Cook who put themselves at great personal and professional risk to remind government of its responsibilities to “We, the people.”
Thanks for reading my blog and for your comments.
Best,
Vince Reardon
May 13, 2009 at 11:41 am
I have found Mr. Cook to be anything but a sissy, in regards to standing up for what is right and what is necessary. He is very responsive and is more than willing to discuss the issues that he is hot about, now monetary reform. I only wish more people would take a look at this issue and start talking about it in a big way. I have had my own reservations, but he is helping me to understand the issue well enough to start making decent decisions.
May 13, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Excellent post! I really enjoyed reading it. I will be back for more!
Sincerely,
Roy Ledford
http://goinggreenthenewbetterlifestyle.blogspot.com/
May 13, 2009 at 5:48 pm
[...] Richard C. Cook: Whistleblowing Isn’t for Sissies “Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously, a major malfunction.” [...] [...]