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Yes, sir, there is a change in the characteristic. As elastomers get colder, the resiliency decreases, and the ability to respond——

Now, the elastomers are what?

That is the Viton O-ring.

The rubber?

Feynman pressed Mulloy on why resiliency was crucial: a soft metal like lead, squeezed into the gap, would not be able to hold a seal amid the vibration and changing pressure. “If this material weren’t resilient for say a second or two,” Feynman said, “that would be enough to be a very dangerous situation?”

He was setting Mulloy up. He had been frustrated by the inconclusive and possibly evasive testimony. He had made an official request for test data, through Graham, and had received documents that were irrelevant, showing how the rubber responded over a period of hours instead of milliseconds. Why couldn’t the agency answer such a simple question? At dinner Monday night his eyes fell on a glass of ice water, and he had an idea that he first thought might be too easy and gauche. Ice water was a stable 32 degrees, almost exactly the temperature on the pad at the time of the launch. Tuesday morning he rose early and hailed a taxicab. He circled official Washington in search of a hardware store and finally managed to buy a small C-clamp and pliers. As the hearing began, he called for ice water, and an aide returned with cups and a pitcher for the entire commission. As a life-size cross section of the joint was passed along for the commissioners to examine, Kutyna saw Feynman take the clamp and pliers from his pocket and pull a piece of the O-ring rubber from the model. He knew what Feynman meant to do. When Feynman reached for the red button on his microphone, Kutyna held him back—the television cameras were focused elsewhere. Rogers called a short break and, in the men’s room, standing next to Neil Armstrong, he was overheard saying, “Feynman is becoming a real pain in the ass.” When the hearing resumed, the moment finally arrived.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Dr. Feynman has one or two comments he would like to make. Dr. Feynman.

DR. FEYNMAN: This is a comment for Mr. Mulloy. I took this stuff that I got out of your seal and I put it in ice water, and I discovered that when you put some pressure on it for a while and then undo it it doesn’t stretch back. It stays the same dimension. In other words, for a few seconds at least and more seconds than that, there is no resilience in this particular material when it is at a temperature of 32 degrees.

I believe that has some significance for our problem.

Before Mulloy could speak, Rogers called the next witness, a budget analyst who had written a memorandum that formed the basis of the Times article. The analyst, Richard Cook, had noticed the O-ring problem on a list of “budget threats” month after month, had highlighted it to his superiors, and, when the disaster took place, felt certain that it had been the cause. The chairman, for the first and last time during the shuttle hearings, cross-examined a witness, through the rest of the morning and on into the afternoon, with the cold savagery of a prosecutor:

You didn’t, I assume, make any attempt to weigh budgetary considerations and safety considerations, did you?

Not at all.

You weren’t qualified for that?

No, sir… .

You had no reason to think that people who were weighing those considerations were not qualified to do it? … You didn’t feel that you were in a position or should you make those decisions about what should be done with the space program?

That’s right.

And so that the memo, which has been given a great deal of attention, sort of suggests that you were taking issue with the people who were highly qualified to make those judgments, when in fact you weren’t at all? … You wrote the memo in the heat of the moment, and I assume you were, like everybody else in the country was, terribly disturbed and upset by the accident, and it was in that spirit or at that time when you wrote the memorandum. You didn’t really mean to criticize for public consumption your associates or