The Challenger disaster was a devastating blow and prompted President Ronald Reagan to convene fourteen extraordinary specialists to investigate the cause of the accident. The result was the Rogers Commission, named for its chairman William P. Rogers, and included Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, physics Nobel laurate Richard Feynman, and mechanical engineer, Roger M. Boisjoly of Moron Thiokol, who had warned NASA of the uncertainty of the O-ring and its possible failure, which unfortunately came to fruition.

Many moons ago when I started my VI Corps Combat Engineers of WWII website, I also began a forum, which currently has 2,336 members registered. Our members have made a total of 31,138 posts in 5,423 threads. I’m always pleased to see the amount of traffic it receives on a daily basis, even after all this time. For instance, in the last fifteen minutes (those are how stats are presented), I see 102 visitors. The most users online at one time was 673 on 04-25-2024 at 03:22 PM. That astounds me and makes me feel very proud…

You know me, always interested in science and weather-related articles are no exception. The following is from Spaceweather.com, and I learned something new.

THE MAY 10TH SUPERSTORM ELECTRIFIED EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE: The geomagnetic superstorm of May 10, 2024, did more than spark widespread auroras. New data show that it also electrified Earth’s atmosphere. Fair weather electric fields jumped as much as 15% for four days after the storm.