Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (1986). Report to the President, vol. 1, 6 June 1986. https://www.nasa.gov/history/rogersrep/genindex.htm. Chapter 5, “The Contributing Cause of The Accident” (the launch decision), chapter 6, “An Accident Rooted in History”, and chapter 7, “The Silent Safety Program”.
Skimmed on 2026-10-22 in NOTE-1090: volume 1’s chapters V–VIII and the Recommendations in full, the rest of volume 1 in part, volumes 2–5 not read.
Why this is here
The owner proposed the events before and after Challenger as a case of an institution documenting and learning from mistakes (U25). The record reads the Columbia board’s account as THEORY-140. The case is CASE-138.
From the reading, 2026-10-22. The report supports the case’s account of the warning and the reversal, and is the primary source for the Challenger half of THEORY-140, which could take it as a second source. It does not contain the post-1986 reforms the case lists (it recommends the independent safety office; it does not record its creation), and the case’s account of the launch decision is in chapter V, which the case does not cite. See NOTE-1090 for its bearing on CLAIM-403, CLAIM-416 and CLAIM-422.