Becca’s Reviews > Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space > Status Update

Over the course of the years they had been developing and flying the solid rocket motors, [they] had slowly expanded the parameters of what they regarded as acceptable risk in the joints. Incrementally, they had begun to accept as normal problems that deviated dangerously from the original design standards set for the boosters-and the seals that constrained the seething power of their volatile propellant in flight.

“WE JUST GOT INFINITELY SMARTER.”