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Other responsibilities encompassed the development, acquisition and launch support of all Air Force expendable launch vehicles, including the [[Titan (rocket family)|Titan]] and [[Atlas (missile)|Atlas]] space boosters and the [[Titan IV]] heavy lift launch vehicle, which provides a capability equivalent to the space shuttle. His programs for control of space missions encompassed the operations and upgrade of the Air Force satellite control network, and development of Air Force Space Command's Consolidated Space Operations Center, [[Falcon Air Force Station]], Colorado. In June 1984 Kutyna became director of space systems and command, control and communications, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Research, Development and Acquisition, at Air Force headquarters.

Other responsibilities encompassed the development, acquisition and launch support of all Air Force expendable launch vehicles, including the [[Titan (rocket family)|Titan]] and [[Atlas (missile)|Atlas]] space boosters and the [[Titan IV]] heavy lift launch vehicle, which provides a capability equivalent to the space shuttle. His programs for control of space missions encompassed the operations and upgrade of the Air Force satellite control network, and development of Air Force Space Command's Consolidated Space Operations Center, [[Falcon Air Force Station]], Colorado. In June 1984 Kutyna became director of space systems and command, control and communications, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Research, Development and Acquisition, at Air Force headquarters.



Kutyna is perhaps most famous for his aid in several investigations of [[NASA]] launch failures, especially his membership on the [[Rogers Commission]] investigating the [[Space Shuttle Challenger disaster|loss]] of the [[Space Shuttle Challenger|Space Shuttle ''Challenger'']]. He was particularly critical of NASA's decision to allow the shuttle to keep flying despite knowledge of the catastrophic [[O-ring]] flaw that ultimately led to the disaster. He likened this situation to an airline allowing a plane to fly despite evidence that one of its wings was about to fall off. While serving, he befriended fellow panelist [[Richard Feynman]], who later described their partnership in his humorous memoir ''[[What Do You Care What Other People Think?]]''. The partnership of Kutyna and Feynman was critical in the discovery and publication of the cause of the ''Challenger'' disaster: Kutyna told Feynman about how he was repairing his car and discovered that some seals failed due to low temperatures that morning. That inspired Feynman, who discovered the truth about O-ring weakness: they lack [[Elasticity (physics)|elasticity]] when at or below a temperature of {{convert|32|F|C}} degrees, such as the morning of the accident. Feynman knew an astronaut had given Kutyna the crucial piece of information that led to his O-Ring insight; Kutyna later revealed that it was [[Sally Ride]], a fellow member of the investigation commission but still a NASA employee at the time:

Kutyna is perhaps most famous for his aid in several investigations of [[NASA]] launch failures, especially his membership on the [[Rogers Commission]] investigating the [[Space Shuttle Challenger disaster|loss]] of the [[Space Shuttle Challenger|Space Shuttle ''Challenger'']]. He was particularly critical of NASA's decision to allow the shuttle to keep flying despite knowledge of the catastrophic [[O-ring]] flaw that ultimately led to the disaster. He likened this situation to an airline allowing a plane to fly despite evidence that one of its wings was about to fall off. While serving, he befriended fellow panelist [[Richard Feynman]], who later described their partnership in his humorous memoir ''[[What Do You Care What Other People Think?]]''. The partnership of Kutyna and Feynman was critical in the discovery and publication of the cause of the ''Challenger'' disaster: Kutyna told Feynman about how he was repairing his car and discovered that some seals failed due to low temperatures that morning. That inspired Feynman, who discovered the truth about O-ring weakness: they lack [[Elasticity (physics)|elasticity]] when at or below a temperature of {{convert|32|F|C}} degrees, such as the morning of the accident. Feynman knew an astronaut had given Kutyna the crucial piece of information that led to his O-Ring insight; Kutyna later revealed that it was [[Sally Ride]], a fellow member of the investigation commission but a NASA employee at the time:

{{blockquote|One day [early in the investigation] Sally Ride and I were walking together. She was on my right side and was looking straight ahead. She opened up her notebook and with her left hand, still looking straight ahead, gave me a piece of paper. Didn't say a single word. I look at the piece of paper. It's a NASA document. It's got two columns on it. The first column is temperature, the second column is resiliency of O-rings as a function of temperature. It shows that they get stiff when it gets cold. Sally and I were really good buddies. She figured she could trust me to give me that piece of paper and not implicate her or the people at NASA who gave it to her, because they could all get fired. I wondered how I could introduce this information Sally had given me. So I had Feynman at my house for dinner. I have a 1973 [[Opel GT]], a really cute car. We went out to the garage, and I'm bragging about the car, but he could care less about cars. I had taken the carburetor out. And Feynman said, "What's this?" And I said, "Oh, just a carburetor. I'm cleaning it." Then I said, "Professor, these carburetors have O-rings in them. And when it gets cold, they leak. Do you suppose that has anything to do with our situation?" He did not say a word. We finished the night, and the next Tuesday, at the first public meeting, is when he did his O-ring demonstration ... I never talked with Sally about it later ... I kept it a secret that she had given me that piece of paper until she died [in 2012].<ref>{{cite web |author=Dean, Margaret Lazarus |title=An Oral History Of The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster |url=http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a18616/an-oral-history-of-the-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster/ |website=Popular Mechanics |date=2016-01-28 |access-date=2016-02-02 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|One day [early in the investigation] Sally Ride and I were walking together. She was on my right side and was looking straight ahead. She opened up her notebook and with her left hand, still looking straight ahead, gave me a piece of paper. Didn't say a single word. I look at the piece of paper. It's a NASA document. It's got two columns on it. The first column is temperature, the second column is resiliency of O-rings as a function of temperature. It shows that they get stiff when it gets cold. Sally and I were really good buddies. She figured she could trust me to give me that piece of paper and not implicate her or the people at NASA who gave it to her, because they could all get fired. I wondered how I could introduce this information Sally had given me. So I had Feynman at my house for dinner. I have a 1973 [[Opel GT]], a really cute car. We went out to the garage, and I'm bragging about the car, but he could care less about cars. I had taken the carburetor out. And Feynman said, "What's this?" And I said, "Oh, just a carburetor. I'm cleaning it." Then I said, "Professor, these carburetors have O-rings in them. And when it gets cold, they leak. Do you suppose that has anything to do with our situation?" He did not say a word. We finished the night, and the next Tuesday, at the first public meeting, is when he did his O-ring demonstration ... I never talked with Sally about it later ... I kept it a secret that she had given me that piece of paper until she died [in 2012].<ref>{{cite web |author=Dean, Margaret Lazarus |title=An Oral History Of The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster |url=http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a18616/an-oral-history-of-the-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster/ |website=Popular Mechanics |date=2016-01-28 |access-date=2016-02-02 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>}}



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