What was the fatal flaw that caused the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster?
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Hubris.
The people responsible for the start decided to ignore that the Space Shuttle wasn’t designed to start at temperatures this low. They even had their failure properly documented.
The chain of consequences of this failure is well known: because of the low temperature, a seal in one of the booster rockets failed soon after lift-off. This was because at this temperature, it wasn’t flexible enough to handle the stress of the start. Basically, it didn’t fill the gap it was intended to fill, because it wouldn’t expand quickly enough. This resulted in a flame that first further weakened the seal, and then damaged the main tank to the point where the fuel inside would gush out. That fuel caught fire. The tank ruptured, because the pressure inside was rising, and ultimately exploded.
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