Am I reading this wrong or did they launch the thing at a temperature way outside the range where they normally launch shuttles?
Wouldn't there be a whole bunch of different stats measured, which would all say that you should be cautious when trying a region far away from what you know?
In any case, a very good example of how stats is unintuitive. I hadn't guessed about the missing "no error" data until I read it. I'm sure there's many more little things like that. Simpson's paradox, those kinds of things.
> Am I reading this wrong or did they launch the thing at a temperature way outside the range where they normally launch shuttles?
No, that's correct, the launch was the coldest yet and reached temperatures at which the O-rings had lost their flexibility and couldn't spring back fast enough to seal. In fact an iconic scene from the Challenger hearings was Feynman showing (on TV!) the loss of ductility after having dunked an O-ring in ice-water.
Wouldn't there be a whole bunch of different stats measured, which would all say that you should be cautious when trying a region far away from what you know?
In any case, a very good example of how stats is unintuitive. I hadn't guessed about the missing "no error" data until I read it. I'm sure there's many more little things like that. Simpson's paradox, those kinds of things.