In Feynman's Book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?", it comes to light that Nasa knew they had a problem with the "O" rings and Thiokol kept fiddleing with the installation to rectify the situation. Infact the Parker Seal Company told Morton Thiokol that the rings were not designed to be used that way an there could not offer any solution.
However, the only mention of the "Problem" in all the NASA post flight data was a mention in a summary at the end of some flight readyness reviews, " The lack of a good secondary seal in the field joint is the most critical and ways to reduce joint rotation should be incorporated as soon as possible to reduce criticality"
Then near the bottom it said "Analysis of existing data indicates that it is safe to continue flying the existing design as long as the joints are leak checked with a 200 psig stabilization....."
Feynman said he was "Struck by the contradiction": "If it is most critical how could it be safe to keep flying?"
Later in the investigation they found that the 200 psig leak check was the most likely cause for the dangerous bubbles in the chromate putty also used in the seal joint.
Mr Feynman later wrote a design proposal to overhaul the faulty decision making process at NASA which was apparently adopted in part and then forgotten. A bloody shame if not manslaughter.
In my opinion: Until NASA comes up with a suitable pre re-entry inspection plan and some "SPACE BONDO" the shuttle needs to stay on the ground.
Have a look at any of the books on Richard P. Feynman if you want to meet a wonderful brilliant man.