The person at Morton Thiokol who caved was neither qualified nor authorized to make the decision. The Morton Thiokol engineers said no, and their executives backed them up, but NASA administrators kept asking Morton Thiokol employees that were out of the loop, until they could pressure on into saying yes.
There's a really well written and researched book on the topic, that I highly recommend, called Truth, Lies, and O-Rings by Allan J. McDonald, James R. Hansen, and Jonathan Yen
There's a really well written and researched book on the topic, that I highly recommend, called Truth, Lies, and O-Rings by Allan J. McDonald, James R. Hansen, and Jonathan Yen