The problem here was that when the rocket motors were exposed to very cold conditions (as would happen when an aircraft is flying at a high altitude) they become unreliable. This should have been quickly fixed by the manufacturer but that did not happen and things went downhill from there.

 so what was behind the problem?

It was caused by a changes in the formula for the rocket propellant to comply with environmental regulations.

and then there is this, that explains why the manufacturers figured it was cheaper to fix Congress than to fix the problem:

The military accuses the manufacturers of having a bad attitude, feeling that if there are problems it's easier to cozy up to members of Congress than it is to fix the technical problems. So far, that seems to be working, while the weapons and equipment don't. U.S. manufacturers tried to get a law passed to keep Nammo out, but that failed.

this is nothing new: Arthur Miller wrote a thinly fictionalized play about the B24 scandal that made Harry Truman a household name.

There have been a lot of unreported problems when US manufactuers switched to cheaper brands (usually chinese) to save money, and ignored there were
"minor" differences in the metal that lead to catastrophes. Fake/inadequate and inferior spare parts is a major problem all over the world (here in the Philippines, cheap stuff works then fails quickly: be it spigots or brakes).

Autoblog discusses here.

 Heck, even a recent CSI plot was based on this problem that caused a bus to crash.

As for "environmental" regulations: they too can ignore the nuances, because those worried about the environment simply might not see their "equivalent bio friendly" stuff is not the same.

The most absurd example of this is the Cat litter that almost caused a nuclear accident: Because non flammable clay cat litter that was supposed to absorb liquids in nuclear wast storage was replaced with Flammable "green" cat litter.

Trump wants to have the US manufacturing again, but there needs to be a strict work ethic and zeal for being exact, not to mention companies that really want to produce good products, not just a profit.

To do this you have to rebuild the infrastructure, including retraining and pride in blue collar jobs, basic morality (no cheating), faithfulness in your jobs (work ethic: honest days work for an honest day pay and no stealing), attention to details, respect for truth, (instead of pretending the PC meme is true and imposing quotas).

Alas, this is for churches, not the government, to do, but instead they are busy pushing the PC memes.

But that is another story for another day.