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Showing Original Post only (View all)Roger Boisjoly dies at 73; engineer tried to halt Challenger launch [View all]
By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times
February 7, 2012
The 1986 explosion that destroyed the space shuttle Challenger and killed seven astronauts shocked the nation, but for one rocket engineer the tragedy became a personal burden and created a lifelong quest to challenge the bureaucratic ethics that had caused the tragedy.
Roger Boisjoly was an engineer at solid rocket booster manufacturer Morton Thiokol and had begun warning as early as 1985 that the joints in the boosters could fail in cold weather, leading to a catastrophic failure of the casing. Then on the eve of the Jan. 28, 1986, launch, Boisjoly and four other space shuttle engineers argued late into the night against the launch.
In cold temperatures, o-rings in the joints might not seal, they said, and could allow flames to reach the rocket's metal casing. Their pleas and technical theories were rejected by senior managers at the company and NASA, who told them they had failed to prove their case and that the shuttle would be launched in freezing temperatures the next morning. It was among the great engineering miscalculations in history.
A little more than a minute after launch, flames shot out of the booster joint, melted through the nearby hydrogen fuel tank and ignited a fireball that was watched by the astronauts' families and much of the nation on television. Boisjoly could not watch the launch, so certain was he that the shuttle would blow up. In the months and years that followed, the disaster changed his career and permanently poisoned his view that NASA could be trusted to make the right decisions when matters came to life and death.
Read more:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-roger-boisjoly-20120207,0,2248999.story
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Roger Boisjoly dies at 73; engineer tried to halt Challenger launch [View all]
Lionel Mandrake
Feb 2012
OP
NASA did a horrible, horrible thing, when they refused to listen to him.
CaliforniaPeggy
Feb 2012
#1
Here's what I could find online. I remember the discussion well in 1986 when it happened. Conceded
no_hypocrisy
Feb 2012
#21
This was not an "engineering miscalculation". This error was a management error. The engineering
rhett o rick
Feb 2012
#2
That's a natural corporate media, authoritarian bias coming through in the column.
Uncle Joe
Feb 2012
#15
I was generalizing. A problem I see is that when you have engineers as managers
rhett o rick
Feb 2012
#36
RIP - You DID what you COULD, the shuttle astronauts will tell you that soon,,,,,
benld74
Feb 2012
#3
Does anyone know who was the on-site asshole that made the final decision to go for launch?
denbot
Feb 2012
#9
IIRc, CNN had cut awayt to commercial. I had CNN on but didn't see it live.
Hassin Bin Sober
Feb 2012
#58
Wow! Read this obit in the LA Times this a.m. & had never heard his story b4-Shocking!!!!!!
SoCalDemGrrl
Feb 2012
#41
NASA Was Trying to Go from R&D to Operational Status and Pushed by Reagan to do so
solarman350
Feb 2012
#45
''...as the vehicle cleared the tower Bob whispered to me that we had just dodged a bullet.''
Gabi Hayes
Feb 2012
#55
IIRC, the plan was to have Reagan talk to the astronauts LIVE from the SOTU, not just mentioning it,
GreatCaesarsGhost
Feb 2012
#56