Roger Boisjoly dies at 73; engineer tried to halt Challenger launch

Los Angeles Times ^ | February 7, 2012 | Ralph Vartabedian

[EveningStar]

The night before the 1986 explosion, Boisjoly and four others argued that joints in the shuttle's boosters couldn't withstand a cold-weather launch.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Challenger: The Untold Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaZzRmpa1iA

Seconds From Disaster - The Challenger Explosion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1kfk3STHyg

Ethics In Business - The Challenger Disaster Case Study
by Roger Boisjoly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On9p0Q9eKr4

Roger Boisjoly RIP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnX_7QxB3R0

[jpsb]

Thanks for the ping, sad to lose such a fine man. NASA should be ashamed, both accidents were easily preventable.

[muawiyah]

I laid out the plan to save the Postal Service in the Twenty First Century to (then Deputy) Postmaster General William F. Bolger back in 1976(?).

He punted.

It crashed as predicted in 2011.

Roger was one of my heroes.

[muawiyah]

It’s not the fault of the managers or the employees. It’s the fault of the managerial system ~ it has failed, utterly so!

[CodeToad]

Systems do not exist. People do. People are responsible for their actions.

[jpsb]

"I know very well what happens when you try to present unpleasant facts to managers

Me too, I got fired but I was right and I started the company that fired me! Well late company would be more correct since they went belly up a couple of years later. Not life and death thank goodness. G*d bless the whistle blowers.

[giotto]

King hung up on him and made some crack about the institution letting that guy make one phone call a week.

Yes, I remember his standard put down: "Rest well, sir."

[jpsb]

I was working at NASA, JSC when Challenger died. To this day I still can not watch it. The little company I worked for Barrios Tech had the wives of two of Challenger crew working for them. I will never forget that day and how terrible it was for all of us.

Reagan was a wonderful president, his speech at NASA JSC really helped weal the wound.

[jpsb]

ooops heal not weal

[Jack Hydrazine]

But I bet the most of the managers in NASA and Morton Thiokol who voted, “go for launch” were promoted later.

[Cyber Liberty]

IIRC, they were. The whistle-blowers like this fellow were trashed.

[BIV]

Feynman also blamed management.

[taildragger]

Non-engineering types are convinced that one can somehow lean on physical matter and get it to behave a certain way the same as they bully people into behaving a certain way. People may be manipulated. Physical material is another matter. They'll never learn.

Sound like Obama and the Volt...

Ditto that the study of economics and how the the non-logical non engineering types will give that horses ass and his theory Lord Maynard Keynes another college try vs. the Smith, Austrian, Hayek, Laffer and Milton F theories a whirl which we know will work.

[Vaquero]

Monty wanted to be aggressive like Patton. He had the motivation, but not one tenth the talent.

[cicero2k]

Feynman also blamed management.

Other organizations either paying, or about to pay a huge price. Likely that the persons most responsible will walk:

Carnival Cruise lines

Penn State University

Catholic Church

Tokyo Electric

LA Unified Schools

[taildragger]

RIP Roger, one of the good guys. If my memory is correct, he did Congressional hearings, on the subject on TV.

[Osage Orange]

I counted four pictures..

What "middle" picture do you mean?

[antiRepublicrat]

This guy was a case study in one of my grad courses on management. RIP, you tried, management sucked.

[Bernard Marx]

I'm convinced NASA wanted the Shuttle in orbit it time for the State Of The Union address that afternoon.

I remember the circumstances well. It was a classic case of media pressure and management arrogance resulting in disaster. There had been delay after delay with that launch and the media almost demanded that this one not be scrubbed.

I watched on TV while the ground crew chipped icicles from the Shuttle's scaffolding and told my wife there were too many unknowns in launching with temperatures that low. But the media kept up an insistent, almost threatening drumbeat, and both Thiokol and NASA management caved.

It was almost like watching the slow unfolding of a Greek tragedy by Euripides or Sophocles. I still get a queasy stomach when I think about it. The Greeks had a word for what caused NASA's tragedy: hubris.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.