Posted on 03/22/2016 9:32:05 AM PDT by Kid Shelleen
Bob Ebeling, a Challenger engineer who predicted the space shuttle would explode, never truly forgave himself for the deaths of the seven crew. After three decades of guilt over the disaster, he passed away on Monday aged 89 in Brigham City, Utah, following a long illness. The former engineer for NASA contractor Morton Thiokol was part of a team of four that tried to warn the space agency against the launch, saying the temperatures in Cape Canaveral were too cold for the booster rockets to seal properly.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
This was (and hopefully remains) an important story. ATK and its employees were made the scapegoats, the O-rings have always performed as designed. NASA management overruled its own (and ATK’s) engineers because they wanted the launch to proceed on schedule.
He tried to warn them about the launch at those temps. He was overruled by NASA.
So why the guilt?
He felt guilty about not lobbying harder to postpone the flight.
Perhaps because he thought he could have done more.
“So why the guilt? “
Evidently he was a “man of principle!”
I think (and this is just my guess) is that the media always publicized it as a failure of the O-rings. ATK (the company that produced the solid rockets) never entirely recovered. They are now producing (I think) solid rocket boosters for the new manned space vehicles.
I was working with Morton Thiokol on another project at the time and asked about the engineer involved. They told be he KNEW the seal would fail and would not OK launch - but his VP (a non-engineer) over-road him. He then stayed up all night trying to reach someone - anyone - to stop the launch. It was his design, and he felt responsible.
By the way, NASA had already built another launch site in California, but they had provided heaters for the missile because the KNEW it could not work in cold weather.
Everyone went to sleep on this one.
“So why the guilt?”
NASA overruled his warning. It was said at the time that NASA overruled the warning because they felt pressured to go ahead with the launch so that President Ronald Reagan could have a press conference with the astronauts that night.
I’d guess he felt guilty because he was largely the public face of one of the greatest failures in modern American history.
People died, families torn apart, careers destroyed, Americas image tarnished.
IMO the question isn’t why did he feel guilty. Its why is he the only one to publicly admit it.
IIRC they were forced to redesign the O Rings in order to conform to some EPA mandate.
The O Rings that would have kept the Challenger crew alive were banned because they contained some chemical that the extremists at the EPA didn’t like.
” But if the engineer knew the cause the day before the launch, and he told others, why the big deal made about Feynman?”
Because Feynman was as much publicity hound as he was scientist.
Challenger is what happens when management makes technical decissions
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2007/01/remembering-the-mistakes-of-challenger/
Rest in peace, sir. It wasn’t your fault. You did your best..............................
You are confusing the o-ring issue with the brake away foam which caused the second disaster. The foam had been changed due to environmental concerns to a foam that tended to break away in larger chunks. BTW, I designed a small piece of the shuttle in about 1976.
So NASA blamed Reagan? No surprise, I guess. I am sure, if consulted with the facts, Reagan would have ordered it scrubbed.
You’re thinking about the glue that held the heat tiles on and that has been dispelled.
Rest in Peace, sir.
Every day, in every industry, an engineer raises a concern like yours, and is promptly shouted-down by the bean counters.
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