Posted on 03/09/2021 6:04:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
A Engineer for the maker of the shuttle’s booster rockets, he opposed letting it take off, worried that cold weather might affect them. He was right.
Allan J. McDonald, an engineer who on a chilly January morning in 1986 tried to stop the launch of the Challenger space shuttle, citing the possible effect of the cold on its booster rockets, and who, after it broke apart on liftoff, blew the whistle when government officials tried to cover up his dissent, died on Saturday in Ogden, Utah. He was 83.
The cause was complications of a recent fall, his daughter Meghan McDonald Goggin said.
Mr. McDonald was a 26-year veteran at Morton Thiokol, the contractor responsible for the shuttle’s booster rockets, when he arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida a few days before Jan. 28, when the Challenger was to take off.
The mission was to be the first to carry a civilian into space, a teacher named Christa McAuliffe. President Ronald Reagan was planning to mark that milestone in his State of the Union address, coincidentally scheduled for the same day as the launch.
But Mr. McDonald, who ran the company’s booster-rocket program, had strong reservations about moving ahead with the launch. The shuttle’s rockets contained a series of rubber O-ring gaskets, and he worried that low temperatures could cause them to stiffen, allowing fuel to escape and potentially causing the rocket to explode.
It wasn’t a new concern: Another Morton Thiokol engineer, Roger Boisjoly, had outlined the problem in a July 1985 memo, drawing on evidence of O-ring stiffening from a previous launch, when the temperature was 53 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature on the night before the Challenger launch was expected to drop to 18 degrees.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
THANKS, I never knew this
He was pushed.
It was heartbreaking. The lady that called me because my wife was working where the kids went to school, she died of breast cancer. There are things in this world that transcends an old mans memory. That is one event. I have several. Watching NYC’s finest go in to the twin towers is another memory I live with. There are things I would like to unsee. Then there are things I cherish. God truly loves me but it ain’t easy.
Tufte is a genius. I had the pleasure of working with him as a gaphic designer years ago.
RIP.
Unbelievable! I just told my daughter the story of Allan MacDonald and the Challenger disaster last night.
Richard Feynman is long gone but I’ll never forget his role, by way of a simple experiment on live TV during a news conference, that cold affected the O rings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Richard_Feynman
Both shuttles that went down in flames had a black crew member.
I saw a black comedian say that NASA stood for Negroes Ain’t Suppose to be Astronauts.
Interesting comment—when I trained folks at work (retired now) I always reminded them that communication is not you talking, it is when your audience understands what you said.
Then we discussed how to confirm that the remarks were understood.
It is also critical to lead with the headline (important stuff) and not step on the lead.
If it is life and death then the words better be simple and the sentences short—hammer the point home!
I thought it was NASSA - The Negro American Space Society of Astronauts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6xJzAYYrX8
“It was a different time, you understand”
Thanks for the correction. I was confusing the foam on the Columbia with the O ring on the Challenger.
Thanks for the correction.
A man who lived, and died, with honor. (Worf would understand.)
RIP, Mr. McDonald.
The Challenger disaster hit me hard at the time, not the least of which was because a neighbor (and very nice person) was a teacher in that “Teacher in Space” program.
bttt
Indeed. There is only so much one can do in a multi-layered bureaucracy.
#19. Don’t worry, the “govt experts” still don’t listen to other scientists.. Just think COVID 19 and cry.
They’d blame
“QAnon” / Trump / White Supremacists.
I am so pissed. I watched that and was laughing so hard that now I have to not only ask the question, I must answer it before I go to sleep: Does that mean I flunk my race relations class?
Does it mean I have to turn myself in to the Biden/Harris thought police?
Will President Harris use me as an example when she gets around to giving the State Of The Union speech?
[They had been burning through o-rings prior to the
Challenger.]
That’s correct. It was a known problem.
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