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Remembering Roger Boisjoly: He Tried to Stop Shuttle Challenger Launch

by drewvolpe on 1/30/19, 2:11 AM with 174 comments

  • by mannykannot on 1/30/19, 6:41 AM

    In many ways, this is an update of the Titanic story of technological hubris, with the twist that the man who was right, who fought hard to prevent what he foresaw, who was briefly relieved when his dire predictions seemed to be wrong, was still dogged by the event for the rest of his life.

    We don't know how those who were on the wrong side of the issue coped, and they should not be pressured to make public anything beyond what the inquiry required, but it seems plausible to me that those who could persuade themselves that they made the right decision, given the circumstances and despite the outcome, probably fared best. That is usually the case.

    Edward Tufte tried to suggest that Boisjoly could have presented his case more effectively. Tufte may have been thinking purely pedagogically, but regardless, the implied criticism was unjustified, as Boisjoly's point should have been clear to anyone familiar with the issue, and in fact it was clear to quite a few, though unfortunately not to the few who mattered, and I doubt that, for them, a different presentation would have made a difference.

    We can't always be right, and we can't all be heroes, but I hope we can all avoid being the person who said to Boisjoly, when it appeared that Boisjoly's testimony might be fatal to Morton Thiokol, that he would leave his children for Boisjoly to raise if he lost his job.

  • by albntomat0 on 1/30/19, 4:09 AM

    My main unanswered question here (I admit I haven't looked particularly hard for the answer) is what the false positive rate was. How many times have similarly major concerns raised, about things that were not ultimately an issue? Where the NASA administrators bombarded with such concerns for every launch, or were reports a relatively rare occurrence?

    Designing processes to appropriately address such concerns seems to hinge on the answer.

    [edit for grammar]

  • by RachelF on 1/30/19, 2:58 AM

    Unfortunately the management culture at NASA, something Richard Feynman also criticized, did not change. This lead to managers ignoring engineers' warnings about the foam strikes on Columbia, and also rejecting requests for high resolution images.

    Linda Ham, the manager who rejected these requests left the space shuttle program after the Columbia disaster and was moved to other positions at NASA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Ham#Columbia_disaster_an...

  • by Dowwie on 1/30/19, 10:57 AM

    There are commenters here who in usual HN form speak as if they would have acted differently than the team at NASA did if they had been in involved. The reality is that it is unlikely.

    Business schools use variations of the Challenger launch as a case study in group decision making and organizational behavior. I experienced one while at business school. The crucial parts of Challenger were applied to another scenario. Risk and safety were brought up in discussion but were outlier considerations by the group. The group agreed to proceed with the plan.

  • by ncmncm on 1/30/19, 3:46 AM

    Not widely known is that it was Sally Ride who clued in Feynman ['s wingman], secretly. If it had got out, she would never have flown again.

    Also not widely known was that she was gay. She had to conceal that, too, from NASA. She died young of pancreatic cancer.

  • by hodgesrm on 1/30/19, 2:38 AM

    It is much easier to prevent disasters like this if you design processes to surface problems as early in the process as possible. It does not take anything away from Roger Boisjoly to say that it's really hard to stop the process once you get far enough toward launch/release/production or whatever the end result is. The real failing of the NASA managers is that they failed to create a culture of safety that would encourage problems to be addressed long before they became catastrophes.

  • by moioci on 1/30/19, 5:10 AM

    Also worth remembering Bob Ebeling, another Thiokol engineer who was wracked with guilt for 30 years, thinking he should've done more to stop the launch. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/25/466555217...

  • by S_A_P on 1/30/19, 4:32 PM

    This got me following the rabbit hole and I found this NYTimes article from 1987 about the subsequent lawsuit against Morton Thiokol by Boisjoly.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/29/us/engineer-who-opposed-l...

    If you forgot how different things were back then, here are a few highlights:

    Thiokol spokesmen ''consistently and falsely'' portrayed Mr. Boisjoly as ''a disgruntled or malcontented employee whose views should be discounted and whose professional expertise should be doubted,'' the suit said. It cited press interviews in which Thiokol spokesmen labeled Mr. Boisjoly a ''tattletale'' and an ''impatient'' employee who tried to hire subcontractors in violation of a contract.

    Roger stood his ground and paid dearly for it, kudos to him for having some integrity.

  • by matchagaucho on 1/30/19, 6:01 AM

    Edward Tufte made a great case that data visualization could have prevented the launch... and that PowerPoint was to blame.

    https://www.asktog.com/books/challengerExerpt.html

  • by mark-r on 1/30/19, 4:19 AM

    Needs a (2012) appended to the title. A very powerful story deserving to be retold.

  • by mcv on 1/30/19, 12:48 PM

    > "We were talking to the people who had the power to stop that launch."

    The problem is that the people who had the power to stop the launch were managers dealing with other concerns. Engineers should have the power to stop the launch.

    And with principles like Agile and Lean, engineers are fortunately increasingly getting empowered to stop a launch if they feel it would be irresponsible. I hope NASA now uses these sort of principles too.

  • by alexhutcheson on 1/30/19, 5:31 AM

    Serious question: What was the proposed course of action had they decided to cancel the launch? My (possibly wrong) understanding was that the O-ring damage only would have been apparent if they disassembled one or both of the solid rocket boosters. Was anyone seriously proposing to do this prior to the launch?

    The question is relevant because I’ve read conflicting sources about whether the damage to the O-ring caused by the freezing temperature was permanent. If the temperature permanently compromised the O-ring material, then a delay wouldn’t have saved the Challenger, only a disassembly of the boosters would have. However, if the O-ring performance would have recovered when brought back to a normal temperature range, then a delay could have prevented the disaster. Does anyone have any definitive sources on this?

  • by bensniffler on 2/1/19, 2:46 AM

    The morning before the shuttle blew up I was watching the news on tv before catching the bus to school. You could tell just looking at the news feed that that the shuttle was covered in ice. Even to my 12 year old self it seemed insane to launch a space ship into orbit when covered in ice. I was so confused when told in school that the shuttle blew up. I was like, no way would anyone think that was a good idea to launch today. I still to this day don't know if they de-iced it first or just shot it up there and hoped for the best.

  • by billsmithaustin on 1/30/19, 2:48 PM

    I wonder how many other times an engineer advised NASA to delay a flight.

  • by cladari on 1/30/19, 5:18 AM

    If I remember right the roberts report on this said each time they launched at a low temperature any degradation of the seal became the new normal and "safe". The launch temperature got lower and lower and each time the normal was reset.

  • by heyjudy on 1/31/19, 1:32 AM

    Gotta get better at ringing the right alarms and persisting if you want to be heard. He could've done lots more things to warn but he didn't: tried to warn astronauts' families, leak it to the media, and such. But he didn't. Why lionize him for failing?

  • by geggam on 1/30/19, 12:22 PM

    This story should be shown to every manager who ignores engineers recommendations.

  • by camel_gopher on 1/30/19, 6:29 AM

    Pretty sure an actor played him in the movie about the challenger disaster.

    https://imdb.com/title/tt2421662/

  • by toolslive on 1/30/19, 10:58 AM

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  • by moviuro on 1/30/19, 4:26 PM