Challenger Engineer Who Warned Of Shuttle Disaster Dies

[Wilms]

Ebeling was one of five booster rocket engineers at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol who tried to stop the 1986 Challenger launch. They worried that cold temperatures overnight — the forecast said 18 degrees — would stiffen the rubber O-ring seals that prevent burning rocket fuel from leaking out of booster joints.

snip

Ebeling was the first to sound the alarm the morning before the Challenger launch. He called his boss, Allan McDonald, who was Thiokol's representative at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Despite hours of argument and reams of data, the Thiokol executives relented. McDonald says the data were absolutely clear, but politics and pressure interfered.

snip

"He said, 'The Challenger's going to blow up. Everyone's going to die,' " Serna recalls. "And he was beating his fist on the dashboard. He was frantic."

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/21/470870426/challenger-engineer-who-warned-of-shuttle-disaster-dies

[Festivito]

1. Florida had an unusual freeze that night. O-rings nosedive in strength after freezing.

I designed a program that tested tensile strength of rubber and I did a special program for O-rings. Nothing really. Just to get user input, start the pull, computer monitor the pull while the clamps holding the rubber moved up, detecting a break and resetting the machine. Then calculating the cross area using the o-ring diameter or thickness of die cut rubber.

One of the lab guys who tested o-rings told me about the freezing problem he had noticed.

That rocket was outside on the launch pad that night. Must have been delays that day so they gave up for the night. That freeze should have scrubbed the launch so new o-rings could go in. That would cost a small fortune.

They probably wanted to save money. Just like our Republican governor of Michigan who wanted save money on water treatment for Flint, Michigan and ends up with 10 dead, 80 sick, and I do not know how many kids looking at a lifetime of reduced abilities. That day ended with dead astronauts, a nation sick to its stomach and kids around the world with reduced hopes of a future in space.

Reagan had reasons other than money for not wanting that launch scrubbed. Whatever that was won't be released, nor will any his involvement in that decision.

Please, never, ever, ever vote for right wing buffoons.

[teamster633]

2. If I remember correctly...

...St. Ronnie's State of the Union speech was scheduled for that evening and the Teacher in Space was going to figure prominently in the speech. The astronauts' value as props had to be weighed against any potential danger that they faced.

[Festivito]

4. Sickening SOTU win-win. Cool speech, or moving shock doctrine opportunity.

So, how much did he push a deadly win-win situation onto NASA? It would be like telling us who orchestrated JFKs death.

[DLnyc]

6. Yes, I remember feeling it was a critical moment for St. Ronnie

Here is a paragraph from wiki's article on the disaster.

On the night of the disaster, President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give his annual State of the Union address. He initially announced that the address would go on as scheduled, but then postponed the State of the Union address for a week and instead gave a national address on the Challenger disaster from the Oval Office of the White House. It was written by Peggy Noonan, and was listed as one of the most significant speeches of the 20th century in a survey of 137 communication scholars.[31][32] It finished with the following statement, which quoted from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.:

I won't copy here the sickening sugary rhetoric Ronald used, trying to fit the disaster into the soap opera of his presidency. A disaster probably forced by his pressure to have the launch go forward, so that he could use the imagery in his scheduled speech.

[Akamai]

11. You bet! I remember that glorious sugary language, moving as the people died. Thanks for

explaining further, putting a pin in the balloon, drawing back the curtain.

Peggy Noonan is nauseating on tv, with fake sincerity dripping from every aspect of her face and voice. Seems to me that Cokie Roberts is cut closely from the same piece of cloth.

Go Bernie!

[MinM]

19. Good memory...

That's exactly how I recall it too. Revisionist history has tried to whitewash Reagan's role in the disaster but you are correct.

The problem was the O-Rings that acted to seal the connections between the different stages of the rocket wouldn't seal correctly at cold temperatures. That morning was especially cold, below freezing iirc, but due to the SOTU speech scheduled that evening there was enormous pressure applied by the White House on NASA to launch in spite of their reservations.

So the opportunity to make a few cheap political points in a SOTU speech that night for Ronald Reagan trumped the safety of those astronauts.

[Wilms]

5. There was an overnight launch delay.

And (cold) fuel was left in the tank to avoid the time it takes to unfuel and then refuel. Add the wind blowing, where the failed SRM was downwind of the (cold) tank.

I was planning to watch the launch on TV. I got tied up and tuned in to see the infamous smoke trails. I pointed at the screen and said, "Management. The engineers didn't do this."

As mentioned above, Reagan was delivering the SoTU address that night. The crew was a telegenic multi-ethnic and disciplined group, in addition to a teacher. Hollywood ready.

Wanna heave your guts?? Look up what happened to Columbia and the guy that got reprimanded for trying to bring the Air Force in.

[SusanCalvin]

18. "Management. The engineers didn't do this."

Yep. Like Volkswagen trying to blame some rogue programmer. Riiiiiight.

[Waldorf]

3. I still remember where I was when I first heard about the explosion. In the drafting room at work

when my wife called.

[SusanCalvin]

16. I was at work also.

I totally lost it. People were asking me if a friend was on the shuttle. No, I said, but I've been enthralled with space since I was a child. Plus those were people even if I didn't know them personally.

[Reter]

7. Why are we just hearing about this now?

I don't remember hearing about this in 1986. In fact, this is the first time I heard it. There should have been hearings calling for the bosses arrest.

[Wilms]

8. The Rogers Commission

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report

[ryan_cats]

9. Who am I

Who am I, chopped liver?

[tammywammy]

10. The Challenger is still taught as a case study on groupthink

Rest in peace Bob Ebeling.

[SusanCalvin]

20. Hopefully something will be learned. nt

[Akamai]

12. He died knowing that people knew that he was not totally responsible -- good for him!

Poor, poor person - you can do the correct things and still be blamed for the mess-ups of others.

Good for you, Ebeling! all you can do is all you can do! And as Bernie says, "Despair is not an option!" But good for you Ebeling!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/22/finally-free-from-guilt-over-challenger-disaster-an-engineer-dies-in-peace/

Go Bernie!

[LongTomH]

13. Safe Passage, Mr. Ebeling. You fulfilled your office with honor! Find peace at last!

[billhicks76]

14. NASA Handed Over To The Military The Next Day

Goodbye civilian space agency. They knew it would blow up and did it on purpose. The next shuttle to go up had over 10 lbs of plutonium on it for an experiment...enough to give the entire east coast cancer in days if an explosion occurred. They werent worried about it because they knew the first one was allowed to happen.

[Wilms]

17. The military already had a considerable stake.

What they did in the aftermath of Challenger was to close their own shuttle facility at Vanderburg AFB.

So they then hijacked even more flights.

[SusanCalvin]

15. .

[montana_hazeleyes]

21. I'm just a regular person with no high knowledge of how these things work,

but I remember feeling very uneasy before the launch. There were icicles hanging the night before. They showed that on tv and I just somehow felt that just didn't seem right. That they shouldn't do it.

Bless this poor man who tried so hard to stop them. He was caring and righteous up against evil people who were just using the shuttle launch and didn't give a damn about the lives of the crew or the horror for the rest of us.

[Dr. Xavier]

22. My sister worked on that project...

before the disaster, she was on her way up the ladder at Hughes. The explosion destroyed her life, she blamed herself, and left Hughes shortly afterward... she has been working on a Ph.D. in physics ever since. She will never finish and will never work in the industry ever again. I guess it is toughest on the people that are left behind...

[liberalfromaustin21]

23. Sad that this tragedy couldn't have been prevented

Anyway, may Ebeling rest in peace.