Challenger Engineer Who Warned Of Shuttle Disaster Dies [View all]

[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