Wikipedia: "Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who had warned about the effect of cold weather on the O-rings, left his job at Morton Thiokol and became a speaker on workplace ethics.[46] He argues that the caucus called by Morton Thiokol managers, which resulted in a recommendation to launch, "constituted the unethical decision-making forum resulting from intense customer intimidation."[47] For his honesty and integrity leading up to and directly following the shuttle disaster, Roger Boisjoly was awarded the Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American Association for the Advancement of Science."
MacDonald had an engineering background, but at the time he was a Thiokol manager at the launch center and later wrote a book about the disaster. To his credit, he followed his technical instincts once given the facts, but he is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article. Boisjoly was the engineer inside Thiokol who ran the numbers and raised the alarm, then held his position against management pressure even at the threat of losing his job. Orin Laney TRUE.. BUT THERE WAS THAT ONE LONE VOICE ( An Engineer ) IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT THAT SAID ! "I was absolutely amazed that the NASA people I argued with against the launch didn't even mention to the other members of the mission management team that there was a concern," said McDonald, now 71. Engineer Allan J. McDonald warned NASA not to launch the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 because of a problem with O-rings on the spacecraft's booster rockets. (Photo courtesy of Allan J. McDonald) ~Reg Henry - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@socal.rr.com> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com>
