Challenger: 25 Years Later

[@leslieserna6934]

Bob Ebeling was my father. He was troubled for 30 years about the Challenger disaster. I carpooled with him during this time. I'm grateful to Howard Berkes of NPR for his reporting and support of my dad during those 30 years. Dad passed away in 2016, feeling vindicated by thousands of people who called or wrote him, telling him, he was a hero. Several weeks after the NPR 30 year anniversary and interview with dad, he passed away, peacefully. He is my hero.

[@daudimwenyewe7372]

Leslie Serna my prayers are with you. It’s not easy losing a dad as I did in 2011 so I feel your pain. Know that he was right and that he worked to make the world a better place. May he Rest In Peace .

[@anthropoid2405]

Leslie Serna sorry for your loss, your dad was one of the good guys, God bless

[@TechnikMeister2]

My dad was an Australian had a similar experience at the end of WW2. He fought in the New Guinea and New Britain campaigns. In 1945 he was seconded to the Rabaul War Crimes Tribunal as he was a lawyer and had fought in the region as well. Some 360 Japanese were tried for war crimes. My dad was the chief prosecutor. Unbeknownst to him a deal had been done whereby the major in command of the prison camp was told by other US officers that if he gave evidence against other Japanese officers, he would be only given a short sentence. He found out out it and let this majors trial proceed. It was so obvious to his staff that the verdict would be unsound that he waited until the last witnesses had been heard and then he stood up and addressed the Judge Advocates, tabling four sworn afidavits providing irrefutable evidence of these personal acts of murder and cruelty by the Japanese major. There was no choice to find him guilty. He was hung. When my father returned to civilian life he hoped that he would continue to be in the law firm his brother founded before the war. On contacting his brother he was told there would not be any position for him. It shattered him, but he had the final revenge. His brother became ill and died in the 60s and to his almost dead brother on his death bed said to him, "well Ken, You will die and I am living." Revenge is a meal best served when its cold.

[@sandylane3396]

Leslie Serna, I Know you are so proud of your Dad . Peace and prayers for you and your family .

[@mohammadwasilliterate8037]

Well from what I just read from a quick google it appears your father did what he could to prevent the launch until temperatures were right, sometimes you cannot give people good advice. I have noticed that many times.

[@jameysummers1577]

Allan, you will be missed buddy! You are one of my heros! We need more of you guys around.

[@pedrodiaz5540]

Roger Boisjoly , a man with integrity

[@SteveHolsten]

And another Hero

[@Juliaflo]

@@SteveHolsten Copy that.

[@pjneslo8979]

It’s Alan McDonald of Morton Thiokol. It was Allan Boisjoly

[@leslieserna6934]

@@pjneslo8979 Al McDonald died the 2nd week of March 2021. Sincerely, Leslie Ebeling Serna

[@pjneslo8979]

@@leslieserna6934 -He was a good good man... I really hope and pray he felt totally vindicated after ALL the evidence, reports and witness's were pieced together. Thank you Leslie... I feel saddened that I didn't hear or read about his passing.

[@michaelbruno1666]

Every time you fly and the plane lands successfully it's because of people of integrity like this.

[@JVerschueren]

Biggest frustration for an engineer... when your professional opinion is ignored by a bureaucratic system and a trainwreck occurs (figuratively speaking, even though that's actually happened multiple times as well).

[@dks13827]

yes.......I am a retired business computer programmer............ I was always focused on getting done so the users got the help they needed. I look around now... and many companies dont care if you get done.

[@EF2000CanFly]

None has explained the O ring problem better than Al. God bless him. Survivors guilt must have been hard for those who allowed it to fly. I think they should have been jailed. It was negligence causing death gross.

[@dks13827]

Sorry...... but people easily justify their bad deeds.......and they sleep just fine. It is so.

[@MayorMcCheeseStalker]

Allan McDonald, the Morton Thiokol executive who LISTENED to his engineers. If only the other executives had listened and refused to approve the launch.

[@bamboopanda1626]

At 25:45 the point that Mr. Mcdonald said is so important. We still don't have that across the STEM disciplines. It's not just from this incident, there are many companies that still don't have that.

[@Milosz_Ostrow]

"Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster", by Allan J. McDonald and James R. Hansen. University Press of Florida (April 1, 2012)

[@MISSEDHERSIR]

thank you, and bless them.

[@dks13827]

After the 2nd accident, they did fix the foam problem. In my view, at that point the shuttle was a very good space flying system. The astronauts said the same. I would have flown on it without reservation.

[@angieholt736]

The men who cared lost their jobs. Management kept their jobs. WRONG. Just wrong!!!

[@highheeledprince3402]

Angie Holt and 7 families lost their loved ones why could have been recovered the day of accident but nasa didn’t allow them to be recovered for 6 weeks. I’m good friends with one of the families and they told me about it and they will never fully recover. I would rather not give out the families name but I’ll say this much, concord New Hampshire lost a true hero that day.

[@hazelwalsh3269]

Nueste Treabata I think what is being said... is that often profits are out in front of people! The rush to launch... and the pressure to keep the contract etc... made people ignore safety!!

[@ryan-yw9dy]

@@highheeledprince3402 Because the asses at NASA was covering up knowing it wasn't supposed to launch. They were cruel and evil! They paid the price and the shuttle is no more due to their cruelty and ignorance.

[@dks13827]

They always said: We could lose the mission. They should have been saying: We might kill the astronauts.

[@wolfofautumnnight]

Even though this comment is 3 years old, I'll respond anyway. It is typical murikan business practice. At least in the western business world, money is more important than lives.

[@rebeloneal4592]

He's right a PhD, doesn't ever make anyone Wise that takes listening to everyone and the study of all data one can gether...

[@cibilsesco2106]

It's too bad that the captions lag so very far behind the audio.

[@EF2000CanFly]

One of the films of the Challenger the night before showed the O2 and condensed air venting near the R SRB a the bottom.

[@catalinverman612]

I just don't get it why do all those engineers call the 2 O-rings a redundancy. They are a series of two rings with identical vulnerabilities. If one fails there is NONE after it IN GOOD WORKING ORDER to take its load, unless LUCK plays a part. If something of a different design and making would have been used as a backup for the first ring, ok... but, as it was... There was a single dual-rings system, NOT two redundant systems.

[@johndevlin]

NASA and Thiokol seemed to intentionally obscure the fact that “blow-by”, “erosion”, and the condition Boisjoly et al warned about on January 27, 1986 are three different problems. Blow-by happens when (1) there’s a blowhole in the putty upstream of the primary o-ring, which is a problem that occurs at random, and (2) the primary o-ring doesn’t touch the sealing surface before hot gas reaches it. Erosion isn’t that severe of a problem, as the design expected it (it occurred on the Titan rockets from which the design originated) and had redundancy. What Boijoly warned about is that IF there was blow-by of the primary AND the secondary didn’t seal properly, the joint wouldn’t seal at all and a catastrophic failure would ensue. The joint flexed a bit on ignition in a way that moved the primary o-ring away from the sealing surface and pushed the secondary towards it. Larry Molloy seems to have thought this meant the secondary would always seal, so primary o-ring blow-by wasn’t that big a deal. But Boisjoly was emphatically telling him that the ability of the secondary to seal would fall off with temperature (it takes longer to move across the gap between its groove and the sealing surface when it’s cold), and Thiokol did not know the temperature at which it could no longer be expected to seal at all. So when Molloy’s saying there was blow-by on a warm weather flight, that’s a red herring. It just means there was a blowhole in the putty and that the primary o-ring (which doesn’t move the same way as the secondary on ignition) hadn’t sealed. It doesn’t tell you anything about the secondary’s ability to seal in cold temperatures, which is what Boisjoly was warning about.

[@Milosz_Ostrow]

*Dale Tiger, Robert Dambeck* - you both obviously don't know what you're talking about. Allan J. McDonald, Roger M. Boisjoly and Arnold R. Thompson were the three Morton Thiokol engineers who recommended that the Challenger launch be postponed. Their recommendation was ignored by NASA and overridden by Morton Thiokol management.

[@tonytrout4321]

+Milosz Ostrow You're correct.

[@ryan-yw9dy]

My thoughts exactly you took the words right out of my mouth. The fact is we had two republican presidents and republicans running NASA. Sean O'Keefe said the previous Administration was run by democrats. Which in the 1990's a whole decade of trouble free launches. And NASA was allowed to delay a launch as long as they could. But O'keefe said they was confused and all he cared about was budget cuts. It was apparently that he and the republicans running was confused about a piece of foam strike that was light as a feather and they couldn't FATHOM that a piece of foam would doom the Columbia. And they made the decision that is was a maintenance issue not a safety issue. They had asked the air force if they could use their spy satellite to take a picture of Columbia while in orbit. NASA management said NO. Republicans were also threatening NASA that if they kept delaying launches that they could cut funding for the ISS. Republicans hate the space program and they got their way with getting rid of the space shuttle.

[@leslieserna6934]

You are absolutely correct. My dad, Robert Ebeling was one of the engineers that said, DO NOT LAUNCH.

[@leslieserna6934]

I agree completely. My father, Robert Ebeling was tormented the remainder of his life because of upper management.

[@robertbenoit5374]

Republicans don't hate the space program. The main reason the shuttle flew in 1981 was because Reagan threatened to can the program if it didn't fly. Delays, cost over runs were the reason it did not fly sooner. He made it happen. The reason the 90's were so successful in the shuttle program was because the SRB was redesigned after the loss of Challenger. If I am not mistaken, George W. Bush started the Orion program to go back to the moon and OBAMA canned it. Get your facts before you say something.

[@christinamcilwaine350]

Rest In Peace 🙏❤️🙏🚀🕯️

[@garfield4108]

Can anyone explain to me why Roger Boisjoly wasnt even mentioned by name in the Challenger Netflix Documentary?

[@GH-oi2jf]

When was it made? There might have been a conflict with a lawsuit in progress.

[@garfield4108]

@@GH-oi2jf Roger Boisjoly passed away a fair few years ago. At least 5. But every documentary I've ever seen on this subject has included him or mention of him. He was one of the major players. It just seems odd there's is no mention whatsoever of him by name and I dont think it's an accident. I just can't figure out why that would be.

[@garfield4108]

@@GH-oi2jf The documentary is new. 2020

[@GH-oi2jf]

@@garfield4108 - ok

[@leslieserna6934]

This is what I know about Roger and the documentary. Immediately after the incident the engineers involved were specifically instructed to not speak to the press and to stay loyal to Morton Thiokol. Following my dad and Roger’s dismissal Roger went on a lecture circuit across the country and did exactly what he was instructed not to do. Management at Thiokol saw him as a traitor. I was in the documentary and the producers were told that they didn’t want him mentioned. My dad passed away weeks before the documentary interviews were started and I could be wrong but I believe Roger had passed away too. I didn’t blame Roger for doing what he did. The engineers that were against the launch were mistreated.

[@stormsfromcalifornia4379]

i finally bought his book truth-lies and o-rings

[@blakefrazier3478]

STORMS FROM CALIFORNIA how’d you like it?

[@cynthiaklenk6313]

When science and engineering is over ridden by bean counters and politicians - bad things happen. Vis; The RMS Titanic and STS-51 - L come to mind

[@AFuller2020]

They agreed to launch, the phone records reflect this, they were more worried about their own careers.

[@juliearch1]

Thank you..your honesty against the target driven hierarchy is testamount to your vid..my husband will watch this...he is a manager and needs to know what your up against..i am a space child..i have watched what happened..thanks for your vid...in a challenging world of the people who make decisions like you say..you have to be honest..whats more important is how to be listened to...and its getting worse...there is a higher level..not discussed here..i have studied the Morton Thiokal decisions....and yes have seen NASA decision against your board..at the end of the day it's about targets and money and it' s obvious ....money driven...NASA targets and the most awful deaths as a result....we could say only two shuttles one came in steep... another prob... the other due to o ring seals..lots of lives lost thrugh greed, lack of communication, money, targets...it's simple math....i would like to see admittance from NASA but they will blame others.... there were shortcuts am sure from your engineers and your chemists.it must be embarrassing NASA and others should have listened and now some years later should admit some responsibility......... NOW to be sat on megatons of fuel...whilst some slightly o ring seal is trying to cope under extreme circumstances is unacceptable..at least you were honest..you tried to stop launches many a time but you were up against an untenable situation...and those people were sat on a megaton bomb...if only .....if only.... they at the top had listened xx

[@davidgall]

That's what happen when you challenge management.Cincinati bell did it to me

[@dks13827]

Allan said there were lots of liars around there. Holy cow.

[@daveenright1235]

Roger Boisjoly in his UnivMN online chat said he would assign 75% blame to Morton Thiokol, not NASA. And another 75% blame of that 75% (50% total) blame should fall on Jerry Mason and on Joe Kilminster of Morton Thiokol. Predominately Joe, as his signed authorization fax included multiple blatant written lies notably the use of the phrase “MTI’s Engineering Assessment” when indeed all engineers were unanimously against launch that next morning. Joe Kilminster took the oral deceit and put it in written word.

[@setoman1]

Dang! That guy's still alive?

[@Maestrohbill]

Not any longer. He passed in 2021.

[@matttyerman6887]

The Solid rocket boosters shouldnt have been built in segments.

[@passnba2k]

You cannot build a booster of that size as a single component. The original o ring capture design was flawed and allowed too much flexing during ignition. Adding a capture feature on the Clevis leg on the redesign solved the issue and the same design is flying on SLS.

[@daveenright1235]

If your Senator on NASA Appropriations Cmmtee is from Utah - a landlocked state that prevents use of barge and single-construction solids - then and only then do segmented sealed SRMs come into play.

[@hazelwalsh3269]

Why wasn't Roger Boisjoly's Job Saved Too??? He was Fired... and some Managers actually got promoted!

[@steeltrap3800]

According to Mr McDonald, Mr Boisjoly was not fired. He asked for time off for medical reasons, which was given, and eventually he elected not to return. He then sued MT for $2 billion, or some similar amount. In the book ""Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster", by Allan J. McDonald and James R. Hansen. University Press of Florida (April 1, 2012)", Mr McDonald makes clear he thinks Mr Boisjoly suffered a fairly extreme emotional disturbance, which was entirely understandable, but was then frankly lead astray by a lawyer wanting to make a name and pile of money. Not my view, just those of Mr McDonald. As it happens, I just finished reading his book.

[@ackmino]

He quite. Engineers couldn't figure out an O ring solution so they made a bunch of excuses. The engineers should have been fired. At some point people have to take responsibility for their actions.

[@GH-oi2jf]

@@ackmino - Boisjoly did have an idea for a better seal for the joint, but it wasn’t implemented. He discussed the joint in detail in a video available online.

[@Joe-li2nk]

I wouldn't give too much credit to Reagan. I heard he wanted to brag about that wonderful, successful launch in a state of the union tv show that night. A show biz president!

[@derekrouth8378]

I've heard some,of this before.Why didn't any of those mid-level managers go to jail over the accident?People,died because of bureaucracy.Absoluely unreal.Some of those NASA guys shouldhave been locked up.

[@daveenright1235]

Roger Boisjoly in his UnivMN online chat said he would assign 75% blame to Morton Thiokol, not NASA. And another 75% blame of that 75% (50% total) blame should fall on Jerry Mason and on Joe Kilminster of Morton Thiokol. Predominately Joe, as his signed authorization fax included multiple blatant written lies notably the use of the phrase “MTI’s Engineering Assessment” when indeed all engineers were unanimously against launch that next morning. Joe Kilminster took the oral deceit and put it in written word.

[@423FGFDFHFHV]

What is the 27th month?

[@EdwardStefanski]

Since two thousand nine

[@garfstiglz3981]

Lawrence Mulloy should be indicted on seven charges of murderer. Morton Thiokol engineers recommended not to launch but he browbeat the engineers managers into over-riding their expert knowledge and to agree to launch 51L. Roger Boisjoly, Bob Ebeling and Alan McDonald are and always will be true heroes. Mulloy has the blood of seven people on his hands and always will.

[@daveenright1235]

I’d point more to George Hardy’s statement and more senior leadership over Larry. As NASA VP-Engineering, George let down all engineers, both at Thiokol and at NASA. Roger Boisjoly in his UnivMN online chat said he would assign 75% blame to Morton Thiokol, not NASA. And another 75% blame of that 75% (50% total) blame should fall on Jerry Mason and on Joe Kilminster of Morton Thiokol. Predominately Joe, as his signed authorization fax included multiple blatant written lies notably the use of the phrase “MTI’s Engineering Assessment” when indeed all engineers were unanimously against launch that next morning. Joe Kilminster took the oral deceit and put it in written word.

[@tylersullivan8304]

The astronauts need to know who making the decisions more. I hope they deep down know and learned there ways

[@chejones8858]

I had a O ring fail me once I Named him Zaccary 😋

[@nujac321]

which man?

[@AFuller2020]

Its all about HIM, you know our country lost crew and treasure in this accident. Another reason NASA is a huge mess.

[@Nickvrey]

he mentions the " Constellation program" maybe Trump will get it going

[@robertbenoit5374]

ORION.... ARES I and ARES V are the vehicles one is light for people and the other is the heavy lifter. That was started by George W. Bush and canned by Obama. I heard it has since been restarted.

[@phaseadept78]

It was never canned, the design was changed and performed its first test flight like 5 years ago.

[@djpalindrome]

How was such an inherently dangerous and flawed design deemed man-flightworthy to begin with? The SRBs were virtually held together with papier-mâché and chewing gum

[@tylersullivan8304]

How unprofessional. You would think you need hundreds of signatures to launch. I thought it was key to make sure everything’s right

[@carstenbohemus8501]

MacDomhnail go deo!!

[@TomTremayne]

What I don't understand, and I've watched a lot of stuff about this disaster, is that the SRB O'ring is always automatically blamed. Here's my thinking tho': The SRB O'ring seals two segments and failed due to freezing. Hot gas escaped, literally torching a hole thru' something else as it did so and the whole thing then went bang...OK? That's the narrative, yeah? But answer me this someone? 1. Why wasn't the SRB totally split; torn apart all the way around by this process, sort of opened up like a can, which surely it would have been as that hole opened itself up and grew bigger? (You see both SRBs flying away perfectly fine and intact. Neither of them explodes until they are destroyed remotely some seconds later) Secondly, why did the explosion happen just at the moment of throttle up? You hear the command for 'go to full throttle' (I think it's 110%) and then bang.....surely this can't be a coincidence? The SRBs, of course, aren't affected by throttles - the throttle only effects the 3 main engines; SRB cannot be throttled, they're basically just huge fireworks which simply burn at a set rate. All this evidence points to a fault in the main engines of the craft or a fueling error at the moment the main engines demanded more fuel for full throttle? I don't think anyone's ever addressed these two points!

[@nickv4073]

There actually was a huge hole near the bottom of the right booster. Watch "Space Shuttle Challenger. The Untold Story" on KZbin and you will see photos of the burn through hole. What opened up like a can was not the booster (It was just the blowtorch). What opened up like a can was the middle main tank filled with oxygen and hydrogen. This happened when the attachment strut burned and broke allowing the booster to rotate and slam into the top of the middle main tank.

[@TomTremayne]

Thanks for your reply and thoughts Nick......I hear what you're saying but it's basically in all the videos and makes up 95% of the online opinion. What I was asking was WHY the thing blew at 'go to full throttle' and also why the SRB didn't rip all the way around. Since posting I've also come across stuff that says all SRBs have liners inside them which begs the question, did these ones not and if they did then how did that hot gas get thru' the liner in order to then get thru' the o'ring joint. I am playing devil's advocate with all this by the way - just putting it out there as an alternative thing to consider. I'm not in any way implying a conspiracy or disrespecting any of the American heroes that died in this disaster.

[@nickv4073]

If you believe a liner (I don't no anything about it) should have been enough then there would be no need for two O-rings would there. What I know is the gases got through at launch and it should have blown up on the pad. It didn't because slag built up immediately and blocked the escaping hot gases. When the shuttle was hit by a huge crosswind, the booster flexed enough for the slag to fall way allowing the hot gases to escape again. As for why the SRB did not blow up, its because it was moving so fast that the flames were moving out and down away from the booster. The real mystery is how Morton Thiekol got the contract in the first place? There were other bidders who came in with a safer one piece design. MT could not build a one piece booster because they were land locked and had no way to ship a one piece booster to Florida. Why did NASA select MT? Were payoffs and corruption involved? Russia went with one piece boosters and they never had a problem with them. And it gets damn cold in Russia. I'd love to see a documentary on the bidding process.

[@hazelwalsh3269]

Tom Tremayne Watch the Untold Story... Challenger..

[@Lord_Thistlewick_Flanders]

@@TomTremayne They basically had no fuel left due to the hole 73 seconds in. Perhaps that contributed to it exploding at the go at throttle up moment, but honestly it was about to happen anyway.

[@garyjohnson2879]

No big deal it was only 7

[@stephendonovan8266]

Feynman was involved in the inquiry and was harshly critical of management's failure to recognize and then ignore previous and current concerns in regards to the many physical evidences and engineering concerns. Ethics and/or morals and there value among individuals and organizations are at the core of the failures of NASA and the manufacturers who were to abide by safety protocols and other concerns due to the specs and temperature concerns willfully ignored them. More importantly there continued deception after the accident to protect their launch go ahead. Such things will continue to happen when persons in final decision positions who lack ethics and/or morals are placed in charged over those who do have ethics and/or morals. Such comments as it was only 7 would be the earlier example of ethics and/or morals. Democracy is the most dangerous thing when the voice of reason treads and stands up against the ologies and culture of the majority. Or worse yet when the majority thinks they are correct and the voice of reason is not. Then society circles the drain and drinks it water of self delusion and says, it is pure.

[@daletiger35]

That man has blood on his hands.

[@Ryan19812012]

The managers over ruled his NO. He would not sign for the shuttle to launch. But the other managers forced their signature for it to launch. He was against launching due to the cold.

[@MayorMcCheeseStalker]

Allan McDonald, the Morton Thiokol executive who LISTENED to his engineers. If only the other executives had listened and refused to approve the launch.