The Space Shuttle Challenger blasted off at noon EDT from the launch pad at Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center. Inside the spacecraft was a record 8 crewmembers: astronauts Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr., Steven R. Nagel, Bonnie J. Dunbar, James F. Buchli, Guion S. Bluford, Jr., along with payload specialists Wubbo J. Ockels, Reinhard Furrer and Ernst Messerschmid. Within hours of this photo, the Spacelab D-1 Science Module was activated and crew members were busy performing experiments. Image Number: 61A-S-018 Date: October 30, 1985.
In The Wall Street Journal, Rachel M. McCleary remembers the victims of the Challenger disaster and one man who attempted to prevent the disaster. She writes:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing the space shuttle Challenger for launch on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986. It was an unusually cold morning for Cape Canaveral, Fla.—too cold, warned the engineers of NASA contractor Morton Thiokol, builder of the shuttle’s solid rocket motors. The engineers knew that the rubber O-rings on the rocket could become brittle in cold weather, causing hot fuel gases to leak and potentially causing an explosion. They were right. Seventy-three seconds after liftoff, the shuttle with seven astronauts on board, including teacher Christa McAuliffe, blew up.
The day before the launch, Thiokol engineers and executives met with NASA officials on a teleconference. Roger Boisjoly, the principal engineer on the Thiokol O-ring task force, and Arnold Thompson were the most knowledgeable experts on O-rings in the U.S. The two engineers argued that an ambient temperature below 53 degrees Fahrenheit could prevent the O-rings from sealing properly. A Thiokol engineer reported the anticipated temperature during the following day’s launch time would be around 26 degrees. Erring on the side of caution, Boisjoly, Thompson and other engineers recommended delaying the launch.
NASA officials pushed back. Lawrence Mulloy, NASA solid-rocket booster manager at Marshall Space Center, was particularly angered by the prospect of postponement, which had already been done three times.
Thiokol executives requested a private caucus. Boisjoly and Thompson repeated their argument for a no-launch decision—to no avail. In what amounted to a “management” decision, engineers were excluded from the final vote. Returning to the teleconference, Thiokol executives informed NASA that the launch was approved.
On Feb. 3, just under a week after the failed launch, President Ronald Reagan announced the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident to investigate the disaster. Also known as the Rogers Commission for its chairman, William Rogers, the commission concluded that Thiokol engineers had known for months what Nobel physics laureate Richard Feynman, a commission member, demonstrated by famously dropping an O-ring in a glass of cold water: The rubber substance hardens in cold temperatures and can’t properly seal.
Testifying before the commission, Boisjoly said: “I felt I really did all I could to stop the launch.” Boisjoly had done everything in his power to prevent the disaster. “We were talking to the people who had the power to stop that launch,” he told NPR’s Howard Berkes in 1987.
The commission, relying on Boisjoly’s memos and reports, expanded its inquiry beyond technical malfeasance to include management decision-making. Considered disloyal, Boisjoly was removed from Thiokol’s Challenger failure investigation team. Isolated from his colleagues who were redesigning the O-ring, his self-esteem suffered and destroyed his confidence as an engineer. Boisjoly, who understood the potential consequences of an unsafe launch, had acted on his conscience in trying to prevent it. But Thiokol executives didn’t respect him as a valued professional. Six months after the disaster, Boisjoly requested an extended sick leave. He never worked as an engineer again.
Since the Rogers Commission report, an avalanche of published materials has chronicled the technological, management and organizational dimensions of the disaster. Yet little attention has been paid to the psychological suffering of the engineers who rightly opposed the launch. Recent advances in psychology give us insight into their suffering. Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay has observed that moral injury occurs when a person in authority disregards a subordinate’s judgment on the morally correct course of action, thereby violating the subordinate’s trust and self-esteem. Dr. Shay’s definition applies to the Thiokol engineers who challenged their executives to reconsider the launch. By not succeeding, the engineers paid a high psychological price.
Two years after the Challenger disaster, Boisjoly found redemption as a lecturer at engineering schools on ethical decision-making and data analysis. He received the American Association for Advancement in Science Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility in 1988 for his contribution to the engineering profession.
When Boisjoly left Thiokol in 1986, the notion of moral injury was a nascent idea in Dr. Shay’s mind. Today, interdisciplinary therapies and treatments are available to veterans, doctors, lawyers, teachers and others who suffer from moral injury. On the anniversary of the Challenger disaster, let us remember Roger Boisjoly along with the seven astronauts whose lives he tried to protect.
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