NEW YORK TIMES: …Mr. Ebeling (pronounced EBB-ling), an engineer at Thiokol, knew what the rest of the world did not: that the rubber O-rings designed to seal the joints between the booster rocket’s segments performed poorly in cold weather. A severe cold snap in Florida was about to subject the O-rings to temperatures more than 30 degrees lower than at any previous launch.
During the afternoon and evening before the launch, Thiokol engineers, relying on data provided by Mr. Ebeling and his colleagues, argued passionately for a postponement of the launch in conference calls with NASA managers at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. They were overruled not only by NASA, but also by their own managers…
At times, he seemed to carry the entire burden of the disaster on his shoulders, although it was he, on the afternoon before the launch, who made a critical phone call to Allan J. McDonald, the Thiokol engineer in charge of the solid rocket motor project at the Kennedy Space Center, alerting him to concerns about the O-rings… (more)
EDITOR: It is hard to convey truth to power.
