Challenger: A Rush To Launch

An Emmy Award winning documentary about flight STS-51-L and what all lead up to the Challenger explosion and the loss of 7 Astronauts.

[smudent]

"A delay is better than a disaster"

[westonstevens]

I myself am an engineer, and I can empathize. Management never listens to us engineers, they are all about making the crazy deadlines they put in place without consulting us first, and then blame us when we fail to meet that insane deadline.

[fdrxrz]

RIP Allan J. McDonald. A man who did the right thing even when it could have cost his job.

"Always, always do the right thing for the right reason at the right time with the right people and you will have no regrets for the rest of your life." Allan J. McDonald.

[tenshiangel]

This is an occurring theme throughout every industry. Management always thinks they know better than the Engineers.

[passage]

Saddened to hear of Mr. Allan McDonald's passing. What courage this man had for not being forced to agree to launch and for being brave enough to reveal what happened.

[jredbaron]

Allan McDonald passed away on March 9th, 2021. Thank you for all your service to our space program, and may this serve as a reminder to listen to those with the knowledge and the experience that could save lives.

[joynthis]

The people who ignored the engineers should have been duct-taped to the outside of the next Shuttle so they could make close-up launch safety observations.

[daneabc]

I am a retired Electrical Engineer; I designed FM and TV stations, microwave links, and did human exposure to radio frequency energy safety studies. I just read Allan McDonalds's book Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster." He says he never felt that he was a hero, but he was. He was. I see that he recently died, on March 6, 2021. Rest in peace, Mr. McDonald, you WERE a hero.

[Tim]

Adding insult to injury: Allan McDonald and the other engineers thought that if Challenger did explode it would blow immediately upon ignition of the SRBs, right on the pad. When that didn't happen and she appeared to lift off normally, they breathed a sigh of relief thinking they'd dodged a bullet. Imagine the agony of seeing her explode a minute later.

[KOHF]

As far as I’m concerned, Allan McDonald and his engineers are heroes. I just wish NASA had listened and there would’ve been a happier ending.

[spacecadet]

It is sad that both Shuttles lost were when managers decided they knew more about engineering than engineers and overrode the engineers decisions.

[JW_]

I'm so happy Allan's story was recorded before he passed, what a good guy.

[runswithbeer]

Props to Allan McDonald for standing up and doing what's right.

[alison]

The fact that Al McDonald was removed from his position at MT speaks *volumes* .... The managers had absolute blatant disregard for human life. Seven human lives. Shameful.

[michaelharnish]

It's really sad that this documentary almost eliminated the role of Roger Boisjoly. He was the Morton-Thiokol engineer who inspected recovered SRMs and had the data on the after-launch condition of the rocket O-rings. Mr. Boisjoly was the one who made the correlation between launch temperature and O-ring erosion, i.e., as the launch temp approached freezing there was more damage to the O-rings. He let his people at Morton-Thiokol know this in no uncertain terms. He went to the mat with it (he was a hot-head) because he knew he was right. This event was not an accident, but it was not intentional either. It was a preventable incident that was caused by NASA managers with "Go-fever" and Morton-Thiokol managers who gave-in to business pressure. Also eliminated from the soft news doc was the brilliance of Dr. Richard Fineman and his frozen O-ring demonstration at the hearings. Lesson: Listen to the engineers and heed the data.

[neil]

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
- Richard Feynman

[patrickkavanagh]

It's quite chilling seeing the crew walk out smiling and waving knowing what's about to happen.

[nevermore]

I was a child watching that launch in elementary school so excited because a teacher was going to space. I will never forget seeing the challenger go down and everyone asking what happened to the brave astronauts. I think for many of us, it was our first experience with the loss of human life.

[jay_boy]

Engineers: we need to wait a few more hours PLEASE JUST GIVE IT TIME
Managers: IT WILL BE FINE DONT BE STUPID LAUNCH THE DAMN SHUTTLE
*ship explodes*
*Nasa suspends engineers*

[diatonix]

"A major malfunction"... that must be the mother of all understatements.