Roger Boisjoly dies at 73

[Phil]

It was for precisely these reasons that Richard Feynman refused to sign the final page of the enquiry report. He wanted to make a bigger issue of MTI's decision not only to ignore the advice of it's own engineers, but also to manipulate the safety margin values above those estimated by those experts. In the end, he was restricted to his famous statement of "one cannot cheat nature" which was a very meaningful gesture to the scientists and engineers but probably meant little or nothing to the managers and politicians involved.

Feynman's views are nicely distilled in the final chapter of his biography, "What do you care what other people think?", named after his wife's comment following Feynman's initial objection to accepting the invitation to join the enquiry.

I had no idea that Boisjoly's career was wrecked by his revelations, but I'm not at all surprised. There are few successful businesses associated with a high moral and ethical stance.

Phil M1GWZ




On 5 Feb 2012, at 04:26, Joseph Bento wrote:

> Well, some of these questions are answered by Mr Boisjoly himself:
> 
> http://www.onlineethics.org/Topics/ProfPractice/PPEssays/thiokolshuttle/shuttle_account.aspx
> 
> Joe, N6DGY
> 
> 
> On Feb 4, 2012, at 9:08 PM, Joseph Bento wrote:
> 
>> Roger Boisjoly died in Nephi, Utah on January 6.  The media is just reporting it now.  (A month after the fact, is this no longer real news, or are there any coverups going on?)
>> 
>> http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/53445658-68/boisjoly-shuttle-cold-thiokol.html.csp?page=1
>> 
>> I never followed the aftermath of the Challenger disaster that closely.  I had always assumed that it was a tragic accident.  I had no idea that it was a preventable accident - that this man forewarned months ahead of time that such a catastrophe could occur.
>> 
>> The bigwigs at Thiokol ignored the engineers, and did not include them on the ultimate decision to tell NASA to proceed with the launch.  Names are mentioned in the story.  I'd be curious to know how their lives were affected by their decision. 
>> 
>> Joe, N6DGY
>> 
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