CHALLENGER WHISTLEBLOWER COMMEMORATIVE?

This note is motivated by the obituary column in Wednesday’s New York Times reporting the passing, at 83, of Allan J. McDonald, one of the engineers at Morton Thiokol who tried to stop the 28 January 1986 launch of the Challenger space shuttle, which broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff, killing teacher Christa McAuliffe and six other astronauts. The story is timely now that the United States Mint is preparing, 35 years later, to issue the 2021 Christa McAuliffe Commemorative Silver Dollar in her honor as the first participant in the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Teacher in Space program.

The Challenger launch, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, was coincidentally scheduled for the same day that President Ronald Reagan was to deliver his State of the Union address. Mr. Reagan had planned to mark the fact that Ms. McAuliffe would be the first American civilian astronaut in space, and NASA was keen to keep to the launch schedule. But the night before, the Morton Thiokol team would not agree to approve the launch because, based on previous experience, they feared that the severe cold that night – 18 degrees Fahrenheit – would cause the rubber O-ring gaskets on the booster rockets to stiffen, thereby likely causing a fuel leak and the potential explosion and destruction of the rocket.

In a recent Netflix documentary, Challenger: The Final Flight, Mr. McDonald pointed out that, under normal procedure, the engineers were always challenged to prove it was safe to launch. But this time, wrote obit columnist Clay Risen, NASA was demanding that the Morton Thiokol engineering team prove that the mission ‘would fail, and we couldn’t do that.’

President Reagan set up a prestigious commission to investigate the disaster, headed by Secretary of State William P. Rogers and including astronauts Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride. The president had told Mr. Rogers to make sure that NASA looked good, wrote Clay Risen. When NASA administrators and company leaders tried to cover up the reasons for the disaster, Mr. McDonald and another Morton Thiokol engineer, Roger Boisjoly, blew the whistle on them.

At that key moment in the hearings, Mr. McDonald stood up and contradicted the testimony to the commission of his company superiors, leading Secretary Rogers to clear the room. Wrote Mr. Risen: ...Ms. Ride came over and hugged Mr. McDonald. Both of them had tears in their eyes... The commission’s final report criticized both the design of the rockets and NASA’s decision to ignore the engineers’ concerns.

Morton Thiokol would subsequently punish McDonald and Boisjoly, who had provided the commission with internal company documents. When Congressman (now Senator) Edward Markey of Massachusetts heard of their treatment, he warned that the company would be frozen out of all future federal contracts unless the men were reinstated. Mr. McDonald was then promoted to vice-president in charge of redesigning boosters. (Mr. Boisjoly left the company.) Mr. McDonald’s superiors never forgave him for his disloyalty, but in later years he went on the lecture circuit, speaking about corporate ethics and teaming up with academic experts on running leadership training seminars.

Mr. McDonald was born in Cody, Wyoming, and grew up in Billings, Montana, where US Mint Director David Ryder also is from. Mr. McDonald died last Saturday in Ogden, Utah.

To read the complete article, see:
Allan McDonald Dies at 83; Tried to Stop the Challenger Launch (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/us/allan-mcdonald-dead.html)

For more information on the Christa McAuliffe Silver Dollar, see:
Christa McAuliffe Silver Dollar (https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-medal-programs/commemorative-coins/christa-mcauliffe)

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