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James R. Hansen on Allan J. McDonald--Science Matters Lecture 20211015 — Transcript

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0:00a second here
0:03okay
0:04um
0:06good evening and welcome uh
0:09to our science matter lecture series
0:11which um is also a part of our larger um
0:16engineering courage symposium in honor
0:18of alan j mcdonald my name is kristen
0:22intiman and i'm a professor of
0:24philosophy and director of the center
0:26for science technology ethics and
0:28society at msu
0:31and before we start i want to just um
0:34perhaps
0:35you know um
0:38mention that uh it you can ask a
0:41question at any time there should be a q
0:44a tool um that is available or chat tool
0:48that's available
0:49and feel free to go ahead and submit
0:51your question at any time during the
0:53talk tonight and um
0:56uh we will be kind of trying to grab
0:58those and organize those uh and and
1:01we'll be able to um ask them to to dr
1:04hansen after uh his talk
1:06um
1:07just one thing i ask that you address
1:10your question to all panelists because
1:13um
1:14that way you know if if one of us misses
1:17it then someone else will catch it and
1:19make sure that that it's asked
1:21so just try to address any questions to
1:24all
1:24panelists okay so um as i mentioned
1:28tonight's lecture is a part of our
1:30engineering courage symposium honoring
1:32alan j mcdonald who as many of you may
1:35know was i was actually an msu alum uh
1:39who refused to sign the launch orders
1:41before the disastrous launch of the
1:44space shuttle challenger in 1986.
1:47mcdonald recently passed away this year
1:50at his home in utah
1:52but we really wanted to do something to
1:54honor him because he
1:56um will long be remembered for both uh
1:59his professional integrity
2:02and refusing to sign the launch order um
2:04but also for his courage in speaking out
2:08about what happened during the
2:09investigation of the accident
2:12um
2:13the talks throughout the symposium ask
2:15us to reflect on what it is to have
2:18courage
2:19in a professional context
2:21and how we can cultivate that courage
2:23within ourselves and also for those of
2:25us who teach within our students
2:29and it's important to remember
2:31that courage is not easy
2:33and it can require personal sacrifice
2:35and come at personal cost
2:38it takes courage to speak up when you
2:40disagree with your colleagues or
2:41superiors or clients
2:43it takes courage for scientists and
2:45engineers to disagree
2:47with widely accept accepted assumptions
2:50or new methodology methodologies or uh
2:53theories
2:55and it's that kind of spirit that is
2:57also the one of the main motivations for
3:00our science matter lecture series um
3:02science
3:03scientists and engineers are often faced
3:05with uncertainties and trade-offs and
3:08disagreement um is necessary for
3:10transparent uh critical discussion of
3:12the issues
3:14so it also takes courage to speak up
3:16when you might be wrong um and so all of
3:19these for all these issues we think this
3:21makes a great um
3:24addition to our science matter speaker
3:26series and um a keynote for our
3:29symposium
3:31just before we begin i also would like
3:33to thank our um co-sponsors for this
3:36event
3:37the college of letters in science um
3:40the college of engineering the jake jobs
3:43uh college of business and
3:45entrepreneurship and the montana
3:47engineering education research center i
3:50also
3:51want to um give a shout out
3:55to
3:58rob mar
4:00um and can you all hear me is this
4:02frozen
4:03is everyone still there
4:07you're still you're still going
4:09okay good
4:11um i'm getting a rainbow wheel of death
4:13so i just want to make sure i'm trying
4:15to un unshare my screen um
4:19okay there we go
4:20sorry this is the
4:22joy of technology i guess um
4:25and i also want to give a special thanks
4:27to rob mayer who in addition to
4:29uh helping me with technical
4:31difficulties really
4:33um was the inspiration he had the
4:35inspiration and the vision for the
4:37symposium in honor of alan mcdonald
4:40rob mayer for anyone who doesn't know is
4:42a professor in our um department of um
4:46electrical engineering and computer
4:47science and he worked very tirelessly to
4:50organize all these talks i also want to
4:52give a special thanks to both um sarah
4:54carrio carolee and to stacy
4:57nation napper
4:59who have provided amazing administrative
5:01assistance and
5:04pandemic problem-solving so uh really
5:07grateful for them
5:08and so now it's with pleasure that i
5:11turn it over to our dean of college and
5:13of letters and sciences i have cesara
5:16who will be introducing our speaker this
5:19evening
5:20thanks
5:21thanks kristin
5:23i want to thank everyone for being here
5:24virtually and and remaining flexible
5:27during this
5:28continued difficult time during the
5:29covet pandemic i'd also like to thank
5:32rob moore for the sort of work that he's
5:34been doing
5:35in in stressing ethics within the
5:37university system in particular within
5:40the engineering department he gave a
5:41wonderful beginning talk to this uh this
5:44a two-day event
5:46but i'd like to take this time to
5:48introduce our keynote speaker dr james r
5:51hanson
5:52dr hanson is an emeritus professor of
5:54history at auburn university in alabama
5:57an expert in aerospace history and the
6:00history of science and technology he has
6:03published 14 books in numerous articles
6:05covering a wide variety of topics
6:07including the early days of aviation the
6:10history of aerospace engineering nasa
6:13the moon landings the space shuttle
6:15program and china's role in space which
6:17continues to be growing now dr hansen's
6:20book first man simon schuster
6:23is the only authorized biography of
6:25neil's neil armstrong first man on the
6:28moon the book has twice spent three
6:30weeks as a new york times bestseller
6:32garnered several major book awards and
6:35been translated into 24 foreign
6:38languages
6:39in 2018 first man was turned into an
6:42oscar-winning hollywood film starring
6:43ryan gosling as neil armstrong a very
6:46fine portrayal from 1981 to 1986 he
6:51served as historian in residence at nasa
6:53langley research center from which he
6:55published a two-volume history of
6:57langley engineering
6:59in charge 1987 and space flight
7:03revolution 1995
7:05the latter of which earned a pulitzer
7:07prize nomination the first and only time
7:10nasa has ever nominated a book for a
7:12pulitzer
7:14dr hanson is also a former vice
7:16president of the path-breaking virginia
7:18air and space center
7:20this evening dr hansen will discuss
7:22truth lies and o-rings inside the space
7:26shuttle challenger disaster a powerful
7:29and award-winning book
7:30that he co-authored with montana state
7:32university alumnus and aerospace indus
7:35industry legend allen j mcdonald in 2009
7:39i would like to just mention
7:41that i remember
7:43the challenger incident i remember the
7:46the
7:48panels that discussed it and at the time
7:50as a as a budding physicist
7:53i really enjoyed the types of dialogues
7:56that we were seeing as they they
7:58discussed what occurred in in
8:00the the challenger event but right now i
8:04would like to please ask you all to join
8:05me in welcoming dr james r hanson thank
8:08you
8:14well let me get up get the correct the
8:16correct uh screen up for you all there
8:19you go
8:21am i okay i hope i'm okay with this well
8:23thank you very much great yeah thank you
8:25yeah thank you very much dean for the
8:27very kind uh introduction
8:30uh this is a very special talk for me to
8:33give because
8:34well it's in honor of al mcdonald and i
8:38can't tell you i mean it's it's been
8:40very tough from when i learned of al's
8:42death uh it really was tough on me and
8:45um
8:46yeah i had come to know him
8:48uh very well and of all i mean i've i've
8:52gotten to know lots over the course of a
8:5440-year career now i've gotten to know a
8:56lot of the real giants in
8:58the uh history of flight area uh
9:01engineers and scientists and others
9:03and al was
9:05right there at the top of the of the
9:08really great people that i had gotten to
9:10know and that included neil armstrong i
9:12had just come off the armstrong
9:13biography
9:15and in fact it was the armstrong
9:17biography which encouraged
9:19uh al to contact me um and and i wanted
9:23to make this absolutely clear this the
9:24book truth lies in o-rings is al's book
9:27i mean he he wanted someone to assist
9:30him
9:31uh to perhaps uh check out some of the
9:33historical broader historical themes
9:37and i did my best to help him and but
9:39whatever
9:42real writing i did
9:44for the book i always tried to i knew it
9:46was an autobiographical account it was a
9:48first house first person account
9:50and i always tried to make sure that it
9:52was
9:53in his voice so i'm
9:56it's i i love the man uh i'll never
9:58forget al mcdonald and i'm sure it's
10:00terrific that you have this
10:03this symposium in his honor
10:06uh here's a famous line from u.s space
10:09history
10:10that says
10:12failure is not an option
10:14and i'm sure you've all heard that
10:16phrase failure is not an option you know
10:20but maybe you don't know where it comes
10:21from maybe you do it came from the movie
10:24apollo 13
10:26and if you haven't seen the movie apollo
10:2813
10:29starring tom hanks i strongly encourage
10:31you to see it
10:33it's a great movie many consider to be
10:35the most authentic and perhaps most
10:37truthful and accurate history
10:40film that deals with a specific true
10:43story in the american space program
10:46the line in the movie was uttered by
10:48actor ed harris who was playing a man
10:51named gene krantz
10:53and granz was one of the flight
10:55directors at mission control in houston
10:57back during the apollo program and in
11:00the movie you hear him say
11:02uh crayons you hear him say the mission
11:04control is and mr controls trying to
11:06figure out how to get the crippled
11:08apollo 13 spacecraft back to earth
11:10safely and you hear ed harris say as
11:13gene krantz we've never lost an american
11:16in space we're sure as hell not going to
11:18lose one on my watch failure is not an
11:21option of course the the apollo 13
11:24mission you know took place in in 19
11:28in 1970
11:29and so of course back then we hadn't
11:32lost anybody in actually in flight
11:34although we had lost the apollo fire in
11:36the paul fire in 1967 we'd lost three on
11:39the launch pad
11:40well later failures not an option became
11:43the title of an autobiographical book
11:45written by the real gene krantz so you
11:47see in the on the cover here of his book
11:49and the phrase became a very popular and
11:52much repeated phrase representing the
11:54attitude that no matter how bad the
11:56situation might get how bad things may
11:58get that
12:00you know you need to stay calm don't
12:01panic never give up on finding a
12:03solution and simply refuse to give in to
12:06failure
12:07and there's a lot of good things to say
12:09about the concept of failure is not an
12:11option i guess that's why it's become so
12:13popular and it's been it's used in all
12:15kinds of settings in today's world but
12:18in truth i'm not a big i'm not one of
12:20the biggest fans of this phrase
12:23for one thing gene kranz actually did
12:25not express those words the movie makers
12:28truthfully invented the phrase for the
12:30movie
12:31and that's been written about the
12:33scriptwriter gave it to the crayons
12:35character and i guess the rest is is
12:38really history
12:39it's become almost like it's historical
12:42fact
12:43my bigger problem with the concept is
12:45that as nicely positive
12:47as it is to insert that failure is not
12:51an option the truth is in the real world
12:54of engineering and human endeavor
12:56failures abound
12:59they happen all the time in virtually
13:01every field
13:02you may not want failure to be an option
13:05and you may and should do your darndest
13:08to make sure
13:09to avoid it but sorry failure is
13:12ubiquitous failure is in a fact an
13:15elemental part of our entire human
13:18enterprise
13:20here you see the cover of one of my
13:22all-time favorite books
13:23this is the book to engineer as human
13:25the role of failure and successful
13:27design by
13:29dr henry petrovsky who at the time the
13:31book was published in 1985
13:34was the head of civil engineering
13:36at duke university and the title of the
13:39book sort of says it all i think
13:42that to engineer is human and humans are
13:45going to make mistakes there's going to
13:46be heirs we're not perfect
13:48but i have some quotes from the book
13:50that i think elaborate on the basic idea
13:52and and this is so important to
13:54understanding the context before for
13:57something like the challenger accident
13:59this is from petroski's book failure is
14:01central to engineering
14:03every single calculation that an
14:05engineer makes is a failure calculation
14:07so engine failure is not something the
14:10engineers ignore or pretend doesn't
14:12exist
14:13they it's it's very it's central to who
14:16they are and what they study and how
14:17they approach everything
14:19engineering is achieving function while
14:21avoiding failure
14:22so failure you designed to make to do
14:24your best to avoid failure to and you
14:27again you
14:29you that's what you have to do but it
14:30doesn't mean you're going to be perfect
14:32at in terms of the result
14:35successful engineering is all about
14:37understanding how things break or fail
14:40so again it's absolutely central to
14:42engineering to understand failure and do
14:44failure analysis the concept of failure
14:47is central to understanding engineering
14:49for engineering design as its first and
14:51foremost objection objective the
14:54obviation of failure the avoidance of
14:57failure or the mitigation of failure and
15:00so when people ask me to define
15:02engineering i say it's it's it's uh it's
15:04the enterprise by which professionals
15:07work to obviate failure to me i don't
15:09think there's a better better way of
15:11looking at it no body of ideas
15:13influenced me more as a young historian
15:15for of technology than the words of
15:17petrovsky i'll go back to him again
15:20especially the idea that the first and
15:22foremost objective of engineering was
15:24this obviation and failure and i applied
15:27this insight that i got early in my
15:28career back in the 1980s really
15:31i applied it in all of my books i
15:33applied it in the classroom i built a
15:36300 level undergraduate course called
15:39case studies of technological failure in
15:42which my students would begin by reading
15:44petrovsky then we would read three or
15:46four books dealing with specific
15:48technological failures
15:50and then as a semester-long project
15:53each student would research and write a
15:55term paper on some other specific
15:58technological failure that had occurred
16:00somewhere in the world over the past 100
16:02or 150 years
16:04followed by an oral presentation
16:07on on the research and of course there
16:09was no shortage of topics for this given
16:12as you can see from the screen just a
16:14handful of them because failures and
16:15actions were all over the place building
16:18failures bridge failures nuclear power
16:20plant accidents catastrophic failures
16:24of all sorts
16:26my own specialization within the history
16:28of technology was in the history of
16:30flight and indeed accidents failures
16:32catastrophes checkered the history of
16:35flight as well whether one was looking
16:36at the history of aviation
16:38or the history of space flight
16:41one failure that my students were always
16:43very interested in studying was the
16:45disaster
16:47involving the space shuttle challenger
16:49which occurred
16:51on january 28 1986
16:54just a few months before i started
16:56teaching at auburn
16:58when it happened and remember this was
17:00the first time the united states had
17:02ever lost astronauts during an actual
17:04flight we as i said we had had tragic
17:07actions but never that sort in flight
17:09before i was actually working as a nasa
17:12historian on a book at nasa langley
17:14research center in hampton virginia i
17:16was at fat
17:18ironically i was in fact at work on a
17:20chapter dealing with the early history
17:23of a rocket known as scout
17:26and here you see scout scout was a
17:28relatively small four-stage solid solid
17:31fuel rocket
17:32conceived back in the late 1950s as a
17:35simple but effective way of boosting
17:38light payloads into orbit from the nasa
17:41facility at wallops island off the coast
17:43of virginia and the problem was as scout
17:46entered development in the early 1960s
17:49it kept having one failure after another
17:51i mean it became a joke four three two
17:54one
17:56splash
17:59it just won one failure after another
18:01for four years just about every time
18:03that scout launched something bad
18:04happened until eventually
18:07after almost none
18:08more after more failures than nasa could
18:11count the engineers finally got scout to
18:14work and to work very well indeed in
18:16making a total of 113 successful flights
18:20and turning into one of the finest
18:21pieces of technology in the history of
18:23space exploration
18:25but not until it had failed over and
18:27over again and nasa had figured out why
18:31until then it was a miserable failure so
18:34uh what about challenger okay this is
18:36again i'm in my office at the in the
18:38archives at nasa langley research center
18:40i'm writing about all these scout
18:42failures when at 11 39 in the morning
18:45eastern standard time on tuesday january
18:4828 1986 a friend came rushing into my
18:51office to tell me that the space shuttle
18:53had blown up
18:56it was incredible it was stunning
18:59nothing hit the country this hard since
19:02the assassination of president kennedy
19:04in 1963.
19:06as i said this was the first time that
19:07we'd ever lost any of our astronauts
19:09during an actual space mission
19:12but
19:13it now it happened
19:15and people did remember the dean
19:17remembered where he was when the shuttle
19:21shuttle disaster happened and
19:23certainly i do too and any anyone who
19:26lived was living at the time that was
19:27old enough to have you know to pay any
19:29attention um and it happened right
19:32before our eyes right on our televisions
19:34we saw the whole awful thing not only
19:37were seven astronauts on board but one
19:39of those seven was payload specialist
19:41christa mcauliffe who would have been
19:43the first teacher in space
19:45media
19:47in part because of the teacher in space
19:49program media coverage of this of the
19:52accident was non-stop and was very
19:54sensational uh one study later reported
19:57that 90 percent of americans had heard
20:00the news of the challenger accident
20:02within an hour of the accident
20:04and over the next several days we would
20:06see
20:07challenger which was sts-51l
20:10we saw a challenger explode into pieces
20:13multiple times as tv kept repeating the
20:16launch to explosion footage over and
20:18over again well of course as a nasa
20:21historian i followed the
20:23story very closely
20:26especially after president ronald reagan
20:28established a special presidential
20:31commission to investigate the disaster
20:34a commission of 14 members
20:37led by former secretary of state william
20:39rogers whose hearings were covered live
20:42on radio and television
20:45almost
20:47in their entirety for the next several
20:49weeks until the panel released its
20:51findings in june of 1986.
20:56books on the challenger accent soon in
20:59fact i would say too soon really too
21:01soon
21:02came out a challenger a major
21:05malfunction by a young
21:07journalist malcolm mcconnell which came
21:09out in the spring of 1987
21:12and prescription for disaster
21:15which was written by a ger another
21:17journalist joseph j trento which also
21:19came out in 1987 so it just took a year
21:21to get these books out
21:24if you read the bibliographical essay
21:26that i wrote for the end of truth lies
21:28and o-rings you can see what i thought
21:30about these two books
21:31essentially they were journalistic
21:33exposes that were pretty deficient
21:36in lasting value
21:38because they lack the dispassion and
21:41informed technical and programmatic
21:43analysis
21:44that was really needed to understand
21:46something as complicated as why the
21:47shuttle had this accident
21:50the next book that came out on the chat
21:52challenger accident was came in 1996
21:55and it was much more substantial
21:57entitled the challenger launch decision
22:00risky technology culture and deviance at
22:03nasa its author dr diane vaughn was a
22:07professor of sociology at boston college
22:10and what her book argued in a nutshell
22:13was that the roots of the challenger
22:14disaster would be found in the very
22:16nature of modern institutional life
22:19uh vaughan built a case around her
22:22notion that all organizations develop
22:24cultural beliefs
22:26that shape their actions and outcomes
22:29and not all of those outcomes are for
22:30the good
22:31uh in vaughan's view nasa during the
22:341970s and the 1980s in the post-apollo
22:36period when the shuttle program was was
22:39defined turned into an organization
22:42whose dominant underlying psychology was
22:45that it was in a very tough place
22:47institutionally because it was
22:49competing for very scarce government
22:52resources
22:53for enough money to do business
22:55and this special sense of budgetary
22:58challenge fostered according to vaughn
23:00an organizational culture in nasa that
23:03accepted taking big risks and cutting
23:05corners as norms and there was the
23:08sociologist terms as norms or at what
23:10was normal
23:11uh and so long concluded that it wasn't
23:14any political pressure it wasn't a
23:16conspiracy of any sort or it wasn't even
23:18incompetence that led to the challenger
23:20accident which is what mcconnell and
23:22trento those books had essentially put
23:25forward in the year after challenger
23:27rather according to vaughn it was a long
23:29series of small
23:31and seemingly
23:32harmless modifications to technical and
23:35procedural standards that infected nasa
23:38over the course of several years
23:41no specific rules have been broken in
23:42the challenger decision
23:44according to vaughan not at nasa or by
23:46any of its contractors instead the fault
23:48lay in the cumulative weight of mundane
23:52organizational norms and group think
23:54dynamics that was a key phrase in her in
23:57her analysis that
23:58this was group think that ultimately
24:01made nasa and its chief shuttle
24:02contractors
24:04uh like the one albert mcdonald workford
24:06martin backhaul vulnerable to making
24:08some very bad decisions like launching
24:11challenger that particular january
24:13morning
24:15well a lot of people found vaughn's
24:16analysis compelling
24:18the whole idea of some level of deviant
24:21behavior becoming normalized under
24:24pressure inside of an organization and
24:27for many people vaughn's book became
24:29almost the bible on what caused the
24:31challenger accident and even something
24:33nasa itself came to accept kind of as
24:36the party line because what vaughan's
24:38analysis suggested was that no one in
24:40particular certainly no specific
24:42individuals
24:43were personally responsible for the
24:45accident what was at fault was that
24:47something had gone wrong inside the
24:49organizational culture as a whole
24:52well there are other challenger books i
24:54could talk about but i need to move on
24:56to the book that alan wrote and that i
24:58helped him with truth lies and o-rings
25:00which was published in 2009.
25:03normally i spend quite a bit of time
25:05talking about who is alan mcdonald and i
25:07do want to say a few things about this
25:09but
25:10being the audience here is at montana
25:12state university and of course al was a
25:15graduate so you already know a little
25:16bit about him but let me i still want to
25:18say a few things about him he was born
25:20in cody wyoming in 1937 the youngest of
25:23four children
25:24his family eventually moved to bozeman
25:27montana where he spent most of his
25:28childhood
25:29attending montana state he received an
25:31associate degree in engineering in 1957
25:34and that's significant because that's
25:36the same year that the russian satellite
25:38sputnik gave birth to the space age and
25:41really propelled a lot of young men and
25:43women into thinking about careers in in
25:46science and engineering and in space
25:49specifically then he earned a bachelor
25:51science degree in chemical engineering
25:53in 1959
25:54out of school he got a job with a with a
25:57utah company called martin thought call
26:00where he worked on the first stage of
26:01the minuteman ballistic missile
26:04uh military system uh when the space
26:06shuttle program started in the 1970s he
26:09was still at morton thai call and he got
26:11assigned to be one of diacol's chief
26:13engineers for the design of the solid
26:15rocket boosters for or srbs that were
26:18going to be used to help launch the
26:20shuttle
26:22and at the time of the challenger
26:23accident his formal title at thai call
26:26was director of the space shuttle solid
26:28rocket motor program so that that's a
26:30very quick he deserves a much longer
26:33setup than that but that's what we have
26:35for him right tonight
26:37on the fateful day that
26:39sts-51l lifted off
26:41al mcdonald was at work in the launch
26:43control room at kennedy space center in
26:46in florida
26:47the night before he had received a
26:49telephone call from a fellow who worked
26:51for him reporting that a weather
26:53forecaster in orlando was forecasting a
26:56cold front coming into into the cape
26:59that could drop temperatures to as low
27:01as 18 degrees fahrenheit by the next
27:03morning that's extremely cold for
27:05florida
27:06and that was not good news for
27:09the launch of a shuttle
27:10as thia calls director of solid rocket
27:13motors and the company's primary
27:15representative at the cape
27:16alan mcdonald was responsible for
27:18everything about the operation of those
27:20srbs that were strapped to the side of
27:23the shuttle
27:24and al and well knew based on nasa and
27:27thigh call data that the rubber o-ring
27:29seals that sealed the field joints at
27:32the various segments of the solid rocket
27:34boosters would not operate properly at
27:37such low temperatures they would they
27:39would grow hard they would get hard they
27:41would grow rigid and and they would not
27:43make a properly tight seal
27:46so al got on the phone and made three
27:48phone calls that night first he made to
27:51meteorologists at the cape to learn what
27:54whether they really were projecting on
27:56an hour-by-hour basis all through that
27:58night and into the next morning
28:00the second call he made was to his
28:02engineers in utah
28:04asking them to calculate what the actual
28:07temperatures would be on the various
28:09parts of their srbs at the time the
28:11launch window opened for challenger the
28:13next morning
28:15more than that he told the engineers
28:17back in utah to make an assessment of
28:19their concerns about cold temperatures
28:22and how they would affect the sealing of
28:24those o-rings and he wanted them to make
28:26a recommendation as soon as possible
28:29on the lowest temperature the srbs could
28:31tolerate at time of launch and still do
28:34their job safely
28:36as al told the guys
28:38back at thiacol in utah i want that
28:40recommendation and decision made by the
28:42vice president of engineering
28:45and i'm not by project project
28:47management in other words he wanted the
28:48head of engineering at the alcohol
28:51to have a conclusion about that data and
28:53they had been testing about in the
28:55effects of temperature and cold ring
28:57wasn't like they had never thought of
28:58this before there had been lots of
28:59testing about it
29:01al wanted that
29:03analysis from engineering because he
29:05felt the o-ring performance in cold
29:07weather was a pretty thorny technical
29:09issue wasn't simple to figure out and it
29:11should be decided on its technical
29:13merits not by corporate management
29:15that's a key
29:17a key point about
29:19about this
29:20allen's third call was to his company's
29:22representative at nasa marshall space
29:25flight center in alabama
29:26you know the responsibilities for the
29:28shuttle program were basically shared
29:30between huntsville and houston and then
29:32of course washington dc where the nasa
29:35headquarters was was at but the people
29:37in huntsville in particular were had
29:40serious oversight uh responsibilities
29:43and and
29:44dealings with the with the srb folks
29:47thigh call and so he al
29:50made that call to the to the focal rep
29:52at nasa marshall and in that call al
29:55asked for a teleconference to take place
29:57that same evening a three-way
30:00conversation between the thia call
30:02engineers in utah
30:04the nasa guys in charge of the shuttle
30:06at huntsville
30:07and the thigh call reps at kennedy space
30:09center
30:10this this teleconference is crucial
30:12understanding
30:14what
30:15what went wrong really
30:16that three-way telephone conference
30:19quickly got arranged and in that
30:21teleconference thai calls vice president
30:24of engineering
30:25a man named bob lund
30:28recommended to nasa that the shuttle not
30:31be launched below 53 degrees fahrenheit
30:36because data from testing
30:39and from analysis
30:41uh from
30:42of of the condition of the o-rings on
30:44the recovered boosters from the previous
30:46space shuttles you know the way this
30:47worked is this solid rockets got them up
30:50to a certain height and the orbiter took
30:52off with its main engine and the solid
30:54rock boosters dropped down they
30:56recovered them from the ocean bought
30:57them back and refabbed them and
31:00refilled them with uh with their
31:03propellant and and and so they could
31:05they could see how the srbs had done and
31:07that's what al wanted to know what was
31:09the condition of the o-rings did did any
31:12of them show any any
31:13defects or dangers or
31:16how did they wear through the launch
31:18um and what they
31:20what it really did show pretty clearly
31:22is that the o-rings were not going to
31:24perform very well i mean that was the
31:26engineering conclusion uh that not that
31:28they had ever launched that cold
31:29temperature that called the temperature
31:31before but if the temperature they had
31:32launched was the coldest it ever been
31:34was like 53 degrees ambient temperature
31:37was that the o-rings probably weren't
31:38going to do very well they got much
31:40lower than that so that was that must be
31:4253 degrees minimum at launch
31:45well the nasa guys in huntsville that
31:48were on that teleconference the nasa
31:49guys now okay so you got the alcohol
31:51guys in utah and you got allen down in
31:54florida and you've got the nasa guys in
31:56in alabama well they didn't like that
31:59conclusion that they were going to have
32:00to wait till it got to be 53 degrees
32:03they didn't believe that the data about
32:05the o-rings was all that conclusive as i
32:08said the data was
32:10kind of thorny you know and there wasn't
32:12an absolute consensus on things but this
32:14these guys were the experts and the fi
32:16call experts they were the ones that
32:17designed and checked out the srbs most
32:20closely and if they're saying 53 degrees
32:23you know one could say well why didn't
32:25nasa accept that
32:27but they didn't believe the data from
32:28their own analysis was all that
32:30conclusive and they wanted biocall to
32:32show them something more definitive
32:34before they would accept the launch
32:36commitment criteria that's the phrase
32:39the launch commitment criteria
32:41that they felt it should be changed i
32:43mean if they're saying if alcohol is
32:44saying 53 degrees well we don't that we
32:46don't like that that launch criteria is
32:49too too tough for us to meet the top
32:51shuttle guy at marshall a guy named
32:54lawrence malloy literally malloy
32:57in fact his express during the
32:59teleconference
33:00expressed his frustration at one point
33:03shouting over the phone
33:05my god thought a call when do you want
33:07me to launch next april
33:10the eve of a launch is a hell of a time
33:12to be generating new launch commit
33:15criteria so that was nasa's point of
33:17view you know you're hitting us now with
33:18this 53 degree thing we didn't we hadn't
33:20worked with that before we knew
33:23you know your data would just are
33:25questioning your data and the
33:26conclusions you're making from the data
33:28well at this point in time
33:30a man named joe kilmenster
33:33who was vice president of the space
33:35booster program at thia call in a sense
33:38al mcdonald's boss
33:39came on the telecom
33:41and he asked for a five-minute offline
33:44caucus
33:46he wanted just his he wanted he didn't
33:48want to be connected by phone with the
33:50nasa guys and marshall anymore for a
33:52while he wanted to talk let's just talk
33:54to his own guys
33:56five minutes he said just five minutes
33:58and he told nasa he wanted to make sure
34:00that filecall was presenting everything
34:02that it had available to them and to see
34:04if they could better analyze and
34:06determine whether
34:07there was a lower temperature that was
34:09safe to launch
34:11that caucus was supposed to last five
34:13minutes
34:14it lasted over 30 minutes
34:17and of course what about al mcdonald
34:19al's in florida so he didn't hear what
34:22was going on in utah inside his company
34:24during that half hour
34:27but he was surprised when the
34:29teleconference resumed
34:31and on came joe kilminster telling nasa
34:34that the thicker engineers had taken
34:36another hard look at all their data and
34:39concluded that it was okay after all to
34:42proceed with the launch as planned no
34:44restrictions at all no temperature
34:46requirement whatsoever
34:48nasa's reaction in alabama was well
34:50that's good we
34:52that's that's a recommendation we we
34:54accept
34:55uh they accepted that abrupt abrupt
34:58change of mind without questioning like
35:00well how did that data how did you
35:02change your mind what
35:03what data made you change your mind
35:05didn't ask
35:07apparently they got the answer they
35:08wanted but they wanted more
35:10larry malloy told joe kilminster that
35:13nasa needed that recommendation put in
35:16writing and signed by a responsible
35:19thigh call official
35:22that was that hadn't been asked for
35:24before
35:25back in florida
35:27with his mouth open
35:29al mcdonald knew who was responsible
35:33knew that the responsible thigh call
35:35official
35:36to give that written
35:38launch recommendation to hand that over
35:40to nasa was going to have to be him it
35:44was him
35:45that's why he was there at the cape
35:47and al
35:48made what he came to feel was the
35:50smartest decision he ever made in his
35:53life
35:54he refused to do it he refused to sign
35:57it
35:59for for al a major ethical violation was
36:04occurring
36:06it uh
36:07it wasn't that he thought it was
36:08unethical that the nasa people
36:10questioned thought call how falco
36:12arrived at their original launch
36:14decision what was unethical in al's view
36:18was that the nasa officials knew that
36:19the job the obligation of the fight call
36:22staff was to prove that it was safe to
36:25launch the shuttle
36:27that was what firecall had always been
36:29asked to do the contractor was asked you
36:30know prove to us that it's safe it's
36:32safe to launch that's the recommendation
36:34it's safe
36:35but here was nasa putting netflix and
36:37the firefall engineers in the position
36:39where they had to prove
36:41that the shuttle srbs would fail it
36:44wasn't that they were saying prove that
36:46it's it's going to work
36:47prove to us that it's not going to work
36:49that's that's what they basically said
36:51and that's a totally different question
36:53you're never supposed to do that as al
36:55makes clear in our book
36:57in fact the final decision inside
36:59theater which mcdonald didn't know at
37:01the time he only found out later was
37:04that joe kilmundsner's own boss
37:07a man named carl
37:08excuse me cal wiggins who is vice
37:11president and general manager of the
37:12company had taken over the meeting in
37:15utah during that offline caucus and had
37:18decided
37:20not that the technical judgment of his
37:22engineers uh was the way to go but
37:25instead recommend going ahead with you
37:28know going ahead with the morning launch
37:31uh he at one point he said to them i
37:33want you to take off your engineers hats
37:35and put on your management hats look
37:37look at it from our point of view
37:39well
37:40that was really not something that we
37:42should have asked as engineers to do
37:44al in as he as we wrote in truth lies
37:47and o-rings
37:49you can see the phrase al said it was a
37:51classic case where good technical
37:53judgment and common sense
37:55seem to have yielded to the philosophy
37:57that the customer is always right the
38:00customer being nasa
38:03but as i said al was so disturbed by his
38:06company's change to a launch to go ahead
38:08give him mass of the green light giving
38:10them a launch recommendation which you
38:12see here that he refused he refused to
38:15try to sign the launch recommendation
38:18he didn't understand it he didn't feel
38:20good about it he didn't know how it how
38:22it
38:22changed uh from engineers to management
38:25decision
38:26so he forced his boss in utah joe
38:28camillster to sign it and fax it to him
38:30he wasn't going to do it himself
38:33he had to wait for the facts
38:35and that he had to do
38:37and while waiting for the facts to
38:39arrive in florida
38:41now al turned to the nasa people
38:44at the cape uh with whom he
38:47worked and he said you know i don't
38:48really feel comfortable with this
38:50decision i don't agree with it but more
38:52importantly you yourselves can it can't
38:54accept that's recommendation either
38:57and they responded well what do you mean
38:58by that ali we're talking about other
39:00contractors like boeing who built the
39:02orbiter they had also had to give the
39:04green light and all that so there was
39:05other people that had the
39:07the payload uh company had to whoever
39:09had built built the payload they had to
39:11give their sign off so al talk to them
39:13and said you guys shouldn't accept this
39:14launch recommendation either and they
39:16ask what do you mean by that al and he
39:19said well you cannot accept it because
39:21you know
39:22and i know that you are asking us to fly
39:24those boosters outside a temperature
39:27that it has been qualified to fly and
39:29you can't do that you can't fly any of
39:31the shuttle hardware outside of its
39:33qualification limits that's against
39:35protocol
39:36so you can't accept it i'm against
39:38launching launching not based on what i
39:40know
39:41but because of what i do not know and
39:44you are in exactly the same position he
39:46told them it's just not worth taking the
39:48risk with all these unknowns
39:50but al
39:51these shouldn't be your concerns they
39:53told him you shouldn't really concern
39:55yourselves with them
39:56but we'll pass them on to our bosses in
39:58an advisory kind of way
40:02well the story now moves
40:04on to the faithful morning of the launch
40:06itself
40:08waking up early al remembers hearing on
40:10the radio that the temperature was 22
40:12degrees
40:14arriving at the launch control center
40:16and sitting down at the console where he
40:18monitored all the data on the solid
40:20rocket boosters he could see a large tv
40:23screen that
40:24there was quite a bit of ice hanging on
40:26the shuttle
40:28sitting there on the launch pad and he
40:29quickly concluded for himself
40:32well
40:33there's no way that they're going to
40:34launch this thing today with all that
40:36ice
40:37a few minutes later he saw an ice team
40:40dispatched to the launch platform to
40:43knock down as much of the ice as
40:45possible not just on challenger but on
40:47the launch
40:48launch platform itself and then less
40:50than an hour after that the ice team was
40:52sent out again and when they got back
40:54after taking off even more ice the ice
40:56team reported
40:57that it was they thought it would be
40:59okay to launch to proceed with the
41:01launch from the point of view of the ice
41:03on the on the launcher
41:05in truth what al expected
41:07in terms of what
41:09i mean he kind of sensed that a
41:10catastrophe could easily be coming
41:13but what he
41:15he wasn't really looking that much
41:17yet at the o-ring an o-ring failure
41:20because of cold temperature he was
41:21certainly aware of it
41:22but he thought that the problem most
41:25likely would be that the
41:26that the shuttle would fail
41:29right at the incident of ignition
41:31right as the solid rocket
41:33boosters lit
41:35but as we know the catastrophe did not
41:37manifest until 73 seconds later to be to
41:41be precise the breakup of the vehicle
41:43began at t plus 7
41:4673.162 seconds
41:48at an altitude of 48 000 feet
41:52in the launch control room al mcdonald
41:54could hear
41:55some people many people actually sobbing
41:58in the background they all knew
42:00what had just happened and they knew
42:02that it was not it was not it was a me
42:05evidently clear from the start that this
42:07was not going to be a survivable
42:10incident
42:12now the day after challenger al flew to
42:14huntsville to be part of the failure
42:15analysis team
42:17neither he nor anyone else at this point
42:19knew that the failure of an o-ring was
42:21the cause of the tragedy in fact he was
42:24just just about convinced that the
42:26accident was caused by a cracked turbine
42:29blade in the
42:30space shuttle main engine that had
42:32always been the biggest concern about
42:34the shuttle system the turbo pumps and
42:36the three main liquid fuel
42:38in the three main liquid fuel engines
42:41churning away as they did at 35 000 rpm
42:44their thin wall combustion chambers
42:47burning vast quantities high energy
42:49hydrogen at 63 at 6 000 degrees
42:52fahrenheit hydrogen that seconds before
42:55have been stored as a liquid at
42:57degrees fahrenheit
42:59so that was always considered to be the
43:02difficult thing in the daisy chain of
43:03the shuttle system that the main engines
43:06on the orbiter would be the problem and
43:09that's what al mcdonald and many others
43:11thought at first had to be the source of
43:13the failure though that one of these
43:14blades had cracked came loose when
43:16flying into the external tank
43:18uh resulting in kind of a change
43:20reaction infecting the srbs and having a
43:23catastrophic disaster
43:25but as engineers certainly know facts
43:28murder theory historians know that too
43:31uh and a few days after al arrived in
43:33huntsville the worst fear for thoughtful
43:36call came home to roost when were
43:39derived from nasa guys down at the cape
43:41who were looking at films of the launch
43:43that the movie showed some fire coming
43:45out of the aft side of the right srb
43:49just before the explosion you can see
43:51the arrow here
43:53pointing at it
43:54in these slides
43:58and when al heard that and soon he saw
44:01the films for himself
44:03he knew that that meant that the accent
44:05probably did happen exactly for the
44:07reason that he and the thiable engineers
44:09had been concerned about the night
44:11before the launch that the darn o-rings
44:13were too cold
44:14to perform their function
44:17it wasn't until president reagan decided
44:20to form a presidential commission that
44:22the real answers came out
44:24and they certainly did not come out
44:25initially or very willingly from nasa
44:28and that's another very sad part of the
44:31story
44:32over the next weeks it became
44:34frustratingly clear to mcdonald the nasa
44:37officials really didn't want to hear
44:39about cold o-rings or anything
44:42about how thought call had at the last
44:44minute
44:46change its recommendation from red to
44:47green based on what nasa was resisting
44:50in that telecom teleconference the night
44:53before
44:54but things soon got very hairy when the
44:56presidential commission started
44:58investigating a story got into the press
45:01in the new york times that one of nasa's
45:03budget analysis
45:05guys
45:06had sent nasa headquarters a memo
45:09several months back expressing concern
45:11about all the problems that the space
45:12shuttles were having with their o-rings
45:15and the field joints and how much money
45:17the pro the problems might take get
45:20fixed so this was a budget analyst it
45:21wasn't even an engineer but he was
45:23seeing lots of you know we got we need
45:25more money for more testing and we did
45:28not need to get more data on the srbs
45:30and so he was
45:31so he
45:32let new york times know about this and
45:34it became a story that sparked a lot of
45:36concern on the presidential commission
45:38because nasa officials so far had yet
45:41breathed had not breathed us a word to
45:44the commissioners
45:45about any of this even though almost a
45:48week earlier mcdonald had briefed nasa
45:50itself on exactly what had caused the
45:53accident on the cold old rinks and so
45:55the people that from nasa going to talk
45:57to the rogers commission they weren't
45:59but they weren't breathing a word of
46:00this yet
46:01concerned that it was possibly hearing
46:03more about the cause of the accident
46:05from the new york times than it was from
46:07nasa the rogers commission scheduled a
46:09closed hearing
46:11in which nasa was to make a
46:12comprehensive briefing
46:16the person nasa chose to give the
46:18briefing was none other than larry
46:20malloy the huntsville shuttle officials
46:23who had complained to thy call
46:25in that ill-fated teleconference that it
46:27wanted him to wait you know what do you
46:28want me to wait until april next april
46:30to launch
46:32so it was ironic and not set so good in
46:34retrospect that this was the guy that
46:36was nasa with having talked to the
46:38commission
46:40ironically virtually all of the charts
46:41that malloy showed in his briefing in
46:44this closed-door session came from al
46:46mcdonald who in the past couple of weeks
46:49had given long reports to nasa
46:50headquarters about the o-rings as the
46:53clearest cause of the accident
46:55well
46:56this is a very dramatic moment
46:58and in documentaries and any films that
47:00are ever done on the challenger this
47:03will be a major moment in which al
47:05mcdonald will star
47:06al mcdonald attended this closed meeting
47:09which was held in the old executive
47:11office building next to the white house
47:13he said it sat in the very back of the
47:15room because malloy and the other nasa
47:18officials on the
47:19agenda had made it very clear to
47:20mcdonald
47:22and to thank all that they the nasa
47:24folks were going to be giving the entire
47:25briefing
47:26no one else was needed to make any
47:28comments unless they were specifically
47:30arrested uh requested to do so so
47:34al was able to go but he had to sit in
47:36the back and they didn't and malloy
47:37didn't expect him to speak up unless
47:39malloy asked him to a specific specific
47:41question
47:42the entire morning was taken up by
47:44molloy's presentation using al's charts
47:47and malloy briefed the commission for
47:50nearly two hours until the commission
47:52stopped for lunch
47:54and when lunch was over returning from
47:56lunch dr sally ride the first american
47:59woman in space was one of the rogers
48:01commissioners
48:02sat down and started summing through a
48:05bunch of pink slips containing telephone
48:07messages that she had apparently got
48:09that morning before the break
48:11and as the session was about to resume
48:13for the aft for the afternoon dr rides
48:15spoke up
48:17and said to larry malloy
48:20before we get back to your briefing
48:22i'd like to ask you a few questions
48:25during the break i returned a few of my
48:27phone calls and one of them was from a
48:29reporter here in washington who told me
48:31he had heard a rumor that one of the
48:33shuttle contractors may have been
48:35concerned before the launch about the
48:37cold temperatures affecting the shuttle
48:39hardware and maybe even recommended not
48:42launching
48:43is that true mr malloy
48:46well malloy paused then answered well
48:50yes we did have a teleconference with
48:52morton thought calls concerns about the
48:54projected temperatures on the field
48:56joints and o-rings
48:58that was honest
48:59i mean that's my statement that was
49:01honest but malloy then went on to say
49:03quote but after hearing all of the
49:05discussion we all concluded that there
49:08was no problem with the predicted
49:10temperatures for the solid rocket motors
49:12and i received a document from the solid
49:14rocket motor project management at
49:16thought call to that effect there was no
49:18adverse consequence expected due to the
49:21temperature on the night of 27th
49:23well
49:26up to this point or by this point i
49:28should say as you can imagine al
49:29mcdonald
49:31was doing not a slow burn anymore he was
49:34up he was doing a fast burn
49:36he's sitting in the back of the room
49:37thinking him to himself well
49:39i guess that's a true statement that but
49:41that is about as misleading
49:44as anything i have ever heard and it is
49:46certainly unethical for malloy to be
49:48saying this
49:50so what did al do you heard
49:52you heard
49:53kristin talking about courage
49:56al started walking from the back of the
49:58room
49:59down the stairs toward the conference
50:01table where the presidential commission
50:03was sitting
50:05there's there's rogers former secretary
50:07rogers in the middle sally ride to his
50:09left neil armstrong first man on the
50:12moon who was uh the vice chair of the
50:15commission sitting right to rogers's
50:18right hand
50:19uh
50:20and so he walks down al's walking down
50:23and what does larry malloy do
50:25well he's in a pretty tight spot
50:26obviously he sees mcdonald coming
50:28forward and perhaps optimistically
50:31mr malloy surmised that al was coming
50:34out down to give him a hand to help him
50:36out to help explain explain the view
50:39grass that he was
50:40this was back in the day before
50:42powerpoint and used these transparent
50:44view graphs what in fact malloy said in
50:48recovering was mr chairman alan mcdonald
50:50from morton thigh call wants to make a
50:52point
50:53you bet your sweet behind he did
50:56in a nutshell what al said was
50:59quote i think this commission should
51:00know
51:01that morton thought hall was so
51:03concerned about the projected cold
51:05temperatures on our field joints and
51:07o-rings that our original recommendation
51:09based on our data was not to launch
51:12below 50-30 degrees fahrenheit
51:15well it was like a bomb had gone off in
51:17the room
51:18who the hell are you chairman roger said
51:21to allen
51:23i'm the director of the solid rocket
51:24motor program at morton fockel
51:27to which rogers replied
51:29would you please come down here and
51:31repeat what you've just said
51:33because if i just heard what i think i
51:35heard then this may be in litigation for
51:38years to come
51:40well at that moment
51:42alan mcdonald's life changed forever
51:45because he knew who was going to be in
51:47the middle of all this litigation for
51:49years to come
51:51him
51:52and from that day on alan mcdonald
51:55decided he better
51:57write down everything he knew
52:00in as much detail as he could remember
52:02everything he heard and everything that
52:04was published in the press about the
52:05shuttle and about the boosters and about
52:07the o-rings
52:09because he knew he was going to have to
52:11answer and explain a lot of stuff
52:13and he did that for the next
52:16next several years
52:18well in june 1986 some 17 weeks after
52:22the tragedy the rogers commission issued
52:24its report to the president
52:26and what it reported was that the
52:28challenger accident was caused by a
52:30failure in the o-ring ceiling in the aft
52:32field joint on the right solid rocket
52:33booster causing pressurized hot gases to
52:36flame and eventually blow up
52:39blow blow by i should say blow by the
52:42o-ring
52:43seal and from there contact the adjacent
52:46external tank causing major structural
52:48failure the failure of the o-rings was
52:51attributed to a design flaw as their
52:53performance could be too easily
52:55compromised by factors including the low
52:57temperature on the day of the launch it
52:59was a conclusion that al agreed with
53:01completely the o-rings were there but
53:04at the same time i remember talking to
53:06alan about it i mean in a sense there's
53:08nothing nothing was really wrong with
53:10the with the original design of the
53:12o-ring seal
53:13if it in fact if it had if the shuttle
53:16had not been operated outside the the
53:18conditions that had been laid out uh for
53:21the for the system uh it would have
53:23worked if it had and not had a problem
53:26if it had just worked uh operated only
53:29the temperatures that that had been
53:30tested for
53:31well al's story was uh
53:34was hardly over
53:36after his first full testimony to the
53:38commission which he did do he was called
53:41in by thought call management and he was
53:42told to no longer that he was no longer
53:45the head of the solid rocket motor
53:46program
53:47now he was ahead of scheduling
53:50you heard it
53:51he took him away from heading up the srb
53:53program and they put him in charge of
53:55scheduling
53:57scheduling al asked
53:59what in the hell are you going to
54:01schedule we're not going to build
54:02anything for a while what we build is
54:05certainly not going to be what we've
54:06been building
54:07so the co file company took all of his
54:10engineers away from al and they gave him
54:12this what he considered kind of a
54:13non-job
54:15furthermore the lock on management told
54:17him oh you are also off the failure team
54:22you can't have any interaction with nasa
54:24you can't do any more of the failure
54:26analysis
54:28so al basically was put into purgatory
54:31um he had was put into purgatory because
54:34he had the courage and the ethical
54:36backbone to tell the truth
54:38on its bosses and on the nasa people
54:42purgatory didn't last all that long
54:46as it turned out one of the other
54:48members one of the leading members of
54:49the presidential commission was this man
54:51air force general donald katina
54:54and katina saw al at a meeting of the
54:56american institute of aeronautics and
54:58astronautics in washington dc later that
55:00year
55:01after al had been put on ice by martin
55:04thought call and katuna asked al
55:07what the hell are you doing here at this
55:08aia meeting you need to spend all your
55:10time figuring out why the shuttle failed
55:12the way that it did
55:13to which al said well i'm not doing that
55:16anymore
55:17i haven't been doing that for some time
55:22what do you mean you aren't doing that
55:23anymore katina asked him well i i was on
55:26the failure team but i got removed from
55:28it
55:29well when did you get removed from it
55:31right after i testified to you guys well
55:34that's
55:35part of my language that's
55:38katino was i remember interventing he
55:40could be a pretty direct man
55:42you know that's how generals talk i
55:44suppose well we'll soon fix that problem
55:47he said al i mean he wasn't going to
55:49take them putting al on ice and being
55:51penalized for act you know for for being
55:54brave enough to tell the truth to the
55:56commission
55:57al later learned that katina called the
56:00chairman of morton thought
56:02and had him bring in all of his top
56:04corporate executives to listen to what
56:06katina had to say to him and the good
56:09general basically read them the riot act
56:12and the next thing that al heard from
56:13his boss is that he was going to he was
56:15not only being taking off scheduling he
56:18was going to be the head of the whole
56:19redesign team for fixing the problem on
56:22the shuttle
56:24so al took charge of the redesign team
56:26that was to fix the solid rocket
56:27boosters which was a very high priority
56:30task that involved both blackhaw and
56:32nasa engineers and managers a task that
56:35was very high priority because it was
56:37critically important to the country's
56:38space programs both civilian and
56:40military to get the shuttle back flying
56:42safely as soon as possible and i think i
56:45should say for those of you don't know
56:47you know in the when the shuttle program
56:49came along in the 80s and 70s and 80s
56:52and was being defined it was being
56:54defined as you know not an experimental
56:56vehicle but as something that was going
56:57to be an operational kind of an
56:58operational truck
57:00you know that was going to be mostly
57:01reusable and that the plan was it was
57:03going to be able you're going to be able
57:04to turn around shuttles
57:06orbiters every two weeks you have a
57:08launch every two weeks well that was
57:11totally unrealistic
57:13but kind of all of all of the eggs of
57:15the american
57:17booster program was being put in one
57:20basket the shuttle was going to take
57:21over everybody's job you weren't going
57:23to need you know this rocket you weren't
57:25gonna need that rocket it would also
57:26serve the military not just the civilian
57:28program so all the so the you had to get
57:31the shuttle going again and then you
57:32also had to one thing challenger also
57:34showed you is you better start working
57:35on some other boosters besides the
57:37besides the shuttle because we can't
57:39just be relying on one one vehicle to
57:41get us up there
57:43well allen did
57:45a great job as head of that solid rocket
57:47motor redesign team
57:50his task force did a superb job it did
57:53so under great scrutiny including
57:55serious scrutiny from the national
57:57research council and from the national
57:58academy of engineering it wasn't just
58:00nasa and by the time the time the task
58:02force finished its work the srbs were in
58:05the opinion of most folks that were
58:07closely associated with the shuttle uh
58:10the the safest piece of
58:12equipment on the shuttle
58:14uh and from from the time
58:17the shuttle flights resumed with the
58:19launch of discovery uh in 1988
58:22to the very last shuttle flight by
58:24atlantis in july 2011
58:27all of the flown srbs came back pristine
58:31they were all in great shape involving
58:33some 110 launches so the redesign was
58:36it's kind of like the story i told you
58:37of scout you know that you know it took
58:39some failures but then when it got
58:41figured out it had a just outstanding
58:43record and now deserves a lot of credit
58:45of course there would be one more
58:46catastrophic failure to talk about and i
58:49think i need to mention it
58:51which was the demise of the space
58:52shuttle sts-107 columbia on february 1st
58:562003.
58:58after all the lessons learned from
59:00challenger one might have thought that
59:01something like this couldn't happen
59:03again
59:03even 17 years later
59:06after what happened in a nutshell after
59:08columbia launched nasa clearly saw on
59:10film that a large piece of protective
59:12foam insulation had broken off the
59:14shuttle's fuel tank during launch
59:17impacted the orbiter
59:19and damaged the thermal protection
59:21system on the leading edge of the
59:22orbiter's left wing
59:24during re-entry from space as we know
59:26that damage wing slowly overheated and
59:29came apart
59:30eventually leading to loss of control
59:32disintegration of the vehicle and the
59:34death of the entire crew
59:36but al knew the inside story of this and
59:38we had some interesting conversations
59:40about this
59:41nasa and its contractor on the orbiter
59:43which was boeing had run some pretty
59:45fancy analysis
59:47using a cray supercomputer on on what
59:50the
59:51impact damage could be from things like
59:53from debris like this and using this
59:55most up-to-date computer model there was
59:57that was available at the time uh nasa
1:00:00and boeing together concluded that the
1:00:02damage couldn't be significant enough to
1:00:04prevent an orbiter from returning home
1:00:07safely from space
1:00:09well that proved wrong and another
1:00:11inside
1:00:12story of this was there was a group of
1:00:14research engineers at nasa langley where
1:00:17a lot of aerodynamics and
1:00:19material structures guys were
1:00:21had years and years of experience that
1:00:23were not
1:00:24comfortable with the conclusion that
1:00:26that debris wouldn't cause couldn't
1:00:28cause significant damage in fact they
1:00:30proposed well let's find out about how
1:00:33bad it is you know there's there's other
1:00:36satellites up in in earth orbit uh some
1:00:39of the military so why don't we have
1:00:40nasa ask the department of defense turn
1:00:42one of its spy satellites toward the
1:00:44columbia while it's still orbiting and
1:00:46we'll be able to see if the damage is
1:00:48significant enough that it could cause
1:00:50catastrophe upon reentry
1:00:53and they made us those langley engineers
1:00:55made a specific request to the nasa
1:00:57emission management team to have the dod
1:01:00do that but the request was turned down
1:01:03by i think it was actually by management
1:01:05in houston uh the mission management
1:01:07team on the basis that the analysis from
1:01:09the supercomputer was pretty definitive
1:01:11and it didn't need to go through all the
1:01:13protocol to make the request to the dod
1:01:15so it never asked the dod to do it one
1:01:18can say al considered that as
1:01:20this is a direct quote a very serious
1:01:23mistake and he said the most unethical
1:01:26non-act something you didn't do
1:01:28in nasa history changing from which
1:01:31changed that showed a change in the nasa
1:01:33culture from the can-do attitude of the
1:01:35early space program to one that that
1:01:39sort of said we can't do we can't do
1:01:41that if we don't we don't want to ask
1:01:43the dod to do that we don't need to do
1:01:46that boeing's happy with the super
1:01:48computer analysis
1:01:49well let me wrap some things up with
1:01:51some final thoughts on challenger on
1:01:53engineering ethics and on technological
1:01:55failure
1:01:57the biggest breach
1:01:59of ethics and challenger in my view and
1:02:01i think in al mcdonald's view is that
1:02:03both thought hall and nasa
1:02:05attempted to cover up what really
1:02:07happened the night before the launch of
1:02:08that teleconference there was definite
1:02:10obfuscation by nasa on a really cause
1:02:13the accident
1:02:14until it was possible or
1:02:17impossible to obfuscate any longer they
1:02:19finally had to live up to live up to it
1:02:21it's one thing that to make a mistake in
1:02:23deciding to launch challenger while a
1:02:25sten ostensibly pressuring the maker of
1:02:28the srb file call to change its lock
1:02:31launch recommendation but it's another
1:02:33it's a more terrible breach when people
1:02:35in high places with time to think about
1:02:38it continue to deceive and cover up and
1:02:40how and that sort of thing really
1:02:42bothered out
1:02:43looking back at all the decisions and
1:02:45things that happened i would suggest
1:02:47that there are four levels of ethical
1:02:48breaches to discuss with challenger
1:02:51and in one way or another i talked about
1:02:53these with with al although he never put
1:02:55them quite in this way
1:02:57there is a level one ethics violation
1:02:59associated with having to make difficult
1:03:01decisions
1:03:02with tough pressure time constraints in
1:03:04a very stressful environment and then
1:03:06making a bad decision or making a
1:03:08decision on bad
1:03:10on a bad reason so
1:03:12you know that's kind of a level one a
1:03:14lower level ethical violation
1:03:16worse yet there's a level two which
1:03:18involves individuals who know that the
1:03:20dangers exist yet don't say anything
1:03:23and this is a more serious breach of
1:03:24professional ethics this silence which
1:03:27sometimes turns into the biggest
1:03:29obstacle to overcome in any decision
1:03:31making that involves risk
1:03:34it's still worse there's a more severe
1:03:36breach of ethics occurs
1:03:39third level when
1:03:41those who believe that an accident may
1:03:43be more likely than not
1:03:45and and and more more likely than the
1:03:48organization is willing to admit but
1:03:51nonetheless support the decision to
1:03:53proceed because they recognize that it's
1:03:54what their bosses want them to do and
1:03:56they can benefit by supporting their
1:03:58bosses that's a much more serious breach
1:04:01and we don't know i mean boy if we had
1:04:03an absolute record of what was said at
1:04:05diacol during that teleconference
1:04:08in the in 30-minute closed caucus to not
1:04:25blaming available or intentionally
1:04:26distorting the facts to avoid blame
1:04:29and al thought this was far worse
1:04:31because if the cover-up is successful
1:04:33it could lead to another accident in the
1:04:36future for the very same technical
1:04:38reason or unethical decision-making
1:04:40process that should have been corrected
1:04:43and finally i need to say that there
1:04:45absolutely can be accidents that are
1:04:47totally independent of ethical
1:04:48violations at any level and al certainly
1:04:52knew that there are many many instances
1:04:54when where technological failures or
1:04:56accidents result from the purest
1:04:58definition of an accident it's not
1:05:00expected it's not foreseen it's not
1:05:02intended
1:05:04indeed accidents and failures appear to
1:05:06be inevitable in the wake of prolonged
1:05:08success you know
1:05:10that's what happened with nasa when you
1:05:11got things that were working and working
1:05:13and working and working and you think
1:05:15well it's going to work again it's going
1:05:16to work even though we know there's some
1:05:18issues
1:05:19it's been working so it's going to work
1:05:20again so you sort of become a victim of
1:05:22your own success which with the problem
1:05:24which becomes it encourages lower
1:05:26margins of safety and it certainly
1:05:28promotes overconfidence
1:05:30in what you're doing and it is at this
1:05:32point of over caught confidence and
1:05:34lowering your margin safety when many
1:05:37failures do
1:05:38do occur
1:05:41which in turn leads to a breaking of
1:05:42confidence to a new rigor in scrutiny to
1:05:45greater safety margins and hence to new
1:05:47periods of success so you could say that
1:05:50this is sort of a cyclical thing but
1:05:52gosh be nice to break the cycle
1:05:54well ladies and gentlemen there will
1:05:56always be failures and disasters as
1:05:58engineers and designers push the
1:05:59boundaries for building taller buildings
1:06:02longer bridges reaching farther into
1:06:04space
1:06:06each time there is a failure or disaster
1:06:08changes are made and regulations
1:06:10introduced only to be outstripped by
1:06:12further developments
1:06:14even if you are not involved directly as
1:06:16an engineer or manager you as a member
1:06:18of the society of society are certain to
1:06:21be affected by technological disasters
1:06:23and catastrophic failures over the
1:06:25course of your lifetime
1:06:27understanding why they happen and how
1:06:29ethical breaches might be involved and
1:06:31how they can perhaps be better handled
1:06:33by society when they do occur is of
1:06:35vital importance to the health and
1:06:36vitality of our modern world so i close
1:06:40with a final statement from henry
1:06:42petrovsky it is not that success stories
1:06:44cannot serve as models for good design
1:06:46or as exemplars of creative engineering
1:06:48they can do that
1:06:50but they cannot teach us how to close
1:06:52how to um how close to failure they are
1:06:56so al petrovsky felt al felt i certainly
1:06:59have come to feel that it's important to
1:07:02really focus in on the failures and
1:07:04failure analysis see what all's happened
1:07:06with them not that you can't learn from
1:07:08success you can learn from success but
1:07:09boy you better not you better not ignore
1:07:11failure in the picture it's probably
1:07:13more important in the end and i usually
1:07:15close with the petrovsky quote but given
1:07:17this is this is al's night
1:07:20i do think al would really want to talk
1:07:23to the young people
1:07:25if there are young people listening
1:07:26tonight and i certainly hope they are
1:07:28there they are i think he would the word
1:07:31that was used by kristin to begin with
1:07:32courage i mean al really had courage he
1:07:36had lots of regrets too because he
1:07:39you know he wasn't able to change the
1:07:41outcome and he second guessed himself as
1:07:43did lots of people that worked for thai
1:07:45call there was a man named roger
1:07:47beaujolais who was another o-ring expert
1:07:49and roger was in on that tele conference
1:07:51and he never forgave himself and
1:07:54actually had thoughts of suicide for the
1:07:55rest of his life he had went through
1:07:57serious depressions so
1:08:00there are personal
1:08:02consequences to what you do
1:08:04courage or not having courage and i
1:08:06think al
1:08:07al would want you to be
1:08:09you know if you go into engineering in
1:08:10particular you're going to be part of an
1:08:12organization a bureaucracy a company and
1:08:14a lot of these companies are going to be
1:08:16profit motivated and they're going to
1:08:17want to keep their customers happy and
1:08:20as if you're an engineer and you
1:08:22understand that there's things going on
1:08:24that management you know you don't you
1:08:26shouldn't take your engineer's hat off
1:08:27every you know if they ask you to you
1:08:29might want to do it just as a thought
1:08:30experiment but in the end you better
1:08:31maybe keep your engineers hat on if your
1:08:34managers are trying to you know do
1:08:35something that is not
1:08:37not a good decision
1:08:39so
1:08:40you've got to be prepared to speak up
1:08:42you know and if and also another thing
1:08:44al would talk about is you know the the
1:08:46boeing and nasa reliance on the cray
1:08:48supercomputer and the data on what the
1:08:51breed could do to shuttle um you know
1:08:54computers are terrific and i am and we
1:08:56don't want to live without them anymore
1:08:58but you know al i think would say to you
1:09:00don't be over reliant on them if your
1:09:02gut tells you something else if you've
1:09:03been doing some back of the envelope
1:09:05calculations you've been there's there's
1:09:07good engineering to be done that doesn't
1:09:08involve with doesn't involve computers
1:09:11and if you have a contrary opinion you
1:09:14know you you know you might be the one
1:09:17that can save the situation and
1:09:19sometimes and i think kristen brought
1:09:21this up it's sometimes it's just one guy
1:09:23maybe it's one person a man or a woman
1:09:25maybe it's the one person who really has
1:09:27the best answer and and if you feel
1:09:29you've got the best answer you know you
1:09:31know you might be risking a career you
1:09:33might be risking a promotion but
1:09:36what what the guys falco felt they
1:09:38risked was the lives of seven astronauts
1:09:40you know um and and they felt a great
1:09:43responsibility for that so
1:09:45remember our story remember al
1:09:48mcdonald he was a terrific engineer he
1:09:50was an even better human being uh and he
1:09:53had his in his career will always stand
1:09:56as a model of i think heroism and
1:09:59bravery and sticking up for what's right
1:10:01so thank you very much and i hope you
1:10:03have some questions for me
1:10:10this is where you would hear thunderous
1:10:13applause
1:10:17thank you so much for um a really uh
1:10:20inspiring talk
1:10:22um so uh feel free i wanna take this
1:10:26moment to remind attendees that you can
1:10:28post um questions in the q a i know we
1:10:31have a couple um rob would would you
1:10:34like to start and have the honor of the
1:10:36first first question
1:10:38well i would i would be delighted of
1:10:40course uh jim thanks so much for your
1:10:42words you're doing great honor to alan
1:10:45mcdonald the
1:10:46the uh
1:10:47person we're memorializing in this
1:10:49symposium so thank you so much for uh
1:10:52for all of that uh it's really really
1:10:53terrific oh yeah i'm gonna get a picture
1:10:55of al up here again
1:10:57thank you
1:10:58you mentioned roger beaujolais and
1:11:01he actually came and spoke at montana
1:11:03state university back in
1:11:052002 or 2003 i think it was and so that
1:11:09was
1:11:10more than 15 years after the accident
1:11:12and uh during his presentation for the
1:11:15students here he could not get through
1:11:16his presentation without breaking down
1:11:19and and so after all those years it
1:11:22still affected him uh to a great extent
1:11:25now alan mcdonald
1:11:28did not quite have the same
1:11:30effect on on on him
1:11:33and i think one of the explanations
1:11:35might be the fact that he was able to do
1:11:37something afterwards he was involved in
1:11:39the in the
1:11:41redesign and so forth and he was very
1:11:43proud of that
1:11:44is that
1:11:45do you agree with that do you think that
1:11:46the catharsis was part of that
1:11:49i i think it was i mean although um
1:11:52you i i not only spoke with beaujolais
1:11:55uh at some length but he also came to
1:11:57auburn university and gave talk so i saw
1:12:00and i saw similar things to you i have
1:12:03in talking with al
1:12:05i certainly saw i mean al was could be
1:12:07very stoic and and he was very
1:12:10controlled i think in public settings
1:12:12but i saw him with tears in his eyes
1:12:15more than once talking about this too
1:12:17but i do think what he did in terms of
1:12:20keeping
1:12:21his uh the fact that he was able to go
1:12:24back and and help and and be leading the
1:12:26redesign of the srbs and also
1:12:29um again that he was taking i mean when
1:12:32i when he brought me in on the book
1:12:34project
1:12:36he had
1:12:372500 pages of book to deal with
1:12:41i mean he there wasn't anything that
1:12:43escaped his attention and i think that
1:12:45was that was a cathartic outlet for him
1:12:48that he felt he saw this role
1:12:50of telling the story the inside story as
1:12:53he knew it
1:12:54uh and and i think that gave him an
1:12:57outlet for his feelings about it
1:12:59uh i do think that he
1:13:02he was very proud of what he what he did
1:13:05do and i mean and he did you know he did
1:13:09not take that launch recommended he did
1:13:11not sign that launch recommendation you
1:13:12know and then he did step up
1:13:15in front of the rogers commission when
1:13:16he was not being asked to do that that
1:13:18was i mean can you imagine being in that
1:13:20setting we've probably all been in some
1:13:22social settings where you'd like to say
1:13:23something but you think
1:13:24i mean that that was just that was high
1:13:26drama for al mcdonald to do that
1:13:29um and and i think he was
1:13:31he was proud of
1:13:33that bravery and and and but he i don't
1:13:35think he saw it as he didn't see it as
1:13:37brave necessarily he saw it as
1:13:40just what he had to do i mean somebody
1:13:42had to speak up and tell and tell the
1:13:44truth about this i'm not sure
1:13:47it also i think when in comparing
1:13:49beaujolais and al you know i think you'd
1:13:51have to look at each one of them
1:13:52biographically and just i mean people
1:13:54are people's emotional makeup are just
1:13:57different
1:13:58and uh and and so i'm not that's not the
1:14:01comment on on rogers but um
1:14:03you know roger
1:14:05was very bothered that he didn't do more
1:14:08that specific night and he knew what had
1:14:11happened in the conference al didn't
1:14:13know about it until later what had
1:14:15happened you know and so
1:14:17roger
1:14:18told people and told me that he if he in
1:14:21retrospect he wishes that he would have
1:14:23gone way above his bosses in fact he
1:14:25he told me he should have called the
1:14:26white house and told the white house you
1:14:29know which was paying a lot of attention
1:14:31to
1:14:31the launch especially because of the
1:14:33teacher and space program president
1:14:35reagan was going to give a state of the
1:14:36union address the night of february
1:14:38first you know uh and and so beaujolais
1:14:42thought i should have done more you know
1:14:44there's there's something i should have
1:14:46done that i didn't do because i knew
1:14:48what had gone on in that teleconference
1:14:50i mean not that al didn't think there
1:14:51was more that he could do but he knew
1:14:53that he did what he could you know given
1:14:55the circumstances that he was in which
1:14:56was not knowing what had gone on in that
1:14:58darn teleconference
1:15:01so i have a another question um this one
1:15:04is from sarah shannon
1:15:06um
1:15:07and she notes that you know courage is a
1:15:09is a virtue
1:15:11um
1:15:12you know would
1:15:13and as we've seen uh i continue to see
1:15:16and even recent whistleblower sort of
1:15:18cases uh you know people are often do
1:15:20face
1:15:21negative consequences sometimes for
1:15:23their actions
1:15:24so sarah's question is would the ideal
1:15:27organization be one where speaking up
1:15:30wouldn't require moral courage
1:15:35the culture of institutions yeah i think
1:15:38that's i think that would be an
1:15:40organization that would be very ideal um
1:15:43i mean as an academic who spent 30 years
1:15:46you know or more in a university history
1:15:49department
1:15:50you know where you think freedom of
1:15:52expression is you know if you can't have
1:15:54freedom of expression in the university
1:15:56among the university faculty that are
1:15:58all in the same field
1:15:59but even in those i mean i was
1:16:01department chair you know
1:16:04so i've experienced about everything you
1:16:06can do in a department and but it
1:16:08sometimes takes courage to speak out
1:16:10there too because you know you're it's
1:16:11another if it's an unpopular thought if
1:16:13it's something you know that you have
1:16:15colleagues that are not going to like
1:16:18but i think academics are more willing
1:16:20maybe they don't have as much to risk
1:16:22i don't know i mean if
1:16:25but um
1:16:27philosophy
1:16:29yeah you're a philosophy department dude
1:16:30i suppose you could comment on on
1:16:32whether philosophers feel like they
1:16:33could freely always freely talk uh yeah
1:16:36i think that would be ideal and i
1:16:38certainly think would be good when an
1:16:39organization
1:16:40has even met some mechanisms in place to
1:16:44protect their whistleblowers i mean we
1:16:45have some whistleblower protections in
1:16:48our country now
1:16:49uh but do they protect you well enough i
1:16:53mean and al's case i didn't mention this
1:16:54but
1:16:56congress in fact stepped in
1:16:59when
1:17:00was learned mostly through general
1:17:02katina that al was being
1:17:04you know sort of put on the put on ice
1:17:07by morton thought call in the immediate
1:17:08aftermath of his role in in the
1:17:11challenger investigation
1:17:13congress actually passed a
1:17:16a resolution
1:17:18that
1:17:19if anything
1:17:20nothing more should be done to album he
1:17:22needs to be put back in his job and you
1:17:24need to leave him alone i i think the
1:17:26actual text of the resolution is in our
1:17:28book but that's basically what happened
1:17:31and it was that's a highly unusual thing
1:17:33to happen to have someone specifically
1:17:35an individual
1:17:36as part of a a congressional resolution
1:17:39to make sure that their company didn't
1:17:42you know didn't penalize them in any way
1:17:43but that happened without
1:17:46and i'm going to try to squeeze in at
1:17:47least two more questions um sure this
1:17:49one is from catherine bunn um
1:17:52and i think this is a a good qu
1:17:54something lurking in my own mind as well
1:17:56so
1:17:57you know do you think it makes sense to
1:18:00you know who is ultimately responsible
1:18:02for the challenger disaster you know
1:18:05should we think that larry malone is
1:18:07responsible william lucas joe clymenster
1:18:10or someone else or no one
1:18:13oh i truly welcome that question and
1:18:15i'll lay it on the line for you this is
1:18:17something it's in our book but it's
1:18:19funny al never really emphasized it too
1:18:22much and i don't i'm not sure why
1:18:23because he was certainly aware of it and
1:18:26the writer's commission didn't emphasize
1:18:27it either but here's here it is
1:18:32morton that call had a sole source
1:18:34contract with the government for the for
1:18:36the manufacture and delivery of solid
1:18:38rocket boosters no other company was
1:18:40deleted so they had the monopoly on on
1:18:43all these srbs and this again was a time
1:18:45when
1:18:46you know the shuttles were supposed to
1:18:48do everything in terms of getting up
1:18:49getting american goods up into space so
1:18:53they had control of that market well in
1:18:55the months before challenger
1:18:58word was coming out
1:19:00that cycle management was hearing
1:19:03i might and i don't know i have never
1:19:04traced the actual
1:19:06where the rumor real was or what they
1:19:08were hearing but nasa was interested in
1:19:10getting
1:19:11other ano at least one more builder of
1:19:14srbs so they could have competitive
1:19:17bidding
1:19:18with morton thigh call so far called
1:19:20wasn't the only supplier would not so it
1:19:22wouldn't be a sole source contract
1:19:24anymore it would be a competitive
1:19:26bidding thing
1:19:27well
1:19:29if you're not if you're thought call
1:19:30management and you're in a an
1:19:32environment where well we might lose
1:19:34some business to a competitor nasa might
1:19:36be looking and it seems to be looking
1:19:38for another manufacturer of srbs
1:19:41you're going to do everything you can to
1:19:43make nasa happy with your operation
1:19:46so i think
1:19:48if i had to say it was one thing
1:19:50i would say it was corporate greed
1:19:53i would say it was the greed of thy call
1:19:56to try to control the market on the srbs
1:19:59and and that if if if they had still had
1:20:02us if they were not worried about losing
1:20:04a sole source contract if they were
1:20:06still confident that they were the only
1:20:08ones that are going to do the srbs
1:20:10in a sense nasa was over a barrel i mean
1:20:12they had to do what they thought call
1:20:13would say so if i call says we can't
1:20:15recommend the
1:20:17i kind of think black hole management
1:20:19wouldn't have overruled its own
1:20:21engineers if it hadn't had the profit
1:20:23motive and the fear that they were going
1:20:24to lose business
1:20:26so
1:20:28that's al talks about that some but he
1:20:30doesn't
1:20:31he doesn't underline it as much as i
1:20:33would you know and and it's not that i'm
1:20:36against core profit motives or
1:20:38capitalism but it's the way that you
1:20:41know you do have to
1:20:42be worried about these sorts of sorts of
1:20:44things and i'll say one other thing that
1:20:47sort of connects with this
1:20:49we got to think about technology in 1980
1:20:5286 87
1:20:54that we didn't that we have now that we
1:20:56didn't have then
1:20:57what if
1:20:59we had cell phones
1:21:01uh zoom
1:21:02um
1:21:03you know um
1:21:05all the other things we have that we
1:21:07have today you know
1:21:09if we had that stuff back in
1:21:12in the 80s if al mcdonald if that
1:21:14teleconference had broken for a caucus
1:21:17al could have gotten on his cell phone
1:21:18called roger beaujolais and say what the
1:21:21heck is happening there oh you're
1:21:22supposed to be gone for five minutes and
1:21:24it's been 30. and now i could say well
1:21:26they're the sons of
1:21:28the sobs are telling us to take off our
1:21:30engineering hats and put on our
1:21:32management hats what do you think of
1:21:33that and all i said i would say well
1:21:35don't do that that would you don't do
1:21:37that you put put me on the speaker you
1:21:40know one thing we have now with
1:21:41teleconferences with everybody would be
1:21:43seen right i mean pretty much everybody
1:21:45would be seen
1:21:46and i can just imagine what what what
1:21:49kind of body language roger beaujolais
1:21:51had when kilminster and other and other
1:21:53top dogs came in and tried to tell them
1:21:55that you know think like a manager not
1:21:57like an engineer
1:21:58they were probably
1:22:00close to bouncing off the walls in there
1:22:02you know so if we had had that
1:22:04technology you know and social media and
1:22:07everything else that we've got now back
1:22:09in the mid 80s
1:22:10maybe the outcome would have been
1:22:11different i don't know
1:22:14maybe not if the corporate greed was so
1:22:15strong maybe they could have they would
1:22:17have still done it but i think those are
1:22:19two factors but certainly the corporate
1:22:21agreed aspects of it and the sole source
1:22:23contract
1:22:24to me is absolutely essential and i
1:22:27think you know i don't know how many
1:22:28sold source contracts nasa has had
1:22:31since then hopefully none hopefully it's
1:22:34always been competitive bidding
1:22:35but when you got one company that excels
1:22:38at doing one thing and convince the
1:22:39government that they're the best ones to
1:22:41do it and can and you know there's
1:22:43nobody else
1:22:44saying they think they can compete
1:22:47um so to me that's that's the that's the
1:22:50smoking that's the biggest smoking gun
1:22:52in my opinion
1:22:54so we have a couple more questions um
1:22:57i'm going to try to squeeze in a little
1:22:59bit more um
1:23:00this question is actually from tim
1:23:04mccain
1:23:05um so he writes uh broadly what do you
1:23:09think has changed from the amazing
1:23:11record of the earlier successes of nasa
1:23:15apollo in the 1980s
1:23:17um what was the key to earlier the
1:23:20earlier environment that produced
1:23:22excellence because you know of course
1:23:23even then there were there were private
1:23:25contractors that possibly had a profit
1:23:28margin yeah yeah sure
1:23:30yeah yeah they did in fact um i think
1:23:33when al talked to me about the change
1:23:35from a can-do attitude to can't-do
1:23:39attitude uh and the one example i gave
1:23:42him
1:23:43especially when i learned more about
1:23:45the decision within nasa's mission
1:23:47management team for the shuttle not to
1:23:50approach the dod to get this spy
1:23:52satellite turned around so we could get
1:23:54a good look at what actually damage was
1:23:56done on the columbia
1:23:58i mean basically you know there were
1:23:59things they could have done they could
1:24:01have if they had really known the extent
1:24:03of the damage and how and that this
1:24:04could cost the
1:24:06the shuttle and the crew on the way back
1:24:07down they could have tried to do a fix
1:24:10they could have somehow had done evas
1:24:12and tried to fix it or they could have
1:24:13shut and sent maybe another orbiter up i
1:24:16don't know if that how hard that would
1:24:17have been or the timing of it they could
1:24:18have sent another rescue orbiter up
1:24:22to me it's the difference between and
1:24:24i'm fix i'm seeing this cinematically
1:24:28apollo 13 if you've even just seen the
1:24:31movie and not read about it what happens
1:24:33there you've got this very
1:24:35intense
1:24:36uh
1:24:37exploration by the people at in houston
1:24:40at mission control that are trying to
1:24:41figure out what i mean there's all kinds
1:24:43of
1:24:44jimmy rig things that they have to do
1:24:46to get those astronauts back so there's
1:24:48a constant communication back and forth
1:24:50you know a long list of things you know
1:24:53you gotta do this now you do that it was
1:24:54all figured out there was this great
1:24:56team play because they weren't they were
1:24:58going to do everything they could to not
1:24:59lose that group that that mission and
1:25:02those three guys in that spacecraft
1:25:04that you know you juxtaposed that with
1:25:07the decision by nasa mission management
1:25:09that not even to ask dod for a picture
1:25:11of the damage
1:25:12i mean to me that represents the the
1:25:15extremes of the can do to the can't we
1:25:18can't do why can't you do it you don't
1:25:20want to ask you don't want to upset
1:25:22bullying because they have such faith in
1:25:24their super computer i mean why why
1:25:26couldn't you do that
1:25:27uh to me you should have done everything
1:25:29and i think to al you do everything you
1:25:31can to save that crew you know and not
1:25:33even to tell them not even to find out
1:25:35what damage there is and confront them
1:25:36with and ask what would you guys like to
1:25:38like to do would you like to try to fix
1:25:40it i would come how could we do that
1:25:42so
1:25:44that to me and maybe that is just an
1:25:47uh
1:25:48a sort of a stultification of the
1:25:50bureaucracy that in federal agency
1:25:52becomes and maybe there are some
1:25:54insights from the diane von book the
1:25:56sociologist that you know that can come
1:25:58into play here um
1:26:00but hopefully i mean one thing that the
1:26:02privatization of space is doing with um
1:26:05with uh you know elon musk and and uh
1:26:08and all the others that are
1:26:10moving to private space enterprises
1:26:13maybe that maybe that's invigorating
1:26:15this the can do and
1:26:17i mean risk-taking has got is there i
1:26:19mean you've got to take some risks and
1:26:21i'm not suggesting for a moment and now
1:26:23certainly would not have
1:26:25that there's any way to figure something
1:26:27out so well that you're never going to
1:26:28have accidents and you're never going to
1:26:29have tragedies you're never going to
1:26:31have catastrophes they're going to come
1:26:33in
1:26:34you know risky enterprise and the public
1:26:36needs to be you know ready to adjust to
1:26:38that but
1:26:39let's have it done in a truthful honest
1:26:42way where we really can learn from it in
1:26:44in in the long run
1:26:46so i think that's actually why we have
1:26:48enough time for one more quick question
1:26:51um and i uh i i think um the question by
1:26:55our dean uh is is a really nice one to
1:26:58end on ives did you want to unmute
1:27:00yourself perhaps and ask your question
1:27:05certainly so my question
1:27:07branson is what do you think would
1:27:09happen to the space program had alan
1:27:12mcdonald signed the launch
1:27:18that's a that's a really tough question
1:27:20i i consider it really counterfactual
1:27:23because al was never was not going to do
1:27:25it
1:27:26you know how what al knew and what he
1:27:28did not know
1:27:30you know he
1:27:31i just can't imagine al
1:27:33signing the recommendation
1:27:35uh ever um he wasn't going to do it um
1:27:40been there
1:27:42and
1:27:43the launch order had been signed and he
1:27:46all he had to do all he did do was
1:27:47deliver the facts to the nasa guys and
1:27:51if he hadn't done it it would have
1:27:52gotten to them one way or another you
1:27:54know anyway
1:27:55um
1:27:56so
1:27:58that that's a great way to end this
1:28:00because this is all about alan mcdonald
1:28:03and focusing on alan mcdonald is what's
1:28:05important here today not on what ifs so
1:28:08thank you very good thank you very much
1:28:11and i hope i hope to actually visit your
1:28:13campus and meet all of you at some point
1:28:16in the future
1:28:17i'd love to see montana again and i'd
1:28:21love to have some chance to contribute
1:28:24to your studies in science engineering
1:28:26and ethics
1:28:28so thank you again to our speaker
1:28:31and i just want to make two quick
1:28:33announcements um one is that if you uh
1:28:37know others that weren't able to
1:28:40attend live tonight or um if you have
1:28:42students that you think would benefit
1:28:44from this talk uh it is being recorded
1:28:47and it will be posted tomorrow on the um
1:28:49c steps website um the same page where
1:28:53you entered from if you entered into
1:28:54webex it'll be posted there tomorrow
1:28:57um and also i just want to invite uh
1:29:00people we have another virtual event
1:29:02tomorrow at 2pm where we'll be having a
1:29:06a panel again with dr hansen and also
1:29:09with um several msu faculty who uh in
1:29:13one way or another uh are experts and or
1:29:16teaching uh engineering ethics in in
1:29:18some way shape or form so
1:29:20um thank you again and
1:29:23thanks for everyone for attending and a
1:29:26good night

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