TIL that an engineer named Roger Boisjoly raised serious concerns about the ... — Transcript

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1. 0:00till that an engineer named roger
2. 0:01bwajoli raised serious concerns about
3. 0:04the space shuttle challenger launch
4. 0:06citing previous data that showed issues
5. 0:08with the o-rings on the rocket boosters
6. 0:11despite this the ill-fated launch went
7. 0:13ahead as planned
8. 0:15buajoli became a speaker on workplace
9. 0:17ethics
10. 0:19we all knew if the seals failed the
11. 0:20shuttle would blow up armed with the
12. 0:22data that described that possibility
13. 0:25bwajoli and his colleagues argued
14. 0:26persistently and vigorously for hours
15. 0:30at first diacol managers agreed with
16. 0:32them and formally recommended a launch
17. 0:34delay
18. 0:36but nasa officials on a conference call
19. 0:38challenged that recommendation
20. 0:40i am appalled said nasa's george hardy
21. 0:43according to bwajoli and our other
22. 0:45source in the room
23. 0:47i am appalled by your recommendation
24. 0:50another shuttle program manager lawrence
25. 0:53mulloy
26. 0:53didn't hide his disdain my god thyacol
27. 0:57he said when do you want me to launch
28. 1:00next april
29. 1:01when nasa overruled the thiacol
30. 1:03engineers it was with a quote that no
31. 1:05one who works with data
32. 1:07on the front lines of a project should
33. 1:09ever forget
34. 1:10take off your engineer hat they told
35. 1:13bwajoli and the others
36. 1:15and put your management hat on well
37. 1:18the people behind that recommendation
38. 1:20managed their way to seven deaths and a
39. 1:22spectacular setback for the u.s space
40. 1:24program
41. 1:25just imagine all the times people fixed
42. 1:28a problem that stopped a major disaster
43. 1:30but went unrecognized because there
44. 1:31wasn't a disaster
45. 1:33the most tragic thing is that even after
46. 1:35the no-go recommendation was made
47. 1:38an engineer bob ebeling told someone
48. 1:41his wife i believe that the challenger
49. 1:44is going to explode the night before it
50. 1:46did
51. 1:47it's very galling to think that a group
52. 1:49of capable people were ignored for no
53. 1:51good reason and that the crew could have
54. 1:53been saved
55. 1:54it wasn't just roger but alan mcdonald
56. 1:57as well
57. 1:57up until the last seconds before launch
58. 2:00allen pled with nasa to stop it
59. 2:03https colon slash www
60. 2:08nasa gov center langley
61. 2:11news researcher news rn underscore
62. 2:14colloquium 1012
63. 2:16html allen wrote a book
64. 2:19truth lies and o-rings a little while
65. 2:22back that is really really good
66. 2:24he used all of his documentation and
67. 2:26notes for nasa and morton thiakol
68. 2:29it really sucks that the astronauts
69. 2:31survived the initial explosion
70. 2:33surviving that only to realize that an
71. 2:35impact with the ground is going to kill
72. 2:37you must have sucked
73. 2:39i remember watching challenger when i
74. 2:41was in kindergarten
75. 2:43we all watched the explosion but i don't
76. 2:46think anyone realized what was happening
77. 2:48until the teacher said oh my god
78. 2:50and started crying reminds me of the
79. 2:52concerns people had for the foam that
80. 2:54flies off during shuttle launch and was
81. 2:56ultimately the cause of the destruction
82. 2:58of colombia and the death of her crew
83. 3:00there is a documentary narrated by neil
84. 3:02degrasse tyson
85. 3:04nova maybe detailing how it happened and
86. 3:06people finally listening to an engineer
87. 3:08who kept saying the foam did it after
88. 3:10the tragedy
89. 3:11there's a thought problem called carter
90. 3:13racing where the high points of the
91. 3:15challenger disaster are used in a
92. 3:16decision whether or not to participate
93. 3:18in a car race
94. 3:20i found it interesting http colon
95. 3:25cba faculty org critical percent 20
96. 3:28thinking
97. 3:29one backslash underscore problem solving
98. 3:31gone decision making a s
99. 3:33and pre-reads pdf http colon
100. 3:38cba faculty org critical percent 20
101. 3:42thinking slash one underscore problem
102. 3:44solving gun decision
103. 3:45a s and pre-reads pdf
104. 3:49roger was chief engineer in regards to
105. 3:51sealing modalities on the srbs
106. 3:54he'd been raising concerns for months
107. 3:56about gas blow beyond recovered boosters
108. 3:58from previous missions
109. 4:00they'd had an emergency conference call
110. 4:02with nasa the night before and the
111. 4:03thiacol
112. 4:04engineers advised a no-launch status
113. 4:06because of temperature concerns
114. 4:09nasa management basically threatened
115. 4:11thiacol with losing future contracts and
116. 4:13an hour later all the engineers had been
117. 4:15bullied into giving an ok to launch
118. 4:17status
119. 4:19when roger went home his wife asked him
120. 4:21what was the matter
121. 4:23he replied oh not much apart from
122. 4:25they're gonna kill the astronauts
123. 4:26tomorrow
124. 4:28many believe roger died prematurely due
125. 4:30to the loss of the crew of the shuttle
126. 4:32challenger
127. 4:33i remember my father a civil engineer
128. 4:36nodding and saying well yeah when he
129. 4:38learned that the o-rings failed due to
130. 4:40the low temperatures on launch day
131. 4:42the properties of o-rings weren't
132. 4:44exactly a secret in the general
133. 4:45engineering community
134. 4:47buajoli shouldn't have had to fight
135. 4:49alone
136. 4:50the hubble faulty telescopic mirrors
137. 4:52have a similar story
138. 4:54a testing engineer was brought out of
139. 4:56retirement to ensure that the mirrors
140. 4:58were properly ground
141. 5:00http colon slash people
142. 5:04tamu edu slash v bunger 658
143. 5:08hubble pdf however
144. 5:11the manufacturing company despite other
145. 5:13signs that the mirrors were flawed
146. 5:15turned down the engineer's request for
147. 5:17some pretty simplistic tests that would
148. 5:19have revealed the flaws
149. 5:21in fact when the engineer rod smith
150. 5:24would knock on the door to the grinding
151. 5:26room the techs would turn up the radio
152. 5:28to pretend that they did not hear the
153. 5:30knocking
154. 5:31there is a great chapter on this
155. 5:32incident in edward r
156. 5:35tufts book visual explanations
157. 5:38images and quantities evidence and
158. 5:41narrative
159. 5:42this and its companion books by tuft
160. 5:44should be must read for anyone who
161. 5:46presents information
162. 5:48basically tuft shows a better way to
163. 5:50present data the might have convinced
164. 5:52the powers that be to postpone that
165. 5:54launch till warmer weather
166. 5:55the cause of the failure of the booster
167. 5:57o-ring
168. 5:58his presentation in my mind makes the
169. 6:01decision to launch totally indefensible
170. 6:04great terrible example of poor
171. 6:07understanding of data by the levels of
172. 6:09management making the go flight call
173. 6:11the data suggested no correlation
174. 6:13between temperature and performance
175. 6:15how well they sealed but that was
176. 6:18because they only looked at data for a
177. 6:19range of about 60 to 90 degrees
178. 6:22fahrenheit
179. 6:23iirc the day of the launch was so much
180. 6:26colder that they completely missed the
181. 6:28correlation that could have saved lives
182. 6:30why pay the guy if you are not gonna
183. 6:32listen it's like they say
184. 6:35every disaster movie starts off by
185. 6:37managers
186. 6:38leaders ignoring the advice of the
187. 6:40experts yeah the o-ring seals couldn't
188. 6:42perform as well
189. 6:43expected below certain temps and
190. 6:45basically it was a flying molotov
191. 6:48my local elementary school was named the
192. 6:50christa mcauliffe school that year nyc
193. 6:521986 i was 9 the normalization of
194. 6:56deviance
195. 6:57here is a short clip of one of roger
196. 6:59boyce jolie's speeches on ethics in
197. 7:01business and his own personal experience
198. 7:03here
199. 7:04https colon slash you do
200. 7:07be slash on 9 p0 q9 ekr4
201. 7:11there is also a very interesting case
202. 7:13study video on ethics in civil
203. 7:14engineering in the context of the
204. 7:16challenger disaster here
205. 7:18https colon slash you do
206. 7:22be slash qbty underscore wlhy
207. 7:26but it wasn't just him there were
208. 7:28several people on the
209. 7:30engineering team that expressed concern
210. 7:32and it was widely discussed whether the
211. 7:34launch should go off or not
212. 7:36here is a link about another engineer
213. 7:38from morton thiakol
214. 7:40the manufacturer of the solid boosters
215. 7:42he had refused to sign off on the launch
216. 7:44the night before
217. 7:46https colon slash www
218. 7:51nasa gov slash center langley
219. 7:55news researcher news rn backslash
220. 7:57underscore colloquium 1012
221. 8:00html https colon slash slash www
222. 8:07nasa gov slash center langley
223. 8:10news slash researcher news rn underscore
224. 8:13colloquium 1012
225. 8:15html and more good stuff here
226. 8:19https colon slash en
227. 8:22wikipedia org wiki space backslash
228. 8:25underscore shuttle backslash underscore
229. 8:27challenger backslash underscore disaster
230. 8:29hashtag thia call percent e2
231. 8:3280 93 nasa backslash underscore
232. 8:35conference backslash underscore call
233. 8:39colon http en wikipedia
234. 8:42org wiki space underscore shuttle
235. 8:44underscore challenger underscore
236. 8:46disaster hashtag thia call percent e2
237. 8:4980 93 nasa underscore conference
238. 8:52underscore call
239. 8:54i took an engineering class my freshman
240. 8:56year about how it is our duty and right
241. 8:58to whistleblow when we do not feel
242. 9:00comfortable with how someone is
243. 9:01executing any designs signed off by us
244. 9:04or something we worked on
245. 9:06the kc hyatt regency collapse and this
246. 9:08were both used as examples
247. 9:11management will not listen i was a
248. 9:14production analyst and i spotted some
249. 9:16fire-related safety hazards
250. 9:18boss told me that was not my job the
251. 9:20resulting fire destroyed over 100
252. 9:23000 inventory my boss told me to lie
253. 9:27about what i had reported to him
254. 9:29i said np and if i found more to report
255. 9:33them
256. 9:33the hazards were in a supply shed that
257. 9:35was not occupied
258. 9:37i found more but said heck it the shed
259. 9:40burned down and over 2 million
260. 9:42was destroyed he was an and
261. 9:45still runs the business
262. 9:47who cares i did
263. 9:50but this was known at the time
264. 9:53i remember news reports about him
265. 9:55wanting to delay the launch but it had
266. 9:56become a media event
267. 9:58my great-grandfather used to do shuttle
268. 10:00inspections for nasa
269. 10:02he quit when his bosses expected him to
270. 10:04greenlight them regardless of any issues
271. 10:06and he did not want to be held
272. 10:08responsible for anything that might
273. 10:10happen