Roger Boisjoly, Scientists Who Fought to Prevent Challenger Launch, Dies at 73

Perhaps one of the more defining and upsetting moments of the decade for 80’s kids was when we all basically saw a whole bunch of astronauts die in real-time on television during the ill-fated launch of the Challenger, but if Roger Boisjoly had his way, that tragedy could have been avoided.

Back then, there was no 24-hour news cycle, and the event left many Americans very upset- aside from the incident itself, my clearest recollection was a very special episode of Punky Brewster to help kids process lingering grief from witnessing the tragedy on so many wheeled in VCRs in school auditoriums. But as out of touch with the culture of today it may seem- exposing snowflakes to something as unpredictable and now, as we know, dangerous as a shuttle launch- it came as an utter shock to many that the incident played out as it did- but not Roger Boisjoly.

Boisjoly was a rocket booster engineer at a NASA subcontractor, and he passed away in Utah last month at the age of 73. 25 years ago, he tried to warn colleagues and higher ups about impending disaster if the Challenger launched on a cold day- NPR spoke to Boisjoly after the disaster but before he became known as a whistleblower- and paid dearly for that- during the investigation into the tragedy. The site explains:

Six months before the Challenger explosion, he predicted “a catastrophe of the highest order” involving “loss of human life” in a memo to managers at [contractor Morton] Thiokol… The problem, Boisjoly wrote, was the elastic seals at the joints of the multi-stage booster rockets. They tended to stiffen and unseal in cold weather and NASA’s ambitious shuttle launch schedule included winter lift-offs with risky temperatures, even in Florida.

The New York Times ran a profile of the engineer after his death, saying that few commended Boisjoly for his role in trying to prevent the tragic shuttle explosion:

He had headaches, double-vision and depression, he said. He yelled at his dog and his daughters and skipped church to avoid people. He filed two suits against Thiokol; both were dismissed…He later said he was sustained by a single gesture of support. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, hugged him after his appearance before the commission.

“She was the only one,” he said in a whisper to a Newsday reporter in 1988. “The only one.”

According to the Times, Boisjoly was eventually awarded the Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and did hundreds of events speaking about corporate ethics and responsibility.