SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
Boisjoly Saw Danger in Space Shuttle
from the (Raleigh, N.C.) News and Observer
Six months before the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded over Florida on Jan. 28, 1986, Roger Boisjoly wrote a portentous memo. He warned that if the
weather was too cold, seals connecting sections of the shuttle's huge rocket boosters could fail.
"The result could be a catastrophe of the highest order, loss of human life," he wrote.
The memo was meant to jolt Morton Thiokol, the company that made the boosters and which employed Boisjoly. About six months earlier a task force had been
formed, partly on Boisjoly's recommendation, to examine the effect of cold on the boosters.
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