Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
of 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The engineers knew that frigid temperatures greatly increased
the probability that an O-ring would fail, allowing hot gases to escape from a booster
rocket. They prepared a set of 14 slides that documented their concern about a low-
temperature launch.
The evening of January 27, Morton Thiokol had a teleconference with the Mar-
shall Space Flight Center and the Kennedy Space Center. Morton Thiokol's presenta-
tion ended with the engineers' recommendation that NASA not launch the
Challenger
if the temperature was below 53 degrees. NASA asked Morton Thiokol vice president
Joe Kilminster for a go/no-go decision. Kilminster said his recommendation was not to
launch.
NASA officials were displeased to get this recommendation from Morton Thiokol.
The launch had already been delayed several times. They were eager to launch the space
shuttle before the president's State of the Union address the following evening, so that
the president could include the mission in his speech. After NASA officials expressed
their dismay with the recommendation, Kilminster asked for a five-minute break in the
proceedings.
During the recess, Morton Thiokol's four top managers huddled away from the
engineers. Senior Vice President Jerald Mason and Vice President Calvin Wiggins sup-
ported the launch, while Vice Presidents Joseph Kilminster and Robert Lund were op-
posed. However, Lund changed his mind after Mason “told him to take off his engineer-
ing hat and put on his management hat” [8]. (More than half of Morton Thiokol's profits
came from its work for NASA.)
When Morton Thiokol rejoined the teleconference, Kilminster told NASA officials
that Morton Thiokol recommended the launch go ahead. NASA officials at the Mar-
shall Space Flight Center prevented the engineers' negative recommendation from being
communicated to the NASA officials with final authority to approve or delay the launch.
A month after the loss of the
Challenger
, Boisjoly testified before a presidential
commission appointed to investigate the disaster. Morton Thiokol lawyers had advised
Boisjoly to reply to every question with a simple yes or no. Instead, Boisjoly shared
with the commission his hypothesis about how the cold temperature had caused the
failure of an O-ring. In later meetings with commission members, he presented doc-
uments that supported his hypothesis, including his 1985 memo. Boisjoly's testimony
and documents contradicted the testimony of Morton Thiokol management. The com-
pany responded by isolating Boisjoly from NASA personnel and the O-ring redesign
effort [8, 9].
Distressed by the hostile environment, Boisjoly stopped working for Morton Thio-
kol in July 1986. Two years later, he found work as a forensic engineer.
In the 1980s, Hughes Aircraft manufactured military-grade hybrid computer chips at
its Microelectronic Circuit Division in Newport Beach, California. (A hybrid computer
chip contains both digital and analog circuits.) The division produced about 100,000
hybrid chips per year. The military put these chips in a variety of sophisticated weapons
