In Memoriam: Bob Ebeling

[GoSlash27]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/21/470870426/challenger-engineer-who-warned-of-shuttle-disaster-dies

Bob Ebeling was a personal hero of mine; A man who saw a potentially fatal flaw and did everything in his power to try to avert disaster. He gave up everything in his attempt to bring safety and transparency to NASA, and was guilt ridden for the rest of his days. Not because he didn't give his all, but because he didn't succeed.

 I have always tried to follow his example in my career in the aerospace industry.

-Slashy

[Starhawk]

Thank you for posting this.

I remember listening to an in-depth story on the situation years later including an interview with Mr. Ebeling.  Definitely worthy of deep respect.

 

[Motokid600]

There wasn't a person on this Earth that could've convinced them to scrub that day. The man never should've blamed himself so much. Still... someone in his position would've been devastated regardless. I know I would've. Good to hear he found peace in the end. And for what it counts space is a safer place then it ever was.

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

Bob Ebeling was a personal hero of mine; A man who saw a potentially fatal flaw and did everything in his power to try to avert disaster.

No he didn't.   The SRB joints were failing during ground testing in the 1970's - and Boisjoly and Ebeling and the others stood silent.   The SRB joints were failing were failing when the Shuttle started flying - and Boisjoly and Ebeling and the others stood silent.

Seriously, Challenger wasn't lost because the cold made the o-rings leak, Challenger was lost because the cold made an existing (and dangerous) leak in a design known to be flawed worse.  (In fact the worst damage pre-Challenger, near complete failure of the primary ring and damage to the secondary, was with launch temperatures in the eighties.)  The joint rotation problem first appeared during ground testing in the 1970's, and the fix was to use a second o-ring as a backup (and in a way o-rings aren't meant to be used in the first place).   When they started flying, and blow-by and o-ring damage was much worse than it had been in ground testing...  they continued to fly because the joint never actually failed completely.  At no point during these years where this flawed design was known to be failing and should have been known to be a risk to the vehicle and crew did Boisjoly and Ebeling stand up and try to stop the flights.

It was only when the cold made complete failure of the joint a near certainty that they finally decided, much too late, to make a stand.

The worse part is that the leakage was so dangerous (and NASA and Morton Thiokol knew it) that they were in the process of designing a new joint, but continued to fly anyhow.

[GoSlash27]

21 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

No he didn't.   The SRB joints were failing during ground testing in the 1970's - and Boisjoly and Ebeling and the others stood silent.   The SRB joints were failing were failing when the Shuttle started flying - and Boisjoly and Ebeling and the others stood silent.

This is a highly inflammatory accusation, given the title of the thread. It troubled me enough to review the Challenger Report, and I was unable to find anything to substantiate this claim. In fact, everything points to them raising red flags all over NASA and Thiokol about the SRB field joints from the moment they joined the program.

Do you have anything to back this up?

Thanks,
-Slashy

Edited March 23, 2016 by GoSlash27

[DerekL1963]

2 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

This is a highly inflammatory accusation, given the title of the thread. It troubled me enough to review the Challenger Report, and I was unable to find anything to substantiate this claim. In fact, everything points to them raising red flags all over NASA and Thiokol about the SRB field joints from the moment they joined the program.

Do you have anything to back this up?

o.0  It honestly never occurred to you that there's more to the story than a report that's over thirty years old?

Find a copy of Dennis Jenkin's history of the Shuttle and the story of the seals is there.  Google up Tufte's criticism of the the presentations of the ongoing damage to the seals.   And then look for even one piece of documentary evidence (not flags, not points to, actual documentary evidence) that anyone took any action over the seals to stop the flights prior to the eve of the accident.  The more you dig into the documented history of the seals...  it becomes abundantly clear that everyone thought blow by was a problem, bad enough that a redesign of the joint was in progress at the time of the accident, but nobody said they should stop flying until the Morton Thiokol engineers piped up out of the blue on the evening of the launch.  (Heck, even in testimony before the Commission (as shown in the Rogers Commission Report), on the eve of the accident the Morton Thiokol engineers recommended not that they stop flying but that they wait until it was warmer.)

Boisjoly and Ebeling and others have done a very good job of leaving an impression that they fought NASA tooth and nail prior to the accident - but there's not one shred of evidence that they actually did so.  And they stop very carefully short in their public utterances of actually claiming to have done so.

[softweir]

How about linking to those articles you mention?

[GoSlash27]

There are countless citations of these gentlemen doing precisely what you claim they never did from page 124 through 149 of the Rogers Commission report dating all the way back to '79. Management ignored and overrode them, just as they did on the morning of the launch.

I'm all done discussing this with you. I frankly find your argument offensive; doubly so in this thread. But anyone else who's interested in learning what went down... I encourage them to start here:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=8535.0;attach=25186

 

 

 

 

 

[YNM]

Going to agree with DerekL here, only regarding the blow-by. You're not supposed to have an extra opening to the side of your rocket combustion chamber - but hey, that happens every other time, and it goes fine... so they considered it nominal. They considered it normal so the only thing that ensures they're "working" is the condition of the O-rings, and temperature plays a role in it. In any way, it's not normal, but at the time, they though it's not catastrophic. So there goes the story of too low temperature - they (the engineers) are concerned that the abnormality won't work the same way. NASA takes "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" too literally, and there goes a shuttle. And long time after, just another one (although that other one is catastrophic in any other way).

It's wrong to take them (Ebeling) to be the one mistaken, though - after all, they're just employees. Manager takes it (decisions) all.

I couldn't tell whether a fix was underway before Challenger lifts off to it's destruction. Nor do I know any static firing tests of the SRBs and any data taken about O-ring wear. If @DerekL1963 can provide any links that would be helpful.

[GoSlash27]

14 minutes ago, YNM said:

It's wrong to take them (Ebeling) to be the one mistaken, though - after all, they're just employees. Manager takes it (decisions) all.

 It is, but that's not the charge. The charge is that this group of engineers "stood by silently", and they clearly did not. There's a whole pile of memos of them yelling about this for *years* with nobody listening.

Best,
-Slashy

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

There are countless citations of these gentlemen doing precisely what you claim they never did from page 124 through 149 of the Rogers Commission report dating all the way back to '79. Management ignored and overrode them, just as they did on the morning of the launch.

And I quote Mr Boisjoly from Chapter V of the Rogers Comission Report (I only have the webbed edition available):  "The conclusion was we should not fly outside of our data base, which was 53 degrees. Those were the conclusions. And we were quite pleased because we knew in advance, having participated in the preparation, what the conclusions were, and we felt very comfortable with that."  Where in giving the OK to launch if the temperature is "within the database" is he taking a stand?

And the only dated remarks in chapter VI are from 1985 and all Boisjoly does is "express concern" and recommends setting up a team to study the problem.

From volume IV of the report (testimony before the Commission on February 14,1986: "I guess, in all honesty, the data that we ran in resiliency showed on that chart at room temperature showed that in a normal ambient environment, that we did not have a problem, and we had a very sufficient erosion margin."  And again, the dated notes are from 1985.  And the same pattern continues in volume V - "concerns" and the dated material comes from 1985.

So no, there's no evidence that I can find that they took any significant action at any time, let alone 'as far back as 79'.   (Which would be difficult since Boisjoly didn't come to work until 1980.)  For all intents and purposes they stood silent and hid behind a web of bureaucratese.  If, as they claimed afterwards, they knew the joint was dangerous, there is no evidence that they took any significant action to inform anyone of these dangers.  In fact, as quoted above, the flat out stated that it was safe to launch if the temperature conditions were met.
.

1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

I'm all done discussing this with you.

Give me actual cites proving I'm wrong, and read the material I mentioned in my previous reply, otherwise all you're doing is waving a white flag and declaring victory.  If you're offended by the truth and wish to continue believing the illusions rather than doing the research in the sources I provided - that's on you, not me.
 

1 hour ago, YNM said:

It's wrong to take them (Ebeling) to be the one mistaken, though - after all, they're just employees. Manager takes it (decisions) all.

When the employees do not properly keep management informed, then they must perforce take a share of the blame.   In the real world, employees are not universally innocent angels and managers are not universally guilty demons.   As far as providing links, the meat of the reference material is in Dennis Jenkin's history of the Shuttle.  (Not everything is on the web.)

[YNM]

6 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

 It is, but that's not the charge. The charge is that this group of engineers "stood by silently", and they clearly did not. There's a whole pile of memos of them yelling about this for *years* with nobody listening.

4 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

When the employees do not properly keep management informed, then they must perforce take a share of the blame.   In the real world, employees are not universally innocent angels and managers are not universally guilty demons.   As far as providing links, the meat of the reference material is in Dennis Jenkin's history of the Shuttle.  (Not everything is on the web.)

Maybe somebody should scan the book and upload it, given the SLS will use yet another one of them... Also, engineers are managed by managers right ? They're not supposed to do things unauthorized I suppose ?

I understand common sense should overrule it, but if you were one of those guys, what can you do ? (IMHO, when they said it shouldn't launch and the reply goes "so when you want me to launch, next April ?", they should've just say yes. Organizations...)

But, hey, let's not make some deceased guy guilty.

Edited March 24, 2016 by YNM

[GoSlash27]

6 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

Give me actual cites proving I'm wrong, and read the material I mentioned in my previous reply, otherwise all you're doing is waving a white flag and declaring victory.  If you're offended by the truth and wish to continue believing the illusions rather than doing the research in the sources I provided - that's on you, not me.

Apparently your reading comprehension skills are as weak as your sense of tact. I said I am through discussing this with you. What I am offended by is the incredibly poor taste you have shown by arguing your point in this thread. You may or may not have a valid case, but this is not the place or time for it.

[Glaran K'erman]

Incredibly poor taste @DerekL1963. I have no problem with arguing ones point, but to do so against someone in a memorial thread is purely offensive. You have lost all possible respect a forum user could lose from me and should be ashamed of yourself. If you feel it is necessary to continue your point please do so elsewhere. I have no idea why you would choose to refute this so passionately, it makes almost no sense given the circumstances.

[fredinno]

11 hours ago, YNM said:

Maybe somebody should scan the book and upload it, given the SLS will use yet another one of them... Also, engineers are managed by managers right ? They're not supposed to do things unauthorized I suppose ?

I understand common sense should overrule it, but if you were one of those guys, what can you do ? (IMHO, when they said it shouldn't launch and the reply goes "so when you want me to launch, next April ?", they should've just say yes. Organizations...)

But, hey, let's not make some deceased guy guilty.

The SRB joint problems were fixed after challenger with a 3rd casing. Also, SLS SRBs are being tested in Challenger -conditions. Not a huge risk anymore.

[Vanamonde]

Okay, so a man died, and he probably did some good things and he probably did some bad things, but please do not tear into each other about it here.