Roger Boisjoly's Attempts to Avert the Disaster

What do safety problems look like to the engineer who encounters them? How do they develop over time? What are good ways of responding to such problems at each stage of their development? Much can be learned from the attempts of Roger Boisjoly, an engineer at Morton Thiokol, to avert the Challenger disaster of January 1986. His care and diligence in coping with the uncertainties about the nature and extent of the threat to the shuttle flights and his courageous persistence in raising issues exemplify responsible behavior.

Like others who have spent time with Roger Boisjoly, I have been impressed with his sincerity and forthrightness. These are matters of moral character over and above the particular acts he performed. Boisjoly's integrity and openness make his personal account of events especially illuminating, but at this point in our investigation we are concerned with his actions, what he did at various points in the unfolding story of the Challenger disaster, rather than with his character.