Challenger Launch halter Roger Boisjoly dies
February 8th, 2012 - 12:24 am ICT by Aishwarya BhattUtah, Feb 7 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Roger Boisjoly, who is better known as the person who tried to halt the launch of the Challenger shuttle has died. Actually he died in January 2012, but the matter came into the public eye only recently. He was 73 years old.
It may be recalled that he was employed as a booster rocket engineer at NASA and he was part of the group who had to take the call on whether to lunch the Space Shuttle Challenger or not, in January 1986.
Prior to the Challenger disaster, he had already predicted the catastrophe and even sent the details in a very candid and detailed memo to his superiors. In the memo, he had mentioned that it was going to be “a catastrophe of the highest order” and it would also involve “loss of human life”. But his suggestions simply went unheeded and the debacle happened.
Roger had also found out the cause of the debacle and it was the ‘elastic seals at the joints of the multi-stage booster rockets’. The problem was simply the weather. Since the launch was in January, so the seals were in the habit of becoming very rigid and thus unsealing themselves. As predicted by Roger, the disaster happened, which continued to haunt him for life.
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Tags: booster rocket, booster rockets, catastrophe, challenger disaster, challenger shuttle, debacle, habit, joints, launch, nasa, public eye, rocket engineer, roger boisjoly, seals, space shuttle challenger, stage booster, superiors, weather