Bob Ebeling with his daughter Kathy and his wife, Darlene, in 2016. All three have since passed away. Photo/Howard Berkes NPR
Here at the 40th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, NPR did an in-depth story about the three engineers who apparently had begged NASA not to launch. The ship exploded shortly after takeoff, killing all aboard.
The Challenger engineering disaster was due to the decision by NASA leadership to launch despite the pleadings of engineers Brian Russell, Bob Ebeling and Roger Boisjoly to abort.
Engineering students studying for their Bachelor’s would benefit from instruction about this disaster 40 years ago. In fact, Levees.org is pushing to make certain that students in the 200+ engineering colleges in the nation do receive such instruction.
But does the story of the Challenger’s O-ring failures bear any resemblance to the US Army Corps of Engineers’ I-wall failures? Levees.org’s leadership doesn’t think so.
