Yeah I noticed that too. I wrote a very comprehensive report for my engineering degree regarding the ethics involved in that whole situation and he was the one voice that needed to be listened to the most, and the omission of his work really devalued the documentary, though it was still fascinating.

Probably didn't sign a release so couldn't use his name etc. Just a guess

He's dead, but also no release would be required if he was alive.

I'm too young to remember the Challenger personally but here are two theories when it comes to making documentaries: 1) his public appearance made him seem important at the time, but he was essentially a mouthpiece for others who were more entrenched in the story and 2) the creators could be either too old or too young, either assuming everyone would already know him or that he was some irrelevant character since he never came up during interviews. Either way, sounds like he could have been cut for time. Especially if his role was mainly media based since media offer us a window to the drama and the documentarian was already backstage in the thick of it.

Shuttle Senior QC also tried to call off the launch and were likewise overruled. I talked to one of them just hours after the disaster and they told me then that they already were sure it was the O-rings and the cold. This information would take a long time to reach the general public.

A documentary should always be taken with a grain of salt. Or an entire salt lick.

There’s been documentaries that have had interviews edited in such a way as to say the exact opposite of what the interviewee was saying.

I was working at Morton Thiokol as a preliminary design engineer when the Challenger accident happened. I had only been there 3 months and it was my first job out of college. I remember a lot more talk on that morning being about how Al McDonald was going to get fired as soon as the shuttle made orbit for not signing off on the flight readiness statement the night before. In the few weeks after the disaster I heard more about Boisjoly. Mostly how people thought he was starting to have a nervous breakdown because he felt so bad that he was unable to get NASA to take the o-ring cold issue seriously enough in the months leading up to the launch.

Your phrasing suggests you haven’t finished the documentary. Is that right?

One more episode to go.

history is laced with persons that have figured something out and labelled as mad men

who believes something is so small you cant see it

Small world department. I was working for Boeing's space systems division at the time, and we had a two-stage solid rocket in the cargo bay that flight. It was intended to send a NASA communications satellite to high orbit.

People in our division knew the astronauts, because we trained them how to deploy the upper stage with the satellite from the cargo bay. Until they found our rocket intact on the ocean floor, we didn't know if the accident was our fault, because it was 27,000 pounds of rocket fuel. Man that was a tense couple of weeks.

I scrolled down because, either I watched THE OTHER Challenger Documentary or….

That gave me chills.. Can't imagine how it impacted all of you.

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This is the theory of the tenth man. But very few companies and industries execute that theory sadly.

Did this incident change how the launch process happens?

I had to read sections of his book Truth Lies and Orings in my professional ethics class. It’s amazing how the man was right, did everything he could to stop the accident, then still got demoted and punished.

He won in the end but you have to wonder if 9 times out of 10 PR departments would have hung him out to dry

Documentaries aren't what they used to. Now everything is water washed, everything is made to shock you, not inform or teach you.

I've got bad news for you, it was never any different. The documentaries that get famous for being good actually have always been in the minority.

For me personally, I went to work on the Space Station project the following year. Space systems is my career, but Shuttle technology carrying people was too flawed. That was borne out by the second Shuttle accident, and I fear for crew flying on the SLS rocket, which is still Shuttle tech (in some cases literally reused old Shuttle parts).

I don't see SLS lasting beyond 3-5 launches.

Absolutely. Don't take my word for it, here's a detailed NASA press release about some of the changes they were making as a result. The review board went far beyond just looking at the launch process. They took a comprehensive review of the entire program, and most of their suggestions had nothing to do with not launching in cold temperatures.

Yeah, he made enough public statements that you could include a lot of coverage just by quoting public statements. US government reports generally have no copyright, you can use them in your own work however you want.

I was going to ask “who produced it? Who funded the documentary?” That can sway the lean.

I remember that day so vividly. I came home from school and my mom told me what had happened and I looked down into the basement and saw it replaying over and over again on the TV. We had just returned the day before from a trip to Orlando and Kennedy space Center and we were standing outside waiting to watch the shuttle take off on one of its delayed days. We had met some astronauts at Kennedy space Center and I didn't realize being a young kid that the man that I had met and gotten an autograph of was a different astronaut and not one that was on the Challenger. But that definitely was a wake-up call for me and changed my childhood to one that was not quite so innocent. God rest all their souls.

As for your post I wonder why they left him out? That is so bizarre.

Do you know if he tried to go to the media to expose the issue or was that even a possibility?

Not pointing fingers, I'm just curious as it was before my time and my knowledge of the accident is just articles I've found on the web.

The one potential saving grace I see for SLS is that there is a realistic escape aystem

It was the night before the launch before the internet.

Even if he could get to someone, there would be zero reach to the story in such a short amount of time.

I did not know it was the night before...wow, what a tough position for him to be in. Thanks for the answer.

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Some of the SRB segments are literally re-used segments from shuttle SRB's. And the the first few flights are using RS-25's which flew on shuttle missions.... then throwing them in the ocean.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |SLS|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |SRB|Solid Rocket Booster| |SSME|Space Shuttle Main Engine|

^(3 acronyms in this thread; )^(the most compressed thread commented on today)^( has 26 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8486 for this sub, first seen 27th Jan 2023, 04:21]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

I'd hazard that for some reason they want to try and reduce the perception of how avoidable the accident was. Cut out the guy warning everyone, then there's a lot less culpability landing in the laps of those who disregarded the warnings.

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That's more likely due to it being crazy expensive, not a safety issue though, right?

Crazy expensive, sure.. But that means there won’t be as many launches as the Shuttle so the odds are in its favor that it won’t go boom. Maybe. I guess we’ll see.

Parts from 83 shuttle flights were used on Artemis 1 mission. When the Shuttle program ended, the Orbiters and parts inventory didn't vanish into thin air. Whatever was still usable, they used.

He went to the congressional hearings and threw everyone under the bus, then was immediately demoted. Congress had to step in and fight to get his position back

Punished for doing the right thing…sounds about right smh

I’ve a feeling Boisjoly appears more in the last, if it’s the one I saw.

Nope, not one mention of him...

The documentary is called Challenger The Final Flight. It was released in 2020 and it was made 4 different production companies one of them being bad robot.

After a little research into the people who had a major role in this shows product its even more strange that Roger had been left out as they had been close colleagues with him.