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Allan McDonald refused to approve Challenger launch, exposed cover-up (2021)

562 points by EndXA 2y ago

shswkna 2y ago
This is an ever recurring theme in the human condition. McDonald’s loyalty was not beholden to his bosses, or what society or the country wanted at that moment in time. He knew a certain truth, based on facts he was aware of, and stuck by them. This is so refreshing in todays world, where almost everyone seems to be a slave to some kind of groupthink, at least in public.
- illusive4080 2y ago
  In corporate world, everything must be tame and beige. Conflict or differences of opinion are avoided to focus on the areas where everyone agrees. It’s exhausting sometimes to try and change methodologies. Introducing new technology can cause so much headache that many passive leaders just shun it in favor of keeping the peace.
  - subpixel 2y ago
    If my org is any measure of the truth, passive leadership isn’t a thing - despite the prevalence of passive leaders.
- freeopinion 2y ago
  We all celebrate a hero who stands for what they believe or know to be right. When they stand alone we admire their steadfastness while triumphant music plays in the background. In real life we can't stand these people. They are always being difficult. They make mountains out of every molehill. They can never be reasonable even when everyone else on the team disagrees with them. Please take a moment to reflect on how you treat inconvenient people in real life.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
It's a shame we don't have more engineers today that refuse to invent things because so many technological inventions today are being used to further the destruction of our planet through consumerism. Sadly, human society has a blind spot when it comes to inventions with short-term benefits but long-term detriments. I would love to see more programmers refusing to work on AI.
- dartos 2y ago
  If only it were that easy. A lot of engineers in the US who are both right out of school and are on visas need to find and keep work within a couple months of graduation and can’t be picky with their job or risk getting deported. We have a fair number of indentured programmers.
- xeonmc 2y ago
  "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should."
- sph 2y ago
  > I would love to see more programmers refusing to work on AI. Refusing to work on something is not newsworthy. I refuse to work on (or use) AI, ads and defence projects, and I'm far from being the only one. Though let who is free of sin throw the first stone, I now stand on a high horse after having worked in the gambling sector, and now ashamed of it, so I prefer to focus the projects themselves rather than the people and what they choose to do for a living.
  - sweettea 2y ago
    I am curious why you avoid ads - personally I view them as a tremendous good for the world, helping people improve their lives by introducing them to products or even just ideas they didn't know existed.
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      I also believe advertisements are useful! However, by this definition, the ad industry is not engaged in advertisement.
EncomLab 2y ago
"Truth, Lies, and O-Rings" is a fascinating (if sometimes tedious) book that should be at the top of any reading list for those interested in the Challenger disaster. For me one of the more interesting side-bar discussions are those around deciding to use horizontal testing of the boosters despite that not being an operational configuration. This resulted in flexing of the joints that was not at all similar to the flight configuration and hindered identification of the weaknesses of the original "field joint" design.
- nordsieck 2y ago
  Interestingly, we're still testing SLS SRBs[1] horizontally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wqAbVqZyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wqAbVqZyg --- 1. In case anyone doesn't know, they use the actual recovered Shuttle casings on SLS, but use an extra "middle" section to make it 5 sections in length instead of the Shuttle's 4 sections. In the future they'll move to "BOLE" boosters which won't use previously flown Shuttle parts.
  - nraynaud 2y ago
    I think the booster was redesigned after the accident, I guess/hope the opportunity was seized to make a design that would be less sensitive to orientation.
    - nordsieck 2y ago
      > I think the booster was redesigned after the accident That is correct. I believe they added: * An extra seal * A "J-Leg" carved into the insulation[1] that acts as a sort of pre-seal > I guess/hope the opportunity was seized to make a design that would be less sensitive to orientation. I guess, we'll see how things shake out. --- 1. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/12/artemis-1-schedule-uncertainty-sls-booster-stacking/2/ https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/12/artemis-1-schedule-u...
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
rawgabbit 2y ago
McDonald was my hero as a young engineering student. The miracle was that he was exonerated.
alecco 2y ago
(2021)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
> McDonald became a fierce advocate of ethical decision-making My hero, but also Don Quixote. I'm a huge believer in Personal Integrity and Ethics, but I am painfully aware that this makes me a fairly hated minority (basically, people believe that I'm a stuck-up prig), especially in this crowd. I was fortunate to find an employer that also believed in these values. They had many other faults, but deficient institutional Integrity was not one of them.
- ModernMech 2y ago
  If the world had more stuck up prigs, billion dollar corporations wouldn’t be using customers to beta test their lethal robots on public streets. Here’s to prigs!
  - sebzim4500 2y ago
    And the million people being killed by human drivers every year? I guess they are a worthy sacrifice for idealogical purity.
    - VHRanger 2y ago
      They're a sacrifice at the altar of biased decision making. I think Tesla is somewhat reckless with self driving, but we all need to agree humans aren't much better and don't generate any controversy.
      - pdonis 2y ago
        > we all need to agree humans aren't much better At the current state of the art for self-driving, this simply is not true. Humans are much better, on average. That's why the vast majority of cars are still driven by humans. The technology will keep improving, and at some point one would expect that it will be more reliable than humans. But it's significantly less reliable now.
    - woodson 2y ago
      The human driver is liable, the machine is not (or not in the same sense).
d--b 2y ago
Ok, cool, but what the hell happened? They had a guy in charge of signing-off the launch, he didn't sign off because of 3 problems he identified, and they still launched. wtf?
- ohmyiv 2y ago
  From the article: (During the hearing) > The NASA official simply said that Thiokol had some concerns but approved the launch. He neglected to say that the approval came only after Thiokol executives, under intense pressure from NASA officials, overruled the engineers.
- coldcode 2y ago
  The engineers were overruled by the executives because NASA was pissed at the company for messing up their plans.
- lancesells 2y ago
  This sounds like an issue that's still around.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
htrp 2y ago
> He neglected to say that the approval came only after Thiokol executives, under intense pressure from NASA officials, overruled the engineers. Sounds kinda familiar?
- Chris2048 2y ago
  I wonder how the process even allows this. An approval from the executives of the company shouldn't be worth anything.
- djeastm 2y ago
  A story as old as time.
robg 2y ago
What we should remember about Al McDonald [is] he would often stress his laws of the seven R's," Maier says. "It was always, always do the right thing for the right reason at the right time with the right people. [And] you will have no regrets for the rest of your life.
- deleted 2y ago
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- jrexilius 2y ago
  That is the key line from the whole piece.
- treprinum 2y ago
  Even following all that could have led to Challenger exploding (stochastic process with non-zero probability of a terminal failure), and leaving everyone with "What did we do wrong?" without any answer and full of regrets for the rest of their lives.
- deleted 2y ago
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nandgate10 2y ago
Now that OSS projects like a certain popular dynamic language have been taken over by corporations, criticism like security or performance issues are forbidden as well and punished. (One corporation though seems to withdraw from that language due to the attitude of the project and its representatives.)
- mablopoule 2y ago
  Honestly, you're either telling too much or too little. Could tell what are the precise language / corporation / project, if you're comfortable with that of course?
christophilus 2y ago
There’s a good lecture about this, called “The Normalization of Deviance”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljzj9Msli5o&pp=ygUZbm9ybWFsaXphdGlvbiBvZiBkZXZpYW5jZQ%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljzj9Msli5o&pp=ygUZbm9ybWFsaXp...
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Exactly the concept why you don't want to let whatever dashboards/alerts/etc you maintain on your systems have a "normal amount of reds/fails/spurious texts". At some point you become immune. It's a lot harder to notice theres 4 red lights today than the usual 2-3 vs noticing 1 when there are normally exactly 0.
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    Yes. The causative issue is the way in which projects are managed. Employees have no ownership of the project. If employees had ownership over which changes they think are best, a good employee would act on bringing the alerts back to zero before they take on new features or a new project. There are some obstacles: 1. Employees not having a say in which issues to work on. This pretty much leads to the death of a project in the medium term due to near-total disregard of maintenance issues and alerts. 2. Big-team ownership of a project. When everyone is in charge, no one is. This is why I advocate for a team size of exactly two for each corporate project. 3. Employees being unreasonably pressured for time. Perhaps the right framing for employees to think about it is: "If it were their own business or product, how would they do it?" This framing, combined with the backlog, should automatically help avoid spending more time than is necessary on an issue.
    - whodidntante 2y ago
      Not making an ethical/moral judgement here, just a practical one - is there any reason to believe that giving employees ownership of the projects will be any better than having "management" own it if all factors were truly considered ? If every decision an employee made on features/issues/quality/time was accompanied by how much their pay was affected, would the outcomes really be better ? The team could decide to fix all bugs before taking on a new feature, or that the 2 month allotment to a feature should really be three months to do it "right" without having to work nights/weekends, would the team really decide to do that if their paycheck was reduced by 10%, or delayed for that extra month for those new features were delivered ? If all factors were included in the employee decision process, including the real world effect of revenue/profit on individual compensation from those decisions, it is not clear to me that employees would make any "better" decisions. I would think that employees could be even more "short sighted" than senior management, as senior management likely has more at stake in terms of company reputation/equity/career than an employee who can change jobs easier, and an employee might choose not to "get those alerts to zero" if it meant they would have more immediate cash in their pocket. And how would disagreements between team members be worked out if some were willing to forgo compensation to "do it right', and others wanted to cut even more corners ? Truly having ownership means you have also financial risk.
andrei-akopian 2y ago
I have an unclarity with this situation. How much of him being a hero is a coincidence? Did he refuse to sign the previous launches? Did NASA have reasons to believe that the launch could be successful? How much of a role does probability play here. I mean if someone literally tells you something isn't safe, especially the person who made it, you can't tell him it will work. There is somekind of bias here.
- vntok 2y ago
  Something can work and not be safe at the same time.
- nraynaud 2y ago
  The article is a bit weird, he refused to sign a form inside a private company. But the private company presented a signed form to NASA (signed by higher-up’s). So NASA probably didn’t look closely into the engineering, in particular when launch is tomorrow.
  - kop316 2y ago
    I got to hear him recount the story, and yeah the article is weird. The form he talked about was one that, if not signed, would mean that the launch would not happen. I can't remember if it was an internal form or not, but it doesn't really matter in that context. Since NASA needed that form signed, he was under intense pressure to actually sign it both by NASA and his company. Someone else from the company not on site signed it.
  - pdonis 2y ago
    > NASA probably didn’t look closely into the engineering Yes, they did. NASA had been told by Thiokol the previous summer about the O-ring issue and that it could cause the loss of the Shuttle--and ignored the recommendation to ground the Shuttle until the issue was fixed. The night before the launch there was a conference call where the Thiokol engineers recommended not launching. Detailed engineering information was presented on that call--and it was information that had already been presented to NASA previously. NASA knew the engineering information and recommendation. They chose to ignore it.
zensnail 2y ago
Iconoclasts like Robert are vital to get us to a stage one civ. May he rest in peace. Appreciate the post.
cushychicken 2y ago
I got to eat lunch with Allan Macdonald in college. I was an IEEE officer and we hosted him for a talk at Montana State, so I got to take him out for lunch before his talk. Dude got a lunch beer without a second though. (My man!) He then gave a talk that afternoon talking about interrupting a closed session of the Challenger commission to gainsay a Thiokol VP. The VP in question testified to Congress that he wasn't aware of any launch risks. Macdonald stood up, went to the aisle, and said something to the effect of "Mr. Yeager, that is not true - this man was informed of the risks multiple times before the launch. I was the one that told him." (He was addressing Chuck Yeager, btw. Yeah, that Chuck Yeager.) No mean feat to have the stones to interrupt a congressional hearing stacked with America's aviation and space heavyweights.
- pdonis 2y ago
  > to gainsay a Thiokol VP My understanding is that it was the NASA manager, Larry Mulloy, who had given the go for launch for the SRBs.
- chasd00 2y ago
  isn't lying to congress a crime? was there documented proof of the notification or was it just a he said / he said situation?
Anotheroneagain 2y ago
It's sad to see the decline of civilization, and how far back basic principles were not understood, and turned into a cargo cult. The point why somebody had to sign something to approve it was exactly that he had the option to not sign it in case that there was a problem. But even then, it was seen as a job to be done, that you either do, or fail to do.
hydrogen7800 2y ago
Allan McDonald is a new name for me. Thanks for posting this. See also other engineers who objected to the launch, like Bob Ebeling [0], who suffered with overwhelming guilt nearly until his death in 2016, and Roger Boisjoly [1], who never worked again as an engineer after Challenger. [0] https://archive.ph/kGMYG https://archive.ph/kGMYG [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly
- sjm-lbm 2y ago
  I hadn't heard of McDonald either, but there's a recent book (https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Story-Heroism-Disaster-Space/dp/198217661X https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Story-Heroism-Disaster-Spa...) that covers his contribution well. (TBH I'm reading this book right now - probably 2/3 the way through or so - and it's kind of weird to see something like this randomly pop up on HN today.)
  - aybs 2y ago
    I just listened to the audio book on spotify, free for premium members, and I'm wondering if that's why I'm seeing so much about the Challenger disaster lately. Well worth a listen, and spends a great deal of time on setup for these key individuals who tried so hard to avert this disaster.
    - autoexec 2y ago
      Boeing's Starliner problems? This article was probably brought on by the (then) recent passing of Allan McDonald
- cushychicken 2y ago
  Boisjoly was Macdonald's peer at Thiokol. Ebeling (I think) was either his direct manager or his division director. Boisjoly quit Thiokol after the booster incident. Macdonald stayed, and was harassed terribly by management. He took Thiokol to court at least once (possibly twice) on wrongful discrimination / termination / whistleblower clauses, and won.
robxorb 2y ago
I have no idea what to make of this, does anyone have further information? Faces match, some careers match, logo is insane: https://rumble.com/v4wxpje-challenger-astronauts-alive-demand-new-investigation.html https://rumble.com/v4wxpje-challenger-astronauts-alive-deman...
- datameta 2y ago
  Well, according to Occam's Razor...
- wildzzz 2y ago
  Why would NASA use their real names if they hired some random group of people to play astronauts that died in Challenger? Or, why would NASA not give false identities to their astronauts that faked dying in Challenger and instead gave them high profile jobs that would have required real resumes? And what is the point of blowing up a space shuttle? If NASA is faking space launches all the time, it seems easier just to declare each one a success than to manufacture a tragedy and congressional investigation. This guy is an absolute kook and that "documentary" is complete nonsense.
  - robxorb 2y ago
    My guess is because when you make it so stupidly obvious it's unbelievable, people will respond exactly like you have, ask exactly your questions, and end up convinced it's not true. Ad hominem doesn't help (as much as I may agree!). The fact remains that these people the guy found look extremely similar, but correctly aged and have the same names. If it's not indicative of some bizarre conspiracy, it's still extremely weird a coincidence. I'd have hoped someone could calculate some odds based on names and looks or something and make it make sense.
globalnode 2y ago
nowadays you have an unlucky accident if youre a whistleblower, lucky he wound up getting a promo for it (after being demoted).
mihaic 2y ago
Rest in peace Allan. As much as his action were admirable, the most shocking thing about that story was how the politicians rallied to protect him after his demotion, forcing his company to keep and actually promote him. That's why I get both sad and angry when I hear the new mantra of "Government can't do anything, the markets have to regulate that problem."
- capitainenemo 2y ago
  I mean... his company was sitting on a lucrative government contract for an agency that was working hard to cover up a failure. It's fortunate that in this case distribution of power (and the shocking nature of the failure) ensured that the right thing happened, but I see a corporate and government management colluding to maintain their positions. Distribution of power is definitely important though, whether public or private. People concerned about government abuse is due to the fact that due to its nature, government power structures are more often centralised and without competitors by definition. There are monitors but they are often parts of the same system.
- dr-detroit 2y ago
  [dead]
- cptskippy 2y ago
  > the new mantra of "Government can't do anything, the markets have to regulate that problem." That's been the conservative line for 35+ years. How is that new?
  - jepj57 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    I think more like 70 years at this point. It's been SOP for the conservatives to get elected to govern, make government worse at every turn while enriching themselves and their friends, and then turning around to the public and being like "look how badly this works, clearly we need to cut taxes since it isn't working" and rinse and repeat until every institution in the world is borderline non-functioning.
neilv 2y ago
> Allan McDonald leaves behind his wife, Linda, and four children — and a legacy of doing the right things at the right times with the right people. It sounds like the most noteworthy part of his legacy is attempting to do the right thing, but with the wrong people. I think this is meaningful to mention, because saying to do "the right things, at the right time, with the right people" is easy -- but harder is figuring out what that really means, and how do you achieve that state when you have incomplete control?
- noisy_boy 2y ago
  He had incomplete control but did the right thing (to refuse to let the risk slide) at the right time (before the launch). You don't need to have full control to do this. > but harder is figuring out what that really means I think it is quite clear except the part about "right people"; if the people around you are not right, I would guess it is even more important to do the right thing. Obviously this comes at at a (potentially great) cost which is why it is easier said than done and why his actions are so admirable.
  - neilv 2y ago
    "The right people" is difficult. Working with NASA would seem one of the better bets. For startup founders, you can try to hire "the right people". (And share the equity appropriately.) For job-seekers, when you're interviewing with them, you can ask yourself whether they're "the right people". (And don't get distracted by a Leetcode hazing, in what's supposed to be collegial information-sharing and -gathering by both parties.)
omega3 2y ago
There is a good movie about the Challenger disaster and the follow up investigation from the pov of Feynman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenger_Disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenger_Disaster
WhitneyLand 2y ago
Which executive pressured the engineers, was there any accountability?
7e 2y ago
I don't relish all of the issues which will eventually surface with SpaceX's Starship, which makes Space Shuttle development look like a paragon of high quality development practices. Starship is built in a metaphorical barn with a "fuck around and find out" attitude.
- roelschroeven 2y ago
  I don't think that's quite the case. SpaceX's method is more "release early, release often", and find (and solve!) issues early on. Traditional space companies on the other hand use a very rigid waterfall method. SpaceX's method is not "fuck around and find out". It's design, find out, iterate. From what I can tell from the outside, it seems very reasonable.
- fhub 2y ago
  That metaphorical barn is run by Kathy Lueders. Look her up and it might soften your thinking a bit.
- kbolino 2y ago
  The early manned space programs at USAF/NASA were a lot more cavalier than the shuttle program.
- roelschroeven 2y ago
  If you're looking for a rocket company with a barn and a "fuck around and find out" attitude, Pythom is the one. Watch how they test rockets: https://vimeo.com/690376951 https://vimeo.com/690376951 From another angle, showing how some of them had to run away from the toxic fumes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ1j85VgALA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ1j85VgALA
GuB-42 2y ago
I wonder how often things like that happen. The launch could have gone right, and no one would have known anything about the decision process besides a few insiders. I am sure that on project as complex and as risky as a Space Shuttle, there is always an engineer that is not satisfied with some aspect, for some valid reason. But at some point, one needs to launch the thing, despite the complains. How many projects luckily succeeded after a reckless decision? In many accidents, we can point at an engineer who foreshadowed it, as it is the case here. Usually followed by blaming those who proceeded anyways. But these decision makers are in a difficult position. Saying "no" is easy and safe, but at some point, one needs to say "yes" and take risks, otherwise nothing would be done. So, whose "no" to ignore? Not Allan's apparently.
- jajko 2y ago
  > But at some point, one needs to launch the thing Do they? Even if risks are not mitigated and say risk for catastrophe can't be pushed below ie 15%? This ain't some app startup world where failure will lose a bit of money and time, and everybody moves on. I get the political forces behind, nobody at NASA was/is probably happy with those, and most politicians are basically clueless clowns (or worse) chasing popularity polls and often wielding massive decisive powers over matters they barely understand at surface level. But you can't cheat reality and facts, not more than say in casino.
  - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
    Maybe it's a bad analogy given the complexity of a rocket launch, but I always think about European exploration of the North Atlantic. Huge risk and loss of life, but the winners built empires on those achievements. So yes, I agree that at some point you need to launch the thing.
    - whyever 2y ago
      This sounds like you are saying colonialism was a success story?
tejohnso 2y ago
> Morton Thiokol executives were not happy that McDonald spoke up, and they demoted him. And then all of their government contracts should have been revoked.
breput 2y ago
It's also worth noting how the o-ring story was made public. There is the famous testimony by Richard Feynman[0], but the secret was that astronaut/commissioner Sally Ride leaked the story to another commissioner, who then suggested it to Feynman over dinner[1]. Neither Ride nor Kutyna could risk exposing the information themselves, but no would could question or impeach Feynman. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMmRKGkGD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMmRKGkGD4 [1] https://lithub.com/how-legendary-physicist-richard-feynman-helped-crack-the-case-on-the-challenger-disaster/ https://lithub.com/how-legendary-physicist-richard-feynman-h...
- tim333 2y ago
  That's interesting. I didn't know that bit of the story. I reminds me a bit of Jeffrey Sachs, who chaired the Lancet covid enquiry saying he was told the insert a furin cleavage site experimentation was already done before a grant application was put in to do that. Also presumably based on some source who didn't want to be exposed.
smsm42 2y ago
What is missing here for me is who were the anonymous "executives" that overruled Mcdonald (and others) and tried to punish him? Did they suffer any consequences for actions that cost lives and for the coverup?
quacked 2y ago
I'm late to the party, but I work as a NASA contractor and have just recently been reading "Truth, Lies, and O-Rings" by Mr. McDonald. Something that I find really frustrating is that it seems that there's an international "caste" of honest engineers who are ready, and have been ready for centuries if not millenia, to pull the metaphorical trigger on advancing human society to the next level. International rail systems, replacing all electrical generation with nuclear, creating safe and well-inspected commercial airplanes, etc. Blocking that "caste" from uniting with each other and coordinating these projects are the Old Guard; the "local area warlords", although these days they may have different titles than they would have a thousand years ago. These people do not speak a language of technical accuracy, but rather their primary guiding principles are personal loyalty, as was common in old honor societies. They introduce graft, violence, corruption, dishonesty, and personal asset capture into these projects and keep them from coming to fruition. They would not sacrifice their lifestyles in order to introduce technical excellence into the system they're charged with managing, but instead think more about their workload, their salary, their personal obligations to their other (often dishonest) friends, and their career tracks. It wouldn't even occur to me to worry more about a promotion than than the technical merit of a machine or system I was engaged with. I would never lie about something myself a colleague of mine said or did. For those reasons I will never be particularly competitive with the people who do become VPs and executive managers. How many different people around the world, and especially that are on HackerNews, are in my exact situation? With the right funding and leadership could all quit our stupid fucking jobs building adtech or joining customer databases together or generating glorified Excel spreadsheets and instead be the International Railway Corps, or the International Nuclear Corps. And yet since we can't generate the cashflow necessary to satisfy the Local Area Warlords that own all the tooling facilities and the markets and the land, it will never be.
badgersnake 2y ago
> at some point, one needs to say "yes" and take risks Sure, but they need to understand the risks, and be open about the choices they are making. Ideally at the time but certainly coving it up after it goes wrong is not acceptable.
johnea 2y ago
We're seeing it all happen again now at Boeing. I just keep waiting for that magical invisible hand to swoop in and fix this cluster f_ck... What could possibly be holding it up?

562 points by EndXA 2y ago

This is an ever recurring theme in the human condition. McDonald’s loyalty was not beholden to his bosses, or what society or the country wanted at that moment in time. He knew a certain truth, based on facts he was aware of, and stuck by them. This is so refreshing in todays world, where almost everyone seems to be a slave to some kind of groupthink, at least in public.

illusive4080 2y ago
In corporate world, everything must be tame and beige. Conflict or differences of opinion are avoided to focus on the areas where everyone agrees. It’s exhausting sometimes to try and change methodologies. Introducing new technology can cause so much headache that many passive leaders just shun it in favor of keeping the peace.
- subpixel 2y ago
  If my org is any measure of the truth, passive leadership isn’t a thing - despite the prevalence of passive leaders.
freeopinion 2y ago
We all celebrate a hero who stands for what they believe or know to be right. When they stand alone we admire their steadfastness while triumphant music plays in the background. In real life we can't stand these people. They are always being difficult. They make mountains out of every molehill. They can never be reasonable even when everyone else on the team disagrees with them. Please take a moment to reflect on how you treat inconvenient people in real life.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

It's a shame we don't have more engineers today that refuse to invent things because so many technological inventions today are being used to further the destruction of our planet through consumerism. Sadly, human society has a blind spot when it comes to inventions with short-term benefits but long-term detriments. I would love to see more programmers refusing to work on AI.

dartos 2y ago
If only it were that easy. A lot of engineers in the US who are both right out of school and are on visas need to find and keep work within a couple months of graduation and can’t be picky with their job or risk getting deported. We have a fair number of indentured programmers.
xeonmc 2y ago
"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should."
sph 2y ago
> I would love to see more programmers refusing to work on AI. Refusing to work on something is not newsworthy. I refuse to work on (or use) AI, ads and defence projects, and I'm far from being the only one. Though let who is free of sin throw the first stone, I now stand on a high horse after having worked in the gambling sector, and now ashamed of it, so I prefer to focus the projects themselves rather than the people and what they choose to do for a living.
- sweettea 2y ago
  I am curious why you avoid ads - personally I view them as a tremendous good for the world, helping people improve their lives by introducing them to products or even just ideas they didn't know existed.
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    I also believe advertisements are useful! However, by this definition, the ad industry is not engaged in advertisement.

EncomLab 2y ago

"Truth, Lies, and O-Rings" is a fascinating (if sometimes tedious) book that should be at the top of any reading list for those interested in the Challenger disaster. For me one of the more interesting side-bar discussions are those around deciding to use horizontal testing of the boosters despite that not being an operational configuration. This resulted in flexing of the joints that was not at all similar to the flight configuration and hindered identification of the weaknesses of the original "field joint" design.

nordsieck 2y ago
Interestingly, we're still testing SLS SRBs[1] horizontally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wqAbVqZyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wqAbVqZyg --- 1. In case anyone doesn't know, they use the actual recovered Shuttle casings on SLS, but use an extra "middle" section to make it 5 sections in length instead of the Shuttle's 4 sections. In the future they'll move to "BOLE" boosters which won't use previously flown Shuttle parts.
- nraynaud 2y ago
  I think the booster was redesigned after the accident, I guess/hope the opportunity was seized to make a design that would be less sensitive to orientation.
  - nordsieck 2y ago
    > I think the booster was redesigned after the accident That is correct. I believe they added: * An extra seal * A "J-Leg" carved into the insulation[1] that acts as a sort of pre-seal > I guess/hope the opportunity was seized to make a design that would be less sensitive to orientation. I guess, we'll see how things shake out. --- 1. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/12/artemis-1-schedule-uncertainty-sls-booster-stacking/2/ https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/12/artemis-1-schedule-u...
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rawgabbit 2y ago

McDonald was my hero as a young engineering student. The miracle was that he was exonerated.

alecco 2y ago

(2021)

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ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

> McDonald became a fierce advocate of ethical decision-making My hero, but also Don Quixote. I'm a huge believer in Personal Integrity and Ethics, but I am painfully aware that this makes me a fairly hated minority (basically, people believe that I'm a stuck-up prig), especially in this crowd. I was fortunate to find an employer that also believed in these values. They had many other faults, but deficient institutional Integrity was not one of them.

ModernMech 2y ago
If the world had more stuck up prigs, billion dollar corporations wouldn’t be using customers to beta test their lethal robots on public streets. Here’s to prigs!
- sebzim4500 2y ago
  And the million people being killed by human drivers every year? I guess they are a worthy sacrifice for idealogical purity.
  - VHRanger 2y ago
    They're a sacrifice at the altar of biased decision making. I think Tesla is somewhat reckless with self driving, but we all need to agree humans aren't much better and don't generate any controversy.
    - pdonis 2y ago
      > we all need to agree humans aren't much better At the current state of the art for self-driving, this simply is not true. Humans are much better, on average. That's why the vast majority of cars are still driven by humans. The technology will keep improving, and at some point one would expect that it will be more reliable than humans. But it's significantly less reliable now.
  - woodson 2y ago
    The human driver is liable, the machine is not (or not in the same sense).

d--b 2y ago

Ok, cool, but what the hell happened? They had a guy in charge of signing-off the launch, he didn't sign off because of 3 problems he identified, and they still launched. wtf?

ohmyiv 2y ago
From the article: (During the hearing) > The NASA official simply said that Thiokol had some concerns but approved the launch. He neglected to say that the approval came only after Thiokol executives, under intense pressure from NASA officials, overruled the engineers.
coldcode 2y ago
The engineers were overruled by the executives because NASA was pissed at the company for messing up their plans.
lancesells 2y ago
This sounds like an issue that's still around.
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htrp 2y ago

> He neglected to say that the approval came only after Thiokol executives, under intense pressure from NASA officials, overruled the engineers. Sounds kinda familiar?

Chris2048 2y ago
I wonder how the process even allows this. An approval from the executives of the company shouldn't be worth anything.
djeastm 2y ago
A story as old as time.

robg 2y ago

What we should remember about Al McDonald [is] he would often stress his laws of the seven R's," Maier says. "It was always, always do the right thing for the right reason at the right time with the right people. [And] you will have no regrets for the rest of your life.

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jrexilius 2y ago
That is the key line from the whole piece.
treprinum 2y ago
Even following all that could have led to Challenger exploding (stochastic process with non-zero probability of a terminal failure), and leaving everyone with "What did we do wrong?" without any answer and full of regrets for the rest of their lives.
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nandgate10 2y ago

Now that OSS projects like a certain popular dynamic language have been taken over by corporations, criticism like security or performance issues are forbidden as well and punished. (One corporation though seems to withdraw from that language due to the attitude of the project and its representatives.)

mablopoule 2y ago
Honestly, you're either telling too much or too little. Could tell what are the precise language / corporation / project, if you're comfortable with that of course?

christophilus 2y ago

There’s a good lecture about this, called “The Normalization of Deviance”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljzj9Msli5o&pp=ygUZbm9ybWFsaXphdGlvbiBvZiBkZXZpYW5jZQ%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljzj9Msli5o&pp=ygUZbm9ybWFsaXp...

steveBK123 2y ago
Exactly the concept why you don't want to let whatever dashboards/alerts/etc you maintain on your systems have a "normal amount of reds/fails/spurious texts". At some point you become immune. It's a lot harder to notice theres 4 red lights today than the usual 2-3 vs noticing 1 when there are normally exactly 0.
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  Yes. The causative issue is the way in which projects are managed. Employees have no ownership of the project. If employees had ownership over which changes they think are best, a good employee would act on bringing the alerts back to zero before they take on new features or a new project. There are some obstacles: 1. Employees not having a say in which issues to work on. This pretty much leads to the death of a project in the medium term due to near-total disregard of maintenance issues and alerts. 2. Big-team ownership of a project. When everyone is in charge, no one is. This is why I advocate for a team size of exactly two for each corporate project. 3. Employees being unreasonably pressured for time. Perhaps the right framing for employees to think about it is: "If it were their own business or product, how would they do it?" This framing, combined with the backlog, should automatically help avoid spending more time than is necessary on an issue.
  - whodidntante 2y ago
    Not making an ethical/moral judgement here, just a practical one - is there any reason to believe that giving employees ownership of the projects will be any better than having "management" own it if all factors were truly considered ? If every decision an employee made on features/issues/quality/time was accompanied by how much their pay was affected, would the outcomes really be better ? The team could decide to fix all bugs before taking on a new feature, or that the 2 month allotment to a feature should really be three months to do it "right" without having to work nights/weekends, would the team really decide to do that if their paycheck was reduced by 10%, or delayed for that extra month for those new features were delivered ? If all factors were included in the employee decision process, including the real world effect of revenue/profit on individual compensation from those decisions, it is not clear to me that employees would make any "better" decisions. I would think that employees could be even more "short sighted" than senior management, as senior management likely has more at stake in terms of company reputation/equity/career than an employee who can change jobs easier, and an employee might choose not to "get those alerts to zero" if it meant they would have more immediate cash in their pocket. And how would disagreements between team members be worked out if some were willing to forgo compensation to "do it right', and others wanted to cut even more corners ? Truly having ownership means you have also financial risk.

andrei-akopian 2y ago

I have an unclarity with this situation. How much of him being a hero is a coincidence? Did he refuse to sign the previous launches? Did NASA have reasons to believe that the launch could be successful? How much of a role does probability play here. I mean if someone literally tells you something isn't safe, especially the person who made it, you can't tell him it will work. There is somekind of bias here.

vntok 2y ago
Something can work and not be safe at the same time.
nraynaud 2y ago
The article is a bit weird, he refused to sign a form inside a private company. But the private company presented a signed form to NASA (signed by higher-up’s). So NASA probably didn’t look closely into the engineering, in particular when launch is tomorrow.
- kop316 2y ago
  I got to hear him recount the story, and yeah the article is weird. The form he talked about was one that, if not signed, would mean that the launch would not happen. I can't remember if it was an internal form or not, but it doesn't really matter in that context. Since NASA needed that form signed, he was under intense pressure to actually sign it both by NASA and his company. Someone else from the company not on site signed it.
- pdonis 2y ago
  > NASA probably didn’t look closely into the engineering Yes, they did. NASA had been told by Thiokol the previous summer about the O-ring issue and that it could cause the loss of the Shuttle--and ignored the recommendation to ground the Shuttle until the issue was fixed. The night before the launch there was a conference call where the Thiokol engineers recommended not launching. Detailed engineering information was presented on that call--and it was information that had already been presented to NASA previously. NASA knew the engineering information and recommendation. They chose to ignore it.

zensnail 2y ago

Iconoclasts like Robert are vital to get us to a stage one civ. May he rest in peace. Appreciate the post.

cushychicken 2y ago

I got to eat lunch with Allan Macdonald in college. I was an IEEE officer and we hosted him for a talk at Montana State, so I got to take him out for lunch before his talk. Dude got a lunch beer without a second though. (My man!) He then gave a talk that afternoon talking about interrupting a closed session of the Challenger commission to gainsay a Thiokol VP. The VP in question testified to Congress that he wasn't aware of any launch risks. Macdonald stood up, went to the aisle, and said something to the effect of "Mr. Yeager, that is not true - this man was informed of the risks multiple times before the launch. I was the one that told him." (He was addressing Chuck Yeager, btw. Yeah, that Chuck Yeager.) No mean feat to have the stones to interrupt a congressional hearing stacked with America's aviation and space heavyweights.

pdonis 2y ago
> to gainsay a Thiokol VP My understanding is that it was the NASA manager, Larry Mulloy, who had given the go for launch for the SRBs.
chasd00 2y ago
isn't lying to congress a crime? was there documented proof of the notification or was it just a he said / he said situation?

Anotheroneagain 2y ago

It's sad to see the decline of civilization, and how far back basic principles were not understood, and turned into a cargo cult. The point why somebody had to sign something to approve it was exactly that he had the option to not sign it in case that there was a problem. But even then, it was seen as a job to be done, that you either do, or fail to do.

hydrogen7800 2y ago

Allan McDonald is a new name for me. Thanks for posting this. See also other engineers who objected to the launch, like Bob Ebeling [0], who suffered with overwhelming guilt nearly until his death in 2016, and Roger Boisjoly [1], who never worked again as an engineer after Challenger. [0] https://archive.ph/kGMYG https://archive.ph/kGMYG [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Boisjoly

sjm-lbm 2y ago
I hadn't heard of McDonald either, but there's a recent book (https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Story-Heroism-Disaster-Space/dp/198217661X https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Story-Heroism-Disaster-Spa...) that covers his contribution well. (TBH I'm reading this book right now - probably 2/3 the way through or so - and it's kind of weird to see something like this randomly pop up on HN today.)
- aybs 2y ago
  I just listened to the audio book on spotify, free for premium members, and I'm wondering if that's why I'm seeing so much about the Challenger disaster lately. Well worth a listen, and spends a great deal of time on setup for these key individuals who tried so hard to avert this disaster.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    Boeing's Starliner problems? This article was probably brought on by the (then) recent passing of Allan McDonald
cushychicken 2y ago
Boisjoly was Macdonald's peer at Thiokol. Ebeling (I think) was either his direct manager or his division director. Boisjoly quit Thiokol after the booster incident. Macdonald stayed, and was harassed terribly by management. He took Thiokol to court at least once (possibly twice) on wrongful discrimination / termination / whistleblower clauses, and won.

robxorb 2y ago

I have no idea what to make of this, does anyone have further information? Faces match, some careers match, logo is insane: https://rumble.com/v4wxpje-challenger-astronauts-alive-demand-new-investigation.html https://rumble.com/v4wxpje-challenger-astronauts-alive-deman...

datameta 2y ago
Well, according to Occam's Razor...
wildzzz 2y ago
Why would NASA use their real names if they hired some random group of people to play astronauts that died in Challenger? Or, why would NASA not give false identities to their astronauts that faked dying in Challenger and instead gave them high profile jobs that would have required real resumes? And what is the point of blowing up a space shuttle? If NASA is faking space launches all the time, it seems easier just to declare each one a success than to manufacture a tragedy and congressional investigation. This guy is an absolute kook and that "documentary" is complete nonsense.
- robxorb 2y ago
  My guess is because when you make it so stupidly obvious it's unbelievable, people will respond exactly like you have, ask exactly your questions, and end up convinced it's not true. Ad hominem doesn't help (as much as I may agree!). The fact remains that these people the guy found look extremely similar, but correctly aged and have the same names. If it's not indicative of some bizarre conspiracy, it's still extremely weird a coincidence. I'd have hoped someone could calculate some odds based on names and looks or something and make it make sense.

globalnode 2y ago

nowadays you have an unlucky accident if youre a whistleblower, lucky he wound up getting a promo for it (after being demoted).

mihaic 2y ago

Rest in peace Allan. As much as his action were admirable, the most shocking thing about that story was how the politicians rallied to protect him after his demotion, forcing his company to keep and actually promote him. That's why I get both sad and angry when I hear the new mantra of "Government can't do anything, the markets have to regulate that problem."

capitainenemo 2y ago
I mean... his company was sitting on a lucrative government contract for an agency that was working hard to cover up a failure. It's fortunate that in this case distribution of power (and the shocking nature of the failure) ensured that the right thing happened, but I see a corporate and government management colluding to maintain their positions. Distribution of power is definitely important though, whether public or private. People concerned about government abuse is due to the fact that due to its nature, government power structures are more often centralised and without competitors by definition. There are monitors but they are often parts of the same system.
dr-detroit 2y ago
[dead]
cptskippy 2y ago
> the new mantra of "Government can't do anything, the markets have to regulate that problem." That's been the conservative line for 35+ years. How is that new?
- jepj57 2y ago
  [flagged]
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  I think more like 70 years at this point. It's been SOP for the conservatives to get elected to govern, make government worse at every turn while enriching themselves and their friends, and then turning around to the public and being like "look how badly this works, clearly we need to cut taxes since it isn't working" and rinse and repeat until every institution in the world is borderline non-functioning.

neilv 2y ago

> Allan McDonald leaves behind his wife, Linda, and four children — and a legacy of doing the right things at the right times with the right people. It sounds like the most noteworthy part of his legacy is attempting to do the right thing, but with the wrong people. I think this is meaningful to mention, because saying to do "the right things, at the right time, with the right people" is easy -- but harder is figuring out what that really means, and how do you achieve that state when you have incomplete control?

noisy_boy 2y ago
He had incomplete control but did the right thing (to refuse to let the risk slide) at the right time (before the launch). You don't need to have full control to do this. > but harder is figuring out what that really means I think it is quite clear except the part about "right people"; if the people around you are not right, I would guess it is even more important to do the right thing. Obviously this comes at at a (potentially great) cost which is why it is easier said than done and why his actions are so admirable.
- neilv 2y ago
  "The right people" is difficult. Working with NASA would seem one of the better bets. For startup founders, you can try to hire "the right people". (And share the equity appropriately.) For job-seekers, when you're interviewing with them, you can ask yourself whether they're "the right people". (And don't get distracted by a Leetcode hazing, in what's supposed to be collegial information-sharing and -gathering by both parties.)

omega3 2y ago

There is a good movie about the Challenger disaster and the follow up investigation from the pov of Feynman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenger_Disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenger_Disaster

WhitneyLand 2y ago

Which executive pressured the engineers, was there any accountability?

7e 2y ago

I don't relish all of the issues which will eventually surface with SpaceX's Starship, which makes Space Shuttle development look like a paragon of high quality development practices. Starship is built in a metaphorical barn with a "fuck around and find out" attitude.

roelschroeven 2y ago
I don't think that's quite the case. SpaceX's method is more "release early, release often", and find (and solve!) issues early on. Traditional space companies on the other hand use a very rigid waterfall method. SpaceX's method is not "fuck around and find out". It's design, find out, iterate. From what I can tell from the outside, it seems very reasonable.
fhub 2y ago
That metaphorical barn is run by Kathy Lueders. Look her up and it might soften your thinking a bit.
kbolino 2y ago
The early manned space programs at USAF/NASA were a lot more cavalier than the shuttle program.
roelschroeven 2y ago
If you're looking for a rocket company with a barn and a "fuck around and find out" attitude, Pythom is the one. Watch how they test rockets: https://vimeo.com/690376951 https://vimeo.com/690376951 From another angle, showing how some of them had to run away from the toxic fumes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ1j85VgALA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ1j85VgALA

GuB-42 2y ago

I wonder how often things like that happen. The launch could have gone right, and no one would have known anything about the decision process besides a few insiders. I am sure that on project as complex and as risky as a Space Shuttle, there is always an engineer that is not satisfied with some aspect, for some valid reason. But at some point, one needs to launch the thing, despite the complains. How many projects luckily succeeded after a reckless decision? In many accidents, we can point at an engineer who foreshadowed it, as it is the case here. Usually followed by blaming those who proceeded anyways. But these decision makers are in a difficult position. Saying "no" is easy and safe, but at some point, one needs to say "yes" and take risks, otherwise nothing would be done. So, whose "no" to ignore? Not Allan's apparently.

jajko 2y ago
> But at some point, one needs to launch the thing Do they? Even if risks are not mitigated and say risk for catastrophe can't be pushed below ie 15%? This ain't some app startup world where failure will lose a bit of money and time, and everybody moves on. I get the political forces behind, nobody at NASA was/is probably happy with those, and most politicians are basically clueless clowns (or worse) chasing popularity polls and often wielding massive decisive powers over matters they barely understand at surface level. But you can't cheat reality and facts, not more than say in casino.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  Maybe it's a bad analogy given the complexity of a rocket launch, but I always think about European exploration of the North Atlantic. Huge risk and loss of life, but the winners built empires on those achievements. So yes, I agree that at some point you need to launch the thing.
  - whyever 2y ago
    This sounds like you are saying colonialism was a success story?

tejohnso 2y ago

> Morton Thiokol executives were not happy that McDonald spoke up, and they demoted him. And then all of their government contracts should have been revoked.

breput 2y ago

It's also worth noting how the o-ring story was made public. There is the famous testimony by Richard Feynman[0], but the secret was that astronaut/commissioner Sally Ride leaked the story to another commissioner, who then suggested it to Feynman over dinner[1]. Neither Ride nor Kutyna could risk exposing the information themselves, but no would could question or impeach Feynman. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMmRKGkGD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMmRKGkGD4 [1] https://lithub.com/how-legendary-physicist-richard-feynman-helped-crack-the-case-on-the-challenger-disaster/ https://lithub.com/how-legendary-physicist-richard-feynman-h...

tim333 2y ago
That's interesting. I didn't know that bit of the story. I reminds me a bit of Jeffrey Sachs, who chaired the Lancet covid enquiry saying he was told the insert a furin cleavage site experimentation was already done before a grant application was put in to do that. Also presumably based on some source who didn't want to be exposed.

smsm42 2y ago

What is missing here for me is who were the anonymous "executives" that overruled Mcdonald (and others) and tried to punish him? Did they suffer any consequences for actions that cost lives and for the coverup?

quacked 2y ago

I'm late to the party, but I work as a NASA contractor and have just recently been reading "Truth, Lies, and O-Rings" by Mr. McDonald. Something that I find really frustrating is that it seems that there's an international "caste" of honest engineers who are ready, and have been ready for centuries if not millenia, to pull the metaphorical trigger on advancing human society to the next level. International rail systems, replacing all electrical generation with nuclear, creating safe and well-inspected commercial airplanes, etc. Blocking that "caste" from uniting with each other and coordinating these projects are the Old Guard; the "local area warlords", although these days they may have different titles than they would have a thousand years ago. These people do not speak a language of technical accuracy, but rather their primary guiding principles are personal loyalty, as was common in old honor societies. They introduce graft, violence, corruption, dishonesty, and personal asset capture into these projects and keep them from coming to fruition. They would not sacrifice their lifestyles in order to introduce technical excellence into the system they're charged with managing, but instead think more about their workload, their salary, their personal obligations to their other (often dishonest) friends, and their career tracks. It wouldn't even occur to me to worry more about a promotion than than the technical merit of a machine or system I was engaged with. I would never lie about something myself a colleague of mine said or did. For those reasons I will never be particularly competitive with the people who do become VPs and executive managers. How many different people around the world, and especially that are on HackerNews, are in my exact situation? With the right funding and leadership could all quit our stupid fucking jobs building adtech or joining customer databases together or generating glorified Excel spreadsheets and instead be the International Railway Corps, or the International Nuclear Corps. And yet since we can't generate the cashflow necessary to satisfy the Local Area Warlords that own all the tooling facilities and the markets and the land, it will never be.

badgersnake 2y ago

> at some point, one needs to say "yes" and take risks Sure, but they need to understand the risks, and be open about the choices they are making. Ideally at the time but certainly coving it up after it goes wrong is not acceptable.

johnea 2y ago

We're seeing it all happen again now at Boeing. I just keep waiting for that magical invisible hand to swoop in and fix this cluster f_ck... What could possibly be holding it up?