Home opinion-and-analysis UNI-verse Roger Boisjoly dead at 73: You should know who he is!

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Roger Boisjoly was one of the engineers that vehemently opposed the launch of the space shuttle Challenger because he was firmly convinced its o-rings would not hold up under the very cold conditions on the morning of January 28, 1986. He and other engineers were correct. NASA was wrong -- dead wrong.

After Challenger blew up in 1986, the space shuttle Columbia blew up in 2003. Both, in my opinion, were needless disasters that should not have happened.

Boisjoly states, "I don't care how many commissions you have. These guys have a way of numbing their brains. They have destroyed $5 billion worth of hardware and 14 lives because of their nonsense."

He was talking about NASA management, along with NASA's contractor Morton Thiokol, the maker of the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) that caused the Challenger disaster.

And, such nonsense is not isolated just in NASA, but [in] many other organizations around the world. These companies want team players, those that do not question authority. Sit in your cubicle and do your job, and keep quiet. Don't bring up problems, just leave things alone.

Such organizations do not want whistleblowers - the people who state what they believe regardless of what the company stance is at the time. They care about ethics, quality, and doing the right thing.

Boisjoly and many others around the world are made of the "Right Stuff."

Unfortunately, these people are often not treated very well by the companies they are trying to help.

Page two continues with more [on] Mr. Roger Boisjoly.

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William Atkins

William Atkins completed educational degrees in science (bachelor’s in physics and mathematics) from Illinois State University (Normal, United States) and business (master’s in entrepreneurship and bachelor’s in industrial relations) from Western Illinois University

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