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From: ray@utcsri.UUCP (Raymond Allen)
Newsgroups: net.columbia,net.space
Subject: Re: Morton-Thiokol Engineering Claims
Message-ID: <2287@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Mar-86 23:57:46 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.2287
Posted: Thu Mar  6 23:57:46 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 00:01:31 EST
References: <1301@decwrl.DEC.COM> <758@ism780c.UUCP> <6442@utzoo.UUCP> <1439@brl-smoke.ARPA> <6474@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: ray@utcsri.UUCP (Raymond Allen)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 39
Summary: 

In article <6474@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> ...It's not so easy if you're the
>> engineer and you know that your press conference will cost you not only
>> your job but very likely your chances for another job...
>
>The lack of that press conference cost the Challenger crew their lives.

	I agree, Henry, your point is valid but consider what the probable
outcome of the press conference might have been.  Management would have issued
a statement to the effect that the opinions of the engineers were not the
*official* view of the company and, as such, are invalid (from the point of
view of the management).

	Now obviously anyone who was intelligent enough
to understand that the engineers are the best individuals to judge whether
or not the O-rings might fail would certainly favor aborting the launch, BUT,
the presumption if intelligence is a tenuous one.  After all, even their
own managers (with the exception of one, I gather) did not respect (or, perhaps
*wish* to respect) the opinions of the engineers.

	Who would win the forum if the engineers and management decided
to slug it out in public?  I suspect that the engineers would lose
the argument and their careers.
(Of course the *next* time something like this happens, the engineers
might get a better hearing.)

	The real problem is that "Whistle-Blowing" legislation that would
ensure an employee job security (for whatever its worth) if he/she decided
to go public with regards to a situation such as we have been discussing
should exist everywhere.  Such legislation *does* exist in the state of
Michigan.  Its appearance was motivated, at least in part, by the
discovery that many Ford engineers knew in advance that the Pinto's
gasoline tank was a potential fire hazard in the case of a rear-end
collision.  Unfortunately these engineers also chose job security over
a public statement.  As we all are aware, *that* engineering blunder
killed a lot more than seven people.
-- 
Ray Allen  | "A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."
utcsri!ray | - Oscar Wilde as quoted in "Parachutes & Kisses" by Erica Jong