Challenger at 40: Lessons from a tragedy

Summary

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Up First from NPR – Sunday Story: Challenger at 40: Lessons from a Tragedy

Air Date: January 25, 2026
Host: Ayesha Rascoe
Guest: Retired NPR correspondent Howard Berkus

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Episode Overview

This special "Sunday Story" edition reflects on the 40th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe interviews longtime NPR correspondent Howard Berkus, who, along with colleague Daniel Zwerdling, broke the story in 1986 about the ignored warnings from engineers to delay Challenger's launch. The episode explores the events leading to the tragedy, the aftermath, the burden of guilt borne by those involved, and the lasting lessons for NASA and engineering ethics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Stakes and Setting of the Challenger Launch

• NASA under pressure: In the mid-1980s, NASA aimed to demonstrate shuttle launches as “routine,” crucial for funding and national pride. The Challenger’s mission, including a civilian teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was designed to rekindle public interest (05:56–07:16).
• Repetition breeds complacency: By 1986, shuttle flights were frequent, and the three major networks had stopped broadcasting launches live—public interest had faded, raising the stakes for NASA (07:16).

2. The Fatal Flaws – O-Rings and Cold Weather

• Technical warnings ignored: Engineers at Morton Thiokol, notably Bob Ebling, knew cold weather threatened the O-rings’ integrity and lobbied to delay the launch (01:22–01:39, 11:31–12:25).
• Previous near-miss: Prior launches in relatively cold conditions had already damaged O-rings, but redundant systems narrowly averted disaster (16:10–16:42).

3. The Night Before: The 11th-Hour Call

• Engineers overruled: Morton Thiokol engineers, in a tense teleconference with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, insisted on waiting for warmer weather. NASA officials, facing schedule pressure, pushed back. Eventually, Thiokol management overruled its engineers—choosing financial contract interests over safety (17:23–17:28, 32:38, 39:14–39:28).
• Pivotal moment:
  • Quote (Larry Malloy, NASA): “My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch? Next April?” (32:38)
  • Management vs. engineering: Executives told Bob Lund of Thiokol, "It's time to take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat." (39:04)

4. The Launch and Immediate Aftermath

• Tragic minutes: The Challenger launched on Jan 28, 1986, and exploded 73 seconds into flight, witnessed live by schoolchildren nationwide (11:36–12:25).
  • Leslie Ebling, daughter of engineer Bob Ebling: “And then he wept loudly. And the silence in that room was deafening.” (12:17–12:25)
• Public shock & collective trauma: The disaster became a shared national catastrophe, scarring a generation (13:49–14:28).

5. Investigation, Cover-up, and Journalistic Breakthrough

• Initial secrecy: NASA and Thiokol downplayed the engineers’ warnings. Engineers were told to keep quiet. (17:47–18:10)
• Breaking the silence: Berkus and Zwerdling pieced together accounts from whistleblowers Bob Ebling and Roger Boisjoly, and revealed the truth publicly, overcoming ethical hurdles regarding anonymous sources (24:30–25:20, 29:49–30:31).
  • Bob Ebling: “Somebody should tell it the truth. I think the truth has to come out.” (25:09)

6. Organizational Pressures and Ethical Breaches

• Contractual stakes: Delays meant millions in penalties for Morton Thiokol and risked future contracts (36:10).
• Shifted burden of proof: Normally, contractors had to prove it was safe to launch; on this occasion, the burden shifted—engineers were asked to prove it wasn’t safe, an impossible standard (41:23–42:31).
  • Roger Boisjoly: “We were put in a position of proving that it was not safe to launch. That was totally unheard of. Before this flight, we were always being put in a position…of proving that it was safe.” (41:23)

7. Lingering Guilt and Lasting Lessons

• Engineers’ personal toll: Many never recovered. Bob Ebling and Boisjoly struggled deeply; Ebling remained burdened with guilt until receiving messages of comfort decades later (47:58–52:17):
  • Ebling, near end of life: “And I think that was one of the mistakes that God made. He shouldn’t have picked me for that job…You picked a loser.” (48:54)
  • After hearing support letters close to his death: “Thank you. You helped bring my words of mind to ease. You have to have an end to everything.” (52:04)
• Ethical imperative for dissent: Brian Russell, the last surviving engineer, laments not voicing dissent more forcefully (53:29):
  • Russell: “The thing that I feel the most guilt over...I wish I'd have said there's a dissenting view here...I regret that to this day.” (53:29)
• Cultural change at NASA: Challenger led to programs encouraging dissent and learning from mistakes, shared not only within NASA but with private contractors (SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin) (54:41–55:37):
  • Michael Cinelli, NASA Lessons Learned Program: “We honor dissenting opinion, we welcome dissenting opinion. There’s no ramifications. Maybe lose a little time, maybe cost a little extra, but it’s far, far short of having another accident.” (55:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bob Ebling, on the doomed launch: “With him and he said, ‘We are going to have a catastrophic event today.’” (01:12)
• Ayesha Roscoe, reflecting: “It’s hard to imagine a more powerful warning—like people are going to die if you don’t fix this.” (21:46)
• Brian Russell, on impossible proof: “It’s impossible to prove that it’s unsafe. Essentially, you have to show that it’s going to fail... To go the other way, you just can’t do it. We were in an absolute lose situation.” (42:04)
• Howard Berkus, on journalism: “We reporters like to say that 90% of journalism is showing up…” (24:45)
• NASA statement to Ebling, decades later: “We honor them [the Challenger crew] not through bearing the burden of their loss, but by… listening to those like Mr. Ebling, who have the courage to speak up so that our astronauts can safely carry out their missions.” (51:44)
• Russell, on lessons for today: “The people that are involved in the programs today face the same issues… No one wants to be the one to stand up and say, ‘I’m not ready.’ But listening under high stress environments like that is really crucial.” (54:41)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Setting the scene – Challenger and 1986 space program: 05:56–07:16
• Teacher in Space (Christa McAuliffe): 07:52–09:41
• Technical discussions, O-rings, and danger signs: 15:12–16:42
• The fateful teleconference: 31:14–39:14
• Launch and explosion: 11:36–12:25
• Aftermath, investigation, and reportorial breakthrough: 24:30–30:31
• Burden of guilt on engineers: 46:49–52:17
• NASA’s evolving culture and lessons learned: 54:41–55:37

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Lessons and Relevance Today

• The price of ignored warnings: Challenger’s disaster was not caused merely by a technical failing, but by institutional resistance to “bad news” and the suppression of dissent.
• Organizational accountability: NASA’s changed stance—now honoring and actively seeking dissent—emerged directly from the tragedy and its aftermath.
• Enduring pressure: As NASA and private space companies face new budget, schedule, and performance pressures, the lessons of Challenger remain urgently relevant.

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Closing Thoughts

This episode powerfully underscores the human cost of the Challenger launch decision and spotlights the often-silenced engineers who tried to prevent disaster. Their ethical struggles, the importance of vigilance and transparency, and the continuing necessity for organizations to truly listen to dissenting views form the lasting legacy of America’s worst space disaster.

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For further detail and memorials, see NPR.org and educational materials on the Challenger disaster and ethical engineering decision-making.

Transcript

[Aisha Roscoe]

Here at npr, we've been following the news unfolding of the Minneapolis protests, including the recent shooting and killing of a 37 year old man Saturday morning by federal agents. That's the third shooting and second death in Minneapolis involving federal immigration officials in January. We'll bring you more details on that developing story when up first returns tomorrow.

[Howard Berkus]

FOREIGN.

[Aisha Roscoe]

I'm Aisha Roscoe and this is a Sunday story where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. On the morning of January 28, 1986, Bob Ebling was anxious and angry as he drove to work to the Morton Thiokol booster rocket complex outside Brigham City, Utah. He knew that 2,000 miles away at the Kennedy Space center in Florida, a ice had formed on the launch pad that cradled the space shuttle Challenger. Seven astronauts, including a civilian, a high school teacher, were set for liftoff that morning. Ebling believed their lives were at stake. His daughter Leslie was in the car.

[Bob Ebling]

With him and he said, we are going to have a catastrophic event today.

[Aisha Roscoe]

The night before, Ebling and his Thiokol colleagues, all booster rocket engineers, argued for a launch delay. They said the freezing weather overnight could cause a catastrophic failure in the booster rockets that would lift Challenger towards space.

[Bob Ebling]

And he said, the Challenger's gonna blow up. Everyone's going to die. And he was beating his hands on the dashboard. He was frantic.

[Aisha Roscoe]

But in Florida, all systems were go. The NASA launch control team declared Challenger ready to fly.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

I uphold the technical community and you will have our consensus to proceed with this launch. Good luck and Godspeed.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Except that wasn't true. There wasn't consensus among the technical community to proceed. But the launch director and other top NASA officials didn't know this, know that Ebling and other engineers at Morton Thiokol had told other NASA officials it was too risky to launch. Today on the Sunday story, we look back 40 years ago this week at that desperate 11th hour effort to keep the space shuttle Challenger grounded, at the resistance to heeding those warnings, at a persistent and crushing burden of guilt for some of those involved, and at lessons learned from the Challenger disaster, which continue to resonate today.

[Bob Ebling]

If they would have waited one day, discussion here would be completely different.

[Aisha Roscoe]

We'll be right back.

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[Aisha Roscoe]

Learn [e-mail] I'm Aisha Roscoe and this is a Sunday Story. And today we're looking back at the Challenger disaster of 40 years ago. With us is retired NPR correspondent Howard Berkus, who investigated the decision to launch that day back in 1986. He and another NPR journalist were the first to report in detail on the desperate last minute efforts to delay Challengers liftoff. Howard, welcome back to the Sunday story.

[Howard Berkus]

It's always good to be with you.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Aisha, thank you so much. So, I mean, Howard, I have to say we're looking at the anniversary that is 40 years old, but I'm also 40 years old, so I don't have any, any personal memory of when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. And there are a lot of people in my generation and younger, it's like it's history right to us. But you were a part of that history. And I can say I didn't know that till today, but I'm learning something. You were living it in real time. So take us back to 1986. What was at stake for the space program with that Challenger launch?

[Howard Berkus]

There was so much at stake, Aisha. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was desperate to prove that space shuttles could literally be like shuttle buses rocketing skyward and returning to Earth on a regular and reliable schedule. And and to do that, to carry into space these commercial, scientific and even secret military payloads, they had to prove they could launch in every month of the year on both warm days and cold days.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So how common had space shuttle flights become by January 1986? That was when the Challenger was scheduled to launch.

[Howard Berkus]

You know, by then, shuttles had been flying for five years, and there'd been more than two dozen missions. But delays plague the program a lot. This was a highly technical spacecraft, after all, with thousands of complex components, so a lot could go wrong. Plus, there were other uncontrollable variables like the weather. In fact, this Challenger launch had already been delayed five times.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Okay, so it sounds like NASA was really struggling with reliability in the shuttle program, especially when dealing with elements out of their control, like weather and all this stuff.

[Howard Berkus]

No, that's right. But still, you know, shuttle flights had become routine enough by 1986 that public interest had waned. In fact, the three major television broadcast networks at the time had stopped covering shuttle launches live. Only Cable News Network, CNN and NASA's satellite feed were set to go live for this Challenger launch. And Ayesha. The lack of major network coverage was likely concerning to NASA because public attention and enthusiasm were important to assure continued funding of the space program.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And Challenger was set to have a teacher on board. Christa McAuliffe, who taught high school in New Hampshire. Was her participation part of NASA's effort to attract more attention to shuttle flights?

[Howard Berkus]

Absolutely, and it worked. There was enormous attention to the process of picking a teacher in space, that there were 11,000 applicants after all. And when Christa McAuliffe came out on top, her astronaut training attracted even more attention. Several days before the challenger launch, McAuliffe stood before a gaggle of microphones and a royal blue astronaut jumpsuit at the Kennedy Space Center. She talked about her plans to teach the loftiest lessons ever.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Well, I am so excited to be here.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

I don't think any teacher has ever.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Been more ready to have two lessons in my life. I've been preparing these since September, and I just hope everybody tunes in on day four now to watch the teacher teaching from space. Oh, my goodness. I mean, it does sound so exciting. And because I am a kid of the 80s, I remember a Punky Brewster episode where they showed that kids around the country were watching the launch on tv because this is educational. So now all the kids in school rooms, they could be watching a teacher teaching from space.

[Howard Berkus]

Yeah, the teachers had rolled out TV sets in classrooms all across the country so that the kids one could watch the launch live and then later watch these first ever lessons from space with a real teacher. And there were also busloads of school children in the crowd watching the launch at the Kennedy Space Center.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Okay, so at this point, the Challenger launch had already been delayed five times. And so you got this teacher on board. People are excited. That is going to not look so great to have all those delays. It seems like there would be a lot of pressure on NASA to get the Challenger off the ground this time.

[Howard Berkus]

There absolutely was a lot riding on getting Challenger launched.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So let's get back to the morning of the launch. Howard, remind us, like, what happened? And I have to say I'm dreading it because I heard the teacher. She sounds so happy, but I know this is not a happy story.

[Howard Berkus]

It's not. And it's so, so sad to hear her voice in this context. So let's go back to January 28, 1986. School children and space enthusiasts around the nation have their TV sets tuned in. And at the Morton Thiokol complex in Utah, company executives and the booster rocket engineers crowded into a conference room to watch the launch on a large projection TV screen. Bob Ebling was there, along with his daughter Leslie. And just the night before, Ebling and a few other Thiokol engineers had been in this same conference room on a conference call with officials from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The Thiokol engineers tried to convince those NASA officials from the Marshall Space Flight center that the unusually cold weather in Florida could cause a booster rocket joint to fail. They thought Challenger would explode right at ignition. So you can imagine the tension and fear as they watched the launch countdown. And again, here's Bob Ebling's daughter, Leslie.

[Bob Ebling]

They had the countdown.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

9, 8, 7, 6. We have main engine start. 4, 3, 2, 1. And liftoff.

[Howard Berkus]

Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

And it has cleared the tower.

[Bob Ebling]

And my dad bent down to tell me that it wasn't over yet, that things weren't clear.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Engines beginning throttling down now at 94%.

[Bob Ebling]

And I could feel him trembling.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Challenger, go and throttle up. Obviously a major malfunction.

[Bob Ebling]

And then he wept loudly.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

We have no downlink.

[Bob Ebling]

And the silence in that room was deafening. There was no one talking. It was just dead silence.

[Howard Berkus]

At the Kennedy Space center in Florida, a TV news camera and microphone focused on the crowd, including the faces of Christa McAuliffe's parents, as they looked in anguish skyward.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

We have a report relay through the Flight Dynamics office that the vehicle has exploded.

[Aisha Roscoe]

The shock and the grief, it's so visceral and, and, and so overwhelming even now, 40 years later. And, and there were so many people who witnessed this tragedy, like, live, like people in the crowd, school children watching in classrooms. The families of the astronauts aboard Challenger.

[Howard Berkus]

It is impossible for us to imagine the depths of grief for the families of Commander Dick Scobee pilot Michael Smith, mission specialists Ellison Onizuka, Judith resnik and Ronald McNair. Payload specialists Gregory Jarvis, and teacher in space Christa McAuliffe. And as you note, Ayesha, this was also a collective national catastrophe. Generations were scarred that day. And those not watching live as it happened were subjected to a tsunami of TV news reports with horrific images of billowing smoke and flames and pieces of the spacecraft shooting across the sky.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. Good evening. Tonight from Washington, D.C. it was a nightmare.

[Howard Berkus]

The worst disaster in the US space program.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Shuttle Challenger is destroyed. Just a little more than one minute.

[Howard Berkus]

Tonight, the search for survivors turned up none. The search for answers is just starting.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So, Howard, it sounds like the engineers at least already knew what happened.

[Howard Berkus]

They were sure they knew what happened. They knew that those frigid overnight temperatures could cause synthetic rubber O rings and in Challenger's booster rockets to stiffen and not fully seal the rocket's joints.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So what are these O rings and the joints like? How do they work?

[Howard Berkus]

The shuttle booster rockets were stacked in segments. Think of them like tin cans stacked on top of each other. They were filled with highly volatile solid rocket fuel. Now, where those segments met, there were two rows of synthetic rubber O rings. And they were designed to keep that fiery rocket fuel from shooting out sideways at the joints. Liftoff. And early flight produced enormous pressures on those booster rockets. And those forces tended to pull the joints apart slightly. The O rings kept the joints sealed, so the burning fuel went down out of the bottom of the rocket, lifting the spacecraft skyward.

[Aisha Roscoe]

But I thought you had said that the shuttle program was trying to prove that shuttles could launch in both warm and cold places. So had there been previous cold weather launches?

[Howard Berkus]

There had been launches that were relatively cold, cold enough to stiffen those rubber O rings. Remember, rubber will stiffen when it gets cold. And before Challenger, the coldest launch had happened a year earlier when chilly temperatures had cooled the rocket joints to 53 degrees. And during that launch, the O rings on two joints had failed to fully seal. Searing rocket fuel and gases burned past the first row of O rings and scorched the second.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Why weren't those leaks catastrophic?

[Howard Berkus]

That's because two sets of O rings provided redundancy. The second set was there in case the first set burned through. And in this case, the second set held. But remember, on this morning In Florida in 1986, it was well below freezing, much, much colder than any flight. And that had the Thiokol engineers worried that both rows of O rings could fail. That's why they formally recommended a launch delay. NASA's booster rocket. Project managers at the Marshall Space Flight center pushed back hard for hours until Thiokol executives overruled their engineers and told NASA it was okay to launch after all.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Okay, so the executives buckled under the pressure.

[Howard Berkus]

That's certainly what it looked like to their engineers.

[Aisha Roscoe]

The tragedy of this is that the Thioka engineers were right. Did the rest of the world learn, you know, quickly about these O rings and the cold temperatures and that there was this effort to stop the launch?

[Howard Berkus]

Small bits of the story leaked out, but it would be about three weeks before the complete story came out. That's because nobody at NASA and Thiokol talked about it. At least they didn't talk about it publicly. Thiokol had ordered their engineers to keep quiet. NASA seemed to downplay, some would say, cover up the fact that the Thiokol engineers had warned it was too dangerous to launch.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So what happened in those days after the explosion?

[Howard Berkus]

Well, just six days after the explosion, President Ronald Reagan established a special challenger commission to investigate the accident. And three days after that, we're at February 6th now, the Commission held its very first hearing that day. Only NASA officials testified. And one of them was Judson Lovingood of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. He was on that 11th hour conference call with Thiokol.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

We had the project managers from both Marshall and Thiokol in the discussion. We had the chief engineers from both places in the discussion, and Thiocol recommended to proceed in the lodge.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So that that was a half truth. Right. And where I come from, you know, they say a half truth is really a whole lie. But I don't want to put that on. I don't want to put that on them. But like the Thiocol executives had said they were ready, but the engineers had said they weren't.

[Howard Berkus]

That's right. And Lovingood did add that there was some concern about the cold temperatures, but that's all he said. And the commission moved on from there. No, that wasn't really what you would call full disclosure. Now, four days later, there was another closed door hearing at the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House. And at that point, another NASA official from the Marshall Space Flight center simply said this, quote, we all concluded there was no problem with the temperatures. But this time, one of the Thiokol engineers was in the room. Alan McDonald was sitting way in the back in what he called the cheap seats. He told me in an interview in 2016.

[Alan McDonald]

I was sitting there thinking, well, I guess that's true, but that's about as deceiving as anything I ever heard. And after two, three minutes, I couldn't restrain myself anymore. So I raised my hand. I said, I think this presidential commission should know that Martin Thalco was so concerned, we recommended not launching below 53 degrees Fahrenheit. And we put that in writing and sent that to NASA. I'll never forget Chairman William Rogers and his vice chairman, Neil Armstrong, standing up, kind of squinting and looking at me. And Chairman Rogers said, would you please come down here on the floor and repeat what I think I heard?

[Aisha Roscoe]

So this was a hearing without reporters present. Right. So that was a revelation that was not publicly revealed.

[Howard Berkus]

That's right. And four days later, there was another hearing again. This one was also behind closed doors. This time, the commission finally heard formal testimony from two of the Thiocol engineers, Alan McDonald, who we just heard from, and Roger Beaujolais. Now, Beaujolais led that 11th hour effort to wait for warmer temperatures. McDonnell testified that Thiokol was pressured by NASA to approve the launch. Beaujolais told the commission he'd been part of a special task force at Thiokol that was focused on the O Ring problem for a long time and of Challenger. In fact, he wrote a memo six months before the Challenger launch that warned of a catastrophe of the highest order loss of human life if the O Ring issue wasn't fixed.

[Aisha Roscoe]

It's hard to imagine a more powerful warning like people are going to die if you don't fix this. So why, with disaster like that predicted, did shuttle flights continue, especially in freezing weather?

[Howard Berkus]

Some people say this was due to something called the normalization of deviance. That's a phrase coined by sociologist Diane Vaughn in 1996 after she studied the Challenger disaster. And simply put, this is what it means when a threat is recognized and defined and even when it begins to be addressed, as long as nothing disastrous results. In the meantime, decision makers tend to continue to operate despite that ongoing threat.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So, Howard, when did you and your NPR colleague Daniel Zwerdling begin to investigate this?

[Howard Berkus]

About three weeks after the disaster. You know, I was based in Utah in 1986, and I had heard a brief local news story which said that Thiokol was coerced into approving the launch. So I made a few phone calls that resulted in a tip and a name. Bob Ebling. I called Ebling at home and he answered, but he said, don't quote me, don't name me. No, I don't want to do an interview. They'll fire me. But Ebling was clearly upset as he confirmed that Thiokol was coerced, that was his word, into approving the launch. Then two other Thiokal engineers were named in news stories. Alan McDonald and Roger Beaujolais. Bits of their closed door challenger commission testimony leaked. It was February 19, then 22 days after the tragic launch. And that's the day I teamed up with my NPR colleague, Daniel Zwerdling.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So what did you and Zwerdling do exactly to find out those things that weren't public yet, like those unreported details of the failed effort to stop the launch?

[Howard Berkus]

Zwerdling had learned that thiocal engineer Roger Beaujolais was in a hotel room near the Marshall Space flight Center in Alabama. So he hopped on a plane at the same time. I drove to Brigham City, where most of the Thiokol workers lived, and I went right to the public library.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So now, I mean, why did you go to the public library? Like, what was up with that?

[Howard Berkus]

Remember, this was 1986. We didn't have laptops or the Internet or Google to search for home addresses and phone numbers. We had names of Thiocol engineers and executives. So I poured through telephone books stacked in the public library to get their home addresses and phone numbers. I then drove around Brigham City knocking on doors. One door opened at Bob Ebling's house.

[Aisha Roscoe]

But Ebling wouldn't talk to you like on the phone when you had called earlier. So why did you think he would talk to you that day? Is it different when you're in person, like, you know, as a reporter? Reporter? It's different when you show up at the house.

[Howard Berkus]

Well, you know, we reporters like to say that 90% of journalism is showing up, because like you say, when you show up face to face, often that has more impact than phoning somebody when it's much easier to just simply say no and hang up. So I showed up. I did ask Ebling, 30 years later why he decided to talk to me that day in 1986.

[Bob Ebling]

That's my engineering background coming out. Somebody should tell it the truth. I think the truth has to come out.

[Howard Berkus]

But getting to that truth in 1986 wasn't easy. First I got into the house because Ebling wasn't home from work yet, and his wife, Darlene let me in. You know, in 1986, we didn't have cell phones, and I hadn't talked to my NPR editor in Washington for hours. So I asked darling Ebling if I could use their phone, and she said yes. After checking in with my editor, Darlene offered me some water. She was friendly and hospitable. And we sat at the kitchen table and chatted.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And so you stayed in Bob Ebling's kitchen until he got home?

[Howard Berkus]

I did. You know, I wasn't asked to leave. And if I had been asked to leave, I would have left. But, you know, we sat there and talked until Bob Ebling got home. And he was not happy to see a reporter sitting at his kitchen table. But he was also still frantic. He paced back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, wringing his hands, shaking his head and complaining that Thiokol was unfairly blamed for the Challenger explosion. And then he unloaded. He started to give me a detailed account of what happened the night before the launch. He had direct quotes with names. And again, don't record me, he insisted. Don't name me. But he agreed to let me report what he was saying anonymously. And here's an excerpt from my story the next morning. So this is February 20, 1986, on NPR's Morning Edition.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Last night, he read in the local newspaper that vandal scrawled a phrase 3ft high across a railway railroad overpass. Morton Thiocol murderers, it said. The engineer shakes his head, rises and walks into another room to watch a television report, but turns away when that haunting image is shown again. I should have done more, he says. I could have done more. I'm Howard Berkus in Brigham City, Utah.

[Aisha Roscoe]

I mean, so that's Bob Ebling blaming himself for the disaster, for the deaths of these seven astronauts, including the teacher Christa McCauley. That has to be such a burden to carry. So what about his colleague Roger Beaujolais in Alabama? What was he saying?

[Howard Berkus]

Beaujolais wouldn't open his hotel room door, at least at first. But he and Daniel Zwerdling talked through the door, and Zwerdling could hear Beaujolais sobbing. And Zwerdling told him the world wouldn't learn the truth unless he opened up. And he finally did. Now, neither of us knew it at the time, but Zwerdling was getting the same story I was hearing at Bob Ebling's kitchen table. The same details, the same names, some of the same direct quotes. And when we finally checked in with each other later in a conference call that we had with our editor, we discovered how identical these accounts were. We knew we had a powerful untold story.

[Aisha Roscoe]

When we come back, how that story revealed what really happened behind the scenes. As the launch neared.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

The IACOLL executive Bob Lund wraps up the presentation to NASA with the company's official recommendation, do not launch the shuttle tomorrow.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Stay with us.

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[Aisha Roscoe]

Sunday story, and I'm speaking with retired NPR reporter Howard Burkus. Howard, you had two unnamed sources back in 1986. They weren't on tape. Was there any hesitation at NPR about going with the story with those sources not named?

[Howard Berkus]

There was. You know, the general ethical policy at NPR back then was pretty simple. Don't quote unnamed sources unless you have three of them confirming the same story. And we only had two. So I was sent back out to knock on more doors in Brigham City while Zwerdling wrote what was essentially a play by play, a story with a minute by minute account of what we both had learned from Beaujolais and Ebling. And I had no luck getting a third source. So our editor made the decision to go with what we had. You know, their accounts were identical. And what they told us it was too important. We had to report it. So the next day's wordling story aired with mine on MORNING edition.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

A Morton Thiocol engineer sits before me, his eyes getting red with tears. I fought like hell to stop that launch, he says. I'm so torn up inside, I can hardly talk about it even even now.

[Howard Berkus]

And at this point, Aisha, I want to walk you through in more detail some of what we learned from Ebling and Beaujolais. Beaujolais said that the day before the launch, the forecast for freezing temperatures in Florida prompted Thiokol engineers and managers to pull together data charts and photographs showing what happened to booster rocket O rings in cold temperatures. That then led to the 11th hour teleconference, the concerted effort to stop the launch. The next morning, here's Werdling again, reporting what happened next.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

They all agree that it's too risky for the shuttle to take off. 8:00pm they call NASA officials over a special telephone conference network, and one by one, four key Thiocall engineers lay out the troubling evidence point Number one, both NASA and company engineers have known for several years that when the shuttle shift starts to take off, tremendous forces warp the joints where sections of the solid rockets fit together. And some of those crucial seals don't work right.

[Howard Berkus]

Point number two, the colder the weather, the worse it gets.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

The IACALL executive, Bob Lund wraps up the presentation to NASA with the company's official recommendation, do not launch the shuttle tomorrow. The NASA officials listening on the telephone lines are shocked by. I am appalled, says George Hardy of NASA's Marshall Space Flight center in Huntsville, Alabama. I am appalled by your recommendation. Another top Marshall official, Larry Malloy, argues with the Thiokol engineers. He challenges their figures. He says the company doesn't have firm enough proof that the seals will fail in cold weather. But thio call engineers vehemently disagree, at some points almost shouting with anger. They insist, insist that NASA should postpone the launch until the weather climbs into the 50s. And at that point, according to one engineer, NASA's Malloy exclaims, My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch? Next April?

[Aisha Roscoe]

I mean, that sounds like a pivotal moment, because here you have this NASA official, Lawrence Malloy, and he seems mainly focused on the impact of the delay than on the ability to fly in cold weather.

[Howard Berkus]

That's right. You know, that statement certainly set the tone for what came next. The thiocal executives then decided to put the NASA officials on hold so they could talk to their company engineers privately. And the engineers were still insistent. But the thiocal executives, after hours of challenges and resistance and decided to reverse the earlier recommendation of a delay. They overruled their own engineers and said the booster rockets were ready to go. And in his anonymous interview with Zwerdling, firecall engineer Roger Beaujolais recalled his experience the morning of the flight when the.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Shuttle lifted off the pad. He says, I thought, gee, it's going all right. It's a piece of cake. And when we were one minute into the lodge, a friend turned to me and he said, oh, God, we made it. We made it. Then a few seconds later, the engineer says, the shuttle blew up, and we all knew exactly what happened. I'm Daniels Wordling in Huntsville, Alabama.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So how did NASA and Thiokol respond to your reporting at that point? I assume that you reached out to them for comment.

[Howard Berkus]

We did, and they did not respond back then. But six days after our stories aired, the Challenger commission heard about something from our reporting, from something Bob Ebling told me. There was that dramatic quote from NASA booster rocket program Manager Lawrence Malloy, when he said, you know, my God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch? Next April. Malloy defended himself during commission questioning.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Now, that has been interpreted by some people as applying pressure. I certainly don't consider it to be applying pressure. Anytime that one of my contractors who come to me with a recommendation and a conclusion that is based on engineering data, I probe the basis for their conclusion to assure that it is sound and that it is logical.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Okay, so that's Malloy, you know, kind of downplaying the impact of the statement or trying to explain. Explain it from his position. But I'm wondering, why did the Thio call executives give in on this? Was there a lot at stake for them and their company with this launch?

[Howard Berkus]

Oh, boy, was there, Ayesha. Under Thiokol's contract with NASA, a launch delay due to the booster rockets triggered a $10 million penalty. And that booster rocket contract was valued at $800 million. And that contract was up for renewal in 1986. So, yeah, these Thiokol executives had a lot at stake. And their decision to back off a delay produced another dramatic moment that night down at the Kennedy Space center involving Alan McDonald. He was the immediate supervisor of the Thiokol engineers, and he told me in an interview in 2016 that he was expected to sign in person the company's official launch approval document.

[Alan McDonald]

That was the reason I was at the Cape, as it required that a senior official be at the Cape to approve or disapprove a launch. If something came up, and I made the smartest decision I ever made in my lifetime, I refused to sign it. I just thought, we're taking risks we shouldn't be taking.

[Howard Berkus]

So back in Utah, a Thiocal executive signed the launch approval document, and it was faxed to NASA.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And so, Howard, since you're reporting with Daniel Zwerdling in 1986, you've learned more about the dynamics of that teleconference, and you've stayed in touch with four of the key Thiocaul engineers in the decades since the disaster.

[Howard Berkus]

That's right. And, you know, with each conversation over the years, there was something surprising. We reported 40 years ago that the NASA program managers were not convinced it was too dangerous to launch. And I've since learned more about one piece of data presented in the 1986 conference call that fed their resistance. There was one shuttle launch before Challenger with what was called blowby, which is burning rocket fuel and searing gases getting past an O ring. But that launch, it was really warm that day, the temperature was like 75 degrees. That was not a cold weather launch.

[Brian Russell]

And that then was a conflicting piece of data that said, hey, temperature doesn't make a difference.

[Howard Berkus]

This is Brian Russell. He was one of the Thiocol engineers on that 11th hour teleconference call. We talked about this recently.

[Brian Russell]

And so it wasn't just as easy as saying that, hey, we were on a solid, a rock solid foundation with no opposing data. We weren't.

[Howard Berkus]

But there were lives at stake in the arguments you were making.

[Brian Russell]

Yes, and we knew it.

[Howard Berkus]

Here. Russell's eyes welled with tears as he recalled what happened next. The night before the launch, the NASA officials were still on hold, waiting. Thiokol senior Vice president Jerry Mason pushed his executive team in Utah for a final decision.

[Brian Russell]

And finally, Jerry Mason said, we've plowed this ground before.

[Howard Berkus]

Mason asked three top executives, should we launch or not. The first two said yes. Then he turned to Bob Lund, the Thioka vice president in charge of engineering.

[Brian Russell]

And Bob hesitated and hummed and hawed. And I could tell it was just such a difficult decision for him and it was all hinging on him. He was the final vice president in the room and he was representing both management as well as engineering. Engineering saying we should delay management now saying that we should launch. And in his hesitation, Jerry Mason said, bob, it's time to take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.

[Howard Berkus]

And that's precisely what engineering executive Bob Lund did. He put on his management hat and voted to overrule his engineers. Thiokol was go for launch. Challenger's fate was set.

[Aisha Roscoe]

When we come back, NASA leadership faces tough questions.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Did any of you gentlemen prior to launch know about the objections of Thiocall to the launch? I did not. No, sir. I did not. I did not.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Stay with us.

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[Aisha Roscoe]

So we're back with a Sunday story and I'm speaking with npr. Well, with retired NPR correspondent Howard Burkus. Howard, there's also something else that was hinted at in your reporting in 1986, but it wasn't fully explained then, Thiocall engineer Bob Ebling told you that NASA lost its code of conduct that night before the launch. Have you learned more about what that meant?

[Howard Berkus]

I have. You know, that was a reference to a launch decision standard that NASA routinely applied when it surveyed its contractors before a launch. That standard was different that night. This is how Thiokol engineer Roger Beaujolais described it to me a year later in 1987 in an interview that was on tape and on the record.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

I mean, we were put in a position of proving that it was not safe to launch. That was totally unheard of. Before this flight, we were always being put in a position as a contractor of proving that it was safe to launch.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So that is a change in the burden of proof that contractors like Thiokol have to meet. What difference does that make in assessing the readiness of booster rockets for launch? Why does it make a difference if you're proving whether it's safe to launch or whether you're proving it's not safe to launch?

[Howard Berkus]

You know, that's what I asked former Thiocol engineer Brian Russell when I interviewed him recently.

[Brian Russell]

It's impossible to prove that it's unsafe. Essentially, you have to show that it's going to fail. What we were saying was we're increasing the risk significantly. We shouldn't be doing that. And so that's what we're really arguing for. We when we're saying prove it safe, you don't fully prove it. But to go the other way, you just can't do it. And so we were in an absolute lose situation.

[Howard Berkus]

And there was another shocking revelation in a commission hearing a week after our story aired. This was in testimony from four of the most senior NASA officials responsible for launch decisions. Here's commission chairman William Rogers questioning Kennedy Space center director Dick Smith, Launch director Gene Thomas, and top NASA executives Arnie Aldrich and Jesse Moore.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Did any of you gentlemen prior to.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Launch.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

Know about the objections of Thiokol to the launch? I did not. No, sir.

[Howard Berkus]

I did not.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

I did not. Certainly four of the key people who made the decision about the launch were not aware of the history that we've been unfolding here before the commission.

[Aisha Roscoe]

How can that be? Like, how does that happen? These top NASA officials, the people with the final word on launching Challenger, and they didn't know that the Thioka engineers said it was too dangerous to launch. Why didn't that critical information get to them?

[Howard Berkus]

Back in 1986, the launch director and other top NASA officials were actually isolated from the final reviews for major components of space shuttles. Those reviews were conducted at lower levels by each NASA center responsible for each component. And so any issue with Thiokol's booster rockets was handled by NASA's Marshall Space Flight center. And the Marshall officials told the launch decision makers that the boosters were ready to go. And that was all they said this failure to communicate significant problems to the highest levels Was supposed to change after Challenger.

[Aisha Roscoe]

I'm wondering about the four Morton Thiokol engineers we've heard from today. I know that you've kept in touch with some of them for decades. What happened to them after this monumental moment in their lives?

[Howard Berkus]

They had dramatically different reactions to their places in history. Alan McDonald was sidelined and essentially demoted by Thiokol. That angered some members of congress, and they threatened Thiokol. Punish McDonald and the other engineers, they warned, and Thiokal will never receive another NASA contract. So Thiokal relented, and macdonald was then put in charge of what became a successful redesign of those booster rocket joints that included an additional o ring and a heating element to keep the joints warm. He spent most of the rest of his career at Thiokol.

[Alan McDonald]

If I'd have been lamenting like the rest of them were about what else I could have done, I probably would end up in the same place. But I focused my energy to make sure that it never could happen again. And that turned out to be the best therapy in the world.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So what did Alan McDonald mean when he said, you know, lamenting like the rest of them?

[Howard Berkus]

He was talking about engineers who were more deeply affected, like Roger Beaujolais, for example, who suffered physically and emotionally. He had disabling depression, double vision, sleeplessness, severe headaches. Beaujolais never went back to work at Thiokol, and in fact, he sued the company. He didn't feel that he failed. He blamed thiocol and NASA. This is how he explained that to me in 1987.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

I have flashes. Still wondered if I could have done anything different. But the comfort that I have as a result of asking myself that question is that, no, there's nothing I could have done. Further, because you have to realize that we were talking to the right people. We were talking to people that had the authority. We were talking to people that had the power to stop the launch.

[Howard Berkus]

And Beaujolais went on to become a writer and lecturer on ethical decision making and engineering. He was honored for that by one of the world's biggest scientific organizations. He's featured to this day in leadership and engineering school curricula. Beaujolais died in 2012, and his wife, Roberta then agreed to allow us to name him him as one of our anonymous sources in our 1986 reporting.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And I know from your reporting since then that Bob Ebling had a very different long term response to Challenger. He couldn't let go. And he said to you in 1986, I could have done more. I should have done more. That seemed to define the rest of his life.

[Howard Berkus]

Bob Ebling also suffered physically and emotionally for decades. He retired after Challenger, and he did spend a lot of time volunteering at a wildlife refuge near his home. In fact, he helped restore the refuge after flooding from the Great Salt Lake nearly destroyed it. He was actually honored for that work by the president at the White House. And I thought that would help him get past his lingering sense of guilt about Challenger. And I was wrong. Ten years ago, on the 30th anniversary of the Challenger launch, I drove an hour from Salt Lake City to his house in Brigham City. And you know, the same house, the same kitchen, the same living room, the same kitchen table. Little had changed, including Bob Ebling.

[Bob Ebling]

Had they listened to me and wait for the weather to change, it might have been a completely different outcome. If they would have waited one day, discussion here would be completely different.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Ebling sounds really frail there, but he still sounds so focused and affected by what happened that night.

[Howard Berkus]

In 1986, he was still deeply affected, and he was very frail. He was then 89 years old. He had hospice care, and he used a set of parallel bars to get from the kitchen table to his favorite easy chair in the living room. He still bore that weight of guilt, which is something he prayed about.

[Bob Ebling]

And I think that was one of the mistakes that God made. He shouldn't have picked me for that job. I don't know. But next time I talk to him, I'm gonna ask him, why me? You picked a loser.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Oh, my goodness. After all of those years, he's blaming himself. And so deeply and painfully, Just taking on the responsibility of this tragedy. It's just beyond sad.

[Howard Berkus]

You know, I did another story which included that comment, and when it aired, hundreds of NPR listeners responded the same way. We were inundated with emails and letters, most with messages of comfort for Ebling. We heard from all kinds of engineers. They told him he did what engineers are supposed to do, provide the facts and data. The final decisions belonged to the decision makers. But Ebling was stuck on who he hadn't heard from. This is what he and another daughter Kathy told me on a return visit, you aren't NASA.

[Bob Ebling]

You aren't thy co. I haven't hurt any of those people.

[Aisha Roscoe]

He's never gotten confirmation that he did do his job, and he was a good worker and he told the truth.

[Howard Berkus]

So I reached out to a few of the Thiokol and NASA people who rejected the engineers arguments in that 11th hour teleconference in 1986. This is 30 years later now. And George Hardy responded. Remember, he was the Marshall Space Flight center deputy director who famously said he was appalled at the push for a launch delay. But he wrote this to Ebling, you and your colleagues did everything that was expected of you. You should not torture yourself with any assumed blame. I also reached out to former thiocal executive Bob Lund, and he called Ebling. Now, remember, Lund put on his management hat before overruling the engineers. And he told Ebling, you did all that you could do. I contacted NASA and a spokeswoman there sent me a statement. So I drove back to Brigham City to read that NASA statement to Ebling. It first referred to the Challenger astronauts. We honor them not through bearing the burden of their loss, but by constantly reminding each other to remain vigilant and to listen to those like Mr. Ebling, who have the courage to speak up so that our astronauts can safely carry out their missions.

[Bob Ebling]

Bravo. I've had that same thought many, many times.

[Howard Berkus]

And finally, after 30 years, Ebling seemed to let go. He smiled. He put his hands over his head and clapped some more. And I asked him if he had something to say to the people who wrote to him.

[Bob Ebling]

Thank you. You helped bring my words of mind to ease. You have to have an end to everything.

[Howard Berkus]

And he was still clapping when I left that day. A few weeks later, Bob Ebling died at peace, his family said.

[Aisha Roscoe]

I mean, that is just a remarkable change and a blessing for Ebling and his family from you and your work. What about the other Thio Kahl engineer that we've been hearing from? Brian Russell. He's the last of those four engineers still alive.

[Howard Berkus]

That's right. Alan McDonald died in 2021. And like McDonald, Russell was involved in that successful redesign of the booster rocket joint. And he stayed at Thiokol and the aerospace company that later absorbed it until 2015. But he still harbors some doubts about his role that night 40 years ago, especially after the Thiokol executives voted to overrule Russell and the other engineers and approve the launch. Remember when the Thiokol executives got the NASA officials back on the line, they simply declared Thiokol's booster rockets ready to fly.

[Brian Russell]

The thing that I feel the most guilt over and the thing I wish so badly I said, I wish I'd have said there's a dissenting view here. I wish the people on the phone call would have heard that. But I still didn't speak up. So I regret that to this day. To this day.

[Howard Berkus]

Now Russell is addressing his own lingering sense of guilt by directly connecting a critical lesson from Talinger to the space program today. The importance of listening to dissent, of listening to the people who are telling you what you don't want to hear. In the past year, Russell has been a featured speaker at NASA headquarters, at the Kennedy Space center, at the Johnson Space center, and at the Marshall Space Flight Center. There, twice he's told the story of the Challenger launch decision to mission management teams and other agency leaders.

[Brian Russell]

The people that are involved in the programs today face the same issues. They face the same pressure when it comes to wanting to launch. They're going to be under the pressure to perform, and no one wants to be the one to stand up and say, I'm not ready. But the listening under high stress environments like that is really crucial. And that's the crux of our message. I think these things need to be repeated. I think human nature is that we, we tend to forget about things. In the past.

[Howard Berkus]

NASA has also had an internal series of presentations for thousands of engineers and mission management teams, as well as contractors, and that includes Boeing, SpaceX and Blue Origin.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

You have to be vigilant every day. You've got to make sure that the message is being sent to the workforce.

[Howard Berkus]

This is Michael Cinilli, who developed and ran the NASA lessons learned program that focused on the Challenger, Columbia and Apollo disasters.

[Commission or NASA Officials]

The folks in the organizations have to feel it's not just platitudes or a nice slogan, but that's really how it is. You know, we honor dissenting opinion, we welcome dissenting opinion. There's no ramifications. Maybe lose a little time, maybe cost a little extra, but it's far, far short of having another accident.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Howard, I know that NASA, like, you know, many other government agencies, had massive budget and staff cuts last year. Close to 4,000 people left the agency, according to some reports. Will this focus on lessons learned from Challenger and other disasters continue when you have, like, budget cuts and staff cuts like this?

[Howard Berkus]

Well, Michael Chanilli, who ran that lessons learned program, is among those who left. He took early retirement in September, but he'll continue as a contractor he tells me, and he says his lessons learned talks will continue. I should add, though, that NASA did not respond to our multiple interview requests or to direct questions about the space agency's plans for this lessons Learned program. So 40 years after challenger, the lessons of that fateful launch decision are clear. Less clear is how NASA itself will keep them alive.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Well, Howard, thank you so much for bringing us the history of this Challenger disaster and really the unspoken heroes who did try to make a difference. And thank you for your important work.

[Howard Berkus]

Thank you, Aisha, for giving me the opportunity to talk about it all again. Now.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Howard Burkus is a former correspondent with the NPR Investigations team, but he can't seem to stay retired. And we're so happy about that because he is truly a reporter's reporter. This episode of the Sunday Story was produced by Andrew Mambo and edited by Jenny Schmidt. It was fact checked by Jane Gilvin. Our engineer is Robert Rodriguez. The Sunday Story team also includes Justine Yan and Lianna Simstrom. Our executive producer is irene Noguchi. The 1986 NPR reporting on the Challenger launch decision was edited by Ann Gudenkopf. Howard's 2016 reporting about Viacol, engineer Bob Ebling was edited by Robert Little and produced by Nicole Beamster Bohr. I'm Aisha Roscoe. And up first is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.

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