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Allan McDonald Dared to Speak the Truth About the Challenger Disaster
Engineer Allan McDonald bucked manage at his employer Morton-Thiokol and NASA brass to tell the world what really happened during the Challenger disaster.
Science & Tech
On Saturday March 6, 2021, an 83-year-old man living in Ogden, Utah died from the effects of a fall. His name was Allan J. McDonald, and you may never have heard of him, but he did something remarkable.
Allan McDonald received a degree in chemical engineering in 1959 from Montana State University, then went to work for Morton-Thiokol, who manufactured the rockets for the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile and later, the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) used by NASA in its space shuttle.
After 26 years with the company, McDonald was on site at Cape Canaveral, Florida to oversee the solid rocket boosters that would power the shuttle Challenger on its tenth flight, which was also the twenty-fifth Space Shuttle flight.
On January 27, 1986, the night before the scheduled launch, the temperature was expected to drop to 30 ° F (-1 ° C), and could drop to as low as 18 ° F (-8 ° C). McDonald was concerned about the SRB's O-rings.