"It's an honor," she wrote, "to be able to pass down his legacy.Williams II, R. Lippard described Ebeling as a man "full of integrity" with a "legacy of compassion." Lippard joined NPR readers and listeners in posting a message about her grandfather on our website. "You have to have an end to everything."īob Ebeling is survived by his wife, Darlene, and 35 descendants spanning four generations, including a grandson studying engineering and granddaughter Ivy Lippard. "You helped bring my worrisome mind to ease," Ebeling said. A few weeks before his death, he thanked those who reached out to him. The burden began to lift even as Ebeling's health declined. Ebeling who have the courage to speak up." Former Thiokol executive Robert Lund and former NASA official George Hardy told him that Challenger was not his burden to bear.Īnd NASA sent a statement, saying that the deaths of the seven Challenger astronauts served to remind the space agency "to remain vigilant and to listen to those like Mr. That makes him a winner."Įbeling also heard from two of the people who had overruled the engineers back in 1986. "He did the right thing, and that does not make him a loser. "Bob Ebeling did his job that night," Sides continued. He picked Bob Ebeling," said Jim Sides, a utilities engineer in North Carolina. Then Ebeling heard from hundreds of NPR readers and listeners, who responded to our January story. God "picked a loser," Ebeling said in January, thinking back to his role in the Challenger launch. Bush presented Ebeling with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Award.Įbeling continued to volunteer at the refuge for 22 years and was named the Volunteer of the Year for the National Wildlife Refuge system in 2013.īut that work didn't diminish lingering pain and guilt. He used his engineering expertise and what he proudly called his love of ducks to help restore a bird refuge near his home that was damaged by floodwater from the Great Salt Lake. the truth."Įbeling retired soon after the Challenger disaster. "That's my engineering background coming out," Ebeling explained three decades later. Both he and Boisjoly, who died in 2012, became NPR's anonymous sources in the first detailed account of the effort to keep Challenger grounded. He didn't want to be recorded or named at the time. Three weeks later, I sat with Ebeling at his kitchen table, tears and anger punctuating his words. When Challenger exploded, Serna says, "I could feel trembling. Serna, Ebeling and Boisjoly sat together in a crowded conference room as live video of the launch appeared on a large projection screen. "And he was beating his fist on the dashboard. Everyone's going to die,' " Serna recalls. "He said, 'The Challenger's going to blow up. The morning of the launch, a distraught Ebeling drove to Thiokol's remote Utah complex with his daughter. "He shouldn't have picked me for that job." "I think that was one of the mistakes God made," Ebeling told me in January. McDonald says the data were absolutely clear, but politics and pressure interfered.Įbeling blamed himself for failing to convince Thiokol executives and NASA to wait for warmer weather. "When do you want me to launch? Next April?"ĭespite hours of argument and reams of data, the Thiokol executives relented. "My God, Thiokol," responded Lawrence Mulloy of NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center. At first, the Thiokol executives agreed and said they wouldn't approve the launch. Three decades ago, McDonald organized a teleconference with NASA officials, Thiokol executives and the worried engineers.Įbeling helped assemble the data that demonstrated the risk. "If you hadn't called me," McDonald told Ebeling, "they were in such a 'go' mode, we'd have never been able to stop it." McDonald phoned Ebeling recently after hearing the NPR story. He called his boss, Allan McDonald, who was Thiokol's representative at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "We all knew if the seals failed, the shuttle would blow up," said engineer Roger Boisjoly in a 1986 interview with NPR's Daniel Zwerdling.Įbeling was the first to sound the alarm the morning before the Challenger launch. They worried that cold temperatures overnight - the forecast said 18 degrees - would stiffen the rubber O-ring seals that prevent burning rocket fuel from leaking out of booster joints. Ebeling was one of five booster rocket engineers at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol who tried to stop the 1986 Challenger launch.
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