It bums me out a little that there's not more HN hubbub over this. Andy Grove was a great businessman, but Bob Ebeling was a great engineer. Maybe just not in the ways that HN loves to celebrate.
> "I think that was one of the mistakes that God made," Ebeling says softly. "He shouldn't have picked me for the job. But next time I talk to him, I'm gonna ask him, 'Why me? You picked a loser.' "<p>This hits me so hard every time I read it. Sometimes in this cruel world, we are given one of the few real good guys. And we waste them.
I try to keep Bob Elbing in mind when I ask if I should say something or not. Thankfully none of my work has ever had a single life, much less 7, depending on what I do. Still, I try to do the right thing and speak up.
We should all strive to be a little more like Bob Ebling. I greatly respect and admire his dedication to the safety of those on board the Challenger, and it makes me proud to be an engineer. The sad passing of Mr Ebling deserves far more coverage, and his efforts deserve more recognition. I'm glad he had closure in the final few weeks of his life.
Such a heartbreaking story. I find it unreasonable how politicians sometimes advocate for ethical oversight of science with the assumption that scientists and engineers aren't ethical or moral people, just robots solving equations.<p>But we saw the same with the atomic bomb. It was mainly scientists who stood up for the morally right. It is often politicians and management who do the ethically questionable choices.
> "He said, 'The Challenger's going to blow up. Everyone's going to die,' " Serna recalls. "And he was beating his fist on the dashboard. He was frantic."<p>That is a bit over the top but if true, then amazing. How many engineers can predict something so detailed.
What bums me out is the Thiokol executives who really were responsible for this national tragedy, did they ever feel any remorse? Did they repay their debts? Did they even acknowledge that they royally fucked up? No, they collected millions and sipped their brandy.
> "It was as if he got permission from the world," says his daughter Leslie Ebeling Serna. "He was able to let that part of his life go."<p>Rest in Peace.
Richard Feynman was on the Challenger accident review committee. He wrote about the experience including interviewing the top 4 rocket engineers at the end of his book, '"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character'<p>I don't follow why Ebeling blamed himself since it appears he did everything a human being could do to stop the launch, but was overruled by management.