NEPHI,
Utah - Roger Boisjoly, a
NASA contractor who repeatedly voiced concerns about the space shuttle Challenger before it exploded, has died. He was 73.
Boisjoly died of cancer on Jan. 6 in Nephi, about 40 miles south of
Provo, his wife Roberta Boisjoly said.
The 1986 Challenger tragedy shocked the nation. Seven astronauts, including a schoolteacher, were killed when the shuttle disintegrated 73 seconds after liftoff from
Cape Canaveral,
Fla.Boisjoly, an engineer at rocket-builder Morton Thiokol Inc., warned in 1985 that seals on the booster rocket joints could fail in freezing temperatures.
"The result would be a catastrophe of the highest order - loss of human life," he wrote in a memo. ...
