Space Shuttle Challenger pokes through clouds as it is moved toward its launch pad before its Jan. 28, 1986 launch. Photo: Space Frontiers/Getty Images
Five engineers in Thiokol's Brigham City plant led the call to delay the launch — and it cost them dearly.
Before his death in 2016, Bob Ebeling told NPR he still blamed himself for failing to convince Thiokol and NASA.
"I think that was one of the mistakes God made," he said. "He shouldn't have picked me for that job."
Here are other reflections from the quintet Ebeling dubbed the Five Lepers:
Al McDonald: "If anything happens to this launch, I wouldn't want to be the person that has to stand in front of a board of inquiry," McDonald recalled saying in a meeting the night before the launch.
Arnie Thompson: "They weren't listening," Thompson reportedly told a colleague. "I couldn't make them listen.
Roger Boisjoly: "I fought like hell to stop that launch," Boisjoly told NPR less than a month after the explosion. "I'm so torn up inside I can hardly talk about it, even now."
After Boisjoly testified for the commission investigating the disaster, he said astronaut Sally Ride hugged him. "She was the only one," he said.
Brian Russell: "In my mind's eye, right in my forehead, I could not get the image out of my mind of that exploding vehicle," Russell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"I said, 'I'm never going to be in that position again. ... I am never going to be afraid to speak up."
