![]() By the time Rocket uttered his expletive, Doumanian (and, indeed, SNL itself) was on shaky ground - Rocket was the last straw that brought down this iteration of the show. (Censor Bill Clotworthy had just that night given a pass to musical guest Prince, whose own “fuckin’” during his performance of “Partyup” was deemed unintelligible enough to ignore.) But this was the infamous Season 6, where newly hired producer Jean Doumanian vainly attempted to replicate the unparalleled success of Saturday Night Live’s first five seasons, resulting in an all-time TV train wreck that saw SNL’s once-mighty ratings and critical acclaim crash and burn. It was an accident - “I wish I knew who the fuck did it,” Rocket regrettably ad-libbed when asked by host Charlene Tilton about the episode’s running “Who shot Charles Rocket?” gag - and a performer in a more secure position might have weathered the ensuing NBC storm. 21, 1981, episode, Rocket, tasked with stretching for time, broke the ultimate network taboo by uttering the f-bomb. The focus of the commission's investigation shifted to the booster rocket O-rings, the efforts of McDonald and his colleagues to stop the launch and the failure of NASA officials to listen.It was the “fuck” heard ‘round the world. "I'll never forget Chairman Rogers said, 'Would you please come down here on the floor and repeat what I think I heard?' " McDonald said. And we put that in writing and sent that to NASA."įormer Secretary of State William Rogers chaired the commission and stared into the auditorium, squinting in the direction of the voice. I said I think this presidential commission should know that Morton Thiokol was so concerned, we recommended not launching below 53 degrees Fahrenheit. "I was sitting there thinking that's about as deceiving as anything I ever heard," McDonald recalled. He neglected to say that the approval came only after Thiokol executives, under intense pressure from NASA officials, overruled the engineers. The NASA official simply said that Thiokol had some concerns but approved the launch. The Two-Way Challenger Engineer Who Warned Of Shuttle Disaster Dies "And then afterwards in the aftermath, exposing the cover-up that NASA was engaged in." "One was on the night before the launch, refusing to sign off on the launch authorization and continuing to argue against it," Maier says. ![]() ![]() "There are two ways in which actions were heroic," recalls Mark Maier, who directs a leadership program at Chapman University and produced a documentary about the Challenger launch decision. Now, 35 years after the Challenger disaster, McDonald's family reports that he died Saturday in Ogden, Utah, after suffering a fall and brain damage. He also told NASA officials, "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 to explain why we launched." McDonald persistently cited three reasons for a delay: freezing overnight temperatures that could compromise the booster rocket joints ice forming on the launchpad and spacecraft that could damage the orbiter heat tiles at launch and a forecast of rough seas at the booster rocket recovery site. The Two-Way Your Letters Helped Challenger Shuttle Engineer Shed 30 Years Of Guilt ![]()
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