NASA Says Firm Did Not Punish Launching Foes

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has found no basis for allegations that space shuttle contractor Morton Thiokol Inc. punished two employees for telling a federal panel that they tried to prevent the shuttle Challenger’s launching, a report released Friday said.

Engineers Allan J. McDonald and Roger Boisjoly had told the presidential commission investigating the Challenger explosion that they were punished for disclosing their efforts to stop the Jan. 28 launching that resulted in an explosion that killed all seven crew members.

An executive summary of the investigation conducted by NASA’s inspector general concluded that the testimony given by McDonald and Boisjoly, both employed at Thiokol’s Wasatch Division in Utah, did not lead to their reassignment.

‘Put on the Sidelines’

Boisjoly told the investigative commission in May that he had been “put on the sidelines” and that he thought the move was possibly retaliation for his testimony in the wake of the Challenger disaster.

But the NASA report said that some of Boisjoly’s statements were misinterpreted and that he had not been reassigned.

Morton Thiokol executives denied demoting anybody.

McDonald, who directed the shuttle solid-rocket motor project at Morton Thiokol, had told the commission that he was transferred to jobs in which he would not have contact with people from NASA.

He said it was thought that he could not work with NASA people or that it “wouldn’t be good for either party.” He said he believed that he was being punished for being right on the dangers of the Challenger launching.

McDonald was reassigned twice, the report said, but not as a reprisal. It said Thiokol reassigned him to limit his contact with NASA personnel during the accident investigation and to “effectively use his talents” in other areas after rocket motor production was halted as a result of the accident.