McDonald, Linda and Allan J. (NASA Challenger disaster archives), 1955-2020, bulk 1984-1996

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Summary

Title:
Linda and Allan J. McDonald NASA Challenger disaster archives
Dates:
1955-2020, bulk 1984-1996
Creators:
McDonald, Allan J., Mr. and McDonald, Linda Z., Mrs.
Abstract:
This collection contains original and photocopied materials from Allan James McDonald (1937-2021), spanning from 1955 to 2020, that pertain to his career as an engineer and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Containers:
folder: 1988_McDonald_Challenger_Disaster-2016.002.s.r
Extent:
24 Linear Feet 25 containers total (20 cartons, 3 letter-sized document boxes, and 2 custom boxes containing large format photographs, awards and certificates) and 6.34 gb 5 video files, MP4
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[Item title / description; Box "n" / Folder "n"], Linda and Allan J. McDonald NASA Challenger disaster archives, (2016.002.s.r), Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives, Chapman University, CA. For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection contains original and photocopied materials from Allan J. McDonald that span from 1955 to 2020 and pertain to his career as an engineer and the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

The collection includes McDonald's engineering files, publications and pre-Challenger solid rocket motor design files. In addition, it contains Space Shuttle Challenger disaster-related notes, briefings and files; Presidential Commission and congressional hearing documents; and litigation and deposition files. It also has McDonald's post-Challenger solid rocket motor redesign files, newspaper clippings, correspondence, book revisions and book-related correspondence materials. It also includes VHS tapes of the Space Shuttle Challenger hearings and news footage; CDs of book revisions and presentations; posters, awards, certificates, plaques and realia honoring McDonald.

Biographical / historical:

Allan J. McDonald (1937-2021) was a rocket engineer, speaker, and author who was involved with the development of the NASA Space Shuttle's solid rocket motor.

McDonald was born in Wyoming and raised in Montana. He graduated from Billings Senior High School in 1955, attended Eastern Montana College of Education (now Montana State University, Billings) on a scholarship, and received his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering with honors from Montana State University, Bozeman in 1959. He also received his master's of Engineering Administration from the University of Utah in 1965.

In 1959, McDonald began working as a rocket engineer for Thiokol (later Morton Thiokol, Inc. or MTI) in Utah. The company had just received a United States (U.S.) Department of Defense contract to develop solid rockets for the U.S. Air Force and was later contracted to develop NASA's Space Shuttle solid rocket motor in 1974. Solid rocket motors are part of the solid rocket boosters. These contain solidified propellant, as opposed to liquid-based fuel.

NASA developed the Space Shuttle Program in the late 1960s and 1970s to establish a shuttle transport system made of reusable rockets for launch into space and reusable orbiters for transport and returning passengers back to earth. Space Shuttle Challenger was one of five shuttles that flew during the program that lasted from 1981 to 2011.

On February 3, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12546 to establish the "Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident" to investigate the disaster that killed all seven astronauts during launch on January 28, 1986. Commission members were chairman William Rogers; astronauts Neil Armstrong (vice chairman), Brigadier General Charles E. Yeager, and Dr. Sally Ride; Dr. Arthur Walker; Richard Feynman; Dr. Eugene Covert; Robert Hotz; David C. Acheson; and then Major General Donald Kutyna. Allan McDonald provided witness testimony to the Commission because he was MTI's Director of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Project.

Although McDonald was demoted at MTI (later ATK Thiokol) for his testimony, Congress was able to get his job reinstated and he became Vice President of Engineering Space Operations and Vice President of Advanced Programs and Technology. He was highly involved in the redesign of the solid rocket motors that allowed Space Shuttle flight to resume in 1988. McDonald later retired in 2001 after working at the company for 42 years.

During his career, McDonald spoke at several international engineering conferences regarding aerospace and rocket science developments and he also received many honors and awards for his work. He visited several U.S. universities to speak about the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and engineering ethics. In 2009, McDonald published his perspective of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in Truth, Lies, and O-rings, which he coauthored with James R. Hansen.

McDonald was married for 57 years to his wife Linda, with whom he shared four children and several grandchildren.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Allan J. McDonald and Linda Z. McDonald in 2016. Subsequent donations were made in 2019 by Allan and Linda and in 2021 by Linda.
Processing information:

Processed by Norm Lee in 2016 and updated by Wendy Gonaver in 2021. Biographical note written by Victoria Perez. Reprocessed by Perez as of September 2023.

All materials in this collection dated prior to the 2009 printing of Truth, Lies, and O-rings were used by Allan McDonald in his research and often as sources, such as newspaper clippings found in Series 4.

Accession [2016-002-s] materials contain duplicate copies of items that are inside different folders and boxes. Also, some accession [2019-003-s] and accession [2021-012-s] materials are duplicates of items from the other accessions.

6 items and an inventory list of 7 items were found in accession [2016-002-s] carton 20 when staff added the 2019 and 2021 accruals. List contents are: "September 15, 2016 Additional Documents: 1A) STS-27R Pre-Launch and Countdown Documents (3 Documents); 2A) 37th AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference Flyer, July 8-11, 2001; 3A) Aerospace America Magazine article by Mark Salita on Challenger and Columbia accidents, March 2004; 4A) AIAA Solid Rocket Technical Committee Certificate, 23-24 July 2008; 5A) AIAA Liquid Rocket Propulsion Certificate, 26 July 2016; 6A) Visa-A-Card File Business Cards; 7A) Morton Thiokol News Composite Directory by Network and by Date." Item 7A is in Series 5 with the VHS tapes. Photocopies of the list and the remaining 6 items were placed by archival staff in December 2022 and March 2023 into Series 4 (1A, 2A, 3A, 6A) and Series 6 (4A, 5A).

Many items in this collection are identified with a donor number taped to or written on an item. Most accession [2019-003-s] items include "AM" with the number and have been listed with brackets. None of the accession [2021-012-s] items have these numbers.

This resource follows NASA's preferred naming conventions listed online in the "Style Guide for NASA History Authors and Editors" found in the Bibliography note. These include referring to a spacecraft as the "Space Shuttle Challenger" in roman text and a mission as "STS-51L." The words "Space Shuttle" should be capitalized, such as in "Space Shuttle mission." Some exceptions in this resource include retaining the collection's original title and the donor's usage of "pre-Challenger," "pre-51L" and "post-Challenger" in reference to material from the years before and after the disaster.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged by material type into seven series:

  • Series 1, Engineering and rocket design files, 1955-1996, bulk: 1983-1988
  • Series 2, Presidential Commission and congressional hearings on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, 1986-1987
  • Series 3, Litigation and deposition files, 1980s, bulk: 1986-1988
  • Series 4, Post-Challenger rocket redesign files, 1986-2016, bulk: 1986-1996
  • Series 5, VHS tapes and CDs, 1986-2007, bulk: 1986-1993
  • Series 6, Awards, certificates, and realia, 1962-2007, bulk: 1980s
  • Series 7, Book revisions and related correspondence, 1988-2020

Each series' folders are predominantly arranged in chronological order.

Physical location:
Leatherby Libraries, Special Collections
Physical description:
Some materials from accession [2016-002-s] have water damage that has faded or washed out ink, rusted metal fasteners and paper, and damaged some of the wood-backed awards. Inactive mold from this water damage was found on several items that were cleaned or photocopied and removed. See series 2, series 3, and series 4 processing notes for specific folders affected.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Bibliography:

Banks, Joseph. Chemical Propulsion Systems. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. April 17, 2023. https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/research-and-engineering/chemical-propulsion-systems/.

Barry, Bill (NASA Chief Historian) and Stephen Garber (NASA Official). Style Guide for NASA History Authors and Editors. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. February 23, 2018. https://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/styleguide.html.

Dunbar, Brian and Jeanne Ryba. NASA Orbiter Fleet: Space Shuttle Overview: Discovery (OV-103). National Aeronautics and Space Administration. April 12, 2013. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/shuttleoperations/orbiters/discovery-info.html. Accessible via Wayback Machine on https://web.archive.org/web/20230519045716/https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/shuttleoperations/orbiters/discovery-info.html.

Langer, Emily. "Allan McDonald, engineer and whistleblower in the Challenger disaster, dies at 83." Washington Post, March 10, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/allan-mcdonald-dead/2021/03/10/572bd0d6-81a3-11eb-ac37-4383f7709abe_story.html.

Leavitt's Mortuary and Aultorest Memorial Park. "Allan James McDonald: 1937-2021." Legacy. March 12-March 13, 2021. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/allan-mcdonald-obituary?id=4662623.

Loff, Sarah. Space Shuttle Era. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. August 3, 2017. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/index.html.

McDonald, Allan J., and James R. Hansen. Truth, Lies, and O-rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009.

Presidential Commission. Report to the President By the PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION On the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. June 6, 1986. https://sma.nasa.gov/SignificantIncidents/assets/rogers_commission_report.pdf.

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Norman Lee, Wendy Gonaver, Victoria Perez
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-10-18 19:13:27 -0400 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

There are no restrictions on the use of this material except where previously copyrighted material is concerned. It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain all permissions.

Preferred citation:

[Item title / description; Box "n" / Folder "n"], Linda and Allan J. McDonald NASA Challenger disaster archives, (2016.002.s.r), Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives, Chapman University, CA. For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.

Location of this collection:
One University Drive
Orange, CA 92866, US
Contact:
(714) 532-7719
speccoll@chapman.edu
Website