OGDEN — It’s reasonably safe to say, if there was one guiding principal in Allan McDonald’s life, it was “Do the right thing.”

McDonald, an engineer who in 1986 refused to sign off on the ultimately catastrophic launch of the space shuttle Challenger, died in Ogden last week. He was 83. His daughter, Meghan McDonald Goggin, told the New York Times his death was caused by complications from a recent fall.

Born in Cody, Wyoming, in 1937, McDonald received a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Montana State University in 1959 and a master’s in engineering administration from the University of Utah in 1967, according to his biography from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He worked for ATK Thiokol Propulsion for 42 years, according to the bio, retiring in 2001. He was the director of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor project at the time of the Challenger incident.

Prior to the fateful January 1986 flight, McDonald, who was Thiokol’s senior representative at the Kennedy Space Center, told his bosses that temperatures were too cold to safely use the rocket booster motors Thiokol had built for the launch. Despite significant pressure from his employers and NASA, McDonald and his team of engineers refused to sign off on the launch. His supervisors in Utah ignored the warnings and faxed a document to NASA indicating the company had approved the launch.

The Challenger, of course, began disintegrating 73 seconds into flight, killing all seven astronauts who were on board.

“I was fortunate to do the right thing for the right reason, and the smartest thing I ever did in my life was to refuse to sign the authorization to launch,” McDonald said in a 2011 Standard-Examiner profile. “I just didn’t feel good about it, didn’t feel we should be taking the risk we would be taking.”

After the disastrous flight, McDonald gave the information to the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, saying NASA and Thiokol worked to cover up the truth about the launch decision. He was eventually removed from his job and removed from the joint NASA Thiokol Failure Analysis Team. After realizing those actions were retribution against McDonald, Congress passed a resolution to restore his job, the only time such a thing has happened in American history.

Continuing his engineering career, McDonald led the redesign of the solid rocket motors as Thiokol’s vice president of engineering for space operations, according to the AICE bio. His work in rocket propulsion has been awarded several patents and went on to publish over 80 technical papers that have been presented in national and international conferences.

NPR’s Howard Berkes interviewed McDonald in 2016 and said he knew his objection could cost him his job and his career, but “he also knew that the lives of the seven astronauts were at stake.”

Berkes said McDonald’s stance against the launch and his efforts to ensure the truth of the incident saw the light of day changed not only the course of the Challenger investigation, but of the entire launch decision process at NASA.

“He and his engineers also provided what have become landmark lessons for thousands of engineers, engineering students, and managers at NASA and at colleges and companies around the globe,” Berkes told the Standard-Examiner in an email. “Listen to dissent. Don’t let schedule or politics or financial pressure cloud engineering decisions.”

In February 2020, after Republican Mitt Romney became the first U.S. senator in history to vote to convict and remove a president of his own political party during then-President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, McDonald wrote a letter to the Standard-Examiner, drawing parallels between his Challenger experience and Romney’s vote to convict.

“Mitt, thanks for taking the highroad and voting your conscience knowing it would not make you very popular with your ‘super boss’ and many of your colleagues,” McDonald said in the letter. “I’ve been there, done that.”

McDonald said Romney demonstrated some of the same principals he’d come to live by, after enduring the Challenger fiasco. The retired engineer called them “McDonald’s Laws of the 7 R’s, Plus 1.”

“Do the Right thing, for the Right Reason, at the Right time, with the Right people,” McDonald said in the letter. “And you will have no Regrets. It will help you sleep well for the Rest of your life. (P.S. You don’t always have to be Right, but you always have to be honest).”

There’s no doubt that McDonald had an illustrious career and that his now very public reputation for honesty and integrity was well-earned, but his daughter, Lora McDonald said those professional exploits were exceeded in his private life, as a husband, father and all-around human being.

She described McDonald as a “patient and loving father” who nurtured a passion for learning in his children and grandchildren. He was also a sports enthusiast and an athlete. He enjoyed fly fishing, played tennis and up until last year, skied at his favorite resort, Snowbasin.

Lora McDonald said her dad also enjoyed traveling and was the “most avid ice cream enthusiast,” regularly taking his grandchildren to Farr’s Ice Cream.

“He was the most beautiful father and husband who will be missed until the end of time,” she said.