There`s a love affair dying here, one forged years ago by a company with a vision, a government agency with popular, undisputed goals, and a town filled with folks willing to work hard to be part of an American dream.
In other places, the aftermath of the fatal explosion of the Shuttle Challenger is being played out in political arenas: United States senators call for resignations, members of a presidential commission go on televised fact-finding missions, and space agency officials speculate on when the shuttle will fly again.
Here, people are losing jobs, picking up their final paychecks and talking about trading pride for food stamps.
” Pride doesn`t feed the family,” observed Erica Orr, who is married to one of the 200 Morton Thiokol Inc. employees who were laid off Friday as the first impact of a NASA stop-work order took effect.
Like many of those laid off, Bruce Orr had only worked at Thiokol for five months. As such, he won`t qualify for unemployment compensation until July. Until then, he said he and his wife and month-old daughter will rely on their families for financial support.
Another 1,400 men and women employed by the rocket booster manufacturer shift to a four-day work-week on Monday because of cancelled shuttle flights. The layoffs–and rumors of more to come–have frightened many of Brigham City`s nearly 20,000 residents. About 1,700 of them are employed directly by Thiokol, but other businesses and others` livelihoods depend on the continuing success and growth of this city`s role in the space shuttle program.
Concern about the future, voiced in whispers in cafes and outside churches or shouted from bar stools in local beer joints, has spawned a growing disenchantment with NASA, formerly viewed as the town`s benevolent benefactor.
Some are quietly bitter. Others unleash unbridled anger when talk turns to speculation about Morton Thiokol`s role in the Jan. 28 fatal explosion and the subsequent fallout here.
”They`re cutting down the economy of the whole damn area,” insisted Stub Anderson, a craggy-faced, 57-year-old construction worker as he hoisted beers with several Thiokol workers Saturday night at ”Someplace Else,” a Main Street tavern that even locals describe as ”a hole in the wall.”
”They`re hurting a lot of good. . .people. My stepson got laid off and he never did a. . .thing wrong,” said Anderson, who worked as an iron worker when the Thiokol plant outside of town was being constructed in the late 1950s. ”We`re going to have empty houses and cars and everything else.”
People feel, quite simply, that they are shouldering the blame for something that could not have been their fault. It was NASA, they note repeatedly, that made the final decision to launch. But even before hard evidence is in, it is the men and women working on Thiokol assembly lines who are losing their jobs.
”We do our jobs better than anyone else and that`s because we care,”
said a Thiokol supervisor who works on mixing the solid fuel used in the shuttle`s rocket boosters.
Frankie, who wouldn`t give his last name, was so angry about media coverage of the shuttle investigation that he couldn`t decide Saturday night whether he wanted to throw reporters out of ”Someplace Else” or take them outside to fight them.
”But I`ll tell you one thing,” he said, ”They aren`t going to bust NASA. They aren`t going to lose any jobs in Washington. But this town could go down the drain.”
While the economic future is at stake, others in this conservative, predominantly Mormon town are concerned about whether they have become the target of ”radicals with sick minds.” Last week, Thiokol employees driving from Brigham City to the plant, 25 miles northwest of here, spotted two macabre displays of graffiti.
The messages, painted by vandals in red flourescent letters 2-feet-high along a highway underpass, said, ”Morton Thiokol Murderers.”
”That is really cruel,” said Jo Holland, 26, who works at the local bowling alley. ”Everybody`s already so upset.”
”I am confident this was not done by anyone in our community,” said Brigham City Mayor Peter Knudson. ”It was an expression of a very sick mind and not an example of any changing attitude toward Thiokol in our community.” In addition, Brigham City Police Lt. Charles Earl said that police are continuing to provide added patrols around the homes of about 10 Thiokol officials. The measures, he said, were requested by the company after they began receiving ”harassing telephone calls” several days after the Challenger explosion.
”All this is scary,” said Sherron King, a 37-year-old Brigham City native and Thiokol worker. ”This place is normally just the quietest little town. People are worried about losing their jobs and now you have to wonder if all this speculation about it being our fault is bringing out the radicals with sick minds.”
Roberta Boisjoly spends her evenings sitting at home with her two daughters answering the telephone. Each time she hopes it`s from her husband, Roger, a Thiokol engineer who was involved in the heated discussion with NASA officials over whether to launch the shuttle in freezing temperatures. Most of the time, the calls are from the news media.
Roger Boisjoly has spent most of his time since the explosion in Huntsville, Ala., where NASA is conducting its investigation.
”He`s just so tired,” she remarks after talking with him one evening last week. ”He was devastated by the explosion. That night when he came home, he just looked awful. More than anything, he just wants to know what happened.”
