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Essay on Challenger

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On January 26, 1986, one of the greatest disasters of our time occurred. When Challenger was destroyed many questions were asked about the safety of space missions. Many questions were asked about the credibility of the engineers who designed the air craft.
It is now know that crucial information about the faulty O-rings was know to many if not all of the engineers. These engineers had many moral decisions they had to face when the problem was first noticed, which was as early as
November 1981.
When a shuttle is launched their are two booster rockets attached to the side of it that disconnect when the shuttle gets into orbit. The rockets that were on the Challenger were manufactured by Morton-Thiokol, an engineering
company. …show more content…

The night before the scheduled launch of Challenger, a teleconference was held between engineers and management from the Kennedy
Space Center, Marshal Space Flight Center in Alabama and Morton-Thiokol in
Utah.ii Boisjoly, and Ernie Thompson another engineer from Thiokol knew this was their last chance to stop the flight from taking off. Robert Lund, Thiokol's
Engineering Vice President showed that 53 degrees "was the only low temperature data Thiokol had for the effects of cold on the operational boosters."iiiBut they had no data that did prove that it was unsafe to launch at lower temperatures.
Boisjoly and Thompson were unsuccessful in "blowing the whistle." The next day the Challenger took of from the Kennedy space Center; "a rush of cotton-candy like smoke washed over the cockpit windows, possibly accompanied by a brief burst of brilliant orange flames. Almost simultaneously, the astronauts were crushed down in their seats by a force at least 12 times greater than gravity."iv

After the disaster Boisjoly went to his office, where he stayed and thought.
Some of his colleagues came in to see how he was doing but he could not even speak, he was so over come with emotion. Their were many factors that effected neglecting the O-rings. For one NASA had a billion dollar contract with Thiokol before the disaster and Thiokol felt that causing any problems by expressing
Boisjolys concern

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