Smoking Gun Essay Three Mile Island/Challenger Explosion

January 28, 1986, marks the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion. A day that will go down in history as a horrible tragedy for both NASA and America. Seven lives were lost that day, including the life of a high school teacher from New Hampshire. Former President Ronald Reagan was tasked with explaining this tragic event to the US people. Because of this, Reagan postponed the State of the Union Address and spoke about the Challenger Explosion instead. In his address to the nation about the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, President Ronald Reagan effectively commemorates the loss of the Challenger crew while also celebrating the crew’s achievements and encouraging further space travel by establishing pathos through his show of empathy, employing strong positive connotation, and alluding to the great explorer, Sir Francis Drake.

The night before the launch, a teleconference between Thiokol and NASA was held to address the concerns regarding the performance of the SRB O-ring seal in cold weather. Thiokol recommended that the launch be postponed since there was no data available for temperatures below 53°F [2]. After internal discussions in the Thiokol group, senior management eventually endorsed the launch, recommending it to proceed, reversing their original decision [2].

| Does not demonstrate understanding of ambiguous phrases; does not identify key ambiguity in the memo, includes laundry list of phrases without explanation.

It holds true that government organizations gradually decline; the enthusiasm is replaced with bureaucracy, employees are resistant to change and overall performance is decreased. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is no exception to this. NASA is an example of bureaucracy having a detrimental effect on an organization. The lines of communication became skewed and were often broken while the organization was locked in an internal battle over who exactly was in charge. While there were heads of each department and heads of each branch, critical information often slipped through the cracks. It was this breakdown in communication and the failure to address known issues that was the direct cause for both the Challenger and Columbia explosions. The explosions, though separated by seventeen years, were incredibly similar. Concerns had been brought to the table and similarly dismissed as “acceptable risk.” This acceptable risk proved fatal for the crews of both space shuttles. Bureaucracy and financial expediency led to reduced federal funding, general distrust from the public, and growing disinterest. The organization that sent men to the moon is vastly different than the organization in charge today. NASA’s beginnings were less clouded in red tape and bureaucratic policies. Ideas were

Metropolitan Edison Company: Victor Stello(nuclear engineer for the plant), Jack Herbein (nuclear engineer for the plant; discussed the issue with the press and basically lied and said that everything was controlled and there was no real danger), Ed Hauser (went into the reactor to check the actual amount of radiation inside of the reactor; result was shocking=100rem/hr, coolant water was not clear and was actually yellow and fizzing with 1250rem), Roger Mattson (another nuclear engineer who butted heads with Victor Stello over how to handle the situation in the plant)

The Creppy memorandum was written by Chief Immigration Judge Creppy after receiving instructions from Attorney General John Ashcroft, after 911 attacks. The memorandum sent out emails to all immigrations judges that anyone labeled “special interest” the procedures were closed for any family member, friends, or reporters other than their Attorney.

While seated in the Oval Office of the White house, January 28, 1986 President Ronald Reagan delivers his speech The Challenger Disaster; hours after the space shuttle The Challenger explodes while in take off. Thousands witnessed this horrifying event live in person and on television. This mission was very unique allowing the first civilian to ever be allowed in space during a mission. She was aboard The Challenger as an observer in the NASA Teacher in Space Program. Ironically, nineteen years before this disaster, three astronauts were tragically lost in an accident on the ground. President Reagan remembers those astronauts that were lost not only the day of the disaster, but also those who were lost nineteen years before. He conducts

Going throughout history and the mistakes we have made throughout, you would think back and say if we did the right thing or if we have made a huge mistake. In this case it is the Manhattan Project. This project was first time the atomic bomb was introduced. It was led by General Leslie Groves and the research was directed by American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Most of the people who worked on this project were not told what they were working on, but only told what to do. In this case, was it right to lie to the people working on this project, was it necessary not to tell the U.S. community, and was it necessary to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Manhattan Project was necessary for certain things, but not all.

In just 34 seconds, the lives of 36 people were lost on May 6, 1937. The airship had over 97 seven people aboard the when it burst into a ball of flames(The). Many people have theories as to why the airship went down. Some say two of the four engines failed to maintain power. Others argue back that a hydrogen leak was the culprit.(Found)

Jackson and Raftos (1997) referred to whistle blowing as an avenue of last resort. Employees find themselves in these situations when the authorities at their organisations have failed to take actions on reported issues affecting that organisation. Wimot (2000) likened whistleblowing to a spectrum. At one end of this spectrum whistleblowing would only cause minimal pain and scars on the stakeholders and organisation while on the other end is the worst scenario where the whistleblowing effects are turbulent and often experienced to be negative to all those involved (ibid).

On 1st of February, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia exploded when it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere after finished a 16 days mission in space. All seven astronauts were dead because of this incident. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had stopped the space shuttle program for more than two years to investigate this tragedy. In the 16 days period, the astronauts did approximately 80 experiments on different categories, for example, life science and material science [1]. An investigation later has found out that the disaster was caused by a problem on the day that took off on 16th of January.

The case study I chose to analyze was the Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion by Ronald C. Kramer. Kramer discussed four main components that led to the catastrophic explosion. These components include the societal context, the final flaw, the persons behind the final decision to launch, and lastly the failure of social control mechanisms. There was not just one factor that led to the failure of the launch. As Kramer discusses the different concepts that led to the failure point to state-corporate crime as a private business and government agency interacted.

From the onset, it is important to note that James and his vice president for production, John Healy, could have possibly prevented the scenario from escalating into a fully blown crisis by addressing the issue early enough. In my opinion, the company's top leadership should have acted during the second stage of the scenario, i.e. after concern deepened. The company's topmost executives instead chose to adopt the 'wait and see' stance.

they had to face when the problem was first noticed, which was as early as

“Written reports on the other hand give executives, managers, and supervisor’s detailed information as to their overall progress on projected tasks within different departments; and overall company goals” (Nelson & Quick, 2017, pg. 131). In addition, however, there is other types of written communications, such as memo’s and letter’s which give more adequate information when communicating officially, these being larger in span and theme compared to memo’s. “Thus, making the shortest kind of written communication to be that of form, which may be used to collect information inside or outside the organization” (Nelson & Quick, 2017, pg. 131).