Space Shuttle Disaster Essay

On January 1986, the Challenger Shuttle blew up shortly after it took off. The accidents took seven lives including aerospace engineers, the specialties pilot, and scientists. The tragic accidents occurred 73 seconds after the flight and caused by the fuel leak from one of the two Solid Rocket Boosters. The explosion represented one of the most significant events in 1980s. However, 17 years after the explosion of the Challenger Shuttle, the Shuttle Colombia also had an in-flight explosion leading to the loss of seven lives.

When I think of the differences between power and authority, I immediately think of the presidential cabinet. His cabinet has the authority to provide information and advice to the president but at the end of the day, the President has the power to make the final decision. The government does not have complete power over the people in part due to our civil liberties but they do have authority over us when we make mistakes. The traits of authority sometimes comes along with intimidation. When a police officer pulls us over we have our Miranda rights that can protect us from self incrimination, but once we are in trouble the law has the power to determine our punishment. The benefits of having power is that no one can tell you what to do and

In 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger launched from Kennedy Space Center people watched in awe for a little more than a minute before the shuttle exploded in flight. This was the first of only two major accidents that occurred during over two decades of NASA’s shuttle program and many would consider it to be a fluke that could not have been prevented or predicted. In truth the Challenger disaster was an accident waiting to happen and was a symptom of systemic problems that were occurring at NASA during that era. The 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster was cause by a number of factors including structural failure of the shuttle, a change in NASA’s work environment from the days of the

During the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster, many professional responsibilities were neglected. First, engineers did not “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public” (Ethics Code II. 1. a.). For example, although the ice inspection team found the launch situation to be of great concern, the launch director authorized it anyway (Texas A&M University 5). At this point, professional bodies or public authorities should have been notified.

In this paper we will study the Challenger space shuttle disaster in detail. Our focus will be on different aspects of this event such as the many purposes which were served by the Challenger space shuttle; we will also specifically focus on the media's role regarding this event and see how it affected the entire situation.

The tragedy could have been evaded. The problems with these rings were recognized by the engineers working on the the shuttle, but they didn't notify the administration. This had been noted in previous flights. Instead of demanding an inquiry, NASA ignored the issue and increased its tolerance. Just one night before, the NASA called one of the manufacturers of the spacecraft parts. A crowd of engineers told NASA about their concern of potential failures of the rings in severe climate and suggested to postpone the launching. NASA denied the flight's suspension, and with the pressure from them, the manufacturer approved launch, and Challenger was heading straight towards disaster. The failure in communicating, mixed with bad management that permitted NASA to avoid safety requirements, was the on-ground root of the

Since the Challenger event of 1986, Orbiter abort capabilities, improvement of these capabilities, options for crew escape, and the performance of the range safety system became significant concerns of Commission. The event caused following important shuttle missions to be put on hold or canceled in a certain period and plunged NASA into a soul-searching. Because investigators of soul-searching found that NASA had continually ignored serious technical problems, they criticized that NASA has a "silent safety program” (NASA, 1986). Prior to occurrence of the event, several safety waivers had been granted or were pending owing to lack of time and funds. After the event, some of approved safety waivers were required to reconsider. Furthermore, compared to $15.5 billion in fiscal 1986, the budget of NASA increased to approximately $21 billion in 1987 and continued to trend upward for the next half-decade (NASA, 1986). Even so, Norman Augustine, who is appointed by the Obama administration to lead a panel to examine plans of NASA, states that NASA has usually faced a situation that identified goals disconnects with funds that carrying out the goals since the Challenger event. (NASA, 1986). Because the Challenger accident led to a series of changes at NASA and drew national attention from the number of flights launched each year to NASA space shuttle safety system, it played an important role in the history of

It’s very clear that NASA ignored the group thinking avoidance techniques. The launch was the number one priority for the organization, and that is where all of its efforts were channeled. They made the decision to execute the launch early in their planning process, which minimized all of the variables and factors that present themselves within the hours leading to the actual execution. The advances in technology have been able to mitigate many issues, but you can’t ignore the effect of weather on the components of the shuttle. The experts brought up the concerns, but they were deliberately marginalized by the leadership. When I think of a seal, I immediately think of a $0.25 piece of rubber.

While root cause analysis of both sentinel events revealed mechanical and debris problems as causative factors, the underlying problem was much worse—NASA’s lax safety oversight and slipshod management. These findings uncovered what dozens, and likely lucky, successful missions had hid from the public. The country mourned the first tragedy, but demanded change, which made the loss of Columbia for similar reasons so stunning. Therefore, much of this paper concentrated on change resistance, as the inability to change organizations is usually attributed to the difficulties in changing people. Despite the distractions, leadership must push through this resistance or risk irrelevance in the marketplace. It is for good reasons, organizations use the lessons of the Challenger and Columbia disasters in all levels of leadership as a warning of the potential for harm when budget constraints, tight schedules, and deadlines allow flawed reasoning and egos to undermine safety and the decision-making

Ronald Dittemore, manager of Shuttle Program, received reports directly from Wayne Hale (manager of Launch Integration) and Linda Ham (manager of Space Shuttle Program Integration). It is clear that decision about foam issue was made based on communication with Linda Ham, stating that in previous flights had no critical problems with foam. Dittemore did not attempt to receive a professional opinion from the engineers. Furthermore, Rocha sent an e-mail to Dittemore in order to determine whether Columbia’s crew could make a space walk to perform an inspection of the wing. Answer to this e-mail was never received suggesting that communication attempts directly from engineers to high-level managers were rejected. NASA is a complex organization that maintains strict reporting relationship. Information exchange is built on hierarchy and rules did not facilitate fast informal communication between employees and high-level management. This filtering process diminished the information flow to the key decision-makers. To solve this hierarchical structure managers like Dittemore should exaggerate their ambiguous threats, avoid status differences and build trust among employees. Managers ought to communicate with specialists in order to obtain reliable information and understand the situation.

The Columbia Accident is a report based on the very disastrous, but very preventable, misfortune that happened to the space shuttle Columbia. During the shuttle’s reentry to Earth pieces of the shuttle began to shut down and some even coming off entirely, causing the serious malfunctions that led to its disintegration. Because of these technology malfunctions, seven crew members perished and a billion dollar project became a failure. Due to oversight and money hunger corporations, seven lives ended and history repeated itself in a terrible situation.

The initial threat to the ability of NASA to sustain the dramatic changes in the wake of the Challenger disaster started well before the lives of the astronauts were lost. The lack of centralization of management and the fact that different aspects of the organization had locations ranging from D.C. to Florida allowed for no one to really accept and own up to the fact that they were at fault. No one group or person took responsibility, so it was cast upon the entire NASA organization and no one took it upon themselves to make sure that a disaster of this caliber would ever happen again.

NASA’s mission was then to be more focused on science and station-building activities. After the disaster of Challenger, NASA’s return to flight mission was STS-26. Quickly after, Discovery flew a few more defense missions and also a series of satellite launches such as; “TDRS, Hubble, the Ulysses spacecraft and the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite that infamously plunged to Earth in 2011” in accordance to (Howell, 2012). More importantly, Discovery’s primary mission was to build the International Space Station, but that was delayed due to the other disaster which was Columbia. NASA then spent time to focus on new safety procedures to prevent anything similar to the former two space shuttles to occur again.

One of the greatest tragedies in history occurred on January 8, 1986. Shortly after it was launched, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire schoolteacher chosen to be the first teacher in space (“Challenger Disaster, n.d.). The explosion was caused by a failure of the O-rings of the solid rocket boosters. The O-rings were unable to seat properly, causing the leaking of hot combustion gases, which burnt through the external fuel tank. The malfunction was not any one person’s or organization’s fault; it was caused by many factors including the decision to launch despite the cold weather, the poor communication between management levels of the National Aeronautics and

Rockwell, the shuttle’s primary contractor, did not support the launch due to the possibility of ice leaving the structure and damaging the thermal shield tiles during takeoff. Their concerns were relayed to NASA, but in such a way that NASA chose to proceed with the launch [2]. Though this was eventually determined to be a non-issue in the Challenger launch, the true nature of the problems that can occur when an object strikes the shuttle during takeoff would not be learned until 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry due to damage of a heat shield tile that occurred during takeoff [2]--[3].