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.

The Challenger disaster was not only a disaster in terms of the destruction of the spacecraft and the death of its crew but also in terms of the decision-making process that led to the launch and in terms of the subsequent investigation into the "causes" of the disaster. The decision to recommend for launch was made by lower-level management officials over the objections of technical experts who opposed the launch under the environmental conditions that existed on the launch pad at the time. Furthermore, the lower-level managers who made this decision--both NASA and contractor personnel--chose not to report the objections of the technical experts in their recommendations to higher levels in the management chain- of-command to

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

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.

Roger Boisjoly attempt to stop the Challenger launch before the disaster sheds light on the ethical decisions made by management at NASA. Testimony provided by Boisjoly shows that management at NASA was aware of the O-ring hazards and was willing to accept the risks without correcting the issues. During the day of the launch, Thiokol engineers recommended against the launch. However, NASA management told the engineers that they must “take off your engineer hat and put your management hat on.” Following this, Thiokol agreed with NASA’s recommendations and the Challenger shuttle launch went ahead as planned and caused the deaths of all passengers. In attempting to examine who was responsible for the disaster, NASA’s emphasis on management systems and collective responsibility obscured the blame from the individuals. Unfortunately collective responsibility, encourages the idea of groupthink. Unfortunately, due to groupthink individuals may make decisions they wouldn’t agree with individually, yet as a collective agree to it. Such a practice of group decision making eschews responsibility for actions. The individuals in companies who use groupthink avoid responsibility for their actions and are capable of making ethical decisions against their own moral codes. Engineers at Thiokol advised NASA against the launch until their professional opinion was ignored due to NASA’s willingness to

Furthermore, other than the desire to recover reputation, there was a lack of incentive on the organization to change. The only compensatory change that was invoked was a consistent lack of funding which only magnified the existing problems. There was even a program implemented that was titled, ‘Faster, Better, Cheaper.’ After NASA failed to meet the initial expedited launch schedule in the early 1980’s, resulting in managerial oversight and the loss of life, there should have been a focus on thoroughness and not speed of completion. Additionally, there was a continued lack of respect and trust from sector to sector and the

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.

The first space shuttle, Enterprise, launched in 1977. NASA couldn’t have been more proud of their accomplishments and looked forward to the years to come with many new ideas, experiments to try and space to explore. While this might have been the case for a few years following, NASA couldn’t have predicted what was to happen on the mornings of January 28, 1986 and February 1, 2003… or could they? Disaster struck for both the Challenger and the Columbus space shuttles. Even though both scenarios were different, they were one in the same when it came to the reasoning behind why it happened. The ideas of cultural change, ethics of organization and decision making were all to blame.