The Challenger Disaster - Responsibility of Morton Thiokol Inc.

The challenger disaster called for certain changes in the NASA organizational structure, culture and operations. The Rogers Commission carried out a full investigation into the causes of the disaster and recommended to NASA certain actions to mitigate future incidents. First of all, there was a creation of a Solid Rocket Motor Joint redesign team who would also analyse the sealing system (NATA Technical Reports Centre, 2010).

These consequences can lead to monumental fiascoes. One such fiasco took place in the mining town of Pitcher, Oklahoma in 1950. A mining engineer warned the miners that their town could cave in at any moment from excessive excavating. He suggested immediate evacuation of the town. The leading citizens of the town held a meeting and mocked the engineers’ warning. A few days later, the disaster hit, taking the lives of those who refused to leave. They followed the poor decision made by the leading citizens of the town. All seven symptoms were present in the 1950 mining disaster. A second example of groupthink would be the events surrounding the space shuttle Challenger, the product of flawed decisions. The evidence was inadvisable to launch the space shuttle at the earliest opportunity. NASA’s perspective was that is was undesirable to delay the launch because of the impact it would have on political and public support for the program. Authorities dismissed potentially lethal hazards as only acceptable risks because of NASA’s engineer’s pressure to launch. The decision to launch the shuttle amounted to a much greater loss than the loss of political and public support. A third example of groupthink involves the group around Admiral HE Kimmel, which failed to prepare for the possibility of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor despite repeated warnings. Informed by his intelligence chief that radio contact with Japanese aircraft carriers

Seventy three seconds into its 10th flight, on January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing the seven crew members on board [1]. The Challenger was the second space shuttle constructed by NASA and had completed nine successful missions prior to the disaster. Following the accident, the shuttle program was suspended for 32 months as President Ronald Regan appointed a Commission, chaired by William P. Rogers and known as the Rogers Commission, to investigate the cause of the accident [1].

On the morning of January 28th, 1986, Americans watched in shock and horror as the space shuttle Challenger exploded only 74 seconds after its launch, killing all seven crew members on board including a high school teacher Christa McAuliffe. Thousands, including families of the crew and schoolchildren

The memo written by Roger Boisjoly of Morton Thiokol, Inc. regarding the Challenger explosion had a very direct approach with a condescending tone. The author does an excellent job at grabbing the reader’s attention. The subject line states “SRM O-Ring Erosion/Potential Failure Criticality”. With a subject line written in that manner, it stresses the urgency of the memo. In the first paragraph, of the memo the author states that the memo is written to address the seriousness of the current O-ring erosion problem. Again, this is stressing the urgency of the memo and states his purpose for publishing the memo. In the body of the memo, Mr. Boisjoly takes on a more condescending, non-professional tone. He makes two statements that could be taken as if he was questioning authority. First, “The mistakenly accepted position on the joint problem was to fly without fear and failure and to run a series of design evaluations which would ultimately lead to a solution or at least a significant reduction of the erosion problem”. This statement seems as if he does not respect the authority of the company leaders, and the decision they

In the text, Kreitner and Kinicki (2013) states that decision making is one of the primary responsibilities of a manager, and the quality of one’s decisions can have serious consequences. As the title of this cause study shows Faulty Decision Making is the Cause of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster. Faulty decision making or lack of any decision making is the key to this disaster.

On the morning of Janurary 28th 1986, the world witnessed in shock and horror what was known as the Challenger disaster as the space shuttle exploded only 73 seconds after its launch, killing all seven crew members onboard including one teacher Christa McAuliffe. Approximately 17 percent of Americans watched the live broadcast of this launch, many of them schoolchildren including those from McAuliffe’s school. From this grave moment emerged an exigency that demands immediate action by the president. Later on that same day, President Ronald Reagan delivered his Challenger address to the nation.

The article includes background information on the event as well as many quotes from people who followed the Challenger mission and remember the tragedy. Many of the quotes express the viewer’s shock at the disaster while others convey a sense of loss. The article also touches on the complacency of NASA leading up to the disaster and refers to a quote which states that “one of the biggest outcomes from the tragedy was the recommendation that NASA needed a stronger safety organization.”

The nation grieved for the brave crew who lost their lives in the disaster. My Aunt Kim remembers where she was when she found out. “I was just out of high school and working at a bakery. I was in the back with some of the other girls who worked there when we heard the challenger had exploded. We knew that the teacher had died and everything like that. And… it was very sobering.” The Challenger explosion was a traumatic experience for America. NASA realized they hadn’t been careful enough. The explosion could have been avoided. The United States government and NASA from that point on realized that they couldn’t rush their projects at the expense of people's lives. It left a permanent impression on those who watched and reminds us that The United States is not perfect or infallible, that seven people died unnecessarily because of NASA’s decision to launch when conditions weren’t

Weather can play an enormous role in historical events that are remembered decades, and even centuries, after they happen. It can turn small events that would go unnoticed in history to events that are remembered as some of the most important in world history. Until relatively recently, when the Weather Bureau was formed in 1870, we lacked the capability to forecast the weather and prevent incidents like these (Robbins). Even though weather reporting from that moment on would become widespread across the country, it would not be enough to prevent disasters such as the Challenger disaster that rocked the country on a chilly day in 1986.

Ronald Reagan’s speech “Explosions of the Space Shuttle Challenger” was addressed to the Nation about the first tragedy during a flight to space. President Reagan’s response to the tragedy of the Challenger explosion included an argument about the space program. Reagan’s claim, or position, about the space program was credible and supported by logical reasoning and evidence. Reagan argued that the Challenger Seven knew what they were getting into: “But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers” (Line 10-11). Before the shuttle crew ascended into space, they were most likely mindful of the risk they were taking. Reagan also claimed that the space does not “keep secrets and cover things up” (Line 36), instead, they “do it all upfront

On January 28th 1986 the space shuttle Challenger was set to be sent into space with teacher Christa McAuliffe from New Hampshire as part of its crew. It was colder than normal on that day and engineers from NASA were concerned about possible failure of the O rings of the shuttle. However, their supervisors ignored them and let the shuttle embark on schedule. As a result the challenger exploded before it even exited the atmosphere

Challenger Disaster and Impacts Space exploration is and always will be an expensive and dangerous ordeal. Before the Challenger accident, it was widely believed that space exploration was an easy and safe. However, as we see with the Challenger accident, that is not always the case. The primary fault for the failure to launch Challenger in orbit was deduced to be because of a defective O-ring. This defective component allowed hot gasses and flames to seep out, that subsequently created a blowtorch that was aimed at the spacecraft.

“The data showed that the rubber seals on the shuttle's booster rockets wouldn't seal properly in cold temperatures and this would be the coldest launch ever.” (Berkes, 2016) Having been given this information I would make the decision to launch. “Sending shuttles up with some risk was the norm at NASA, and it was understood that some risk was unavoidable. The possibility of some primary O-ring erosion was found acceptable because of the redundancy of the secondary O-ring. Over a period of time, the amount of erosion that was acceptable grew increment by increment. The Okaying of the Challenger launch was the result of day-to-day decisions made over a period of years - a kind of incremental acceptance of deviance that Vaughan compares to Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil." As she argues, "incrementalism can contribute to extraordinary events" (Tankard, 1996).

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