Role of Groupthink in the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster - Essay Example

INTRODUCTION The space shuttle program - that is also known as space transportation program – was the “Manned Launch Vehicle Program” of the government of United Stated that was officially started in 1971. STS-51L was the first human flight, which was the 25th mission of the space shuttle and was the 10th launch of the challengers. The space shuttle challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986 when STS-51L broke-apart in 72 seconds from its lift-off. This disastrous situation led to the deaths of seven crew members (mission commander, 2 payload specialists, and 3mission specialists). After this catastrophic, NASA’s shuttle flights were postponed for a couple of years. The mission of the deployment of STS-51L was to replace the pre-existing network system of the world; through this mission the amount of transferred data can also be improved. The NASA wanted to place its communication satellite on geosynchronous orbit by the support of “Inertial Upper Stage”. The satellite would have been able to support communication with 23 other space crafts and space shuttle. The special instruments were placed in austere satellite in order to observe the Comet of Halley. According to Rogers’ commission, the cause of this disaster was the failure of the backup joint seal and the failure of that seal occur due to the cold weather. These seals were not applied suitably.The leakage of fire gas occurred behind the joint of “Right Solid Rocket Motor” and the explosion of the shuttle also weakened the external tank structure. Therefore, the whole structure broke-up and the loss of the space shuttle challenger occurred (Armenakis, 2002; Kramer, 1992: Feynman, 2008). This report discusses the role of Groupthink in the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster and will suggest a way in which the situation might have been avoided. The report also discusses the symptoms of the groupthink. Causes of Space Shuttle Incident: Solid rocket boosters is bringing together in different pieces and these pieces have different seals attached. The seal is made with rubber called O-ring. The design of the solid rocket boosters (this is a white tube that is placed on the side of the orange fuel tang) was not appropriate. These two most powerful rockets were wrapped-up with the side of the external tank and after taking flight off SRB showed its flaws, Due to the cold weather seals lost its elasticity (Bergin, 2007) and due to the weak joint; hot gases started leaking and the boosters’ flames were started passing from the failed seal and caused to enlarge the hole. The enlargement of holes caused to leak the hydrogen that cause to damage the fuel tang and disintegrate the spacecraft. In other words; the flame was eating the wall of the booster and the holes were getting bigger now the fire was in the contact of the bottom fuel tank that contained the flammable liquid hydrogen. In 64 seconds, the flame burnt the small hole in the tank as the hydrogen began to burn. In 72 seconds, the hydrogen was pouring from the bottom of the tang and the bottom of the hydrogen tank fell away. The causes of the break-up were many structural flaws. This was the first flight which carried the untrained astronaut. The take-off decision of NASA was a flaw, and the top decision makers’ team was not informed with the critical issues of joints or the impact of the cold weather (Armenakis, 2002; Kramer, 1992: Feynman, 2008). Why groupthink implicated? Two people can think more and therefore it is better to include two people than one in making decisions. Either in university life or at work; people always spend a significant amount of time working in a group effort. Groups can outperform individuals because they have potential to bring unique insights, knowledge and skill information. According to the Irving Janis, a social psychologist; group decisions can have terrible results if members are unaware of faulty groupthink symptoms and structure of groupthink (Whyte, 1998). Similar kind of situation happened in the case of Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. The two officials of NASA from the top three considered that they understood the entire joint problem, and completely ignored the objections that were raised by the MTI engineers. The top officials did not search for the MTI concerns; they were continuously defending their opinions. The cause of the disaster was the fault process of decision making, but the top officials were not the only cause of disaster. All of the individuals that were involved in the groupthink were responsible for the challenger catastrophic (Hughes & White, 2010; Kumar & Chakrabarti, 2012; Moorhead, Ference, & Neck, 1991). What is groupthink? The concept of groupthink was invented by Irving Janis in 1982(Whyte, 1998). Groupthink is the name of the problem that arises in group decision making sometimes. Group think occurs when there is any kind of pressure on the group. This pressure results in reducing and affecting the mental ability and results in carelessness in making ethical judgments. This problem occurs in the case of group cohesiveness in which the importance is given to the desire of group members, rather solve and evaluate the problem rationally. Group members have influence of dynamic leaders due to which they (group members) ignore the external realities and make decisions (Bénabou, 2013). The group problem solving deteriorates into groupthink due to the external threat (Rathus, 2008). The potential of groupthink can be in any organization, not just in political and military decision making. Groupthink’s symptoms: Eight characteristics of groupthink- were identified by the Janis -that contributes to faulty group decisions (Brown and Harvey, 2006;Rathus, 2008; Lunenburg, 2010) 1. Sensation of Invulnerability: because the people in the group consist of authoritative people, therefore; decision making groups have a sense that they cannot be defeated and cannot be criticized. They become the victim of the illusion that they cannot be harmed and due to this invulnerability; they become exaggeratedly confident and take too risky steps that can cause to harm the target. 2. Belief of High Mortality: these groups believe that whatever they are doing is right and cannot be questioned. They do not think on the ethical and moral aspects of decision. For example, we know what is right and whatever we do; that is right. 3. Harm the information divergent from the decision of the group: group members disregard the opinion and warnings that are contrary from the group decision and give an explanation and collect the information that can support their decisions. 4. Stereotyping: people who are the victim of groupthink mostly hold the view of stereotypes and the views of opposition’s and their leaders are considered stupid or taken as evil opinion. Therefore; the opposite group is not able to negotiate with groupthink’s victims. For example, even one has logic behind the argument but the lawyer will find a way to oppose the argument. 5. Self-censorship: group members do not communicate the ideas that are different from the group consensus and try to hide those ideas and ignore the importance of these opposite ideas or doubts. For example: if all members have the same opinion then my contrasting opinion must be wrong. 6. Pressure: groupthink’s victims pressurize the individuals who have doubt and have any against opinion about the decision that is agreed by all members. In such condition members who questioned the decision and present their view, that is contrary, the rest of the members collectively pressurize the opposition. For example: if you really think that we are wrong then you can leave the group. 7. Illusion of unity: group members think that all members of the group are united and agree with the made decision. It is at some extent based on false illusions because they take the other members’ silence as agreement. For example: once see that no one is against the decision then it is final. 8. Behaving as a mind-guard: people in a group that are victim of groupthink appoint themselves and behave as mind-guard. They just not protect their leaders, but also their fellows from the information that can hurt the satisfaction of the effectiveness and past decisions mortality they share. CRITICAL ANALYSIS After having the detailed look that what groupthink is; we deployed this theory on the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster and found that the sense of rightness of the group, illusion of unanimity, stereotyping actions, mind guarding, self-censorship and pressure are the factors that were the cause of the flawed decision. As from the studies, it is observed that the cause of the disaster was the failure of the O’ring, but it is necessary to analyze the factors that were working behind. Due to the diverse reasons NASA was not tranquil about the launch but in order to justify the budget and due to the political pressure – when Reagan made a crucial speech regarding the policy national space - NASA agreed to launch the STS-51L.The take-off decision was also made in a pressure because NASA had delayed the flight many times due the unbalanced weather’s conditions and sometime due to the mechanical issues that showed that NASA’s members were pressurized to make decision, and they put all their eggs on a basket. They wanted to prove that the shuttle was able to use as a vehicle. Sufficient warnings had been made regarding “solid rocket boosters”. Even the Morton-Thiokol the manufacturer of “solid rocket boosters” advised that no launch should take place in such cold weather because it will be unsafe. The NASA had not been informed about the booster before, and this sudden announcement by the engineers of Morton-Thiokol was unbelievable for the members of NASA.NASA’s officials asked manufacturer to justify the decision of delay; things were getting problematic and at the end manufacturer asked his engineers to reconsider their situation (Hughes & White, 2010; Kumar & Chakrabarti, 2012; Moorhead, Ference, & Neck, 1991). This decision process was influenced by the groupthink because people who were involved in the mortal decision making process were the part of a cohesive group. The NASA’s organizational culture was the reason of the disaster because the cultural belief of the organization was that O-rings are low risky, and that was backed by the successful missions and Flight Readiness Review Decisions. Managers of the program were united in the decision making process and the manufacturer of the booster was also the part of the disaster because he was silent, and when his engineers showed the concern he informed the NASA but could not stick with his decision that was against the launch and his silence was considered his agreement to the launch (Illusion of unity).He changed his decision in the favor of launch due to the pressure of NASA’s officials and the loss of the future revenue. This was the clear evidence of the self-censorship because NASA’s officials did not consider the consequence of the objections’ ignorance. The orbiter’s manufacturer also showed his concern about the cold weather; his concern was delivered to the Moore that was the in charge of the “flight readiness review for NASA” but he was obligated for the approval of the launch. This launch was suggested by the officials of lower level management against the objection that was presented by the technical staff and NASA with the lower level management chose to hide the objection facts (self-censorship and stereotypes). They thought that they cannot be wrong and would not have been criticized. The action of sticking with the launch decision was the evidence of the invulnerability of management. This attitude of invulnerability is summarized by Janis; he said that “people who are in the illusion of invulnerability always think that everything that they do is going to work accurate because they belong to a special group”(Hughes & White, 2010; Kumar & Chakrabarti, 2012; Moorhead, Ference, & Neck, 1991). The decision of the top two officials regarding launch was a stereotyped view because they considered that they recognized the entire joint dilemma and completely ignored the objections that were raised by the engineers. Even they humiliated opposition and ask again and again to correct their opinion and information. These officials obligated the opposition to give an explanation for their decision and when they justified their decision with proves; they were asked to change their recommendation by these officials of NASA. The MTI management overruled the engineers and turned their engineers’ decisions into the favor of launch. The pressure on the opposed group is considered as “direct pressure”. “I fought like hell to stop that launch”, one of the engineers told Zwerdling a report (Berkes, 2006). The NASA’s officials were continuously defending their decisions and making others agree to modify the opinion that was against the launch; they have a tendency to show the information that is in the favor of the launch. This tendency of the officials was the mind guarded symptom of groupthink. By having detailed look on all these facts; it is easy to say that the major cause of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster was the groupthink (Hughes & White, 2010; Kumar & Chakrabarti, 2012; Moorhead, Ference, & Neck, 1991). NASA just not faced only internal but also multiple external risk factors and these factors involve financial risk, operational risks, environmental risks, strategic risk and the loss of lives. The basic risk was the failure of the control system. The whole program was built on the management’s risk and the risk of control system. Because of the principal agent problem (a disagreement of concern arises between two parties) managers were not paying attention towards the risk factors (Hughes & White, 2010; Kumar & Chakrabarti, 2012; Moorhead, Ference, & Neck, 1991). The reason of the disaster was the fault processes of decision making that cause to show the ways towards the launch, and the full of flaw decision making process was not the consequence of an individual but the massive amount of individuals was responsible that was within the groupthink setting. Only the shuttle challenger disaster was not the result of groupthink, but many other decisions such as to in Cuba the launch of pigs’ invasion’s bay; the decision of Vietnam war; and to cover the Watergate break-in decision all these decision was the result of groupthink (Lunenburg, 2010). RECOMMENDATIONS The challenger tragedy could be avoided if NASA and Thiokol did wait for the right temperature, but they did not because they thought that the prior mission of shuttle was successful, therefore; the temperature will not affect the flight and they continued as they planned. This showed that the present rationales should be considered rather stick with the prior experience. The preparations should have been done in order to deal with the accident and execution plan should be prepared for the avoidance of the accident. The fatal actions and the errors should not be disregarded and should have been taken seriously before the challenger’s launch. Morton-Thiokol the manufacturer of the solid rocket booster should not have been changed his view not to launch the shuttle. CONCLUSION The whole report has been based on the incident of challenger that took place in 1986. That was a great disaster and lesson for NASA. The disaster was the result of many errors that occur before the launch of the flight. According to the report of the commission the cause of the disaster was the O-ring seal. Rogers’ commission reported in his report that the cause of this disastrous situation was the breakdown of the backing joint fasten, and the crash of that seal took place because of the low temperature. These seals were not applied properly and due to the cold weather got a collapse. The leakage of fire gas occurred behind the joint of “Right Solid Rocket Motor” and the explosion of the shuttle also weakened the external tank structure. Therefore, the whole structure broke-up and the loss of the space shuttle challenger occurred. Due to the faulty design the whole incident occurs. But during the analysis it has been found that this was not the only reason; there were many reasons of the tragedy and the major was groupthink. The role of the groupthink is discussed in this report and found that the flawed decision making process is followed by the groupthink. The decision making process involved the symptoms of groupthink. The NASA’s officials were also found responsible for this incident because, despite the concerned, that was voiced by the engineers of NASA they permitted the launch of shuttle. Officials of NASA were not listening the objections that were presented by the engineers of the NASA and due to the pressure - that was created by the political factors and many other reasons – they focused on the launch and also obligate other members to turn their opposed opinion in the favor of launch. These officials ignore the importance of the objections and the consequences and their decision to be fixed with the decision of launch took the lives of 7 astronauts. REFERENCES Armenakis, A. A. (2002). Boisjoly on Ethics An Interview with Roger M. Boisjoly. Journal of Management Inquiry, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 274-281. Bénabou, R. (2013). Groupthink: Collective delusions in organizations and markets. The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 80, no. (2), 429-462. Bergin, C (2007). Remembering the mistakes of Challenger. 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