The Tragedy of the Space Shuttle Challenger - Research Paper Example

It discovered that the Challenger tragedy was caused by a breakdown in the O-rings closing a joint on the right firm rocket booster, which permitted pressurized hot gases plus finally blaze to “blow-by” the O-ring making contact with the neighboring tank, and eventually leading to structural failure. Thus the failure of the 2 rubber O-rings was found to be from a faulty design, whose functioning could be very easily have been compromised by factors comprising of the very low temperatures on the sunrise of the fateful day of the launch.

There were specific individuals at NASA as well as amongst contractors who were worried about the reliability of the fasteners on the firm rocket boosters in such cold weather (Henry, 2004). The report broadly pointed out the contributing causes such as the failure of both Morton Thiokol as well as NASA to adequately respond to the risk posed by the poor joint design. Instead of redesigning the joint, both parties defined the issue as a tolerable flight risk.