What Could Have Been Done in the Challenger Disaster - Case Study Example

Running header: The Challenger Disaster Student’s name: Instructor’s name Subject code: Date of submission: The challenger disaster: What could have been done Abstract The Challenger disaster took place in the morning of Tuesday January 1986 leading to the death of all the seven crew members. A commission of enquiry established by the government to look into the disaster blamed NASA for negligence. Additional research reveals that engineers had warned the management against launching the shuttle but this recommendation was ignored. This paper looks at the events prior and during the Challenger shuttle launch that could have led to the disaster. It will be established that technical issues, political, economic and backlog considerations were largely to blame for the disaster. In addition, the paper will look at what could have been done differently by various stakeholders to avoid the disaster. In this regard, it will be argued that the management should not have allowed political and economic considerations overtake public welfare and safety. It will also be argued that the engineers should have been more persuasive in presenting their views to the management in order to convince them to halt the launch. Finally, the need for proper communication in the organization as well as engineers being accountable in whatever they do will be emphasized. Introduction The challenger disaster happened on the morning of Tuesday January 1986 when the challenger shuttle that was carrying the first ordinary people into space exploded thus killing the seven crew members that were inside. The NASA project had been considered as the next evolutionary step for mankind movingtowards the dream of space travel for mankind. However, 73 seconds into flight, the challenger shuttle was ripped apart just above Cape Canaveral in Florida. The presidential commission of inquiry into the disaster first blamed it on technical issues. In its report, the commission stated that the O-ring seals in the aft field joint of the right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed. The failure was mainly attributed to cold weather which resulted in the destruction of the shuttle. Further probing by the commission later discovered that poor management was the cause of the disaster (Feynman, 1992). In this regard, this paper uses the revelations of the presidential commission of inquiry while making use of further research to determine what could have been done to prevent the disaster from happening. In so doing, the paper will give an overview of the disaster, what went wrong and finally what the management as well as other stakeholders could have done differently bearing. The Challenger disaster overview As stated above, the challenger disaster is attributed to a number of factors including the failure of the solid rocket booster O-rings to sit properly allowing hot combustion gases to leak from the side of the booster to burn through the external fuel tank. The failure of the O-ring is attributed to many factors including the faulty designed solid rocket boosters, insufficient temperature for testing the O-ring material as well as the joints of the O-rings. Furthermore, there was lack of communication between different levels of NASA management. It should be noted that the problems with the challenger had been known before the launch (Johnson, 2001). However, several factors prevented elimination of the problems before the launch. For instance, NASA’s management had been anxious to launch the shuttle for many reasons including economic reasons, political considerations as well as scheduling backlogs. In addition, there was the unforeseen competitionfrom the European space agency which meant NASA would have to fly the shuttle dependably on a very ambitious schedule with an aim of proving the systems cost effectiveness as well as commercialization potential. This is bearing in mind that the challenger mission had been severally delayed owing to inclement weather as well as mechanical factors. In addition, there also seems to have been pressure for NASA to launch the Challenger before President Reagan gave his state of the nation address which would touch on education bearing in mind that the first teacher would have been in space. The events that happened prior to the launching of the shuttle and which could point at what may have gone wrong are explained below. Thus, using these events, we can know what would have been done differently so as to avoid the disaster. Pressure to launch As stated above, NASA’s management was under pressure to launch the challenger for a number of reasons including economic considerations which resulted from unforeseen competition from the European space agency which prompted NASA to fly the Challenger on a very ambitious schedule in a bid to prove its cost effectiveness as well as potential for commercialization. In addition, bearing in mind that the Challenger mission had been delayed for a number of times owing to inclement weather and mechanical factors, the management was under pressure to launch it without further delay so as to refurbish the launch pad on time for other missions especially the one carrying a probe for examining Halley’s Comet. In this regard, they were eager to collect the data just before a similar Russian probe could be carried out (Lewis, 1988). Politically, there was pressure to launch the challenger to be in space when President Reagan gave the state of the nation address that would mainly revolve around education and hence the shuttle would be mentioned with the first teacher in space. While all the above reasons seem to justify the pressure to launch, it would have been important for the management to consider moral and ethical requirements before the launch. The management was under an obligation to preserve the welfare of those who would be involved in the flight as well as the public at large. As such, political, economic and backlog considerations should never have been allowed to supersede the social consideration of welfare and hence preservation of life. As will be explained below, the challenger had a lot of technical issues that needed to be considered and rectified before the launch. Furthermore, the management was not ignorant of these issues as engineers had informed them about the issues (Report. 2003). Yet the management which was also composed of engineers chose to ignore professional advice in a bid to hit their political and economic goals. Clearly, the economic and political goals were allowed to supersede the ethical responsibility of welfare. This was an act of negligence that should never have been. The solid rocket booster It is worth noting that SRBs (Solid rocket boosters) are vital elements in the shuttle’s operations since devoid of the boosters, the shuttle fails to produce enoughthrust that can overcome the earth’s gravitational pull and hence achieve orbit. SRB’s are attached to each side of the external fuel tank with each booster being 149 feet long and 12 feet indiameter before igniting while weighing 2 million pounds. It should be noted that the solidrockets produce more thrust than fuelones but after they are ignited, they can never be turned off and are not controllable and hence the engineers had the responsibility to properly design them (Charles, 1995). The award of the contract to build the challenger toThiokol was mainly based on economic considerations owing to the fact that Thiokol wascharging $100 million less than what the next bidder was asking for though its rocket boosters were the worst designed. It should be noted that NASA was facing budgetally constraints from the government. However, it was negligent for them to have placed economic considerations before quality. O-rings The SRBs joints are sealed by two O-rings which prevent hot combustion gases from escaping from inside of the motor. A heat resistant putty applied to the inner section of the joint prior to assembly provides a barrier between rubber O-rings and the combustion gases. It should be noted that the delays mentioned above were mainly to with technical issues relating to O-rings. This was also caused by defective micro switch in its hatch locking mechanism as well as problems related to removing hatch handle (McConnell, 1987). The problems with the O-rings had been discovered as early as 1977 and in 1985, a redesign effort had been undertaken with the management being briefed of the problems on August 1985. Half of the shuttle flights had experienced o- rings erosion in booster field joints. Engineers Ebeling and Boisjoly had however complained that the management was not supportive of the redesign efforts. In other words, the decision by the management to ignore professional advice was negligent and was a probable cause of the disaster. Had the suggestions for the redesign by the engineers been taken seriously, the disaster would have been avoided. A night before launching Temperatures are vital in successful launching of the shuttle. The temperatures for the launch date to below 20 degrees prompting Alan McDonald to ask engineers at Thiokol to prepare a presentation on the effects that the cold temperatures would have on the booster performance. This conference was actually held giving the engineers Boisjoly an opportunity to express the concerns they had on the boosters. However, they only had short time in preparing their presentation data. The presentation lasted for one hour during which the engineers convincingly demonstrated that cold weather would lead to greater problems of joint rotation as well as delayed O-ring seating. It should be noted that the lowest temperature experienced by the O-rings in previous mission was 53o F. In this regard, Thiokol’s vice president present conclusion and recommendations to the effect that since this was the only temperature data the company had for the effects of cold on operational boosters, they engineers could not prove that it was unsafe to launch the challenger at lower temperatures (Perrow, 1999). In this regard, he suggested that NASA should delay the launch so that temperatures would at least rise to 53°F. However, Marshall’s Solid Rocket Booster Project Manager Larry Mulloy was of a different opinion arguing that the data was inconclusive while challenging Thiokol engineers’ logic. After a heated argument, Mulloy bypassed the engineers and called for middle management decision. However, Thiokol’s management stood by the engineer’s decision. Several attempts were made by Boisjoly and Thompson to convince NASA seniormanagement to uphold their earlier decision not to launch. However, the management seems to have held the view that O-rings can be eroded up to one third of their diameter while still sealing properly the temperatures notwithstanding. According to them, the data presented to them had no correlation between temperature and blowby gasses that eroded the O-rings in previous missions. Testimony by Boisjoly points to the fact that management opted to take off their engineering hat and put on their management hat. This were negligent actions since there ignorance of the social welfare the responsibility that NASA had while attaching more importance to economic and political considerations. Emanating from the pressure to launch despite the above concerns, new recommendations were issued to the effect that thetemperatures were still safety concerns but the original data had been found inconclusive and hence NASA’s engineering assessment was to launch. However, the engineers were not part of the new recommendations and indeed they refused to sign the recommendations. Alan McDonald was however surprised with the new recommendation of lunching the challenger shuttle and indeed tried in vain to appeal to NASA’s management not to undertake the launch (Timothy, 2014). NASA’s management was determined to go on with the launch and hence decided to approve the boosters to be launched regardless of the fact that the temperatures had fallen below the boosters operational specifications. During the launch On the night prior to the launch, the temperatures dropped further to below 8°F which was below what was expected. In a bid to keep water pipes in the launch platform from freezing, fire horses and safety showers had to be turned on. It should be noted that some of the water hadaccumulated with ice forming all over the platform raising the concern that ice would fall off the platform thusdamaging the heat resistant tiles on the shuttle. Despite this concern, the launch director decided to go on with the countdown. During the launch, the impact of ignition broke loose a shower of ice from the launch platform with some of the ice striking the left-hand booster making some ice to be sucked into the booster nozzle via an inspiration effect. Despite there being no evidence that the ice could damage the orbit, NASAs analysis of the ice problem was misleading. The booster ignition transient started six hundredths of a second after igniter firing (Murata, 2007). The aft joint on the right hand booster was the coolest point on the booster at 28°F owing to this;the booster’s segmented steel casing ballooned while the joint rotated thus expanding inward as it did on all other shuttle flights. The temperature was however too cool for the primary O-ring to seal properly with the cold –stiffened heat resistant putty which protected the rubber O-rings from the fuel collapsing and gases over 5000°F burning past both O-rings across 70 degrees ofarc. Shortly after the second ignition, the shuttle lifted off with engineering cameras focusing on the right hand booster showing approximately nine smoke puffs that came from the booster at the aft field joint. Oxides from the burnt propellant temporarily sealed thefield joint before flames escaped just before the shuttle cleared the tower. After fifty nine seconds of flight, the challenger experienced the ever most violent wind shear on such a mission. This led the stress of the wind shear to shatter the glassy oxides that sealed the field joint. As a result, flames from the field joint immediately burned through the external fuel tank with hundreds of tons of propellant ignited, the shuttle was torn apart. This was the result of the negligence by the management as has been seen above. It was the result of putting down the engineering hat and putting on the management hat while in real sense, the two hats should have been worn together. What could have been done differently to prevent the tragedy from occurring? From the above discussion, it is clear that the challenger disaster happened mainly as a result of ignoring engineering ethics by the major project stakeholders. It was important for the stakeholders involved in the project to realize the important obligation placed on their shoulders for protecting public welfare. Yet in this case, the political and economic considerations were placed before the noble obligation of protecting the public welfare and hence life. It is worth noting that engineering ethics call upon engineers to act with responsibility. This includes being accountable for their entireacts both in the present, future and for what they did in the past. Engineers are not only required to adhere to the professional regulatory norms and standard practices but also act with due diligence and reasonable care. In this regard, engineers are accountable for intentional acts that are negligent and reckless such as the ones that caused the challenger disaster (Ravaal, 2014). Despite these ethical requirements, the management both at Thiokol and NASA placed economic and political considerations before the ethical considerations of ethics. From the above discussion, a number of issues can be said to have led to the challenger disaster and hence they explain what could have been done different and hence avoid the disaster. First, there were the technical issues that should have been addressed before the challenger shuttle was launched. As stated above, it is clear that the engineers had been well aware of the O-ring problems since they were first observed in 1977. Furthermore, there had been attempts to rectify the design issues in 1985. Yet despite the senior management having been briefed of the problem in August 1985, they seem not to have done anything to support the redesign efforts. In essence, had the management supported the O-rings design efforts, it is probable that the technical issues would not have arisen during the launch as discussed above (Murata, 2003). The management is also to blame for ignoring the professional advice regarding the temperature at which to launch the Challenger shuttle. Yet despite the management having been thus informed, they allowed the launch to go on despite their admission that they had insufficient knowledge or information. Had the management adhered to the professional advice by the engineers and hence allowed temperatures to rise to the desired levels before the launch, the disaster could have been avoided. There was lack of communication during the development and planning for the shuttle challenger launch and this can be said to be the main cause of the challenger shuttle explosion. Though the technical reason for the explosion as explained above is the technical reason behind the explosion, it should be noted that communication failure and hence failure to resolve the technical issues led to the explosion. Despite the initial delays in the launching, Morton Thiokol being the company contracted to construct the solid booster containing the O-ring had the opportunity to inform NASA of the technical problems and hence assume responsibility for the delays for the sake of public welfare (ASCE, 2014). Yet like NASA, Thiokol’s management decided to put economic considerations before the social welfare and security as required by engineering ethics. In essence, lack of communication in the company can be broken down into three. First, there was lack of organizational communication, there was lack of understanding between the management and the engineers and there was lack of use of good persuasion techniques by people who were aware of the risks. These are explained below. As far as lack of organizational communication is concerned, the Challenger shuttle project involved two companies including NASA and Morton Thiokol. The technical problems resulted from 1981 to 1985 owing to Morton Thiokol failure to inform NASA about the problems Thiokol had been experiencing with the O-rings. This implies lack of communication between the two organizations (McDonald, 2009). In this regard, Thiokol could have done better by involving NASA in every stage of the SRB development. In this regard, NASA would have made a better decision on whether or not to launch, in essence, in projects of these magnitude, communication ought to be seen as very basic and in this case, a commercial communication was vital. As a result of lack of proper communication, the project /the Challenger shuttle launch failed hence leading to loss of lives. Lack of proper communication is also seen in the fact that there was lack of understanding between the engineers and the management. In the night before the launch, temperatures are not to have been dropping drastically making the Thiokol engineers to be much worried about the safety of launching the Challenger since they had prior knowledge that O-rings could fail when tested in very low temperatures. As a result, the engineers made a presentation regarding the dangers of launching the challenger in low temperatures and they hence recommended that the launch should not take place. However, the management from both NASA and Thiokol determined to undertake the launch failed to take this information seriously terming it as non-conclusive and they hence decided to go on with the intended launch despite the dangers involved. The problem here is twofold. First, the management decided to ignore vital information owing to their political, scheduling and economic goals thus forgetting their ethical responsibility of preserving life (Vaughan, 1996). On the other hand, the engineers failedto explain clearly the effects of the technical issues discussed above to the management. As a result, the management did not deem this a big deal and hence they decided to bypass it. In this regard, the management should have taken the information given by the engineers more seriously and hence headed to the recommendations to halt the launch. Had this happened, the disaster and hence the deaths could have been avoided. Unfortunately, economic and political considerations were allowed to supersede social welfare which is against engineering ethics. Another aspect of lack of communication can be seen in the engineers lack of good persuasion techniques despite their having known about the risks associated with the technical issues that they had identified with the SRBs. It should be noted that apersuasive presentation is an effective tool for communicating in the workplace. In this regard, a very good written persuasive reportneeded to have been presented to convince the management about delaying the launch. Even though the engineers knew that their position was the right one, they fell short of making the management see the sensein delaying the launch (Petroski, 1994). This could have been triggered by the needs to keep their jobs. However, this should have never come before the call to safeguard public safety and welfare as an ethical principle. In addition, bearing in mind that the engineers were to face very important people with a big weight on their backs. In this regard, the engineers should have been more convincing in their arguments. In other words, the engineers should have insisted that the company would be better by delaying the launch at least for sometimes in a bid to safeguard public safety and welfare. Should this have happened probably the disaster would not have happened. Arising from the above discussion, it is clear that a number of things could have been done differently in which case the disaster could have been avoided. First, the management should have placed the noble obligation of public welfare and hence ensuring the crew safety before the economic and political considerations. This way, the pressure to launch would have been avoided in favor of ensuring all the technical issues raised were dealt with conclusively before the launch (McDonald, 2009). Furthermore, saving the $ 100 million by contracting Thiokol which had the worst reputation among the contenders would have been avoided in favor of quality in a bid to ensure public welfare and hence safety in accordance to engineering ethics. Furthermore, it would have been wiser if the management delayed the launch even for a few hours to allow temperatures rise to the desired levels. The management being largely composed of Engineers should have knownbetter the need to wear both the management and engineering hat to ensure the success of the project. The management would have done better by discouraging launching since they admitted there was no sufficient information on low temperatures. This would have allowed them make an informed decision based on sufficient data. In this regard, the management should have delayed the launch until all the facts had been known about all the technical issues. Furthermore, the management would have done better by acting on the information given to it by acting on the information provided by the engineers. Should this have happened, the disaster would have been avoided (Timothy, 2014). To prevent the tragedy, there should have been a higher level of accountability for the communication practices adopted in the organization and at each level of operations. This would have led to safer and successful shuttle launch and hence the disaster would have been avoided. As stated above, there should have been better communication between the companies and also between the management and the engineers. The subordinates including the whistleblowers like Roger Boisjoly are seen to have tried to dissuade the management from going on with the launch which is very commendable. However, there was need to be more persuasive given the rigid nature of thinking by the management. Conclusion The Challenger Shuttle disaster as has been described in this paper presents a number of lessons for engineers today. As has been discovered, negligence on the part of management and lack of communication among different organizational levels are largely to blame for the disaster. In this regard, engineers acting in management levels ought to wear both management and engineering caps at the same time. At the same time, there is need for management to device better communication strategies in the organization so as to avoid such disasters as the Challenger disaster. As has been seen above, if engineers will avoid being negligent, most disasters will be avoided. References: Feynman, R1992, The Golem at Large: What you should know about technology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson, G2001, Computer ethics, Englewood Cliff, Prentice Hall. Lewis, R1988, Challenger: The final voyage, New York, Columbia University Press. Report. 2003,Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Report Volume 1, August 2003, Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office. Charles, H1995, Explaining disasters: The case for preventive ethics, IEEE Technology and society magazine, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 22-27. McConnell, M1987, Challenger: A major malfunction, Doubleday, Garden City. Perrow, C1999, Normal Accidents, Living with High-Risk Technologies, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Timothy, S2014, The challenger disaster Home Video Surfaces After 28 years, The Huffington Post, January 28th 2014. Pinkus, L1997, Engineering Ethics: Balancing Cost, Schedule, and Risk. Cambridge University Press. Murata, J2007, From Challenger to Columbia: What lessons can we learn from the report of the Columbia accident investigation board for engineering ethics?Virginia Tech, vol. 11, no. 1, fall 2006. Murata, J2003, Creativity of Technology: An Origin of Modernity?In Modernity and Technology, edited by Thomas Misa, Philip Brey, and Andrew Feenberg, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Ravaal, S2014, Challenger: A management failure, Retrieved on 23rd November 2014, from; http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-disasters/challenger-disaster/challenger- management-failure/ ASCE Guidelines for Professional Conduct for Civil Engineers, 2008, Retrieved on 23rd November 2014, from; http://www.asce.org/uploadedFiles/Ethics_-_New/ethics_guidelines010308v2.pdf McDonald, A2009, Truth, Lies, and O-Rings, Gainesville, University Press of Florida. Vaughan, D1996, The Challenger Launch Decision, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Petroski, H1994, Design Paradigms, Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Read More

It should be noted that the problems with the challenger had been known before the launch (Johnson, 2001). However, several factors prevented elimination of the problems before the launch. For instance, NASA’s management had been anxious to launch the shuttle for many reasons including economic reasons, political considerations as well as scheduling backlogs. In addition, there was the unforeseen competitionfrom the European space agency which meant NASA would have to fly the shuttle dependably on a very ambitious schedule with an aim of proving the systems cost effectiveness as well as commercialization potential.

This is bearing in mind that the challenger mission had been severally delayed owing to inclement weather as well as mechanical factors. In addition, there also seems to have been pressure for NASA to launch the Challenger before President Reagan gave his state of the nation address which would touch on education bearing in mind that the first teacher would have been in space. The events that happened prior to the launching of the shuttle and which could point at what may have gone wrong are explained below.

Thus, using these events, we can know what would have been done differently so as to avoid the disaster. Pressure to launch As stated above, NASA’s management was under pressure to launch the challenger for a number of reasons including economic considerations which resulted from unforeseen competition from the European space agency which prompted NASA to fly the Challenger on a very ambitious schedule in a bid to prove its cost effectiveness as well as potential for commercialization.

In addition, bearing in mind that the Challenger mission had been delayed for a number of times owing to inclement weather and mechanical factors, the management was under pressure to launch it without further delay so as to refurbish the launch pad on time for other missions especially the one carrying a probe for examining Halley’s Comet. In this regard, they were eager to collect the data just before a similar Russian probe could be carried out (Lewis, 1988). Politically, there was pressure to launch the challenger to be in space when President Reagan gave the state of the nation address that would mainly revolve around education and hence the shuttle would be mentioned with the first teacher in space.

While all the above reasons seem to justify the pressure to launch, it would have been important for the management to consider moral and ethical requirements before the launch. The management was under an obligation to preserve the welfare of those who would be involved in the flight as well as the public at large. As such, political, economic and backlog considerations should never have been allowed to supersede the social consideration of welfare and hence preservation of life. As will be explained below, the challenger had a lot of technical issues that needed to be considered and rectified before the launch.

Furthermore, the management was not ignorant of these issues as engineers had informed them about the issues (Report. 2003). Yet the management which was also composed of engineers chose to ignore professional advice in a bid to hit their political and economic goals. Clearly, the economic and political goals were allowed to supersede the ethical responsibility of welfare. This was an act of negligence that should never have been. The solid rocket booster It is worth noting that SRBs (Solid rocket boosters) are vital elements in the shuttle’s operations since devoid of the boosters, the shuttle fails to produce enoughthrust that can overcome the earth’s gravitational pull and hence achieve orbit.

SRB’s are attached to each side of the external fuel tank with each booster being 149 feet long and 12 feet indiameter before igniting while weighing 2 million pounds. It should be noted that the solidrockets produce more thrust than fuelones but after they are ignited, they can never be turned off and are not controllable and hence the engineers had the responsibility to properly design them (Charles, 1995).

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