...I have never taken much interest in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and their efforts until recently, and it was because of this curiosity that I came across a very well known disaster. The United States has always taken pleasure in its space exploration program and has been very successful in their efforts of getting man to the Moon and back. But, on January 28th, 1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded only seventy-three seconds after take off from Cape Canaveral. Six astronauts and a school teacher fell to their death into the Atlantic Ocean. There were many ethical issues that were faced with this launch, but the one that I will refer to for this case study was the fact that NASA’s leadership failed because they did not consider the safety of these individuals, but merely were concerned about getting the Challenger off the ground and making “history.” The politics and managerial decisions that were involved outweighed the importance of human safety to them The Challenger spent 3 nights on the launch pad, and an O-ring on one of the solid rocket boosters had become brittle within these 3 nights of cool temperatures. The engineers were concerned that the cold temperatures on the launch pad were below the design threshold for the O-rings and a teleconference took place the night before the launch. The engineers had little time to put together a presentation and upper management felt pressured by numerous reasons. One large pressure was...
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...Final Paper: The Challenger Project Christopher A. Pantoya PJM 520: Project Leadership and Communication Dr. Paul Sam March 30, 2014 Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine the space shuttle Challenger from a project management perspective. The project team, controls, metrics, and the overall process will be evaluated. An emphasis will be placed upon the communications project leaders had with personnel responsible for critical deliverables in order to identify risks that were overlooked, which could have contributed to the catastrophic outcome. The Challenger Project The space shuttle Challenger is among the most studied events in U.S. history, especially from quality assurance and project management perspectives. At the time, NASA had recently successfully completed a series of significant accomplishments and seemed on the verge of achieving even more. However, program managers began to let small details escape scrutiny or ignored them altogether in order to meet established timelines, which eventually led to the catastrophic shuttle launch. Thus, numerous processes have been developed in order to prevent repeating the tragedy. In fact, many facets of project management can be attributed to the Challenger shuttle launch project failure. Specifically, the project’s leadership needs to be assessed in order to categorize some of the indicators, which were identifying risks that were overlooked. The plans execution from initiation...
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...The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster was a preventable disaster that NASA tried to cover up by calling it a mysterious accident. However, two men had the courage to bring the real true story to the eyes of the public and it is to Richard Cook and Roger Boisjoly to whom we are thankful. Many lessons can be learned from this disaster to help prevent further disasters and to improve on organizations ethics. One of the many key topics behind the Challenger disaster is the organizational culture. One of the aspects of an organizational culture is the observable culture of an organization that is what one sees and hears when walking around an organization. There are four parts to the observable culture, stories, heroes, rites and rituals and symbols. The first one is stories, which is tales told among an organization’s members. In the Challenger Space Shuttle incident there were mainly four organizations thrown together to form one, Morton Thiokol, Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center and NASA Headquarters. All of these organizations had the same type of stories to be told. At Morton Thiokol, they talked about their product and their big deal, which they received from NASA. At NASA, it’s members retold stories of the previous space missions and being the first people to have landed on the moon. Second are their heroes. At Morton Thiokol, their heroes might have been the founders of the organization or it’s top executives like Charles Locke or Jerry Mason. At NASA, their...
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...The Challenger disaster could have easily been avoided. STS-51L (Challenger's last mission) was originally scheduled to launch on January 22. However a vast ammount of delays and aborts pushed thelaunch to the 28th. The morning on the 28th had been particularly cold, with temperatures close to 31 degrees Fahrenheit, the minimum temperature allowed for launch. The low temperature brought up concerns from engineers at Morton Thiokol, the manufacturers of the Space Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). They were concerned about the effects of the cold weather on the space shuttle'srubber O-rings, which prevent hot gases from escaping the joints in the shuttle's SRBs. On previous shuttle missions, cold weather had caused the O-rings to fail, allowing hot gases to escape. Thoughthis very dangerous problem had occured multiple times before, NASA and Thiokol management believed that because all of the past shuttle missions had been successful, the cold temperatures and athis very dangerous problem had occured multiple times before, NASA and Thiokol management believed that because all of the past shuttle missions had been successful, the cold temperatures and athat had already taken place, NASA did not want to delay the mission any longer. Not only were Thiokol engineers worried about the cold temperatures, but Rockwell International (The manufacturers ofthe Space Shuttle orbiters) were also concerned. When they saw the large amount of ice formed on the shuttle launch pad, they expressed...
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...dollars and more importantly loss of 7 innocent lives. The space shuttle was propelled by the two attached Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) and an external fuel tank. The SRBs were joined to the External Tank. aOnce the SRBs ignited, hot gases heated the rubber O rings and they eroded to seal the joints. SRB joint design had a serious flaw in it and the engineers knew it meant a catastrophe and yet they passed the design for flight. The O rings worked only down to a temperature limit of 12 ̊ C, but the morning of the launch saw temperatures as low as -1 ̊ C which was much lower than the prescribed limit. Many engineers voiced to postpone the launch and wait for the weather to be stable but the management turned down these arguments and the challenger was cleared to launch at 11:38 A.M. As the shuttle took off, the right SRB emitted puffs of smoke which meant that a gap was punched into the SRB and hot gases were escaping it. The O ring was supposed to seal the gap off but it was frozen so it failed and the secondary O...
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...Challenger case study analysis Facts 1. Space shuttle challenger disaster leads to the death of its crew members 7. 2. NASA’S organizational culture and decision making process is a key contributing factor of the accident. 3. NASA managers had known contractor Morton Thiokol’s design of the SRB contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the o-rings since 1977. 4. NASA disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posted by the low temperature of that morning. 5. The ROGER”S commission offered NASA 9 recommendations that were to be implemented before shuttle flight resumed. 6. The o-rings had no test data to support any expectation of successful launch in such conditions. 7. Challenger was originally set to launch from Kennedy space center in Florida at 2:42 EST Jan 22. 8. Launch was delayed 1st to Jan 23 then 2nd to Jan 24, 3rd to Jan 25 due the bad weather at the TAL site in Senegal. NASA decided to use Casablanca as TAL site but it wasn’t equipped for night landings so they had to move it to the morning to Florida. 4th to Jan 27 9:37 as of unaccepted weather at Kennedy space center and5th to Jan 28 as by problems with the exterior access hatch. 9. Delayed 5 times shows lack of good decision making and management of NASA’s managers. 10. Morton Thiokol is the contractor responsible for the construction and maintenance of the shuttle’s SRBs. 11. Rockwell international is the shuttle’s prime contractor. ...
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...In the case study of the Challenger, Morton Thiokol was responsible for the challenger’s rocket boosters. Roger Boisjoly, a rocket booster engineer of Morton Thiokol, did an inspection on the rocket booster segments. Upon his investigation, he found a massive amount of hot gas from the propulsion which compromised the primary O-ring on the first rocket booster. He then discovered that the hot gas blasted pass the first O-ring and burned the second O-ring. He went over the post flight analysis and it shows the O-rings were 53 degrees Fahrenheit which was unusually cold for a launch. This was one factor that was different with flight 51C. With this information, he believes the temperature was a factor of the flawed design. In the design, the O-rings were supposed to be flexible, so they can stretch and squeeze to seal the gap in the joints of the rocket boosters. However, the primary O-ring failed on flight 51C but the backup, secondary O-ring luckily caught the leak, or the result would have been severely dangerous. After this discovery, he reported his concerns to NASA. Later, NASA and Morton Thiokol...
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...Challenger Video - Lessons Learned As seen in the video there were a lot of issues with how the o-ring issue was handled. Roger clearly knew there was a possible issue with the o-ring, but was bad about handling this with regards to resolving the issue. He was very vocal about it, but this was to the point where it more aggressive than influential among his colleagues to help with resolving the issue at hand. This was not beneficial in building support behind his concerns with the o-rings so that the issues with them would be addressed before the Challenger’s launch. He had multiple opportunities to address this and failed to do so as a result of his brash attitude to those with whom he brought it to their attention including with one of the V.P.’s, Joe Kilminster, in his company. Joe was willing to listen and investigate Roger’s concern, but when Roger became abrasive with how the issue had been neglected by the company this eventually led to losing any type of support from Joe. Roger also had another opportunity to continue to push the o-ring issue to further attention of this issue meeting the evening before the launch, but failed to get his point across again and this lead to the discussion to proceed with the launch as scheduled. This example from the video showed how without proper support and guidance of employees within the workplace that some problems will eventually get ahead of some companies. Most management decisions don’t always take into consideration the information...
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...Space Shuttle Challenger Case I have read and studied the Space Shutter Challenger Case thoroughly and I believe that the most important failure of the case study was due to many factors which include personality, communication and motivation among the members of the group. In terms of personality, I believe the part of the failure was due to the mix of strong and weak personalities among the group. The stronger personalities which included Mason and Wiggins used direct pressure to influence Lund in to agreeing with their decision. Mason told Lund to take off his engineering hat and to put on his management hat. I believe that Mason and Wiggins used their strong and domineering personalities to influence Lund. This is a contributing factor to the failure of the space shuttle launch. Another aspect of the failure of the case is due to the poor communication between the Thiokol engineers and management. The Thiokol engineers had expressed their concerns to management about the reliability of the O-Rings being used on the space shuttles but a review committee concluded that they were safe to use and if a problem did arise there were secondary O-rings in place. In the flights leading up to the challengers departure, there was evidence that there were serious problems with the O-rings. On the eve of the launch, the weather forecast was unusually cold for Florida weather, with temperatures in the low twenty’s. Thiokol expressed concern that the O-rings would not work properly...
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...You may have heard of the Challenger explosion but have you heard of the Columbia disaster. This disaster happened due to human error and cost the lives of 7 people. This disaster changed the course of spaceflight for the future because of how bad it was. The first main key moment is on January 16 ,2003 space shuttle Columbia took off from Kennedy Space Center. 81 seconds into the flight a piece of insulating foam from the bipod attaching Columbia to the external tank broke off and hit Columbia’s left wing at around 540 mph and went unnoticed by NASA. NASA then informed the Columbia crew once they found out and said it was nothing to worry about. The second key moment of this event is while they were in space for sixteen days...
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...December 21, 1872 England, This clear water is a pleasant surprise, but the cold is painful. This ship is the most highly equipped ship i've ever sailed in. I can say this is vastly impressive for this age, and I can only imagine what the future will be like. I have to say my favorite feature on this ship is the Natural History Laboratory. Its where specimens were examined, and drawn. I can only say this will mark history with our recorded discoveries. December 22, 1872 Unknown destination, somewhere outside of England. The sun is finally out and temperatures have risen! The sun makes this day off a hundred times better.The shipmates decided to round together for a good ole game of cards! I haven't played for so long, and i lost all my snacks we keep as game. We sat for a meal and had chicken. We picked it up when we docked somewhere and we cooked it. Sadly it was nothing special and it was just chicken and rice. Days like this make this voyage much less lonelier. Spirits are high and tomorrow continues to lurk closer. December 24, 1872 Unknown Destination, somewhere outside of England. Its raining! The ship is starting to take a toll and the waves are rocking us around! Today is chaotic and a lot of hassle. But i fear for my life. I think i have came down with scurvy. They tell me to toughen up but i have hardly any strength. Being on a ship does not allow any medical help until we dock, and even then we hardly have any money. Research is slow right now but they're...
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...Q1. How would you characterize the broader context surrounding the January 1986 teleconference? What impact might that have on the group’s decision making process? The Challenger Launch decision on January 28th 1986, proved to be one of the crucial decisions ever made as it lead to one of space science's most talked about disasters. The Challenger launch project was faced by a major financial constraint owing to the ongoing Vietnam War. Thiokol won the contract to build the SRBs since they asked for a lower emolument that their competitors and also provided an innovative modular design for the SRBs that would ease the transportation. There were many reasons NASA was pressured to launch, one being the need to launch the 51L space shutter without any delays so the launch pad could be restored in time for the next mission. Also, any delay in the mission would only result in negative publicity through the media. Under such pressurised circumstances, NASA and Thiokol could not look in the right direction and lacked consensus. So, communication breakdown was perhaps the major contributor in the decision making process here. It is evident that Thiokol was not prepared for the Teleconference since it did not have all the necessary statistical inputs required to arrive at a conclusion. This lead to an internal communication failure within Thiokol. The primary factor for such a communication failure was the lack of structured data and no proper way of seeking the data. Apart from this...
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...The Challenger’s Memory Remains but NASA Never Changes On January 28th, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger erupted into a ball of fire and broke apart after seventy-three seconds of its launch. Ending its tenth mission into space and killing all seven crew members, including a New Hampshire school teacher named Christa McAuliffe. Despite the warnings of engineers that warned NASA before the liftoff date of the dangers and risks of the cold air temperatures could produce, they were ignored and NASA ended up paying the ultimate price. The effects of space travel learned from the Challenger accident can guide NASA to enhance its system on safety, protocol, and emergencies, to actually be concerned about the shuttle's design and training for astronauts,...
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...Seventy three seconds into flight, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart. Millions of people watched in horror as seven highly trained astronauts lost their lives in the destruction of the multimillion dollar space shuttle. This catastrophe was a result of the failure of simple O-ring seals manufactured by Morton Thiokol. Beginning in 1977, experimental tests had shown that the O-rings, at certain temperatures, failed. These findings were downplayed by the engineers at Morton Thiokol. As the launch of the shuttle neared the O-rings were still labeled as “Critically 1”, meaning a malfunction could result in the destruction of the Challenger and loss of life. During a teleconference the night before the launch, engineers discussed their concerns with managers. NASA ignored...
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...The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster American History Semester 2 Term Paper By: Dhiren Reddy The space shuttle Challenger disaster was a very important event in our countries history. It was a terrible accident which gave it kind of infamy of being a failed space mission. People see an explosion and don’t think twice about the tremendous amount of work, over the years, and the number of aspects that went in to the mission. These included the extreme pre-launch training that consisted of strenuous physical exercises and hundreds of hours of reading and studying, the work NASA put in after the explosion to prevent any incident of this kind from happening again, and finally what actually took place on launch day. All of these thing were...
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