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Groupthink: The Rise And Fall Of The Space Shuttle Challenger

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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 …show more content…
They ignored safeguards that disallowed reliance on backups for parts marked “Criticality 1”. NASA chose to violate rules, ignore critical data and put lives and a the space shuttle in danger in in order to gratify their need to look good in the public eye.

The triggers of this disaster could be explained by the psychology term “groupthink”. Groupthink refers to a group making irrational or potentially dangerous decisions to keep the harmony of the group and suppressing disagreeing viewpoints. Managers of both Thiokol and NASA were willing to take, what they saw as a small risk in order to please the media and appear competent to the public. A good leader should focus on the ethical truth rather than pressures of a group. As I began teaching two sophomore science research classes at SUCCESS Academy I felt the complexity of “groupthink” firsthand. While grading assignments, I noticed

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