Introduction The Columbia space shuttle disintegrated on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere in February of 2003. The astronauts on board had completed a two week mission and were returning home. The program was halted for the next couple of years while the disaster was investigated. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board reported on what if found to be the cause of the tragedy. After take-off a piece of insulation foam fell off and hit the external fuel tank and left wing. The damage to the wing's thermal protection was unknown. On re-entry the heat caused the aluminum airframe structure to melt, causing the explosion. The report listed other factors contributing to this accident including organizational problems. How NASA presented technical information in its briefings was found to be ineffective even damaging. For a shuttle mission to succeed it depends on a team of planners, engineers and support staff. Planning and rehearsing every detail of the schedule is a must. Risk is assessed for every possible problem and backup plans created. NASA's space centers organize, monitor and control each mission with military precision. But reduction of personnel and internal pressure to launch on time caused safety issues to be neglected. Absence of Success A video clip and report was sent to Boeing engineers when the foam tile strike occurred during the launch. Boeing requested a satellite image of the wing, but never received it. Without pictures, they created a computer modeling tool, 'Crater', to predict how the damage would affect Columbia during re-entry. In January, the team presented its findings. Had NASA taken the view that the damaged left wing threatened re-entry, it could' have used either of two fallback plans to sa... ... middle of paper ... ...se concerns are addressed. NASA allowed itself to evolve into an organization with inconsistent authority and responsibility in its safety structure, exhibiting differences between and even within its centers. Over time NASA left the responsibility for safety to contractors and was unaware of critical details. The safety structure is vital, especially in organizations like NASA. Safety managers must have authority and voice in decision making. Issues regarding safety should be brought to management without fear. Unexpected events occur and solutions come from line workers, not senior management. (Disaster, 2008) Works Cited Stillman, R.J., (2010), Public Administration Concepts and Cases, Boston, Wadsworth Cengage Learning. The Columbia Disaster - Death By PowerPoint (2008), BBC, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A39477090
The failure was due to a faulty design unacceptably sensitive to a number of factors. (NASA, n/d)
It took NASA a couple years to resume its flight to orbit. The catastrophe of the space shuttle challenger shook them up and have rethink their procedures and methods of operation. NASA, improve or I should say worked on developing its shuttle management structure, its shuttle safety panel, critical review and hazard policy, communication, safety organization and many more.
NASA has faced many tragedies during their time; but one can question if two of the tragedies were preventable by changing some critical decisions made by the organization. The investigation board looking at the decisions made for the space shuttle tragedies of the Columbia and Challenger noted that the “loss resulted as much from organizational as from technical failures” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 191). The two space shuttle tragedies were about twenty years apart, they both had technical failures but politics also played a factor in to these two tragedies.
Unrealistic schedule promises: As this program was a Teacher in space program, there was a lot of attention given to the program. NASA was promising unrealistic schedules, even with numerous space shuttle issues.
The Challenger disaster of 1986 was a shock felt around the country. During liftoff, the shuttle exploded, creating a fireball in the sky. The seven astronauts on board were killed and the shuttle was obliterated. Immediately after the catastrophe, blame was spread to various people who were in charge of creating the shuttle and the parts of the shuttle itself. The Presidential Commission was decisive in blaming the disaster on a faulty O-ring, used to connect the pieces of the craft. On the other hand, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, in The Golem at Large, believe that blame cannot be isolated to any person or reason of failure. The authors prove that there are too many factors to decide concretely as to why the Challenger exploded. Collins and Pinch do believe that it was the organizational culture of NASA and Morton Thiokol that allowed the disaster. While NASA and Thiokol were deciding whether to launch, there was not a concrete reason to postpone the mission.
Overall, the Columbia space shuttle contributed a great deal to space exploration, from its construction in 1981, to its destruction while reentering earth’s atmosphere in 2003. The Columbia brought a new era of space exploration, and during its twenty-nine missions had many firsts in space. The Columbia space shuttle was important to space exploration because it used new technology that changed space travel, completed missions that other spacecraft could not, and brought new people into space.
It’s very hard to say what steps, if any, could have been taken to prevent the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster from occurring. When mankind continues to “push the envelope” in the interest of bettering humanity, there will always be risks. In the manned spaceflight business, we have always had to live with trade-offs. All programs do not carry equal risk nor do they offer the same benefits. The acceptable risk for a given program or operation should be worth the potential benefits to be gained. The goal should be a management system that puts safety first, but not safety at any price. As of Sept 7th, 2003, NASA has ordered extensive factory inspections of wing panels between flights that could add as much as three months to the time it takes to prepare a space shuttle orbiter for launch. NASA does all it can to safely bring its astronauts back to earth, but as stated earlier, risks are expected.
In 1986, the Challenger crew met at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for countdown training. The crew of this shuttle included two civilians and five astronaut members: “Teacher-in-Space” payload specialist Christa McAuliffe; payload specialist Gregory Jarvis; and astronauts Judith A. Resnik, mission specialist; Dick Scobee, mission commander; Ronald E. McNair, mi...
Rodney Rocha is a NASA engineer and co-chair of Debris Assessment Team (DTS). When possibility of wing damage appeared he requested an additional imagery to obtain more information in order to evaluate the damage. This demonstrates that he actually tried to resolve the issue. However, due to absence of clear organizational responsibilities in NASA those images were never received. Since foam issue was there for years and risk for the flights was estimated as low management decided not to proceed with this request. After learning of management decision Rocha wrote an e-mail there he stated that foam damage could carry grave hazard and have to be addressed. At the same time this e-mail was not send to the management team. Organizational culture at NASA could be described as highly bureaucratic with operations under standard procedures only. Low-end employees like Rocha are afraid to bring any safety-related issues to the management due to delay of the mission. They can be punished for bringing “bad news”. This type of relationship makes it impossible for two-way communication between engineers and managers, which are crucial for decision-making in complex env...
Two tragic incidents, the Challenger Space Shuttle crash of 1986, and the Three Mile Island near meltdown of 1979, have greatly devastated our nation. Both these disasters involved failures of communication among ordinary professional people, working in largely bureaucratic companies. Two memos called the “Smoking Gun Memos,” authored by R. M. Boisjoly, of Morton Thiokol, and D. F. Hallman, of Babcook and Wilcox, will always be associated these two incidents. Unfortunately, neither of these memos were successful in preventing the accidents of the Challenger and the Three Mile Island near meltdown.
resulted in separation of the outer panel. The panel struck one of the dishes of
For this assignment we will discuss some theories on organizational change learned during this class and how they relate to the case study of NASA (The Challenger and Columbia Shuttle Disaster). First we will look the images of managing change used by NASA in the case study. Then we will discuss the types of change(s) NASA under took. Next we will look at some of the challenges of change that NASA faced. Next we will discuss some of the resistance to change that NASA dealt with. Then we look at how NASA implemented change. Next we will discuss vision and change and the impact in the case study. Finally we will discuss sustaining change as it relates to the changes implemented by NASA in the case study.
The blame for both accidents lies with NASA culture. NASA does not give enough credit to the concerns of more junior engineers, and they continue to allow a chilled work environment to exist since no one stands up to the unreasonable demands of politicians or upper management. NASA also needs to take a serious objective look at what it considers “normal and acceptable,” and improve those questionable items (e.g. conducting the launch on a cold
Five space shuttles were made till now. These space shuttles include the first space shuttle ever made, Enterprise. Space shuttle Enterprise was built for NASA as a part of the Space Shuttle Space Program to perform multiple test flights and but not capable spaceflights. For the reason that it was built without engines or a functional head shield. The shuttle had been intended to be refitted for orbital flight to become the second space-rated orbiter in service. However, during the construction of Columbia, details of the final design changed. Another space shuttle is Columbia, which accomplished being the first shuttle to reach space, in 1981. Columbia carried dozens of astronauts into space during the next two decades, they then reached several milestones. However, a tragedy, or something that no one would imagine happened, the shuttle and a seven-member crew were lost over Texas when Columbia burned up during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003. Columbia 's loss made NASA make extra safety checks in orbit for all future
Relating to the Audience: I believe that the Space Shuttle program has fascinated most if not all of you at some point of time, so much so that it has driven some of us to pursue Aerospace Engineering. Thus, it is a good idea to explore the program’s end result, the reason why it was started in the first place – To build the International Space Station.