The Major Causes Of The Columbia Disaster

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Columbia disaster
The Columbia Disaster is one of the most tragic events in space shuttle history. In 2003, space shuttle Columbia broke up as it returned to Earth, killing the seven astronauts. This essay will explain the major causes of Columbia disaster which include technical issue and management issue, and illustrate how pressure impacts engineers work in NASA.

Technical issue of Columbia disaster
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred when the orbiter disintegrated following the foam shedding, caused by the technical issue which included inadequate understanding of foam properties as well as faulty design of the orbiter inadequate understanding of foam properties the properties of foam have not been fully understanding since its
Management issue in the space shuttle Columbia disaster
Management issue is one of the major causes of the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. Inadequate risk assessment and pressure account for implementation of the launch despite there are potential risks, resulting the disinfection of obiter.
Inadequate risk assessment the inadequate risk assessment which include normalisation of deviance is one of the management issue causing the Columbia disaster. In the case of Columbia disaster, foam shedding had observed for many time in the previous flight, but it did not consider as a safety issue because orbiter came back safely ( ). It was a potential risk of orbiter that foam shedding occurred during the launch even though it was a common phenomenon. But the engineers in NASA did not pay high attention to the potential risk. Also, extra assessment to test and analyse the property of foam did not apply. Then, engineers did not have inefficient evidences and concluded that foam shedding is acceptable based on strong belief and previous
This pressure was further exacerbated in the case of Columbia by the actions of NASA administrator. As shown in figure 1 this selection of data appears to show a dramatic budget decline is evident in the early 1960s. the challenger disaster happened in 1986 and the Columbia disaster happened in 2003. The NASA budget continuous decline before the two disaster and the rate of budget decline in the case of Columbia is bigger than Challenger. Budget decline exited for a long time. Engineers were under budget pressure to execute command, especially the engineers who worked in Columbia project face more severe budget

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