Columbia Disaster Cause

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The Causes of Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster
The Columbia Disaster was 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 the Columbia disaster which include technical issue and management issues, and illustrate how pressure impacts engineers work at NASA.
Technical issue of the Columbia disaster
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred when the orbiter disintegrated following the foam shedding, caused by the technical issue which included an inadequate understanding of foam properties as well as faulty design of the orbiter inadequate understanding of foam properties the properties of foam …show more content…

Management issue in the space shuttle Columbia disaster
Management issue was one of the major causes of the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. Inadequate risk assessment and the flaw in organization culture accounted for implementation of the launch despite there were potential risks, resulting the disinfection of obiter.
Inadequate risk assessment the inadequate risk assessment which included normalisation of deviancewas one of the management issue causing the Columbia disaster. In the case of Columbia disaster, foam shedding had observed in many times in the previous flight, but it did not consider as a safety issue because the orbiter came back safely (Mannan 2012, p. 3093). It was a potential risk of the 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 evidence and concluded that foam shedding is acceptable based on strong belief and previous …show more content…

Due to the strict schedule, engineers had to complete the mission in a limit time (Guthrie and Shayo 2005, p.60). Engineers rush to launch the orbiter under schedule pressure in order to meet the launch pressure. The schedule pressure led to ignoring the importance of the foam strike on the previous flight and the acceptance of various problems caused by foam shedding.
It is hard to balance budget, schedule and risk at the same time. The pressure of budget and schedule increase the chance of neglecting the potential risks which was abnormal performance of different components, becoming a factor in causing the disaster.

Conclusion
Technical issue, management issue, and pressure are the main causes of Columbia disaster. Inadequate understanding of foam and faulty design cause the foam shedding. Also, the inadequate risk assessment and flaw in organization culture in NASA lead to the acceptance of foam shedding and impact the engineers’ final decision. Furthermore, engineers were under budget and schedule pressure to launch the orbiter, ignoring the potential

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