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the challenger disaster
the challenger disaster
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Introduction
"The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster" or the 25th mission of NASA's shuttle program on January 28,1986, resulted on explosion just 73 seconds after the shuttle took off which caused the death of 7 crew members, is considered a tragedy disaster rather than a mere accident because an accident could be avoided, as former Morton Thiokol seal expert Roger Boisjoly declared " We could have stopped it .We had initially stopped it. And then the decision was made to go forward anyways"
(Sources " A major malfunction" the story behind the Space Shuttle challenger disaster. Volume 1, the research case by Mark Maier, Ph. D. The state university of NY at Binghamton)
Studying this case is a good example of Organizational Behaviour because we can see how the organizational culture at NASA contributed to the disaster, many unethical events that took place, aggressive and bureaucratic leadership that caused the disaster.
The disaster of the shuttle was both due to technical and organizational failure, technical failure the rubber O-ring seals in the booster rocket failed to seal safely because of the freezing temperature before the lift-off, also the flawed decision -making that encourage the launch and caused the death of 7 crew members.
1-How did the organizational culture at NASA contribute to the disaster?
Organization's Culture is the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values and beliefs considered to be correct way of thinking about a problem. ( Mcshane Chp.16,pg456)
An organization's culture is one of three factors that can affect ethics on the organization, besides leadership and personal commitment to ethics. For that there is a strong relation between ethics and leadership, and in this case of shutt...
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...ion System.
Level I, NASA Headquarters Washington, D.C. Represented by Jesse Moore associate Administrator for Space Flight
SOURCES:
Challenger: The path to Disaster (teaching Note) by Mark Maier, PH.D. Organizational leadership program. College of lifelong Learning. Case Research Journal, winter 1994 .14(1), p.1-49
" A major malfunction", the story behind the Space Shuttle challenger disaster. Volume 1, the research case by Mark Maier, Ph. D. The state university of NY at Binghamton)
Steven L. McShane `s Canadian Organizational Behaviour- Fifth edition. "Leadership" chapter 14 and "Decision making" chapter 10.
Reading Organizational theory, a critical approach to the study of Organizational Behaviour and structure, by Jean-Helms Mills, Albert J. Mills and Tony Simmons. Chapter 2 "understanding Bureaucracies."
Hackman (2009), states organizational culture is divided into three categories—assumptions, values, and symbols—and these elements provide insight into the operation of a company (p. 239). According to Hackman (2009), assumptions answer how employees and outsiders are treated, as well as how employees respond to management (p. 239). Furthermore, “Values reflect what the organization feels it “ought to do,” according to Hackman (2009). “They serve as the yardstick for judging behavior” (p. 239).
The panel has held a number of full meetings and numerous subpanel and individual member meetings, and has submitted three written status reports to the NASA Administrator. Although NASA has not yet formally responded to these status reports, actions have been taken to implement most of the committee recommendations. NASA has held several meetings with the committee to discuss and review the status of the response to the recommendations. The NRC membership and a summary of the panel responsibilities are provided in Appendix
J. M. George and G. R. Jones, “Organizational Behavior,” 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001)
Before going any further with this paper, I would like to take a moment to thank the crew of the space shuttle challenger for their bravery, courage, determinations and and sacrifice for this great nation. Francis R. Scobee (2), Commander, Michael J. Smith (1), Pilot Judith A. Resnik (2), Mission Specialist 1, Ellison S. Onizuka (2), Mission Specialist 2, Ronald E. McNair (2), Mission Specialist 3, Gregory B. Jarvis (1), Payload Specialist 1, Sharon Christa McAuliffe (1), Payload Specialist 2 (science.ksc), were parents, friends, children, husbands and wives, heroes, smart human being that were killed on this tragic day. May God be with your soul and may your memories and courage and passion shall not be forgotten but instead drive future generation determination and passion. The crash of the space shuttle
Even though there were many factors contributing to the Challenger disaster, the most important issue was the lack of an effective risk management plan. The factors leading to the Challenger disaster are:
My main objective was to make a risk analysis of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster occurred in 1986. My chosen focus area was the risk analysis process of the space shuttle and I was able to understand the risk potential.
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.
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.
Culture at NASA was converted over time to a culture that combines bureaucratic, cost efficiency and schedule efficiency of the flights. This culture of production reinforced the decisions to continue flights rather than delay while a thorough hazard analysis was conducted. Managers were so focused on reaching their schedule targets that the foam insulation problem did not induce them to shift their attention to safety. It appears that at NASA managers overrule engineers when the organization was under budget and time pressure. In my opinion, high-level managers should avoid making important decisions based on beliefs and instead rely on specialist’s opinion.
Robbins, S. P., & Coulter, M. (2007). Management (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Smith, Patrick. "The Untold Story of the Concorde Disaster." Ask The Pilot. Aerophilia Enterprises, 9 Dec. 2012. Web. 6 Nov. 2013. .
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.
This tragic accident was preventable by not only the flight crew, but maintenance and air traffic control personnel as well. On December 29, 1972, ninety-nine of the one hundred and seventy-six people onboard lost their lives needlessly. As is the case with most accidents, this one was certainly preventable. This accident is unique because of the different people that could have prevented it from happening. The NTSB determined that “the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the flightcrew.” This is true; the flight crew did fail, however, others share the responsibility for this accident. Equally responsible where maintenance personnel, an Air Traffic Controllers, the system, and a twenty cent light bulb. What continues is a discussion on, what happened, why it happened, what to do about it and what was done about it.
...easier to blame the O-rings than to blame people for the disaster. There was a lack of communication and a sense of desperation from the managers to make sure the shuttle launched as they did not want any further delays. The challenger disaster was certainly avoidable, the warning signs were there but the people in charge did not heed them. Thiokol had an opportunity to steer clear of disaster during the meeting with (GDSS) before the launching of challenger. If the pressure to launch in combination with communication breakdowns had not occurred or had been managed better this disaster would not have happened. It seems that leadership was more concerned with public relations instead of being concerned with the problem of the O-ring. So, I believe that bad decision making on launching the Space Shuttle Challenger on the day of January 28 caused by human error.
A strong organisational culture leads to higher organisational performance. Organisational culture can be defined as a total function of common beliefs, values, patterns of behaviour that are held and shared by the members of an organisation. It is also a valuable resource which can improve the competitiveness of a company and is used to distinguish the company (Barney 1986). From the 1970's the study of organisational culture has become an important issue and closely studied in the early 1980s. Since then, organisational culture has turned out to be one of the most important factors which affects the overall performance of a company.