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
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.
The failure was due to a faulty design unacceptably sensitive to a number of factors. (NASA, n/d)
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.
Collins and Pinch draw a distinctive line between what actually happened and the public’s perspective on what happened. The public had a compulsive desire to create a moral lesson and provide heroes and villains. Many people misconstrued this as a conflict between the knowledgeable engineers and the greedy management. The public believed that NASA and Thiokol’s managers were ignorant to the engineering, but this is not true, since they were all engineers before their promotion to management. The authors stress the phrase “after the event” to show that hindsight bias is contributing to the public’s view on what actually happened. The physicist, Richard Feynman, awed the public with a demonstration of putting rubber, the material of the O-ring, in icy water. Th...
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
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.
The Challenger space shuttle disaster is a tragedy that defined America in the 1980s. At the time, space exploration was growing at a rapid rate, and NASA had successfully completed a numerous amount of missions. The crew consisted of the typical seven members, however this exploration was especially exciting. NASA would be sending its first teacher, Christa McAuliffe, to space. She would be completing two lessons while aboard the Challenger. The popularity of this specific mission caused Americans of all ages to be glued to their televisions the morning of January 28th, 1986. Children were watching the launch from their classrooms at school, and adults were watching from at work or at home that fateful morning.
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.
resulted in separation of the outer panel. The panel struck one of the dishes of
In the beginning NASA was faced with a tight budget given to them by the government. This budget was large enough to build a state of the art air craft but wasn't enough to develop an escape system that might of proving to be useful in this case. The culture of NASA was a factor that created this mistake, "The mantra "Prove to me that there's something wrong". The chain of command was not equal; the small guys couldn't voice their opinions and concerns because of the position they held in the organization. Another concern was that they miscalculated the risk of the foam creating any damage just because it never destroyed another shuttle. The facts were clear that the foam had the ability to create some damage, and this was apparent in many other space shuttle launches. Foam debris was classified as an "in-family" event- a problem within NASA experience base that was not considered a safety of flight issue. NASA even knew that foam debris tended to fall off the left bipod ramp and that ten percent of the fights recorded loss foam from this area. Over the years NASA decided to put their concerns of foam damage to the side and called it an acceptable thing to happen during common flight procedures instead of finding a way to prevent it.
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.
...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.
Many times the Safety Officer, if you will, is accused of not being a team player. Being chastised for doing ones job is not the most effective way to promote a safety minded environment. Also on the other side of the coin the Safety Officer must implement or correct s...
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.