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the challenger disaster
the challenger disaster
the history of the challenger space shuttle disaster
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Recommended: the challenger disaster
On January 28, 1968 the space shuttle Challenger was deployed from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. One minute and thirteen seconds after liftoff the spaceship ignited in mid air and all seven crew members were killed. The cause of the destruction of the challenger was a certain part of rubber that relieves pressure on the side of the actual rocket booster called an O-ring. When a space shuttle as used as the Challenger is about to be used for another mission there should be an even more careful with checking everything before liftoff. The Challenger could have been avoided and there was way too much evidence that shows NASA had some kind of knowledge about the consequences.
NASA postponed the launch five times since it was planned to launch, this put pressure on everyone and they just wanted to get started already. The 4th time it was postponed was because of problems with the external access hatch, this is not even close to as big of a problem as the damage of the O-rings, yet they still took that day off to fix it but when it was moved to the 28th the conditions were even worse but the shuttle was still allowed to launch. This proves that it was a very important for them to launch and that the crew and people at HQ were pressured to do it. The reason pressure was on them is because delays coast money and jobs would be at stake also the press and news reporters did not stop hassling them for the delays. NASA employees wanted to ensure and stay on contract which they negotiated with NASA at that point in time. The contract being worth more than 1 billon dollars diffidently changed many of the workers minds in hope of keeping their company running.
Budget cuts in the 1970’s affected the way NASA thought and since the Apollo mi...
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...manager in the program. In the end it’s all down to the choice of NASA because Morton Thiokol and George Hardy were just recommendations. Both of them did not recommend launch.
NASA failed to listen to them and went ahead with the launch witch ultimately led to the death of 7 innocent people. After the accident President Ronald Reagan made the Rogers Commission which is a group made for the investigation of the Challenger accident they found out that NASA “disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching on such a cold day and had failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors.” Showing that after all the people that were not listened to were right and NASA allowed this to happen.
Cole, Michael D. Challenger: America's Space Tragedy. Berkeley Heights, NJ. Enslow Publishers (August 1995)
R. M. Boisjoly had over a quarter-century’s experience in the aerospace industry in 1985 when he became involved in an improvement effort on the O-ring which connect segments of Morton Thiokol’s Solid Rocket Booster. This was used to bring the Space Shuttle into orbit (OEC, 2006). Morton Thiokol is an aerospace company that manufactures the solid propellant rocket motors used to launch the Challenger (Skubik). Boisjoly authored a memo to R.L. Lund, Vice President of Engineering and four others, in regards to his concerns about the flawed O-ring erosion problem. His warnings were ignored leading to the deaths of six astronauts and one social studies teacher.
HALVORSON, TODD. "As uncertainty grows over future of U.S. human spaceflight, NASA workers grow anxious". Gannett News Service. 29 Jan 2010 eLibrary. Web. 18 Feb 2010.
On an unusually cool Florida morning in January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 50,000 feet above ground just moments after liftoff killing seven crew members onboard (Palmer, Dunford, and Akin, 2009). A presidential commission, dubbed “the Rogers Commission” (hereafter, the Commission) after former Secretary of State William Rogers, was appointed to investigate the cause of the disaster. Although mechanical failure of an O-ring seal in one of the rocket boosters was identified as the physical cause, the investigation revealed something much more disheartening; organizational deficiencies at NASA had allowed potential safety hazards to be disregarded. The disastrous consequences of NASA’s organizational failure prompted calls for the organization to restructure its management to provide for better control and appoint a team dedicated to identifying and tracking potential shuttle safety hazards as well as redesigning the faulty booster joint for NASA approval. Shortly before the two year anniversary of the disaster, NASA officials declared that the Commission’s recommendations for organizational change had been successfully implemented. Unfortunately, the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia nearly three decades later and a subsequent investigation revealed that the changes made in the wake of the Challenger disaster had not endured. Factors such leaders’ perception of the change process, the type of change being implemented, organizational vision, resistance to change and other challenges all play a role in how change initiatives unfold (Palmer, Dunford, and Akin, 2009). NASA’s narrative is a testament to the complexities and challenges of not only implementing, but also sustaining organizational change.
When the Challenger shuttle was set to launch NASA was feeling political pressure to gain congressional support for the space program, to help gain this support the shuttle crew had a high school teacher on board, Christa McAuliffe, and millions of people were excited and tuned into watch. NASA officials were hoping that this new endeavor would help generate funding since the U.S. budget deficit was soaring and they were afraid that their budget could be cut. Technical failure was the reason the shuttle exploding after take-off but this was not the only reason. With pressure mounting, decisions made by NASA and Morton Thiokol Corporation, the contractor who manufactured the piece with the technical failure, put political agendas in front of the technical decisions, which resulted in the tragedy (Bolman & Deal, 2008).
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.
In the mid-1980’s, the shuttle space program was the focus of the political media since it had failed to deliver on its exp...
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...
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...
The Space Shuttle was supposed to launch into space, but due to the weather, NASA was debating if they should launch or not.
Joint rotation problems and O-ring erosion were discovered and somewhat brushed to the side. Weather was also considered with these problems. Morton- Thiokol manufactured the rocket boosters. However, the engineers who built the boosters had doubts of proper function. Especially within sub-freezing temperatures. Also showing why there was numerous launch delays. The night before the launch, a teleconference was held between engineers and management from Kennedy Space Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, and Morton- Thiokol. The Engineers specifically stated that the cold weather would cause problems with O-ring seating and joint rotation. After heated arguments, NASA managers decided to approve the boosters for launch. The night of the launch, temperatures were as low as 8 degrees Fahrenheit. And 72 seconds after lift off, the Challenger exploded. My observations are very clear. The wrong people were in charge of this operation. There was every reason for NASA not to launch and they still decided to. Unfortunately, we cannot change the past but we can change the
history. It managed to send the first human into orbit and to the moon. The discoveries, NASA have made in the recent decades have enabled us to have more knowledge of planets and stars, and resources way beyond this planet. In another hand, reasons as to why the U.S. Government should continue to fund NASA 's space program is a huge deal today. With the ideals that American tax dollars should be spent on more important things and that companies are now able to construct their own rockets that are able to send people on excursions into space, really is what challenges government support and true betterment of
The history behind the quick development of the space program has always been a little bit hazy and is unbeknownst to most...
Before we look at the images of managing change that were present in the NASA case study let us review a few of the key events in this case study. The case study for this assignment looks at Challenger and Columbia NASA space shuttle disasters and the commission findings on the disasters/recommendations. Now with a short review of the case study what image(s) of change are present in the case study? From the case study the changes introduced are images of managing. These changes are both management of control and shaping. As NASA recovered from the 1986 Challenger disaster, it used the classic Fayol characterization of management such as planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling to correct from the top-down the issues that had caused the Challenger disaster (Palmer Dunford, Akin, pg.24, 2009). NASA approached the changes that need to be enacted as a result of the Challenger and also the Columbia disasters from the change image of a director. NASA ...
...xploited shortcomings and downfalls have brought public criticism and governmental funding cutbacks. Its successes are no longer praised in the American eye and have been put aside as a national priority ever since its glory days in the late 60’s and early 70’s. No longer does the space program serve as a uniting force, but as a program many think is unneeded when placed beside other national issues.
During the time of preparation, NASA administration was very adamant about launching the Challenger because of “economic consideration, political pressures, and scheduling backlogs” (The Engineer, 2006). There were prior missions that were delayed due to various reasons associated with the weather and mechanical factors. Several mechanisms on the Challenger were not as suitable as they should have been due to decisions made during the design process. These decisions were determined by the lack of timely funding during the design and development process of the shuttle. However, when it came to the launch of Challenger, NASA wanted to press fo...