A Disaster of the Challenger Type

Stakeholders should realize that the attitudes that pervade a project early on, tend to dominate. The sum of Challenger=s parts were measured by those who would not, or could not, accepted delays.

A chronology of decisions and public statements will prove that enthusiasm and impatience puzzle the stage for poor decision do. On November 29, 1973 Morton Thiokol won the fill to build the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB'S) that would propel the move orbiters into space. disrespect beingness ranked lowest in engineering externalise Morton Thiokol was chosen, according to NASA administrator James C. Fletcher, beca employment Thiokol's bid was $100 zillion lower than Lockheed's, Aerojet's, or United Technologies. This was sound reasoning, considering that NASA's budget was being cut in the post-Apollo era. But linked to that thinking was the wish that NASA would cash in on the lucrative and burgeoning satellite origination business. NASA, boasting an eventual capacity of "over 60 missions per year," sell the Space Transportation System (STS) to Congress as an tatty and ecological alternative to launching satellites on expendable rockets. The fashion had grossly underestimated the scientific complexities involved in operating a routine 'space shuttle' and underestimated its ability to surmount any problems which arose in the process. NASA had assorted itself into a technological corner, and this was reflected in decision

Despite five years of development and testing, two surface O-rings, used to seal vitally important "field joints" in the midst of rocket boosters that were supposed to keep hot combustion gases from escaping, were legato exhibiting a fatal flaw. Once in 1977, and then on January 19, 1979, engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) alerted Marshall's headland engineer to the dangers of the Thiokol design. Accordingly, rotation of the "field joints" when the "tang" and "clevis" were pressurized caused the secondary O-ring to evoke off completely from the surface of the joint. No reliable back-up remains was on board. On November 24, 1980, the joint, with only slight modifications, was certified for flight.

The O-rings were listed on the "Critical Items List" as Criticality 1-R, implying that the primary O-ring had a true back up. This of course was not true. A shuttle was launched on April 12, 1981, with defective O-rings. A precedent was being set.

As late as 1984, NASA officials were "accepting [the] possibility of some O-ring eroding due to hot gas impingement." References originally included in-flight provision documents, referring to the O-ring problems, were eventually deleted. Managers at the Marshall Space Center systematically withheld vital information from their superiors in the program chain of ascendency at NASA, information that threatened the "can do" insurance policy of the agency. While organizational structures that produce widgets may be delicately for pedestrian concerns, they should not be in control of mental synthesis highly exotic machinery with the lives of others at risk.

In the end, the decision making process ran afoul of the wrong goal being act by the wrong people. Safety within a technological setting, with individuals dedicated to holding those parameters would have set the correct whole tone for decision making.

Again, decision making starts at the beginning. The decision to use Morton Thiokol because they were the lowest bidder leaves room for tr
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