Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: Professional, Ethical and Moral Issues Essay

The ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger was launched at 11:40 am EST, on January 28, 1986. The mission of this space launch would be to observe Halley's comet and by positioning satellites for the next six days but this never came to be. Approximately 73 seconds after launch the Space Shuttle Challenger was engulfed in huge flames towering hundreds of feet into the sky. An explosion ripped apart the priced shuttle and less than 3 hours later, all 7 crew on board, still strapped to their seats, were found dead in the Atlantic ocean. The disaster is among the worst ever witnessed in NASA's space mission. It resulted in a 32-month hiatus from launch by NASA as an investigation tried to pinpoint exactly what caused. The accident the investigation committee later found, was caused by a leak in one of the solid rocket boosters. This leak was made possible by a faulty "O-ring" in the right-sided solid rocket booster. The faulty design of the seal compounded by inappropriate launch conditions is what made the situation escalate quickly. Hot gases jetting out from the joint were followed shortly by a high-pressured gush of rocket booster flames which went on to ignite the external fuel tank. A liquid oxygen-nitrogen combination ignited together caused temperatures to rise over 1000 degrees Celsius. The space challenger shuttle was torn apart. The outcomes of the investigation not only pinpointed the ring as one of the causes of the accidents but also implicated NASA officials who gave a pass for the launch to take place despite concerns being raised by NASA engineer regarding the conditions and safety of the launch (Boisjoly, Curtis & Mellican,1989). Almost 32 years later, the chilling events of that fateful morning can still be recounted by various onlookers. According to the nature of this accident, several professional, moral and ethical issues have been raised. Was it possible to avert this disaster?

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One of the main ethical issues raised after the accident is the professional responsibility of the NASA design engineers and management. The sole responsibility of all design engineers in any factory is to produce and keep an extremely flawless and professional design. Flawless means that the design is almost accident proof. Various factors can lead to design not becoming flawless. These include economic factors such as expensive outsourced parts. Another factor is also pressure due to time constraints. The NASA engineers, as some reports have indicated, could have modified the O-ring seal but the implementation window was very short. Mounting pressure from the mission's management due to approaching deadlines is what made the scientists to hurriedly design and assemble the parts without extensive tests on the limits of the individual parts. According to research, the outcome of any design mission cannot be better than the management. The keener the management the more flawless the design. The converse is also true. For the Space mission, the managers and NASA officials, as the committee found seemed to have been keener on meeting the deadlines (Esser & Lindoerfer,1989). They punitively exerted pressure on the design engineers with total disregard for the safety of human life. After the disaster, NASA has changed quite some factors that might have led to the accident. Prioritizing astronauts' lives before and during the launch is one significant step undertaken. The Personal Cabin Pressure Altitude Monitor and Warning System was introduced to monitor pressure changes that necessitate the use of supplemental oxygen based on recommendations given by the Federal Aviation Regulations. There has also been an introduction of various safety inventions such as the PCM-1000 astronauts' parachute system(Donahue & Rosemary,2009).

The NASA officials managing the challenger disregarded warnings about the design of the O-rings from design engineers. Research has shown that before the disaster, SRB engineers had voiced concerns about problems with the O-rings. This warning was not heeded and was lightly brushed off as an insignificant issue. The issue was dismissed with no resolution because the managers were racing against time. The professional conduct of the NASA official came on a spotlight after the deadly accident. These managers seemed to have valued time and the space launch more than human life. According to research, some of the professional issues leading to the disaster included lack of problem-solving sessions due to time constraints, misrepresentation of critical reports, inadequate safety testing resources and absence of an autonomous safety testing body. Failure to abode by these professional standards by both the engineers and the management is what led to one of the fatal disasters in the history of the space launch.

The most outstanding ethical issue implicated in the space challenger launch disaster is lack of proper communication between the design engineers and the management. The investigation committee and other research agencies also named a lack of effective communication between Morton Thiokol -the company that was tasked with manufacturing the solid rocket booster for NASA- and the NASA management. In the aftermath of the incident, Roger Boijoly, an engineer working for the Morton Thiokol company revealed that sessions held before the accident between NASA and the company were characterized by extensive customer intimidation (Boisjoly, Curtis & Mellican,1989). This suggests that the meetings, some of the most critical for the success of the NASA mission, had toxic environments that were not prime for everyone to express their opinions and thoughts. Had the meetings been peaceful enough, the accident would certainly have been averted. Morton Thiokol did not get time to explain how its solid rocket boosters were to be utilized. The most bewildering revelation is perhaps the fact that the company had not data and statistics to show how its rocket boosters would perform and critical temperatures lower than 510 Research shows that the temperature at the morning of the launch was at 360F. While some engineers were certain than temperatures at the launch would not be an issue, a significant number of other engineers raised concerns about the timing of the launch. Another serious communication flaw was witnessed at the launch. This time, the grounds team measuring the temperature of the space shuttle' far right solid rocket booster where the O-rings were located recorded a temperature of about 80F. This was way below the temperature that the O-rings were designed to be used in.Interestingly, this vital information was not conveyed to the management and only was only revealed days after the disaster. The grounds team revealed that they were only told to report about the thickness of the ice on the space shuttle and not the temperature. This is shocking as all the 7 crew aboard would go on to lose their lives in the disaster. After the accident, NASA streamlined communication channels by amending reporting structures and channels in the organization (Donahue & Rosemary,2009).

NASA's overreliance on an emergency safety control despite prior knowledge of design flaws is another ethically questionable behavior. The astronauts lost in the accident were not just mere design and research engineers, they had all been very instrumental in the development of America's space program. They perished with expertise that can almost never be recovered. The fact that NASA knew about design flaws in seals and O-ring and yet chose to rely on emergency safety controls is very disturbing. Suppose a skydiver has been warned about the potential problem with their parachute deploying, just before diving out of a plane. The most reasonable course of action to take would be to abort the skydiving mission until a time when the issue has been 100% resolved. However, it is shocking how NASA officials despite warnings on O-rings issues, went on to give a pass to the complex and delicate mission without resolving the issue. This is morally, ethically and professionally unacceptable.

Conclusion

In my opinion, this accident was preventable. Moral, professional and ethical lapses contributed to this disaster. NASA's management breached the ethical codes for engineers. The solid rocket booster manufacturing firm, Morton Thiokol, also had a huge part to play in causing the accident. The top engineer, Roger Boijoly testified in an inquiry commission into the accident that he had noted the O-ring failures and warned the company. However, the company decided not to publish his findings or share them with NASA's management since they were deemed too sensitive. The behavior of Morton Thiokol's and NASA's management breached the engineer's ethical and professional codes of conduct. Had they been more careful, the Space Challenger disaster could have been averted.

References

Donahue, A. K., & Rosemary, O. L. (2009). Do Exogenous Shocks Change Organization Culture? The Case of NASA.

Boisjoly, R. P., Curtis, E. F., & Mellican, E. (1989). Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger disaster: The ethical dimensions. Journal of Business Ethics, 8(4), 217-230.

Esser, J. K., & Lindoerfer, J. S. (1989). Groupthink and the space shuttle Challenger accident: Toward a quantitative case analysis. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2(3), 167-177.