About NASA's Public Relations after the Space Challenger Explosion

An organization's ability to handle a crisis can be greatly impacted by good crisis communication tactics. Organizations struggle to discover ways to communicate internally and externally in the absence of a crisis communication plan that works. An organization's reputation can be significantly impacted by how it responds to a crisis. After the terrible explosion of the Space Challenger on January 28, 1986, NASA's public relations efforts are viewed as examples of communication breakdowns during a crisis. The incident was shown live on television in an effort by NASA to encourage students and more individuals to pursue careers in space exploration. Therefore, almost the entire country witnessed the horrific ordeal. This paper seeks to analyze NASA’s public relations strategies after the Space shuttle explosion.

Subsequently, after the space challenger explosion, NASA was tasked with consoling the victim’s relatives, updating its public, influencing the public attitudes and affecting their behavior concerning the disaster. Even though NASA had a emergency plan for disasters, they did not use the plan during the disaster. Moreover, NASA did not take part in press conferences, kept facts from the media and even made staff members unavailable for questioning. Finally, when press conferences were held, NASA restricted their statements to a few sentences, and answered only a few questions. Speakers ranged from top NASA spokespersons to anonymous NASA representatives to overall spokespersons. The range of spokespeople led NASA to not speak in a fused voice, limiting its capability to uphold a constant flow of info to the press and to the general public.

In conclusion, NASA’s public relations during the disaster were weak and not conclusive. Consequently, the result of this was many court cases that forced the organization to part will millions of dollars in legal fees.































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