Whether it was the government-run National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) or Morton-Thiokol, the commercial business engaged in the Challenger disaster, these two groups made some grievous blunders. Morton-Thiokol nitiated the project while knowing it was risky to preserve O-ring integrity due to low temperature, which NASA was also aware of, and therefore both are ultimately responsible for the oversight (Boin, Hart, Stern, & Sundelius, 2005). Right after the disaster, these two institutions pointed fingers at each other. This debate is still obvious today, with NASA representing the public sector and Morton-Thiokol representing the private sector. Roger Boisjoly, was an Applied Engineer of Mechanics at Morton-Thiokol who cautioned the failures of the boosters as a result of cold weather as early as 1985. He also noticed that the O-rings were eroded, these statements got argued against by NASA and Morton-Thiokol claiming that the risks were minimal (Boin et al., 2005).
Six months before the fatal launch of the Challenger, Roger Boisjoly sent a memo to the Engineering’s Vice President at Thiokol, where he urged the management to replace the O-rings. Moreover, he claimed that the parts were in such bad condition that by exploitation could lead to the loss of human life. Despite his continued efforts to bring the attention to the serious flaws, he was not heard by anyone, not even by NASA’s top management. The ignorance and the irresponsible decision to sweep this under the rug lead to a catastrophe and the loss of human lives. Additionally, the night before the launch, on 27 January, 1986, there were numerous calls made between NASA management and Morton-Thiokol’s engineers concerning the cold temperatures resulting from the O-rings. Regardless of warning signals received from Boisjoly and other engineers on the potential hazards involved, NASA, oblivious of these warnings, gave the go-ahead of the challenger to be launched (Vaughn, 1996).
Things Learnt from the Challenger Disaster Case and Why
The actual behavior of top executives on the meetings over decision making does not taunt recommendations and approaches about practical administrative action. The fact that NASA management did not take seriously the alerts given to them by the engineers shows the inadequacy of their roles on their parts. Therefore, it is essential that even the smallest things are to be taken into account because it is always better to be safe than sorry. Secondly, the gaps between executives’ behavior and their words provoke obstructions to trust and openness. It allows one to have a variety of alternatives for efficiency in addition to flexibility and innovation (Leveson et al., 2004). If carefully considered, the warnings, made by Roger Boisjoly and other engineers on the last night before the launch, could have prevented the disaster. At least, the responsible staff could have postponed the start to allow for enough time to change the O-rings and reduce the temperatures. These barriers are not broken down by simple intellectual exercises, but administrators rather, require feedback concerning their opportunities and behavior to help in developing analyzation and confirmation of information (Leveson, 2004).
In conclusion, we may argue who of the involved parties are to blame for this disaster, but the truth will always be the one: both NASA and Morton-Thiokol had their personnel make decisions of mutual negligence and responsibility. The people in organizations involved came to decisions which led to the disastrous consequences. Nobody, however, was recorded to have functioned with spite or mischievousness, just disregard, and negligence.
References
Boin, R.A., Hart, P., Stern, E. and Sundelius, B. (2005). The politics of crisis management: Public leadership under pressure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leveson, N., Cutcher-Gershenfeld, J., Barrett, B., Brown, A., Carroll, J., Dulac, N. Fraile, L. and Marais, K. (2004) Effectively addressing NASA’s organizational and safety culture: Insights from systems safety and engineering analysis. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://www.researchgate.net/journal/1556-5068_SSRN_Electronic_Journal
Vaughan, Diane (1996) The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky technology, culture and deviance at NASA. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
