KarenR_R03

Our reading about the Challenger disaster was unsettling. While it’s clear that the charts produced by the engineers were lacking, communication requires the participation of both parties. Both the engineers who prepared the charts and the managers who dismissed them failed to give proper attention to the presentation of the evidence opposing the launch of the space shuttle.

The reading said that the engineers were only given a few hours to prepare the charts. The managers at NASA clearly had no interest in hearing what the engineers had to say, or they would have given them ample time and attention to say it. I found an essay by Joseph Lorenzo Hall, University of California at Berkeley, entitled “Columbia and Challenger: Organizational Failure at NASA.” (josephhall.org/papers/nasa.pdf) It said in this essay that the engineers were so rushed in preparing the presentation they would give against launching the shuttle, that they accidentally included slides that had previously been used in a presentation that was in favor of launching it. The decision- makers ought to have recognized the lack of organization in this presentation and delayed the launch at least long enough for the engineers to make their point. An engineer has no motivation to cause alarm where there is no call for it. The charts should have been recognized as flawed and incoherent.

The engineers must have waivered on how big the risk really was, however. It does not seem they made a very passionate case. I imagine the engineers must have felt the same political and social pressures to launch the shuttle. Those in charge did not want to here the reality of the situation, and it seems the engineers may have been afraid to say it.

It is impossible to say whether or not better graphics would have prevented this disaster. It seems to me that the issue was much bigger and due to problems with the organization and management of the whole program. I suspect this because of the similar disaster that took place (with a different malfunction) in 2003 with the space shuttle Columbia. If the solution were as simple as rearranging the evidence, how did it happen again?